The temperature in the room dropped about ten degrees, but no one argued the point.
“Okay, maybe," Lizzie finally said. “But we’re also family. A family that’s been apart way too long.”
The moment felt heavy with all the unsaid shit, the secrets between them. Ash and Deeds, well… it’s not like they tied everything up with a neat fucking bow. Far from it.
And Lizzie? He’d been dodging her questions for years, barely managing to keep in touch and keep things light.
Ten years was a long-ass time to hold it all in. Ash should know.
Pam reached for her glass, avoiding his gaze. In a softer tone, she said, “We grew up, is all. Made different choices. It happens.”
She was letting him off the hook, big time. She and Liz were the ones who’d grown up. All he’d done was fuck up. Again and again and again. Hell, he was probably fucking something up right now without even realizing it.
But he didn’t come here to fuck up their vacation or interfere with Deeds’ school work. And he certainly wasn’t here to get all Dr. Phil—not with either of them. Far as he was concerned, the past was the past. He fucked up. Badly. But it was done.
Best he could do now was help his father get the house ready, keep it cool with Deeds and his sister, and see where the chips fell after that.
“Here’s to fresh starts, then.” Ever the optimist, Lizzie held up her glass, motioning for Ash and Pam to do the same. Just before they clinked, she said, “And hot lifeguards. Can’t forget them.”
“Here, here,” Pam said.
Ash nearly spit out his wine. “You know that bullshit plan of yours is not happening, right? Not as long as we’re sleeping under the same roof.”
His sister shrugged. “You can always sleep outside.”
“Good. Better to guard the perimeter that way,” he said. “Hamstring any douche bag who gets close.”
“Seriously, Ash?” Lizzie rolled her eyes. “When was the last time you actually got laid? Because in my experience—”
“I don’t want to hear another word about your experience,” he said, holding up his hand. “Far as I’m concerned, you have no experience. You’re saving yourself for marriage.”
“Oooh.” Lizzie smiled behind her wineglass. “That ship has sailed, my friend.”
Christ.
“Sailed the seven seas,” Pam said, laughing.
“Okay,” Ash said. “Point taken.”
“And docked,” Lizzie said. “And sailed again. With a whole new captain and crew.”
“I got it,” he said.
“Lots of captains,” Pam said. “Hot, strong, sexy—”
“Seriously?” Ash pitched his spoon into the bowl. “You two painted the picture. In vivid fucking color. New topic—that’s an order.”
Lizzie practically spit out her wine, she was laughing so hard. “An order, dickface? Fine. Here’s a new topic: why doesn’t my brother have a woman? It’s a mystery, ladies and gents. He’s such a charmer.”
They all cracked up at that, and for a minute it was like old times, the three of them staying up all night in the kitchen playing quarters, shooting the shit, laughing at everything and nothing while their parents snored away in the back bedroom.
“Speaking of your summer of abstinence, where do you want to sleep?” Lizzie asked. ”Bedrooms are booked up.”
“I'll take the den. Used to it.” Most summers, with his parents in one bedroom and D-squared sharing the other, Ash had either crashed on the sofa bed in the den or camped out in a tent on the beach.
Ah, the little blue tent. Some real good memories there. The kind that made his dick stir.
Ash stole a glance at Pam, wondering if she could sense the direction of his thoughts.
It was their last summer here—the summer things had started up with Pam.
They'd all been hanging out at a bonfire on the beach. Lizzie and their parents had turned in for the night, but Pam was wide awake. She and Ash sat by the fire talking until it was nothing but embers in the sand, silence finally drifting between them like a magic spell out of some damn fairytale.
He still remembered the look in her eyes when he kissed her—shocked at first, then relieved, then completely desirous. One thing led to another, and soon they were in the tent, peeling off each other's clothes, their skin hot, mouths hungry, both of them desperate and wild for the thing that had been building between them for years.
