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Chapter One

Nothing screamed “pathetic” like buying a gallon of cheap vodka at an IGA on a weekday afternoon in the hopes of getting so trashed you forgot your ex-fiancée was marrying your douchebag cousin. In two days.

​But knowing it was pathetic didn’t stop Michael Montgomery from putting the vodka in his cart. Or the four pints of Ben and Jerry’s. Or the party-sized bag of Cheetos. Or the clearance 12-pack of Reese’s peanut butter pumpkins that had clearly been sitting on the shelf since Halloween three months ago.

At least he wasn’t still heartbroken. He could only imagine what kind of fuckery he’d be up to if he was still in love with Sadie.

It’d taken a while, but he was completely over her. Hell, he was almost happy she was ass-over-elbow in love with his douchebag cousin, Gage.

​No, it wasn’t his wounded heart or pride that’d led him to the dark, carb-tastic place he was wallowing in at the moment. What was currently driving him to drink (and probably put himself at risk for diabetes) was the thought of showing up to the wedding and having everyone else looking at him, feeling sorry for him, giving him the oh-poor-Michael-got-dumped-for-his-better-looking-and-more-successful-douchebag-cousin head tilt.

He hated that head tilt.

He’d been getting it ever since Sadie left him at the alter six years ago. It’d gotten worse when she and Gage announced their engagement last year.

It also didn’t help that he’d be flying completely solo at this thing. He hadn’t had a girlfriend in…shit, had it been two years?

Yep. It’d been two years since Katie dumped him. Turned out, she’d been expecting an engagement ring for Christmas, so the Bath and Body Works gift card he’d given her had been about as well received as a raging case of syphilis.

He still had a tiny little dent over his right eyebrow from where she’d flung the gift card holder at him.

The moral of the story was, never disappoint a marriage-minded dental hygienist who’d pitched for her college softball team.

Anything more than casual sex lost its appeal to him after The Katie Incident. Which was fine…until he needed a wedding date and had absolutely no one he could fathom taking to such a thing.

Michael sighed and threw a box of Lucky Charms into his cart. He wandered over to the produce aisle, wondering idly if some kale would help cancel out the damage he was about to do to his body with alcohol and sugar.

That’s when he saw her.  

It wasn’t her beauty that grabbed his attention. (Though, he’d admit, she was definitely cute in a curvy, girl-next-door way.) It was the look of absolute, stricken horror on her face as she stared up at the guy who’d just approached her.

Michael casually moved in closer and pretended to be scoping out the organic bananas so that he could hear what was going on. He might not be much of a gentleman (Katie would certainly testify to that) but he wasn’t going to let some poor woman get harassed in the produce aisle.

Not on his watch.

The woman gulped and twisted her mouth up into the most painful fake smile Michael had ever seen as she looked up into the guy’s face. She shifted the plastic bag of limes she was white knuckling to her cart and ran a shaky hand over her hair.

“Oh, Steve…hi. It’s so good to see you,” she said.

Oh, it was so not good to see Steve, Michael thought. The look on her face clearly said seeing him was as pleasant as having her insides carved out with a rusty spoon.

Steve’s smile was far less forced, but there was something about it that made Michael want to punch the guy. He was smarmy. Used car salesman-y. And he looked kind of like a breathing Ken doll—plastic, phony, and overly coiffed.

“Dee,” Steve said, his voice brimming with syrupy sympathy. “I’m glad I ran into you. You know, I just felt terrible about how everything went down last time we talked. You have to know I never wanted to hurt you like that.”

Ah. Now it was making sense. Steve and this woman—Dee—had dated. And apparently, Steve had been a colossal dick to her when they stopped dating. Shocking.

Michael shifted his gaze back to Dee. She looked like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole.

Her thick auburn hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun that looked so precarious, a deep sigh would topple it. There didn’t appear to be much makeup on her face, because he could see the light smattering of freckles that dotted her little button nose from where he stood.

And her outfit…well, that could only be described as chaotic.

Dee was wearing a white tank top with Kylo Ren holding out a Valentine’s Day card to Rey and the words “I’ve Ben Solo for too long” printed across her breasts. That was topped off with the slouchiest gray cardigan Michael had ever seen, accented by baggy pink sweatpants with holes in them, and fur-lined boots that came up to her knees.

Michael wasn’t an expert on women. He’d never, ever claim to know what they were thinking. But even he knew this was not what a woman wanted to look like when she saw her smarmy, khaki-and-pressed-golf-shirt-wearing ex-boyfriend.         

Dee licked her lips and let out a thin laugh. “Oh, its fine, Steve. Really. We don’t need to talk about all that.”

She moved in front of her cart, obviously trying to block it from Steve’s view. Out of curiosity, Michael took a peek.

Tequila, limes, economy bag of chocolate chips, Pop Tarts, Pringles, and two jumbo boxes of tampons.

He winced in sympathy. Dee was not having a good day.
Michael could relate on just about every conceivable level.

“I need to, though,” Steve said, giving her the sympathetic head tilt that Michael knew all too well. The fucker. “I want to make sure you realize that Sherry and I…well, we never meant for anything to happen. We just fell in love. I mean, the heart wants what the heart wants, you know?”

Michael was pretty sure he puked in his mouth a little. Jesus. What a fucking tool. Dee had actually had sex with this guy? Yikes.

“No, really, Steve, we don’t need to talk about it,” Dee said dryly.

Michael had to swallow a chuckle. She was down, but not out, he realized. There was still plenty of fight in her. He really admired that.

But that’s when everything went all pear-shaped.

A tall, scrawny blonde dressed in a red scrap of fabric that Michael was pretty sure was a handkerchief (because holy hell who would make a dress in that size) sidled up to Steve and snaked her arm through his.

​Sherry, Michael presumed.

“They’re all out of condoms, babe,” Sherry said, then ran her eyes over Dee, from the tips of her messy hair, down to the toes of her furry boots. Sherry’s smile was not kind. “Oh, hi, Dee. I didn’t even see you there.”   

Dee visibly swallowed three times as she looked up at Sherry, then shifted her gaze to where the other woman’s arm was touching Steve’s. Her eyes—her huge, misty gray eyes—looked suspiciously glassy, like she was in danger of bursting into tears at any second.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

Without bothering to come up with a plan, Michael abandoned his cart and threw himself right into the fray.

This was either going to be totally heroic…or a complete train wreck he’d regret for the rest of his life.

But, hey, you only live once, right?
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Like it so far? You can pre-order right here today, and it'll show up on your Kindle like MAGIC on 4/30! Happy reading, y'all! I hope you love Michael and Delilah as much as I do!   

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