I nod again.
He smiles, and the sight of it makes my heart sing. “Good. See you later.” He grabs his duffel bag from the backseat…
And then he’s gone.
Twenty-Two
I am an unfocused mess for the rest of the evening. At the dinner table, I ignore pretty much everyone. I’m so inside my head I keep staring off into space. The entire family is sitting at the table tonight, including Ash. Jake glares whenever Dad speaks to him, and I send Jake looks of my own, trying to kick him to make him knock it off, but I can’t reach across the table to make contact with his leg, damn it.
There’s no need for him to be jealous of Ash. Jake will have his glory moments for the next two years as our varsity quarterback. He needs to relax.
Mom keeps sending me strange looks and asks me twice if I’m feeling all right, and I tell her I’m just tired.
Ash snickers under his breath, the jerk.
Ava goes on and on about some girl in her class who let a boy touch her butt if he gave her some candy, and she’s beyond irritated. Ava is a bigger feminist than Mom and I put together, and we tell her to complain to the principal about it. But then she says she doesn’t want to be known as a snitch, so she isn’t sure what to do.
Just another fun day at our high school.
Every few minutes, I catch Ash watching me, his mouth curved into the faintest smile. I think he likes my annoying family, though I’m not sure how he can. When we’re all together, it’s always a little chaotic. Beck brought a Spider-Man action figure to the dinner table, and while he’s not as much into action figures as he once was, he’s feeling it tonight. Trying to feed Spidey dinner with his fork, or trying to get him to drink, or hooking the toy’s curved hands onto the edge of the salad bowl.
Beck is also irritating the shit out of our mother, who keeps telling him to knock it off and put the toy away. Beck pouts, Mom eventually relents, and then it’s the same thing, again and again.
Jake is sullen over football bullshit. Dad tells Ava to stay off her phone. Ash is keeping his conversation to a minimum, with the exception when Mom asks him about college.
“I doubt I can get in to any colleges,” he tells her, wiping his mouth with a napkin. I’m staring at him like some sort of freak, and when he catches me, he offers up a quick wink in my direction. That should be cheesy, but my heart flutters.
Mom looks downright offended. “Why not? How are your grades?”
“They’re not terrible, but they’re not straight As either,” he answers.
“What are they then?” Mom asks.
“Mostly Bs. I always manage a few As in the easy classes. Freshman year I got a C in math because that shit is hard.” He sends Mom a remorseful look. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Look, Ash, I think you should try to apply to some colleges. With your sports ability and grades, you could probably get accepted to a few state colleges. Maybe you could even get a scholarship,” Mom says.
“I don’t know about that,” he starts, but Mom shakes her head, silencing him.
“Go to the office tomorrow and meet with a counselor. Get your transcripts and bring them home so we can go over them. My gut is telling me you could get in somewhere. You still have time to apply.”
He smiles when Mom said bring them home. I’m sure he liked that.
I sort of like it too. That my parents have so readily accepted him. If you’d told me Asher Davis would be staying with us a few days ago, I would’ve laughed. I also would’ve freaked.
But having him here has drawn us closer together. It’s also helped us be honest with each other. For once.
“I’d love to get out of here, that’s for sure,” he mutters.
My heart aches for him. Now that I’ve seen where he comes from, I understand somewhat why he acts the way he does. Why he’s so self-destructive. He needs someone to believe in him. Like my mom. Like me.
I want to be that person.
If he’ll let me.
We’re all roped into helping Mom clean the kitchen, and somehow I got put on dishwashing duty with Ash. He rinses the dishes and I set them in the dishwasher, and we wash the remaining pots and pans Mom prefers to be cleaned by hand. I don’t understand the point of a dishwasher if it can’t wash all your dishes, but whatever.
“I ended it,” Ash says conversationally as he hands me a plate.
It nearly slips from my fingers when I hear what he said. “With Rylie?”
He nods as he goes to rinse another plate. “I told her we couldn’t hang out anymore, and she took it fairly well. When I say fairly well, I mean she cried and begged me to give her another chance, over and over. I finally had to end the call.”
We’re all alone in the kitchen, which means we can talk about this freely.
I set the plate he hands me into the dishwasher. “That’s awful.” I didn’t want her to be hurt over it, but what did I expect? She cares about him. I get it.
But I think he cares about me more.
“It’s done, and I’m glad. I only hung out with her because no one else interested me, and she was there. Eager and willing.”
My stomach sinks. Eager and willing to do what, exactly?
I don’t want to know.
Yes, I do.
“But she wasn’t you.” His voice is so quiet, I almost didn’t hear him. “None of them were you.”
“How many of them were there?” Oh, I am wanting to feel pain right now, aren’t I? Asking a question like that?
“Not many. None you need to worry about.”
Those poor girls, used by Asher Davis.
Is he going to do the same to me?
“You’re thinking too much,” he teases, and I sigh, unsure of what to say.
Ash leans over and turns off the water, then scoots closer to me, so close I can feel his body heat radiating toward me. “You doubt everything I say.”
“We’ve always had this weird back-and-forth relationship,” I remind him.
“You’re the one who always pushes me away,” he reminds me back.
He’s got me there.
“You going to wear a skimpy bikini for me tonight, Callahan?” He briefly touches my cheek, and I want more, just like that. I’m like a parched traveler in an endless desert.
“You going to skinny dip for me, Davis?” I return. I might own two-piece swimsuits, but I never feel totally comfortable in them.
“I can make that happen.” He’s grinning and nodding, and he looks like a dork. A cute, injured dork. “Definitely.”
“Hey.” I rest my hand on his chest, and he goes completely still. As if the center of the universe is where we’re connected. “Please be—gentle with me. I’m a little slower paced than you, I think.”
“Slower paced? What are you—ohhhh.” He draws the word out and rests his hand over mine, squeezing it. “I’m not going to push you into anything you don’t want to do.”
“Promise?”
“I swear.”
“What are you guys talking about?”
We both turn to find Beck standing in the kitchen, watching us, his Spider-Man dangling from his fingers and about ready to fall to the floor.
I disentangle myself from Ash’s grip and face Beck. “Why aren’t you with Mom?” I ask my little brother. After dinner is when they usually hang out on the couch and watch TV so Beck gets his daily snuggle time. Really it’s snuggle time for Mom, since none of us do that with her anymore, and I know it makes her sad, that she’s down to her last one. So she squeezes on him as much as she can.
“She’s too busy hugging on Daddy.” Beck makes a face, like he’s disgusted. “Like you’re hugging on him.” He waves Spider-Man at Ash.
“We’re not hugging on each other,” I tell Beck, smiling at him. The last thing I want is my brother to say something like that to our parents. “We’re just friends.”
“Uh huh. I need to go find Mom. Mom!” Beck takes off, leaving the kitchen as fast as he came in.
“Your brother is cute,” Ash says when I turn to face him once more.