“We’ll talk to my mom when we get back.”
He nods, looking out over the fields of flowers. “So what got you so into gardening?”
“My mom and I had a little garden growing up.” I stand up and crouch down in front of a patch of tomatoes. “We mostly grew vegetables, and then I would use them for my recipes.”
“You still grow your own?” I’m sure he’s noticed my vegetable garden at my house, but we’ve never talked about it.
Nodding, I run my fingers over the vines in front of me. “I have this stupid fantasy of opening my own farm-to-table restaurant with a little garden in the back so I can go out and cut off basil and shit.”
He laughs. “You make it sound so romantic.”
“There’s no sense in talking pretty when it’s never going to happen,” I say, pressing my hands down against the cool soil, packing it tighter around the base of the plant.
He nods, but once again, I can read him. He’s not going to tell me it will happen, or if I set my mind to it, I can make my dreams come true because he knows that’s not what I want to hear. But I know he’s itching to. Optimism spills out of his pores, whether or not he tries to contain it.
“We should get back to your mom,” he says.
“Yeah.” I stand up, wiping my dirty hands on my pants, and follow him out through the archway.
The ride homeis quiet other than the soft sound of the radio flowing through the car’s speakers. It’s so low, I can’t even make out what the song is. This time when Ashton puts his hand on the inside of my thigh, I cover it with my own, and he holds it.
“Can I ask you something?” It’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while now, and since we’ve both been full of confessions today, it seems like as good a time as any to ask.
“Anything.” His eyes stay on the road, but he squeezes my hand to let me know he means it.Anything.
“Have you and Skylar ever…” I trail off. “I know you told me you never slept with her, but you two seem so close…I just didn’t know if you ever?—”
“We kissed,” he interrupts, and my heart sinks.
“Oh.” I’m not sure what I was expecting. Of course, they have a history. Just because they didn’t have sex doesn’t mean they didn’t have a relationship.
His eyes slide to mine for a brief moment before turning back to the road. “It didn’t mean anything. We were kids. It was a silly teenage crush.”
“It’s okay, you don’t owe me an explanation,” I say with a little more bite in my tone than I intended.
“Well, you asked, so I’m going to tell you. She was nevermine, and I knew that.” He sighs. “It’s complicated, but the point is, when I finally kissed her, I felt nothing. No butterflies. No magnetic pull. It was the same for her. We both laughed while our mouths were still together, and we didn’t even have to say anything. We just knew that we would always be friends, but that’s it.”
“But you love her.” Again, I’m not sure why I say it. I can blame it on being emotionally exhausted or Ashton showing me his dead grandmother’s garden and pointing out the fact that love doesn’t have to hurt, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s irrational and jealous and everything I hate, but I have to know.
My breathing accelerates, my heart nearly jumping out of my chest as I wait for his answer.
“Yes,” he says simply, and I feel a thin crack in the shield that surrounds my heart. I remind myself I haven’t let him fully in. That’s how I know my heart isn’t actually breaking. I still have my armor in place.
“But I’m not in love with her,” he continues. “I love Emory, but I’m not in love with her. Against my better judgment, I love Declan, and hell, even Nate sometimes, but I’m notinlove with them.”
“Why do you keep sayingin lovelike that?” I whisper. It’s like he’s trying to prove a point.
“Because I am in love, but not with any of them.”
The crack in my armor creaks and shifts, the fissure growing in size, and I realize it isn’t a knife trying to break through to slice my heart open. It’s cracking from the inside. My heart is swelling. Opening itself up to the man next to me.
“Ashton, I?—”
My phone vibrates against my leg.My fucking phone. I want to ignore it because this feels like a defining moment in my life. The kind you look back on for years to come and rememberthat it was the day everything changed. But I don’t ignore it because it could be my mom. I’m so dazed that I accept the call and bringit to my ear, not even bothering to look at the name on the screen.
A deep, steady male voice comes through, and I instantly realize that it’s not my mom.
“I don’t have a lot of time. I have to get back to a meeting, but I wanted to tell you that I found him. I have an address and phone number. I’ll text you the details,” he says.
