by Lexi Whitlow
I grin at her in response and light a cigarette, taking a long drag. Her expression stays the same. Cullen once told me that Bianca had cut his arm down to the bone with a broken whiskey bottle—and I’d imagine B might have looked exactly how Summer does right now, right down to the pale golden freckles sprayed over her cheeks.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” she shouts.
“No. This is my job.”
She slowly raises a middle finger, her gaze locked on mine.
“Fuck off. Go back where you came from, Jonathan Ash.”
Summer walks back inside and I sigh heavily, my breath making clouds of white mist in the air. Even though it’s technically spring, New York hasn’t gotten the message yet. The wind is still cold, the sun setting early. I find myself wishing I could watch Summer from inside the bar, but I’d probably get kicked right out on my ass by two freckled, Irish women. And I’m not quite ready to use firearms inside the premises.
I look back at the bar, hoping for another glance at Summer working the tables. But the few customers Bianca still gets will be here soon, and Summer’s about to start working the bar. When I squint, though, I see a glint of something in the fading evening light. It’s a bottle, and it wasn’t there before Summer came outside.
Against my better judgment, I sprint across the street and pick it up.
Jack Daniels, with four or five shots left inside.
I look inside to see Summer, breasts bouncing as she wipes down the bar. She looks up for a second and nods at me, very slightly, then points back to my bench with a frown.
I take a swig of whiskey as I walk back across the street.
This one, she might be conflicted. But she likes a little bit of danger.
There are ten texts on my phone right now, all from women less complicated than Summer Colington. But something about this woman, both devilish and pure, makes something inside of my chest clench tight.
No matter what debt my family owes to Cullen, no matter how bound together we are, I know now I won’t do anything to hurt her.
The realization is primal, like an instinct, something deeper than my ties to Cullen or anyone in the Family.
Present Day
“Coffee? Beer?” The waitress leans across the bar and places menus in front of us. “Got fried green tomatoes on special. And a peach cobbler for dessert.”
“Thanks,” Summer says. “I’ll take a coffee. And fried green tomatoes, I guess.”
“A coffee for me too. And grits for the girl. Fish and grits? Even though that’s totally disgusting—”
“Shut up, Ash, you’re lucky I came with you at all.” The waitress laughs and saunters off like we’re a normal couple just being playful with each other. Summer puts her head in her hands and leans against the wall, angling her body away from mine. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her face somehow more angular than it was when I knew her before. She was still delicate back then, but her cheeks were fuller, her eyes more full of spark. I can’t believe I’m the thing she blames for all this growing up she’s done, but it would seem that’s the story she’s sticking to.
“Don’t go celebrating too much, Sunshine.”
“The only thing I’m celebrating right now is food and coffee. I’m not celebrating the fact that you’ve been in town waiting for me to come back for three years.”
I nod at the waitress when she sets down our coffees and a plate of fried green tomatoes. I knew the only way I’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting this woman to come with me was to involve food in the equation. If she’s anything like the girl I met back in New York, she probably still uses salty food and a hot, ultra-caffeinated coffee to calm her down when she’s nervous. And by the way she’s acting, I’ve made her as nervous as shit. I should feel guilty. But there’s something in me that takes a perverse pleasure in watching her sullenly shovel fried green tomatoes in her mouth while she cuts her eyes at me again and again. Her blush is getting deeper and deeper, the red blossoming across her cheeks like it always did when I got close to her. She was so closed off in so many ways, but when it came to me, she became an open book.
At least, I thought so.
“Who said I was waiting for you?” I ask her.
She takes a sip of her coffee and groans. “That’s what you said before.” She takes a few more angry bites of tomato.
“I said I knew you’d be back. That’s different. I got myself a job at Frank’s Gym, and then I opened my own. That didn’t quite work, but I’m moving towards fixing that now. I wasn’t waiting, not necessarily.” I was waiting at first, but after a year, I wasn’t anymore. It’s not like I saw other women. I was seeing fighters, and recovery, and a new way to make money that didn’t involve slicing people’s fingers off at the second knuckle.
“It sounds like you’ve moved on, Ash. Doesn’t it?” Summer pushes her plate of fried green tomatoes away, empty now except for a pile of the remoulade sauce. She looks around, like she’s searching for an escape, or like she wants to call the waitress over to ask for the damn check. But just in the nick of time, the waitress brings more food, and she tucks into her grits, still leaning away from me.
