Part 1My Possessive Puppy vs. The Ex Who Won't Let Go

I was dating a man five years my junior. We’d been together for two years.

Liam was proud and prone to drama, picking fights with me every few days over something or other. And because of that devastatingly beautiful face of his, I was always the first to back down, to soothe him, to indulge him.

The ninth time Liam told me he wanted to break up, I agreed.

That was when he panicked, his wolf-cub eyes turning a desperate, bloodshot red.

"Audrey, no," he’d pleaded.

"I’ll be your stand-in… I don’t care. Just… soothe me again. Please."

* * *

The night was a boundless stretch of black, pricked with only a few scattered stars.

I lifted my head from my computer screen. Eleven o'clock.

Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I shut down my laptop and prepared to head home. I had just started the car when my phone rang. It was Liam. I raised an eyebrow; I hadn't expected him to be the one to break our current cold war.

But when I answered, the voice on the other end wasn't his. It was a man's voice, vaguely familiar.

"Is this Audrey?"

It took me a second to place it. One of Liam’s bandmates.

"This is she. What's wrong with Liam?"

"Liam's wasted," the voice said, rushed. "He keeps yelling your name, but he won't leave with us. Is there any chance you could come get him?"

"...I know where you are. Give me ten minutes."

My office was thankfully close to the bar where his band had a regular gig. By the time I pulled up, the clock read 11:30. I blinked my tired eyes, my only thought to get Liam home as quickly as possible so I could finally fall into bed.

I never expected to push open the door to their private rehearsal room and see the supposedly "wasted" man leaning intimately toward a girl.

His bandmate spotted me first and gave a nervous cough. Liam froze, then slowly turned to look at me. The girl he’d been cornering scrambled away from him, rushing over to me with a look of pure exasperation.

"Audrey, I swear, Liam is having a psychotic episode," she said, her voice a frantic whisper. "He just lunged at me. There is nothing going on between us!" She leaned in closer. "You can hate him right now, but you can't hate me."

It was Zoey, the drummer for Liam's band. We’d met a dozen times, and I’d always liked her.

"I know," I said, a small, tired smile touching my lips. I patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry."

I knew this was a performance, staged entirely for my benefit. He was still angry that I’d accepted a project at work that involved a partnership with my ex-boyfriend, ignoring his furious protests. But it was a corporate directive, a major opportunity. If this project succeeded, it would mean a significant promotion and a huge boost to my resume. I couldn't sacrifice my future over the ghost of a long-dead relationship.