Asher faced his friend. Wisdom lingered in Evan’s sharp eyes. He’d lived a lot of life. Lost his wife at a really young age, her death leaving Lyon motherless at age three. Evan had juggled fatherhood on his own until he moved here and fell in love with his wife’s best friend. The transition couldn’t have been easy, and from what Asher saw, Charlie had struggled to fit the change into her heart as well. Now they were a family. Evan and Charlie and Lyon deserved every bit of beauty they’d won.
No way would he bullshit his friend after Evan had laid out that much honesty.
“Yes,” Asher admitted. “All of those things.”
“You bought a house here to be closer to those things. Hawk. Your friends. Gloria.”
“Did what I had to do.” Ash shrugged.
“Didn’t have to buy.” Evan dropped his feet to the ground and stood. He deposited Tank onto Asher’s lap. “Didn’t have to keep this furball, either. But you did.” He didn’t wait for a response. “Gonna check on dessert. Ice cream?”
“Nah. Drink refill, I’ll take.” Nothing numbed out life’s pesky questions like liquor.
Behind him, the door opened, female voices drifting out onto the air; then it closed again, shutting everyone inside. Asher stroked Tank’s head and then his chin, wishing every relationship was as easy as the one he had with his acquired furball. But it wasn’t. Hookups and breakups had happened to him more times than he could count. Women wanted him, wanted what he could do for them, and because he had a certain set of skills onstage, often were the ones seeking him out. Women came easy.
Except for one woman in particular. The one woman he wanted.
Asher hadn’t lied to Evan the day he stood in Library Park and admitted Gloria intimidated him. She was hot as hell, and she was smart. Really smart. After he got a closer look at Gloria Shields, he wondered if maybe, in spite of his vast experience, he’d only been exposed to one kind of girl.
The kind of girl who wanted him for a night or for an hour and then never thought of him again. The kind of girl…like Jordan. Or the kind of girl like the one who slept with Broderick and abandoned her dog, for God’s sake. Who did that? Tank snored lightly, already zonked out. Of course Asher had kept him. Dude had been abandoned once already.
Asher put his empty beer bottle on the deck by his chair, then pulled that same hand down his face in frustration. Jordan was one of those situations he’d replayed and replayed and replayed in his head, as if he could replay it enough to change the outcome. But he couldn’t. She happened and they happened and then Hawk happened. When he’d learned about Hawk, something strange occurred. For the first time in history, he didn’t want to change what happened with Jordan. He didn’t want to alter a single thing because a tear in space and time would mean he’d lose Hawk.
That realization had sent him for a fucking loop.
He’d sat in Pate Mansion and confided in the unofficial fourth musketeer, Connor McClain. Asher and Connor were far from best buds, but Connor was a respectable family guy and Ash trusted him. So, New Year’s Eve, while Gloria was spitting bullets at him from across the room, he told Connor what he’d learned: Asher was going to be a dad.
Then he’d vowed to get Gloria back, no matter what.
Now that Evan had gone all Man on the Mountain on him, Asher was considering what he pointed out. If he wanted to surround himself with all the things he wanted, wasn’t Gloria one of those things?
Of course she was.
Soft footsteps sounded behind him and a second later, a square glass of whiskey appeared in front of his face. The hand was a woman’s, and if not for the sparkling wedding band on her left ring finger, he may have thought for a second Gloria had brought him the drink.
No such luck.
“Thanks, Charlie.” He accepted the glass and she took Evan’s Adirondack chair, propping her feet onto the railing like he had, only in her case, she held her skirt to her legs. “Feel free to flash me. You know I don’t mind.”
Blond and beautiful, Charlie grinned. There was a palpable happiness to her lately and Asher loved seeing it. She was a great mom, and from the smile on Evan’s face, Asher knew she was a great wife as well.
“How is the house coming along?” she asked. She and Evan had stopped by to see it the day he moved in, which was close to a month ago now.
“Good. Tank’s right at home.”
She reached over to pet the dog. The pooch got more play than anyone. “Have you seen Hawk much?”
“Not a lot. A few drive-by visits.” He looked down at the dock and lake beyond. He missed his boy. Wanted to be way more present than Jordan and her mother were allowing.
“Well, I can’t wait to meet him,” she said. She meant it. He could see it in her genuine smile.
“Wish Sarge would have said that,” he blurted.
Shit. Whiskey made him honest. Too honest.
“Well, she’s not the kind to wear her heart on her sleeve,” Charlie said with a small laugh. “I can relate.”
“Ace, you’re cellophane.” He sipped his drink. “Your heart is in full view.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t allow myself to want good things for a very long time.” Her smile turned sad but recovered almost instantly. “Gloria is a tough cookie. But she’s your cookie.”
He sipped his whiskey again and didn’t answer. Charlie poked his arm and he looked over at her.
“It’s your job to get her to crumble.”