“Your faith in me is truly astounding. Love you, too,” Rory said flatly before passing the phone off to Ava.
I grinned, my smile only growing when I heard my niece’s excited voice.
“Hi, Aunt Nat!”
“Hey, you. I hear you’re entering the world of the workin’. You sure you wanna do that already?”
“Yes! I’msoexcited. Thank you for helpin’ me. Will and Mac gave me some ideas, but I really wanna know what you think. I want everything to beperfectand don’t wanna mess it up.”
“You’re gonna do great. Don’t stress. There’s nothing to be nervous about. Aubrey and Nathan are awesome, and their kids are pretty great, too.”
After filling in my niece on what I figured would be sure to win her Babysitter of the Year, I made Ava promise to call me after the big night and tell me all about it.
While it was true that I had been gone from Havenbrook a long time, there were moments like this, when my whole ecosystem was going on without me, that I started to feel just a little bit homesick for the place I no longer thought of as home.
Before too long, that tinge of melancholy was overridden by a wave of excitement as ideas for my upcoming shoot fired in rapid succession in my mind. Proving, once again, that leaving Havenbrook in the rearview mirror was the best decision I ever could have made.
I wokein the middle of the night to Asher’s ringtone. As always, it took me a minute to remember where I was—Iruya, Argentina—and adjust to my surroundings. Blindly, I fumbled for my phone on the nightstand and cracked open one eye to glance at the time. It was 4:26 a.m. where I was, which meant almost 2:30 in Nashville.
Middle-of-the-night calls weren’t anything new for me and Asher. With our lifestyles, they were pretty much a prerequisite, seeing as he often didn’t get home until three in the morning or later when he had a gig, and I was almost certainly in another time zone, if not halfway around the world. That meant finding time to connect was challenging, so exceptions had to be made.
“Don’t tell me you’re nervous about that meetin’ with the label tomorrow,” I mumbled, my voice scratchy from disuse.
“Nat…”
At the mere sound of Asher’s voice, I jolted up in bed, my senses on high alert. I’d known this man for over twenty years,and, as such, I knew his every tone. Knew how he sounded when he was excited, when he was exhausted…when he was nervous or indifferent or stressed. Knew his mad voice, his apprehensive voice, his cynical voice.
I’d never heard him sound like this.
“What’s wrong?” My heart seized, and I could barely choke out my next words. “Is it Nash? Is he okay?”
Nash had been my best friend since our first day of preschool. The two of us had been inseparable since then, and when Asher moved to town in first grade, we’d taken him into our fold—actually, more accurately, I informed Asher he didn’t have a choice but to be our friend because our names were all so similar. And from that moment on, it’d been the three of us against the world.
“No, it’s—” He broke off before clearing his throat, his voice still rough and low. Weak. “It’s my sister.”
“Aubrey?”
I didn’t know if it was the hour, or that I had been woken from a dead sleep, or that I’d been running on nothing more than adrenaline and coffee for days while I’d been here, but none of this was making any sense.
A brief memory of Ava calling to ask about June and Owen flickered in my mind. That was right—Ava had been scheduled to babysit. Was that last night? Days got all jumbled and tended to run into each other whenever I was traveling.
“There was an accident,” Asher said, his tone all wrong. “Sheriff Halsey called ’cause I’m Aubrey’s emergency contact. She must’ve listed me after Dad and Momma died. Even if I don’t live in Havenbrook anymore, I’m the closest…”
“Wait, just slow down. I don’t understand. The closest for what?”
“I need to get there. June and Owen…your sister’s stayin’ with them for now, but they’re gonna be so scared when theywake up and their parents—” Asher’s voice cracked on the last word, and I felt the urge to go to him as clearly as if there were a string as strong as steel tied to us both, tugging me back. “I’m packin’ a bag, and then I’ve gotta go. I’m sorry. I know it’s late. I just needed to call you.” His voice was watery, and there was no denying his tears now.
With every word he spoke, my stomach sank more and more, the situation crystallizing in a way I desperately wished were a dream. A call from the sheriff. An accident. June and Owen being scared…
Realization settled deep in my gut at the same time Asher uttered a broken, “She’s gone, Nattie. Aubrey’s gone.”
Throwing back the covers, I leaped out of bed, my phone clutched in my hand as I listened to Asher’s near-silent cries on the other end. I didn’t say anything. What could I? My words would be nothing but empty platitudes that wouldn’t help fill the void he was suddenly facing. So instead, I allowed him to unleash his grief without interruption and took his pain into myself, wishing I could bear this for him.
With Asher’s cries filling the empty air as I clutched the phone between my ear and shoulder, I was a tornado whipping through my room, gathering random items strewn here and there. After tossing all the clothes I could find into my suitcase, I gathered my toiletries from the tiny bathroom sink and then dumped them in, too.
In all the years I’d been traveling, I’d never once resented being so far away—not even when I’d gotten the call about my daddy’s heart attack. Somewhere, deep down, I’d known the man was too stubborn to die and I would get home with plenty of time to yell at the jackass for being so careless with his health.
But this…now? Listening as the other half of my soul’s heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, I’d never been more frustrated than I was now.