I haven’t moved on. Not by a mile.
I don’t say anything. Sitting here, like this, it doesn’t feel like there’s a solution, at least not a simple one. I wanted to go to the hospital today and tell her I loved her then, that I didn’t want to leave her, it wasn’t my choice. The words are on the tip of my tongue.
Summer turns to look at me. “Ash, do you know what I went through?”
I sigh heavily and run my fingers through my hair. “I—”
“No you don’t. You don’t have a damn clue. I cried every night for the first month I was in Syria. You don’t even know what happened to me there—Jesus.” She looks down. “I felt stupid. I felt angry at myself and at you for letting me believe you cared about me. You didn’t. Not even enough to say goodbye. Not enough to sign the divorce papers.” She toys with her grits and polishes off the rest of her coffee, looking angry and red. “Not enough to do anything.”
“That’s not why I didn’t sign—”
“I’m not asking you why anything.” Her accent seemed so flat to me back in New York, but on her home turf, her twang turns up to a fever pitch. “I’m telling you how it felt. I know there was a reason. There had to be.”
“There was, Summer. I couldn’t—”
She looks straight at me. “I don’t want an explanation. I’m not letting you suck me back into the past. I came with you to show you I can be a reasonable adult and get you to sign the papers.”
“The papers—”
“Divorce papers. We need to get this shit over with.”
“I know damn well which papers. I was going to say that the papers aren’t what I want.”
Her face goes pale, and she turns to me slowly. “You can’t—you can’t mean that—”
“I mean it. I’m not signing any fucking divorce papers, Sunshine.” I swill my coffee, and then I lean in and wink at her.
She goes pink with embarrassment and anger. “You have to—” Her voice nearly breaks, and I reach to take her hand in mine. She pulls it away. “My job. My life here. Ash—you can’t be serious.”
“A divorce has to be agreed on by both parties, from what I understand, Summer. That’s why it didn’t go through in the first place. You were abroad. We owe this relationship a chance—”
“We owe it exactly zero chances,” she sighs. I might be imagining it, but there’s a hint of uncertainty in her voice, and she’s getting more and more flustered.
“At the end of the day, I’ll do what you want, Sunshine.”
“I want a divorce.” She hisses that last word, teeth clenched, all eyes in the bar turning to us. Several of the pink-shirted frat boys by the door go silent, just watching us.
“Summer—”
“Waitress?” Summer leans forward and signals for the woman behind the bar. The place is star
ting to get crowded with tourists, their voices drowning everything out so that I can’t think. “I’ll take the check. And the rest of the grits to go.” The waitress looks at the two of us and then turns away with a shrug. “This is settled, Ash.”
A well of rage bubbles up from deep in my gut. “Summer, you think shit’s settled? It’s not.”
The waitress returns and Summer takes the to-go box. She mutters a quick thank you, then throws ten dollars down on the bar.
“Shit’s settled,” she says, turning to me. A flash of that girl I used to know looks back at me. “You were a bad decision then, Ash. And I’m not making the same fucking bad decision all over again.”
She pushes through the three frat boys, and walks right out of the door.
CHAPTER SIX
Three Years, Five Months Ago
The anxiety is getting to me. For the past two nights, the redheaded man with the tattoo—Jonathan Ash—hasn’t been watching my aunt’s pub. Instead, it was the short one with the watery eyes. Ominously, strangely, there was no one there when I left tonight, on my way to the neighborhood bar. The one where I met the redheaded man.
I showed up with two friends from medical school thirty minutes ago, but now the place is crowded, and it’s hard to make out who anyone is. I look around expectantly, and a surge of hope rushes through my core as I scan the room.
He’s an asshole. Not your next romantic expedition. He’d just as soon slice up the side of your face. No reason to believe he’ll be here anyway.
My heart quickens when I think of him, and tension coils tight inside me. I take a sip of my drink and slump against the bar. No use wishing a man were here when he’s not. Alcohol starts to flood through my body, and soon I’m ordering another drink and chatting with my friends until they leave to dance again. With the relaxation sweeping through me, the worries of the past few weeks starts to fade. Images of the hardbodied mafia man pass through my mind, fleeting as clouds.
Just as I reach that point of tipsiness that erases every care I have, a calloused hand touches my arm, and I look up to see a steely blue gaze, eyes sparking with intensity.
