Paddy made his way over, talking overloud. Clearly drunk. Messy drunk.

“You’re here.”

And she wished she wasn’t. All the powerlessness she’d been dealing with at the reappearance of her father came roaring forward. It didn’t matter that Paddy wasn’t Bob. It made her nervous all the same. Made her feel out of control and cast adrift.

This wasn’t normal, she knew. Understood, even as the rest of her didn’t care. So she tried to hold it together.

“Yes.” She needed to control the panic and get over it. As she’d told Tuesday that day on their hike, she just needed to get over her own shit.

He grinned, and she was nearly charmed, he looked so sweet. “Want a glass of wine? They just moved to the reds. I’m sorry to say Vaughan and I have been drinking your share in your absence.”

“I can tell. Where’s Mary?” Natalie knew she was locking up, but it was the only way she knew of to get through it.

He took her arm, moving in closer, and the stench of him hit her hard enough to make her shrink away. Bile rose, and she gagged. Her control fraying, she tried to pull free but he cocked his head.

“Nat? What’s wrong?” He’d gotten close, holding her tighter.

Everything suddenly felt as though it were happening outside her body, as if she watched herself on a screen. Clearly, she wasn’t fit to be out of her house, and she needed to go.

“Let. Go.”

She tried to pull her arm free. Now that she’d accepted leaving, the need to do it right then banked in her belly.

“What’s going on?” Damien came strolling over, looking between them. He’d been drinking, too, but not nearly as much as Paddy and Vaughan had.

Her teeth clenched, she managed to speak. “Paddy needs to let go of me right now.”

Damien’s posture changed as he seemed to catch the edge of panic in Natalie’s tone.

He put an arm around Paddy. “Dude, you’re going to wrinkle her clothes. Let go.”

Paddy let go, and her heart slowed a little.

Then he slung an arm around her shoulders, hugging her to his body.

That was it. It was officially too much, and she ducked, pulling away. She turned to Damien. “Please tell Mary I was here to support her. I need to go.”

Paddy grabbed her again, taking her wrists. “Hey, wait. What? Are you okay?” He’d sobered a little as he realized there was a real problem.

Natalie knew she was being unreasonable, but she panicked and the words spilled from her lips. “This is over. Don’t call me or come to my house.” She simply wasn’t ready or able or whatever to be with someone like him. Maybe she wasn’t ready to be with anyone at all.

She tried to extricate herself, but he held on. Not to harm or coerce, she knew that on one level. He was confused and trying to figure it out. But he couldn’t because he was drunk and not in full control, and it felt way too familiar.

So familiar it made her skin clammy and her head hurt.

“Let go of me.” She made every effort to keep her voice down and calm.

“Paddy, let go. Go back inside. I’m going to walk Natalie to her car.” Damien put himself between them but Paddy was...well, Paddy.

“Why are you leaving? Are you breaking up with me? What did I do?”

Mary came out, hurrying over.

They were a minute, maybe three, away from a full-on scene, and that was more than she could take.

“Please let me leave before this turns into a scene.” She turned on her heel and left, shoving her way out the door as Paddy bellowed after her.

Mary caught up with her at her car.

“Natalie! What happened?”

“I can’t. Not like this. I don’t want this in my life. I wish nothing but the best for you, and I hope we can still be friends, but I can’t do this. I can’t.”

“Can’t what? What happened?” Mary started to reach for her but must have sensed her body language screaming not to, so she let her hands fall by her sides. “You’re freaking me out.”

Paddy came out, calling her name, and she got in her car. “I have to go.”

She drove away, not stopping until she got home.

* * *

“WHAT THE FUCK is going on?” Tuesday demanded as she burst into Natalie’s bedroom an hour later. “Paddy has called like fourteen times. There are notes on the door.” She tossed them on the bed. “Do I need to help you kill someone and hide the body?”

Natalie sat up with a sigh. Thank goodness for her friend.

She told Tuesday everything, and Tuesday hugged her tight at the end of it all.

“Wow.”

“Yeah. You told me to tell him, and I said I was the one who needed to get over it, instead.”

“I love you so much, I won’t even say I told you so. But now that this has happened, what are you going to do?”

“I did it. I can’t be with him, Tuesday. I can’t. The way I felt today? I haven’t felt like that for years. Years. I never want that in my life again. I worked my ass off to get my shit together so I never had to live that way, and in one afternoon, it all came back.”

Tuesday nodded. “But he made a mistake. He didn’t know. About Bob, I mean. And to be totally fair, it was Bob who set you off, not Paddy. I just think you’re being stupid. And scared.”

“I can’t have this shit in my life. He’s stumbling and f**ked up and I’m remembering all the times I led a stumbling Bob or one of his guests somewhere. I just...I don’t want to live worried if that’ll happen again. And it will. Dude, his life is full of that stuff. If that means I’m broken and f**ked up, so be it. I am scared, Tuesday.”