Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“Hmm,” Nat says thoughtfully, tapping her fingers against the leather steering wheel. “I mean, obviously, he was running away from whatever he was feeling for you. But to disappear for three years? That’s a little extreme, even for him.”
I snort at that. There’s no way I had anything to do with his vanishing act. I’d have to mean something to him for that to happen, and the past three years have proven otherwise.
“There’s no point attempting to figure Asher out. You’ll only hurt your brain trying.” I would know. Asher’s always played his cards close to his chest, never letting anyone in on the thoughts and feelings within.
We pull into the long driveway leading up to our ranch-style house, then Nat throws the car into park.
“All right, I’m out. I have to help my mom set up for an event tomorrow, so I promised I’d be home early.”
“Boo. Call me after.”
After Nat takes off in her little red sports car, I make my way toward the house, then tiredly stab the code into the keypad at our front door. Too lazy to go to my room on the other side of the house, I steal Dash’s charger from the kitchen counter and plant myself onto the couch in the media room. It’s fluffy and huge and could sleep ten people at least. This is my preferred room in the house. I throw in my favorite movie—the one I love to hate and hate to love since it reminds me of that night. Tombstone.
I can’t focus on the screen. The events of tonight and the ones of three years ago play in my head on repeat, searching for something, anything, that will fill in the missing pieces. I keep coming back to the same two questions. What made him leave? And what brought him back?
Before long, I drift to sleep with images of Asher’s hardened expression in my mind.
“Don’t fall…”
Someone should’ve warned me not to fall years ago.
Chapter 2
Asher
“Are you sure, man?” I ask for the third time since Dash insisted I stay with him as we walk into his house. Being here again is the last thing I thought would happen tonight. Ever since I got back into town, I’ve managed to avoid this place like the fucking plague. This house and the people in it were the only good part about my life growing up. But after the younger Vale sibling betrayed me in the worst way, I lost that, too.
I stopped by my old house exactly once. I was greeted by my father in an alcohol-induced slumber in his old, tattered recliner. A cigarette dangled from his fingertips, dangerously close to burning the house down. I walked out before he even knew I was there.
“I told you, my parents are living in SoCal now. It’s just Briar and me, and you know she won’t mind.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
I’m a bastard for what I did that night—for what I thought about doing every night for months before then. I know this. But I also don’t plan to come clean any time soon. Briar fucked me over real good. Maybe that’s what I deserved for hooking up with my best friend’s little sister, but either way, I’ll never make that mistake again. And as far as I’m concerned, Briar Vale is nothing more than a bad memory.
I shouldn’t fucking stay here. I should keep paying eighty-eight bucks at the roach-infested motel down the street. I should go kick my pops’ old dying ass out of the house and stay there. I should do anything but stay in this house again. Yet, here I am, sharing space with my old best friend and his little backstabbing sister. Because I’m a goddamn masochist.
After digging myself out of the mess Briar got me into, I made a life for myself. I met some good people—a guy named Dare who took me under his wing. I worked on roofs with him during the summer and did snow removal in the winter. Eventually, he finally took the plunge and opened up the tattoo shop he’d been talking about for years, so I unofficially took over the roofing business. I’d put Cactus Heights—and everyone in it—behind me in exchange for four seasons and hard work.
I swore I’d never come back. There was nothing left for me here, with a deceased mother and a father who only saw me as the reason she died. Then, I got the call that my dad was in the hospital. Liver failure. I didn’t know what I expected to feel. Maybe nothing at all. Surprisingly, I felt a twinge of…something. Something I still haven’t identified. Guilt? Fuck that. I’m not the one who drank to the point of trying to provoke my kid into a fistfight and blacking out—in that order—night after night. Obligation? Probably.