Free It Takes Two Book 6 by Ellie Danes

Harper
    By the time I had calmed myself down enough to walk back out to the front of the bar Mason had gone. Searching for him amid the Lucky’s customers only made the lump in my throat bigger, threatening to drive me to tears.
    “You okay?” Miles asked. He mixed a drink for a waiting customer with expert hands as he looked at me. Miles always offered up good advice when asked, but I didn’t feel like speaking to anyone at the moment.
    I gripped the side of the bar as I steadied myself.
    “Harper? Are you okay?” Miles stared at me and looked as if he were going to make an attempt to catch me if I should pass out or fall.
    “I’ll be fine, I just need a moment.” I turned and silently shuffled to the walk-in cooler in the kitchen, a place where I could find some space to be alone. I swung open the door, the cold air instantly hitting my overheated face, seeping through my shirt, strangely comforting despite the circumstances. “He shouldn’t have come here.” I talked to myself as I squatted behind the stack of beer boxes and kegs in the corner, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. All he did was lie to me this whole time.”
    Hot tears leaked from my eyes. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe, as if all the wind had been knocked out of me by his unexpected visit. Why had he come here? Had he honestly thought that saying a half-hearted apology would make everything better, after he had lied so much to me?  “I don’t need him, I don’t.”
    You do . I shook myself out of my thoughts. I didn’t need Mason any more than I needed Jake or any other liar I had ever dated. It was all nonsense; they all had pretended it was a game, some sort of test for me. But Mason’s case had hurt me the most. It had cut the deepest because for once in my life, I thought someone actually cared enough to be honest with me. His entire demeanor had seemed so honest and so good that I hadn’t doubted one word he said, even as my logic had told me otherwise along with Avery, who had been skeptical from the start.
    Maybe I really was just bad at finding good men.
    “Harper, what the hell?” One of the older waitresses, Cindy, came in. I wiped the tears off my cheeks, sniffling a little. “We need you out front. There’s a huge crowd out there now.”
    “Sorry, I’ll be there in a second.”
    I caught a glimpse of myself in the polished stainless steel door and I realized I looked almost nearly as bad as Mason had. My hair hung in a limp ponytail, my eyes had dark circles beneath them, in part because of tiredness and also because my makeup had smeared a little from the tears. But the thing that disturbed me the most was the emptiness—my face looked empty, void of emotion. I blinked away tears at that thought and walked into the stuffy bar.
    Miles gave me a smile as I leaned against the bar and stared at the floor, catching a glimpse of the white envelope protruding from my apron. I opened it and stared at the wad of money, my payment for a job that I hadn’t even completed. I tugged the crisp bills out of the envelope, turning so people wouldn’t see what I had. I counted them out, my mind too frazzled to even begin to realize how much there was as hundred after hundred appeared.
    A folded white slip of paper fell to the ground. I shoved the cash in my front pocket, kneeling down to grab the paper.
    I’m sorry. I love you. –M
    I could feel a few tears escape from my eyes, and instantly I wiped them away, straightening, crumbling the paper in my fingers and stuffing it into my pocket with the money.
    Inside the bar had grown chaotic, as people began to gravitate toward the big windows of the front of the building. Flashes of blue and red worked their way into the room like weird disco lights. Sirens followed, loud even from inside the bar.
    “What’s going on out there?” Miles hollered to the crowd gathered near the large window.
    “The world’s going to shit, that’s