They all realized at the same moment that they were pouring salt into my wound.
“Um, let’s focus on something else,” Ashley said. “Anyone want to hear about the lady who locked herself in her bathroom in her cabin and wound up stuck there for four hours?”
“Pass,” Jared snorted. “What else have you got?”
“We heard about the daycare center you were working on at HQ,” Beth said. “Is that still happening?”
Beth wasn’t getting the message to move on from all things Ashford.
I shook my head. “No clue. I’m totally frozen out.”
“I don’t get it,” Ashley said. “You guys seemed happy, then it collapsedsofast. Like, to me it seems out of nowhere. Was there a trigger?”
I snorted out a hollow laugh. “Yeah, there were two, and neither one makes any sense to me.”
They looked at me expectantly. After thinking about it, I decided that I could fill them in on this part.
The waitress came over to take my drink order, but Beth spoke up first.
“Bottomless sangria for the table, please,” she said.
“Perfect,” I nodded. I’d barely eaten anything in the past thirty-six hours, so I could already imagine how fast the alcohol was going to hit me.
“Chips and guac too,” Ashley added, like she could read my mind. She leaned back to take me in. “Anyway, please continue.”
I stared at the tile table in front of me while Jimmy Buffett sang about changes in latitudes. I wanted to tell them every detail of the many ways Logan had hurt me, but I couldn’t summon the words.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Jared assured me.
“No, I do, it’s just…”
“Really shitty?” Beth finished for me, cringing.
I chuckled. “You could say that.”
“Well, whatever you say or don’t say, your secrets are safe with us,” Jared assured me.
I didn’t want to keep secrets for Logan Ashford any longer. He didn’t deserve my silence, and his crew needed to know what an asshole he really was.
“Okay,” I began slowly. “I guess it all started when I suggested this comic book camp for Noah. He’s really getting into graphic novels, so it seemed like a great way to expose him to that world and get him to expand his boundaries a little. I told Logan about it, and he got really weird, implying that I was trying to get Noah out of the picture so I could have Logan all to myself.”
“What?” Ashley asked, the shock evident in her voice. “He thought you had a problem with having Noah around? That doesn’t make any sense. You adore that kid. Anyone could see it.”
“He’s ridiculous,” Jared shook his head. “It went both ways, because Noah was your shadow.”
I gestured to them with a nod. “Thank you. I thought maybe I was losing it, but you’ve validated me. Hold on, though, becauseit gets worse: we were arguing about the camp concept while we were at Zuma Park with Noah, and we were so focused on the fight that we didn’t see him getting up on the climbing wall.”
“Oh no,” Jared muttered. “I can guess where this is going.”
“Yup, you sure can. He got overconfident and wound up falling.”
Beth sucked in a breath. “How bad was it?”
“Bad enough for a trip to the hospital. He fractured his arm, and he’s in a cast for the next month.”
“Aw, poor baby,” Ashley said.
“Exactly. I was heartbroken. Noah was a trooper, though.”
