Zero.

CHAPTER 34.Sunny Afternoon.

Cayson cleared the kitchen countertops of empty beer bottles and ashtrays, wiping them down with disinfectant before grabbing eggs and juice from the fridge.

He turned on the stove, leaned down to light his cigarette, and gave the pan a spin before placing it on the burner. Pouring olive oil from a height, he then turned and put on his apron. He cracked the eggs into a jug and whisked them, leaning back to keep the ash from falling into breakfast.

As he poured the eggs into the pan, a series of pings and beeps spewed from his phone. So much so he had he thought someone had died, or something equally attention-worthy had occurred. He swiped on his screen, exhaling through his nose at what he was confronted with as he cooked.

Melodie had posted photos from last night's party, tagging him and thirty others without warning. His followers ate up the content.

He paused on a photo of Trixie and River. Her manicured hands rested on his shoulder as they gazed into each other's eyes, Trixie with a kittenish smile and River with an enraptured grin. Speculation among the fans started immediately.

"Look at this mess," Nik mumbled from the bottom of the stairs, pulling his attention away from his phone. Her hair was styled in two braids on either side of her head, with black silk ribbons woven through and trailing down her back. Her Bambi-brown eyes widened at the sight of the living room. With a perturbed twist of her lips, she braced her hands on her knees.

"Looks worse than it is," Cayson assured her through a cloud of smoke.

She snapped her head to him, "Stef's going to flip," she said, narrowing her eyes.

He chuckled, she didn't laugh along with him.

"You okay? Hungover?"

"Hungry." She grumbled.

"You can come over here and have breakfast, you know," He said, observing her hesitate shifting from foot to foot, clasping her arms. She didn't budge.

He threw his cigarette into the sink as Otis jumped from the second step into the living room.

"What a shithole," he announced, kicking an empty wine bottle across the carpet.

Cayson raised the spatula in the air in greeting as Otis clutched Nik by the shoulders and pushed her into the kitchen. Sat her down at the table and took the seat next to her.

"We need bacon," Otis stated with a nod of his head, leaning back in his chair to open the fridge.

Cayson caught the packet as it sailed through the air towards him and placed the strips of pink and white into the pan.

"I could have sworn I heard Kats's annoying laugh last night," Otis said, rocking back on forth on the chair.

Cayson cursed under his breath. "I told her not to come here." He said, turning the bacon.

"Whose Kat?" Nik's small voice quizzed.

"His ex," Otis mumbled.

Cayson watched the bubbles of grease pop and fizz and his thoughts drifted to Kat. Sharing scraps of bacon between cheap bread in the morning. Sharing cigarettes at the crack of dawn, both of them damp with sweat and satiated, twisted around each other in the depths of night.

Mixed in with those heady vanishing memories were the vile jealous snarks, the cheating, the chemical taste of her tongue, and the toxicity that flowed between them both just as much as their infatuation. He could not plummet down that particular rabbit hole again, despite how enticing.