He told me about college, his fraternity, and wild parties. Reaching across the table, he’d caress my hand, his thumb rubbing over mine as he stared deeply into my eyes. The only times his mood seemed to get melancholy were when he mentioned his mom. He’d get angry again over her kicking him out, but his determination was fierce when it came to taking over his father’s company.
If we were in Washington, DC, I’d be the chambermaid and he’d be the president of the United States.
We parked outside one night in one of his dad’s convertibles, in the desert in the middle of nowhere, and he put the top down.
As we were looking up at the stars, Aston turned to me and said, “I’m falling for you, Bex. I didn’t plan on it, but I am. I don’t think I can ever let you go. In fact, I’m not going to. You’re the unexpected surprise I never counted on here, this summer. I didn’t think I deserved someone like you, but maybe I do. And I’m keeping you.”
A meteor shower could have rained down on us, and it would have been less shocking than his words.
Stunned, I said, “It’s just a summer thing, you and me. In a million years, no one would ever think there was a future for us.”
His lips hovered near my mouth and traced a path to my ear, along my cheekbone and coming to rest on my earlobe. “You need to allow yourself to believe it,” he whispered.
We kissed and touched some more, my head and heart muddled.
Desperately, I wished it to be true. Could I believe it? My heart raced at the possibility, but my head ached at the thought of reality.
The divide between our lives was too wide. I’d only met his parents once, and it wasn’t planned. Aston had taken me swimming at his house late one afternoon. We hadn’t gone inside, only taken the golf cart around back and jumped into the pool, cooling off before stretching out in the luxurious lounge chairs. His dad and stepmom strolled into the pool area, fresh off the tennis courts.
“Son.” His father stood looming over our lounge chairs, staring down at me.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Aren’t you going to say hello to Nan?”
“Hi, Nan,” he said to his stepmother, and she held her hand out to me.
“Hi, I’m Nan.”
I didn’t have a clue how to handle this situation. The handshake? Yes. Meeting the parents? No.
My fingers shook as I offered them to Nan. I wanted to run, knowing I should have excused myself like a good little employee. But for Aston, I didn’t.
“This is Bexley,” Aston said, interrupting my runaway brain. “Bexley, this is my dad, Peter Prescott, and his wife, Nan.”
“Nice to meet you both,” I said from my chair. I should have stood, but I was in a bikini.
Absolutely nothing was right about the moment. The only thing I was sure of was Peter Prescott’s disdain for me.
Towering over us, looking down his sharp nose at me, literally and figuratively, he asked, “Don’t you work in the snack shack?”
“Yes, sir,” I said meekly, with no misgivings about my social status. I was lesser than—there was no doubt about it.
“Well, nice to meet you,” he said without another glance my way. “Come on, Nan, let’s go eat. Aston, I’ll speak with you later.”
From then on, I avoided any public areas of the club where Peter Prescott may have been lurking.
And I didn’t believe a damn thing Aston said about keeping me.
Bexley
That summer, we spent more time panting like dogs in heat than anything else. For weeks, we survived on lingering kisses and brief touches. As for me, I was falling in love on borrowed time.
Close to a month after the first party, there was another one on the seventeenth hole, and Aston invited me. Just me. Not Milly.
“That’s up to Mike,” he told me. “I didn’t know they had a thing going when I told you to bring her last time. I kind of broke bro code when I said she could come.”
I sipped my iced tea while standing behind the snack shack, staring at a shirtless Aston with his swim trunks hanging low on his hips. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
