It’s cold. Lonely. Worthless.

Yeah, he didn’t go without a warm body to keep him entertained, but it wasn’t love. It was a quick act of pleasure, and then they were gone. He tried once to date, but that was a disaster. Every girl he dated, he would compare her to Lacey. And since Lacey was on the highest pedestal ever, no one could amount to her. It was sad, and when Kacey, his sister, joked once that he was never going to get married, he knew she was right. Not unless it was to Lacey.

Which would never happen.

“Karson? You there?”

Karson looked up from where he was staring at the white plate in front of him to meet Phillip’s annoyed gaze. “Sorry, what?”

“The waitress would like to know what you would like?”

Lacey. He’d love to have the chance to love her again.

“A shot of tequila and a beer, please.”

“Whoa, killer, we have a game tomorrow afternoon,” Erik reminded him and Karson nodded.

“Two drinks won’t kill me,” he answered as he leaned back in his chair, his mind flooded with thoughts of Lacey.

It was as if a movie of their whole relationship, their breakup, everything was playing in his head. It was like he was standing there, reliving it, remembering the first time his eyes set on her, sitting up in the stands watching him practice. Or when she would study, drinking a mocha coffee and getting so lost in her books. The first time she showed him her scarred, deflated breasts from the cancer, and all he could do was think how strong and beautiful she was. Making sweet love to her for the first time and then asking her to follow him wherever he went. And then finally, when she broke down in front of him as he told her he couldn’t be with her anymore. He was a liar. A coward. He didn’t deserve her back then, but man, he wished he could do it all over again. He wished he could kiss her lips again, feel the softness and taste the sweetness of them. Feel her in his arms as they molded into one. He just wished he had another chance. Just one. He wouldn’t fuck up a second time.

Maybe he should seek her out, but as soon as that thought came to mind, his chest seized as his breath came out in a whoosh.

Man, he hated this city.

It fucked with him to the fullest.

“I think we lost him again,” Erik said as Karson looked up at the ceiling, pulling in a deep breath.

“Yeah, he’s gone. Idiot,” JT muttered.

The sooner he could get out of this city, the better.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

Lacey Martin glanced back at her longtime best friend and sister-in-law, Rachel, and shook her head.

“I told you, if you don’t like the pictures, we can nix the idea, but at least let’s try. It will be good for the business.”

Lacey’s brows shot up. “Who thinks that? Because I don’t see how posing in my own lingerie is going to drive sales.”

Rachel set her with a look while the models that Rachel had hired, Carey, Winnie, and Amy, smiled tentatively. Lacey didn’t mind them; she thought they were sweet, but they agreed with Rachel on the photo shoot idea, and she didn’t like that. Not when she was doing everything in her power to nix it. Yes, she understood that it was good marketing to be in magazines, blogs, and all over Pinterest, but couldn’t they hire actual models for this? Why in the world did she and Rachel have to be a part of this?

“Your dad and Grady think it’s a wonderful idea,” she said, but Lacey didn’t believe that at all.

“My father and brother think it would be a good idea for their daughter slash sister and daughter-in-law slash wife to pose in lace solely to get sales?”

She shrugged. “Maybe I left that part out.”

Lacey laughed. “So when the pictures come out and I’m not in a pantsuit, we could have problems from the Martin men?”

“Who cares? This is your company—we do what we want,” Rachel announced and Lacey’s brows shot up again.

“Are you going to say that when we get bitched at?”

“Yes, I am. We look gorgeous, and we are going to rock this photo shoot.”

Lacey could tell Rachel tried to say that with enough conviction to convince her, but it didn’t work. Shaking her head, she glanced at herself in the mirror and grimaced.

“You can see all of my tattoos through this one. We should have gone with the black lace,” she moaned as her shoulders fell.

“You love your tattoos,” she stated, shooting a look at Lacey.

This was true, but still. “I don’t want them showing, though.”

“They are supposed to. I wanted to show as much as I could of each kind of woman. We have the double mastectomy breasts, Carey; the young breasts, Amy; the plus-size breasts, Winnie; the mother breasts, me; and then the reconstructed breasts, you. It’s every stage we offer. It’s our brand.”

For some reason, it annoyed Lacey that Rachel said reconstructed breasts. She didn’t understand why she did that. Why not call them what they are? “You mean fake boobs.”

“Reconstructed,” Rachel reiterated.

“Fake.”

Rachel’s eyes darkened. “Why are you being a bitch today? You were on board with this last week.”

She had been and was even excited about doing the shoot, but then she opened the morning paper today and saw who was playing the Blackhawks tomorrow. Within seconds, Lacey knew that her day and weekend were going to suck. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to go home and hide, something she had been doing for the last nine years to make sure there was no way she would see him, but there wasn’t a chance of that happening today. Not when they had the photo shoot and her brother’s birthday.