He slides a sideways look at me. “You always were. I missed your crazy ass.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Mom gave me an earful a couple of days ago. Told me I was wrong to get between you, and now that I can see things more objectively, I have to agree. Also, she approves.” He sends a pointed look my way. “So treat Harley with the respect she deserves and don’t fuck it up, or I’ll revoke your friend status.”
“I won’t.” Then, because it seems like the appropriate man-to-man thing to do, I shake his hand. His grip is firm. Almost crushing. And he stares at me over it. Message received.
“Now,” he scans the hall, “I’m overdue for a conversation with Ash.”
“Seth, no!” Harley calls after him as he hurries off, but he’s a man on a mission. I don’t care, because it means I get to be alone with her, and from what I could tell, Ashlin can take care of herself. She may be soft-spoken, but she’s no wilting violet.
I grab Harley’s hand before she can run after him. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
She pauses, clearly torn, but then relents. “He’d better not mess up my friendship.”
“He won’t,” I say, hoping I speak the truth. I’m reasonably sure that Seth knows how to be a decent person, underneath his growliness. I lay a hand on her massive belt. “This looks good on you, but you know where it would look better?”
“Oh, my God.” She slaps a hand to my chest. “Donotsay on the floor.”
Winking, I don’t say a thing.
She rolls her eyes and groans. “Can’t you try to be original?”
I pull her into the shelter of my arms. “How’s this for original? I love you more than I love pulling off a perfect uppercut. More than getting Karson Hayes in a rear choke hold. More than—”
She covers my mouth with her hand, her eyes alight with amusement. “I get it.” She kisses a line along my jaw before removing her hand. When she does, she holds up a finger, indicating I should let her speak first. “Take me home and put me in a hot bath,” she orders. “Then can we snuggle?”
A slow smile curves my lips, and I brush a kiss over her forehead. “I’ll snuggle the shit out of you.” I thread my fingers through hers, wishing I never had to let go. “Just try to keep up, Isles.”
She laughs. “Bring it on, Green.”
Epilogue
Seth
Emotions fucking suck.
Mine are a wreck. I feel like a shirt that’s been pulled inside out and put in a washing machine on spin cycle. Everything is out of whack and I don’t know which way is up. I’m happy for Harley and Devon, but seeing them together reminds me of the gaping hole in my own life where Ashlin isn’t. My sister has found someone to share her future with, but I don’t have that anymore. I lost my girl, and I don’t even know how. It was insidious. Grief ripped us apart from the inside, and neither of us were detached enough from the situation to see it.
I reenter the stadium, and my gaze lands on her immediately, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. It’s always been that way with us. I’m the shadow chasing her light. Nipping at its heels and trying to get closer. She shifts her weight, and her hair sways. It’s shorter than it used to be, and frames her delicate face perfectly, the deepness of the color emphasizing the paleness of her skin. My own Snow White. Except I haven’t been able to call her mine for years.
Time agrees with her. Faint lines cross her forehead and bracket her eyes when she smiles at someone who passes, but they only make her more beautiful. Before I realize it, I’m standing in front of her, and those smile-induced crinkles vanish. She watches me with a coolness I never knew she possessed. My hands clench into fists, and the calluses rub against my fingertips, reminding me that while she’s improved with age, I’ve gotten rougher. I don’t bother to shave often, and my face is scruffy as a result. I’ve added more tattoos to my collection, because what the fuck else am I supposed to spend my money on? I’ve got no one to spoil and I’ve never been a person who needed material things or a particular lifestyle.
“I’ve missed you.” As soon as the sentence is out, I cringe. When I see her again in my fantasies, I’m suave and charming, and she realizes how much she wants to be with me, but real life isn’t fantasy, and I’ve never been a man who’s good with words. I’m too blunt. Too coarse. She used to love that about me, but now? I know nothing about the woman she’s become. She might even be seeing someone.
That thought pierces my heart like a dull blade. I was her first. We got together when she was twenty to my twenty-eight, and she told me she was waiting for the right man to come along. Back then, I took pride in that, but how many men have been with her since because I was too stupid to keep her from slipping through my fingers?
Ashlin’s lips firm. They’re like perfect little rosebuds, tempting my mouth, but I know better than to give in. “Seth.”
God, I love the way she says my name. It makes me want to preen beneath her hand like a cat.
She holds my gaze. “I have a proposition for you.”
Hang on a minute. What? That’s not how I expected this to go.
She rubs her lips together the way she does when she’s nervous, and suddenly, I’m anxious to hear what she has to say.
“I’m listening.”
She glances around, then her gaze darts back to me. “Not here.” Her lips rub together again. “Meet me at Sugar. Five p.m. on Wednesday.”
Sugar is a café not far from the gym.