Course, that was also the summer they’d had to cut the trip short—Mom got sick. They learned later that she’d been sick for years, keeping it all under wraps, but to Ash and Liz it came on like a hurricane, sudden and severe and utterly devastating. But that didn't change how he’d felt about Pam, and because of her, that summer held some of the best damn memories of his life.
“Ash? You okay?” Lizzie’s voice cut through the silence, and Ash blinked, realizing the girls had been waiting for him to say something.
“Sorry,” he said. “totally spaced.”
“Well get un-spaced.” Lizzie rose from her chair and grabbed a fresh bottle of wine from the fridge. “Somewhere there’s a bubble bath with my name on it. You and Pam are on dish duty.”
“Does that dishwasher even work?" Ash asked.
“Nope.” And with a self-satisfied smirk, Lizzie was off, leaving Ash alone with the only woman he'd ever really given a fuck about in his whole pathetic life.
Chapter Five
Pam couldn’t decide whether to kill Liz for leaving her alone with Ash, or kiss her. She was pretty sure those warring emotions were playing out across her face like a billboard, announcing her every thought. Wishing that Ash hadn't noticed it was pointless—Ash noticed everything. And with Liz gone, there was no more buffer between them. Just raw, unfiltered Asher Burke.
Where did they even begin?
She grabbed her wineglass, took a deep gulp. Waited for Ash to break the ice. Waited some more. Took another gulp. The silence was making her itch.
“So," she finally said, looking up at him from the rim of her glass.
“So.”
“You're here.”
“Here I am.” His smile gave nothing away, but behind the mischievous glint in his eyes, Pam saw a flicker of the same nervousness she was feeling. Again she waited for him to continue the conversation, to ask her what she had been up to all these years, but he said nothing.
“So… you talked to your dad?” she asked. “Have you guys been back in touch long? How’s it going?”
Ash laughed. “Starting with the easy stuff, I see.”
As if any of our conversations could be easy now…
“Liz never said much about… I mean…” Pam stumbled, suddenly wishing a tsunami would sweep up to the house and wash them out to sea. “I… I knew you and your dad weren’t speaking for a while, but she didn’t like to talk about it. Um, after you left. Sorry.”
“Yeah, well. Dad was never the most emotionally available guy on the planet.” Ash put his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. “Not much has changed there.”
Pam nodded. Mr. Burke had always provided for his family, had always been there when they needed him, but he was a hard man who rarely showed affection. Mrs. Burke was the complete opposite—warm and loving, the kind of cookie-baking, boo-boo kissing mom everyone always wanted. Pam had never understood what had held them together, but unlike her parents, the Burkes did stay together. If they ever fought, it wasn't in front of the kids. And when Mrs. Burke died, Mr. Burke aged twenty years in a single night.
“When I talked to my sister last month,” Ash continued, “she mentioned Dad wanted to sell, but couldn't afford repairs. Been on my mind since then.” He leaned forward again and reached for his wine, avoiding her eyes. “And lately I've been thinking about it all. You. Mom. I don't know, it's the anniversary, I guess.”
“Ten years,” she said.
“Man. Sometimes still feels like yesterday. Other times—”
“Like a million years ago,�
� she finished, then immediately regretted it. She hadn't meant to interrupt him. The wine had loosened his tongue; in the last five minutes he’d said more about his parents than he had in their last week together way back when, and Pam wanted him to keep going, to carve open his chest and hand over his heart.
But the spell had been broken.
Silence fell between them again.
“Sorry,” she said softly, though she wasn’t sure what for.
“You always apologize for everything?”
“Usually. Sorry,” she said again, then laughed. God, I’m so pathetic.
“Anyway,” he said, a faint smile on his lips, “my living situation in Seattle was coming to an end, so I figured… why the hell not? Called him up, offered to trade labor for a place to crash. That's all we really discussed.”
“Just like that?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, your father always appreciated directness.”
“Yep.” He sipped his wine, then tipped the glass toward Pam. “That, and he’s a cheap bastard. Sonofabitch probably still clips coupons.”
