Seth
Emotions fucking suck.
Mine are a wreck. I feel like a shirt that’s been pulled inside out and put in a washing machine on spin cycle. Everything is out of whack and I don’t know which way is up. I’m happy for Harley and Devon, but seeing them together reminds me of the gaping hole in my own life where Ashlin isn’t. My sister has found someone to share her future with, but I don’t have that anymore. I lost my girl, and I don’t even know how. It was insidious. Grief ripped us apart from the inside, and neither of us were detached enough from the situation to see it.
I reenter the stadium, and my gaze lands on her immediately, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. It’s always been that way with us. I’m the shadow chasing her light. Nipping at its heels and trying to get closer. She shifts her weight, and her hair sways. It’s shorter than it used to be, and frames her delicate face perfectly, the deepness of the color emphasizing the paleness of her skin. My own Snow White. Except I haven’t been able to call her mine for years.
Time agrees with her. Faint lines cross her forehead and bracket her eyes when she smiles at someone who passes, but they only make her more beautiful. Before I realize it, I’m standing in front of her, and those smile-induced crinkles vanish. She watches me with a coolness I never knew she possessed. My hands clench into fists, and the calluses rub against my fingertips, reminding me that while she’s improved with age, I’ve gotten rougher. I don’t bother to shave often, and my face is scruffy as a result. I’ve added more tattoos to my collection, because what the fuck else am I supposed to spend my money on? I’ve got no one to spoil and I’ve never been a person who needed material things or a particular lifestyle.
“I’ve missed you.” As soon as the sentence is out, I cringe. When I see her again in my fantasies, I’m suave and charming, and she realizes how much she wants to be with me, but real life isn’t fantasy, and I’ve never been a man who’s good with words. I’m too blunt. Too coarse. She used to love that about me, but now? I know nothing about the woman she’s become. She might even be seeing someone.
That thought pierces my heart like a dull blade. I was her first. We got together when she was twenty to my twenty-eight, and she told me she was waiting for the right man to come along. Back then, I took pride in that, but how many men have been with her since because I was too stupid to keep her from slipping through my fingers?
Ashlin’s lips firm. They’re like perfect little rosebuds, tempting my mouth, but I know better than to give in. “Seth.”
God, I love the way she says my name. It makes me want to preen beneath her hand like a cat.
She holds my gaze. “I have a proposition for you.”
Hang on a minute. What? That’s not how I expected this to go.
She rubs her lips together the way she does when she’s nervous, and suddenly, I’m anxious to hear what she has to say.
“I’m listening.”
She glances around, then her gaze darts back to me. “Not here.” Her lips rub together again. “Meet me at Sugar. Five p.m. on Wednesday.”
Sugar is a café not far from the gym.
“Why can’t we talk now?” I ask as my stupid heart hopes and prays that maybe, after all this time, she’s rethought our relationship and is willing to give me a second chance.
“Because we need privacy.” She tucks her silky hair behind her ear and tilts her face up to mine. “You’ll be there?”
I nod. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything.” But I might die from curiosity in the meantime.
“Good.” She touches my shoulder, and even through my shirt, the shock of the contact is enough to make me shiver. “I’ll see you then.”
“Wait—” I call, but she’s already walking away, a swing in her hips that will be imprinted in my mind forever. I’ve never forgotten anything about Ashlin Isles, and I’ve never felt even a quarter of what I feel for her for another woman. Seeing her is a sign. Whatever may have come between us in the past, Ashlin is meant to be mine, and I won’t let her out of my life again. Not this time.