Loose Rules After Midnight

She's his brother's ex-wife — the one he can't stop thinking about in the shower. Celeste walks into the dive bar with eyes that beg for something more and a body that screams "run." Arden's slouched in the back with whiskey and his shirt undone. His hand hovers an inch from her hip, burning without touching. "Teach me how it feels when it breaks," she demands.

Dive bars, bathrooms, family garden parties, a third-story walk-up that smells of stale cigarettes and cheap whiskey. He pushes her skirt up in a dark corner, his touch relentless. A note scrawled at a family party. A chase through mud with her glasses fogging. Something irrevocably shifts in the dawn light.