“He never trusted the store rewards cards.”
Ash’s eyes widened in mock horror. “Rewards cards are a government conspiracy.”
Pam laughed. “He's probably right, and the rest of us are sitting here eating our rewards card food, drinking our rewards card booze, waiting for the men in white coats to show up.”
“Black suits,” Ash said. “White coats are when you lose your shit. Black suits are the government conspiracy dudes.”
“Oh. Good to know.” Feeling slightly less awkward, Pam rose from the table, picking up a few dishes and setting them next to the sink. She found the stopper, soap, and a new sponge under the cupboard, and got to work, grateful for something to do, and even more grateful to escape Ash’s gaze.
She had just gotten into a comfortable rhythm with the dishes when that low, gravelly voice interrupted her thoughts again, much too close to ignore.
“Speaking of black suits,” he said, and Pam jumped. He was standing right behind her. “Quite a little number you showed up in today. Is that your official summer uniform?”
A tiny flame flickered to life in her chest, but Pam immediately tamped it down. Jokes and innuendo had always been Ash’s go-to defense, and if she turned around now and looked in his eyes, that's all she’d see—another joke. The thought should have been a relief, but it wasn’t. It made her chest constrict.
God, her emotions were all over the place.
“Will we be seeing that again tomorrow?” Ash asked. He was even closer now, his warm breath tickling the back of her neck. She forced her eyes and hands to stay focused on the dishes, dragging the sponge across the same plate over and over just to avoid reaching for another dish and brushing against his chest, losing herself in the heat she could already feel radiating between them again.
Her only hope of survival—of keeping her heart and her panties intact—was to take a page out of Ash’s book and tease him right back.
“I can think of a few lifeguards who might be seeing it tomorrow,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Too bad you’ll be stuck in the house alone, playing with your… tools.”
“Now that's just cruel.” Ash laughed, his arm brushing hers as she stepped aside and slipped a few more plates into the soapy water. “Could you at least let me know the times you’ll be coming and going throughout the day so I can synchronize my watch and—”
“God, Ash. Lizzie was right. You are still a disgusting pervert.” She turned to smile at him over her shoulder, finally relaxing into their familiar flirty banter. Nice and easy, light, nothing serious, and everything would be just fine.
But rather than the lighthearted mischief she’d expected to find there, the look in Ash’s eyes was pure fire, a blazing hot intensity that made her whole body throb with desire.
Through a wicked smirk, he said, “Takes one to know one, Pamela.” He drew out her full name for an eternity, as if he were tasting it on his tongue for the first time. It was a challenge, a test, and Pam failed miserably.
He'd only ever called her that name during sex.
Hearing it now, she closed her eyes, feeling the heat creep up her chest, her neck, her ears. On her pale, New York skin, her blush was no doubt painfully obvious. Pam was just grateful that he couldn't feel how wet she was, her core flooding with molten desire to hear him whisper that name against her skin, over and over and over.
His hug this afternoon has been solid and familiar and warm, exactly as she’d remembered it. Now, she wondered whether he still fucked the same way, too.
She nudged the faucet on with her elbow and rinsed the plate with fierce determination, but the damage was done. Ash had read her thoughts; his ear-to-ear grin was all the confirmation she needed.
“Feeling okay there, Deeds?” He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, then to her cheek. “You look a little flushed.”
Pam leaned away from his touch to put the plate in the drying rack, then picked up the next plate, scrubbing it with the same manic determination. “I’m good. Totally good. So, how long do you think it'll take you to finish up the work?”
“Sick of me already?”
“No! I mean… I just meant… How long does that sort of thing usually take? You’re talking to a New Yorker here.” Nervous laughter bubbled out of Pam's throat, but if she stopped talking, more memories would rush in. Standing this close to Ash, alone, the wine, the ache between her thighs… that was a bad combination. Her attempts at fake-flirting had only gotten her more riled up, and without Liz here to keep them on neutral ground, babbling was the last defensive move in Pam’s arsenal. “I live in a four-hundred-square-foot shoebox where with a simple phone call broken things are magically repaired by elves while I'm at work. You were smart to avoid the East Coast. You would not believe what I pay in maintenance fees for that tiny—”
“You never told her, huh?”
