Okay. Where are we going with this line of questioning? “Not really.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She waves her hand toward me. “You’re still into the online hookup thing, right?”
How does she even know that? “Actually, I haven’t—”
Asher sets a hand on my arm. “What about you, Cassie? Getting serious with that one guy?”
Her smile fades a bit. “Ian and I broke up a couple weeks ago.”
I might believe that sadness if she hadn’t been hanging all over my best friend. “I’m sorry,” I say, even though I’m not sorry at all.
“That’s too bad, Cass.” Asher’s voice is so genuine. How does he manage it? “I was rooting for you guys.”
“Yeah, well. He wasn’t ready to get serious, and I decided I was, so...” The bitterness in her words is genuine, and Ialmostfeel bad until she says, “But the casual hookup thing...” She motions toward me. “That works, too. For some people.”
The offense is instantaneous.Some people?
AKA sluts.
“Awesome people, you mean?” Asher says, tone a little harder.
She ignores him in favor of drinking her nasty beer.
“Jeez, Cassie.” Asher laughs once, humorlessly. “I wonder what drove Ian away.”
The table goes silent.
My blood turns incandescent. Did— Did he just say that?
It takes Cassie a moment to register the insult, and she blinks three times before her face goes scarlet. “That’s— I wasn’t trying to offend.”
“Right,” he says, all disbelief.
Yayoi snickers behind her hand, while Geoff and Evie stare wide-eyed at the developing scene. Expression hovering near apologetic, Cassie reaches a hand toward Asher and me. She starts to stand, to say something, but it knocks the table, toppling his fresh can of White Claw right into his lap.
He springs up.
“Oh, shit.” Cassie’s eyes go wide. “I’m so sorry.”
His trunks are soaked and—as usual—he laughs. “Guess I deserved that for being rude. Sorry I said anything.”
“No, that’s—” Cassie starts.
Ignoring her, he turns toward the back door. “I’m going to change.”
He steals the center of my attention as he disappears through the sliders. In the background of my awareness, Cassie murmurs apologies and uses a towel on the mess beside me, Evie helping. Geoff mutters something and Yayoi answers. It hardly registers.
Cassie has spent years quietly jabbing me in my softest, most vulnerable parts, and Asher... He just defended my honor.
This isn’t a tug. It’s a hacksaw. And it’s edging closer to my heart by the second. Back and forth, back and forth.
Dangerous and thrilling, like standing untethered at the edge of a cliff. Morbidly alluring, like a lethal dose of fentanyl.
I glance at Evie wiping down Asher’s wet chair beside me. She meets my eyes and subtly nods toward the door.
Should I go after him?
I should go after him.
