“The nerdy rambling side?” I asked.
“The unguarded side.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “You can ramble about Pluto all you’d like. I won’t judge-too much.”
I fought a smile and lost.
We were floating on the last wisps of postcoital bliss. Soon, our feet would have to touch the ground, and we’d have to face reality.
For now, as we ate breakfast side by side with the sun streaming through the windows and the air redolent with the aromas of home-cooked food, we were content.
I hadn’t brought a guy home since I broke up with my ex, and Asher’s presence was almost overwhelming. His muscled frame filled the room, sucking up all the oxygen and making it impossible to breathe without inhaling him into my lungs.
I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. I was a private person, and I guarded my personal space fiercely. But instead of rankling me, Asher’s company made my bachelorette flat feel just a little less lonely.
“What are your plans for the day?” I asked, taking what I hoped was a casual sip of tea.
“Hanging out with you,” Asher said easily. “If you want me to, of course.”
Oh, he was good. Not only that, he was genuine, which made it that much worse for my poor heart.
“I suppose I could keep you company for a bit,” I said with feigned reluctance. “My reading will have to wait.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I appreciate your magnanimity.”
Since “hanging out” was the vaguest activity in existence, and he didn’t offer ideas for what we should do after breakfast, I gave him a quick tour of the flat.
There wasn’t much to see. Besides the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom (which he was already intimately familiar with), the only place of note was the box room I’d converted into a mini library. I didn’t have a lot of space, so I only bought physical copies from my favorite authors or books I’d already read and loved on Kindle.
“This is the neatest house I’ve ever seen.” Asher stared at my painstakingly organized collection of books. They were alphabetized by the author’s last name, followed by the book height and then color.
“Um, have you seen your place? It’s spotless.”
“Yeah, but I have people who help. This is all you.” He swiped his thumb over a shelf. It came away dust free. “Incredible.”
“I like cleaning,” I said, half-embarrassed, half-pleased. I tended my library the way some people tended their gardens. “It’s soothing. It makes me feel like…I don’t know. Like I’m in control.”
I couldn’t control the messes in my life, but I could clean them up at home. Spilled milk? Several swipes of a towel and it was gone. Muddy footprints? Nothing a good mop wouldn’t fix. I could snap my fingers, figuratively speaking, and return things to the way they were.
That power provided a small measure of comfort in a world where chaos was the only certainty.
“I get it,” Asher said. He touched the spine of one of my Leo Agnelli books-the same one he’d picked up and handed to me before our first training session. God, that seemed like a lifetime ago. “That’s how I feel about driving.”
I read the tabloids often enough to know he had a penchant for street racing. Several high-profile crashes had earned him a reputation for recklessness, though it hadn’t stopped Blackcastle from paying an arm and a leg for him anyway.
I hadn’t seen news of any crashes or street races he’d been involved in recently, so maybe he wasn’t part of that scene anymore.
I hoped so. Before we met, I hadn’t cared. If he wanted to race, then he’d race. It was his life he was gambling with. Now, dread curdled in my gut at the thought of anything happening to him.
Theoretically, his checkered history with cars and speeding should’ve turned me off given my hang-ups about those issues. But I couldn’t reconcile that rash, daredevil tabloid version of him with the thoughtful, caring man who’d researched chronic pain after I told him about my accident and who’d hired the same chauffeur to take me to and from our training sessions because I wasn’t comfortable with strange drivers.
I’d been a passenger in Asher’s car multiple times, and he’d always followed the rules to a tee. I’d never felt uncomfortable or scared, which was saying a lot because even the smallest things set me on edge.
The tabloids weren’t the most trustworthy source. Maybe there was more to Asher’s racing than met the eye-or maybe I was naive.
I was cycling through ways I could ask him about it when he picked up a photo from the top of my bookshelf. “Is this your mum?”
Five-year-old me was dressed as a fairy princess, tiara and all. My mother stood next to me, her face glowing with pride.
“Yes. That was taken before my first ballet recital.” My face softened at the memory. “She was so proud that she took me out for ice cream after. If you knew my mother, you’d know what a big deal that was. She is not a dairy or junk food fan. At all.”
Asher examined the photo more carefully. “You were adorable.””Were?” I teased.
He set the photo down and faced me again. “I think you’ve graduated from adorable to something else.”
Warm honey filled my veins.
The low pitch of his reply chased away our lighthearted morning and resurfaced memories of what we did last night. The things he made me feel and the uncertainty we’d unleashed.
We’d tiptoed around the elephant in the room all morning. Neither one of us wanted to break the spell, but we had to leave our bubble eventually.
Before I could think of a witty reply or a tactful way to bring up our relationship (friendship? situationship?), Asher’s phone rang.
“Excuse me,” he said after he checked the caller ID. “I have to take this.”
The tension cracked, giving me space to breathe more freely. “No worries. I’ll be here.”
He answered the call in the next room while I worried my lip between my teeth.
I’d never had a morning-after talk. I usually went in knowing what to expect or slipped out before the other person woke up, so what should I say when Asher came back?
Should I Google it? Did the internet have useful advice, or was it going to lead me astray like the time it told me shrimp was impossible to overcook? (Spoiler: it was, in fact, very possible to overcook shrimp).
Asher returned, and all my half-baked conversation starters died in my throat when I noticed how pale he was.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s my dad.” He swallowed, his expression dazed. “He had a heart attack.”
ASHER
I didn’t protest when Scarlett insisted on coming with me to Holchester.
Normally, I wouldn’t subject anyone to a three-hour drive with the worst, most anxious version of myself, especially when I was sure they were offering out of politeness and not a genuine desire to give up their Saturday for someone else’s family emergency.
But when she’d offered, she’d done so with such sincerity I couldn’t say no, and I didn’t want to make the three-hour drive alone.
So I accepted.
We didn’t talk much during the ride, but her presence helped calm some of the thoughts raging in my head.
My father, who’d never been sick for more than a few days in his life, had had a heart attack.
We hadn’t spoken since my last visit to Holchester, when he’d stormed out of the kitchen and I’d left without making amends.
Regret rattled through me.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.