The plate slipped out of Pam's hand and plopped into the water, splashing the front of her shirt. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then reached for the plate again. Scrub scrub scrub. Turn. We are not talking about this. Turn. Scrub scrub scrub.
She rinsed the plate and dropped it in the rack, then started on the next. In a quiet voice, she finally said, “Rule number one, remember?”
“It was a long time ago.” Ash turned back to the table and scooped up a few dishes, scraping leftover bits of food into the trash. “Figured the cat would be out of the bag by now.”
“That cat will never be out of the bag. That cat is married to that bag till death do they part.” Pam had thought about it a lot over the years, telling Lizzie. But deep down she knew it would destroy their friendship. It wasn't just that she’d hooked up with her best friend’s older brother—cardinal sin number one. It was that she’d been in love with him for years and had never said anything about it. That he was her first—not the random college guy she’d told Lizzie about. That they’d been having sex that whole summer, right up until the end.
That she was the last person to see Ash before he left town the night before his mother’s funeral. That she was the first one to see the note he’d left the following morning, sitting there plain as day on the breakfast table when Pam and Lizzie had crawled out of Lizzie’s bed, sleepy and heavy with grief.
At the time, the Ash secret had made her feel all the more special. Now, it just felt like a ghost from the past, a thing that no matter how invisible and old still had the power to destroy lives.
Ash stacked the dirty dishes next to the sink. “I just think you're making a bigger deal out of nothing.”
Nothing? Pam’s eyes stung at the dismissal.
“Nothing,” she said. “Exactly. Which is why there’s no point in bringing it up. You said it yourself—it was along time ago. Just because you're suddenly back from the dead doesn't change that. Leave it alone.”
Why was he bringing this up? Did he feel guilty about their
secret, too? Or did he think that confessing about their last summer together would absolve him of whatever guilt he felt about leaving? About his own secrets? Either way, Pam wasn’t risking it.
“Whatever you want, Deeds.” Ash reached into the soapy water, sliding his hand down along her arm as he felt around for the sponge. Pam was holding it tight. “I can take over.”
“It's fine. I don't mind.”
“Just let me—”
“I’ve got this.”
“Pam, I—”
“You promised, Ash.” Pam closed her fingers around the sponge, holding it firm against his relentless tugging. “We both did.”
Ash watched her for a long moment, silent for so long she was beginning to think he hadn't heard.
Under the sudsy water, his hand brushed against hers again, and their pinkies linked automatically. It was an ordinary gesture, but the gentleness of it felt so intense, so intimate. His eyes bored into her, searching her face as though he were trying to communicate something, some secret message she just couldn't decipher.
Pam’s heart hurt. They were so close once—not just lovers, but best friends. Like she and Liz, but different. She’d cherished him. Worshipped him.
And then they’d parted ways, each leaving in their own way. Ash first, taking off in the middle of the night a day before they buried his mother, hours after he and Pam had made love for the last time. Pam left a month later, bound for NYU and a whole new life.
Neither of them had ever made any promises about the future. They always knew she’d be heading to New York that fall.
She just wished Ash would’ve let her say goodbye.
“I said I wouldn't tell,” he finally said. “And I won’t. I just thought—”
“Wouldn't tell what?”
At the sound of Liz’s voice, Pam jerked her hands out of the water, splattering her shirt all over again. Ash stifled a laugh and grabbed the sponge, going to work on the glassware as if they hadn’t been talking about their most guarded secret.
“Hey! That was fast! How was the bath?” Pam's voice was an octave too high, her words too fast. She hadn’t even heard the bathroom door open, and now she gaped like a fish on a hook, utterly caught.
Bad Boy Summer (Bad Boys on Holiday Book 5) Page 3