My biggest fear was that, one day, Asher would grow to resent me. Years from now, when we were married with children, when I had to drive them to ballet, football practice or soccer, and sex was something we’d have to find time for, when the washing machine was broken, and the car needed new brakes, that Asher’s decision not to play football for Florida and have a chance to go pro one day would haunt him for the rest of his life. That being a husband and dad wouldn’t be enough for him. That he would wonder every day what his life could have been like and I would be the one he’d blame for taking his dream away from him. I’d only dreamed of one thing in my life and that was to have Asher Sutton’s love. I had that. My dream had come true. I was living it, but Asher was giving up his, for me, and that was scaring me. As much as I begged him not to withdraw from Florida, he swore he couldn’t be happ, without me close and in his life.
Momma said that it was his choice and I had to stop worrying about it. But I did. It kept me up at night. Asher was the reason the football team won state two years in a row. They even talked about him on the news—where he’d sign, whether he’d lead an undefeated college football team, just like he’d done in high school. He was important. And I would be the girl who kept him from achieving all this.
Selfishly, I wanted him close. I couldn’t imagine not seeing him daily. Distance wouldn’t make me love him less. I’d loved him since I was thirteen and that wasn’t going to change. We’d stopped going to Jack’s and now we did things without his brothers and friends. We went to the lake or sat out on the football field at night, instead, talking about high school. How it was almost over for him and how my time here seemed endless. Some nights he’d take me to dinner and a movie, normally on the days he got his paycheck. He gave half to his momma to pay the bills, all the boys did and the other half he spent on us. That made me feel guilty because I wanted to help out, but Asher never let me.
When his old blue truck pulled into the drive and his brothers weren’t in the back, I knew tonight we’d be discussing this again. We’d talked about it repeatedly, but now that his final decision needed be made next week, I had one last chance to convince him to go to Florida and play football.
The days were warmer now, but the nights were still cool, the heat of summer still two months off. My arms were bare, so I pulled the white sweater I was carrying over my shoulders and went out to his truck. He was grinning. “I got paid early. Want to see a movie?”
What I wanted was for him to save his money. “I’d rather do something where we can talk.”
He frowned. “That sounds like something serious.”
It was, so I replied, “I want to spend time with you. No movie. Just us. Alone.”
He gave me a crooked grin. “Okay. I can live with that. Then tell me what you’d like to do.”
“Can we ride out to Hillview Peak?” I asked.
Asher’s eyebrows shot up and I knew why. That was where people went to park. It was known for its dark, secluded location. On any given night, you could find sweaty couples having sex in cramped back seats. No one ever talked about it, but everyone knew what happened on Hillview Peak.
I watched as a million different thoughts flashed through his expressive eyes. “Dix, uh, baby, if you’re ready for that . . . I mean, if you want it . . . trust me, I want the very same thing. But I’m not having your first time be at Hillview Peak. Give me some notice and I can come up with a better place than my truck.”
His truck. He’d lost his virginity in his truck. There’d been a lot of girls in there. Now, there was just me. I knew that. I trusted him completely. I was ready and although I’d always imagined losing my virginity in Asher Sutton’s truck, I didn’t really want it to happen there. I wanted “us” to be different. I didn’t hold all the girls he’d been with, the ones that came before me, against him, because I wasn’t jealous. I just didn’t want our first time to be the same, or even similar, to anyone else he’d been with in the past.
I’d intended to talk him into going to Florida and now we were somehow talking about sex. This wasn’t exactly how I meant for it to happen. I wanted to convince him to live his dream. We could still be together, though it would be hard on both of us. Part of me, a part I wasn’t very proud of, thought that sex would bind him to me, keep him from going off and realizing that I wasn’t the one for him. Then there was that other small voice in my head that said I wanted him to be my first and there was no reason to keep waiting. But the biggest part of me wanted Asher inside of me, to have that kind of connection with him.
“I just wanted to talk at Hillview. It seemed secluded and the stars there are beautiful.”
“When have you seen the stars at Hillview Peak?” he asked with a scowl that made me laugh.
“I snuck up there with Scarlet when we were thirteen to see if we could spy anyone having sex . . . mostly it was curiosity.”
Asher seemed relieved. “What? Scarlet wasn’t having sex at thirteen?”
“Not yet,” I replied, laughing. There was no reason to defend my best friend. She’d been boy crazy since ten. And it was exactly one month after she turned fourteen that she happily lost her virginity.
“I don’t want anyone seeing us going there. They’ll talk,” Asher said.
“You’ve been there many times. It won’t be a big deal.”
He reached down and laced his fingers through mine. “You’re a big deal. My big deal. And I don’t want anyone thinking I’m screwing you in my damn pickup truck. Especially at Hillview Peak.”
Asher rarely cursed around me. The fact he did it now only made his words sweeter. He was protecting me. Asher cherished what he had. All the things my momma said I was supposed to expect from a guy and should never settle for any less. Asher would always be more. More than any guy could ever be.
Asher Sutton
“YOU BETTER EAT them biscuits. I didn’t get up and fix them for you to just look at them,” Momma said, as she stared at my plate and the food I’d barely touched. My appetite was gone. Vanished.
“Yes, Momma,” I replied before I forced a bite into my mouth and chewed.
Steel had hurried up, finished his breakfast, then left. Didn’t even look me in the eye, not once. That was good. He needed to keep his distance until I was able to calm down.
“Can I have another?” Dallas asked like a damn five-year-old.
“Go get it yourself! She’s not your waitress!” I snapped at him angrily.
His eyes got big as he stood up with his plate and headed to the stove.
“Okay, what’s got you all tied up in knots? You weren’t here this morning and Bray was out looking for you while the rest of them tried to distract me. I raised every one of you. I know when you don’t come home at night and I know when Dallas is trying to charm me so that someone else can get away with something.”
Dallas smirked as he sat down with another plate of biscuits smothered in tomato gravy. “Figures,” he laughed.
I refused to tell Momma what was wrong. There was no reason for her to suffer that kind of pain right now. She had good memories of my dad and it needed to stay that way. Telling her wouldn’t make it any better. Hurting her for no reason was unnecessary.
“I’m adjusting to being home again. Steel broke it off with Dixie and I’m not gonna lie, I’m glad. Dixie needs to move on and not with one of my brothers.”
I hoped my voice didn’t betray me. Damn, it sounded like it did.