“You following me, Sunshine?”
“Fuck—no—I just come here sometimes to—unwind—” I start, and some of my Long Island Ice Tea spills on my dress. The red-haired man—undeniably the same one who’s been watching me and my aunt for a month now—lifts one side of his mouth into a grin.
“Seems like you’re following me. Because I come here to unwind sometimes too.”
“After a long day of watching people?” Nervously, I pull a lock of hair behind my ear and look around frantically for my friends. When I’m near this man, lust starts to course through my body, and it feels like my body is beyond my control. As soon as I see him, I want him again. But what he does—I don’t even know the full extent of it. His job is hurting and scaring people—or at least I think that’s what it is.
My friends know nothing about the life I’m living in the apartment above my aunt’s bar—and nothing about this man.
I suppress a shiver and hope to God he doesn’t notice how I feel around him. I try my best to sound full of rage whenever I speak to him, but it’s hard when a man looks like that.
“When I’m watching something as fucking sexy as you every night, yeah.”
A pink blush finds its way to my cheeks. The alcohol doesn’t feel as cooling as it did at first—now all of the emotion is pouring back into my body, heat filling me, coursing through me in waves. Ash’s arm sneaks around my waist, and he pulls me in close like we’re old friends. A fever hits me where he touches my skin. I’m too addled to pull away.
“I need to find my friends—”
“The skinny Asian dude and the girl with the black hair?”
“You were watching me?”
“Of course I was, Sunshine. Can you blame me?”
“Well—I—you shouldn’t—where the hell did they go?” My words tumble out together. Ash orders me another drink and puts it in my hand, never letting go of my waist.
“They went outside. Probably going home. It’s almost two.” He pauses and looks down at me, eyes roaming down to my breasts. “And you should get home too. Unless you’d like to come back with me...”
Oh fuck yes, I would. Even his words make me uncomfortably hot—and wet—between my legs. I lick my lips before I know what I’m doing, thinking about taking him in my mouth—his taste, his smell. “I shouldn’t.” I breathe the words, my resolve weakening.
“You should.” He leans in and brushes my hair away from my ear, and my skin sets on fire, every cell aching, reaching out. “In fact, I know the owner. There’s an apartment right above this building. I’ve got the key.”
“For what reason?” I damn well know what reason. Probably for the women reason, but the alcohol is filling my mind and making me forget that this man is probably a whore, that there are probably a dozen other girls like me, and that he’s likely the worst decision I could make, given that he’s pretty much a sworn enemy.
He looks at me and doesn’t answer. Instead, he leads me to the back of the bar. My heart beats so hard I feel like it might leap out of my chest. Everything is surreal and in slow motion, the world at once expansive and closing in.
He takes me up the stairs. A few lazy, drunk eyes turn our way. Other than the people in the bar, there’s no one else in the world who will see us, no one who knows what choice I’m making.
When the door slams behind us and he rips down my skirt and his fingers find my aching, hot sex, I know I haven’t made the right choice.
I’ve made the only one I could make.
Present Day
I don’t drive home. Instead, I go to my mother’s inn. My apartment doesn’t feel safe. I feel like I might do something idiotic if I’m alone.
Like call Ash and demand he come back to remind me of what my body can do. A thrill rolls through me as I pull up to the inn, and panic builds inside of me, bit by bit, until I can barely contain my heartbeat. When I walk in, I’m just about the biggest mess I’ve ever been, nearly about to stumble and fall over my own emotions. Seeing Ash today brought every desire back, took me back to that day when I married him, ridiculous in the white dress I found on sale at Banana Republic.
Ridiculous because I knew it wouldn’t work, and Ash was cocksure and pushing through with the whole thing.
And ridiculous, because I thought in the back of my mind that it could be real, that it could work. And I barely knew this man.
I walk up the path, framed by azalea bushes, bursting with whites and pinks and reds at this time of year. My mother is at the door, waiting to greet me, like she somehow knew I’d need her after a day like today. When I reach the door and she takes me in her arms, I’m sure this is home.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Back again?” She ushers me inside and sits me down in the empty lobby of her bed and breakfast. It seems like it’s been empty since the day I returned, just like Bianca’s bar. My mother bustles around and brings me a plate of biscuits, and I sit back on the worn pink sofa and take some. They’re hot, with butter and fig jam, like she knew I’d be coming by.
“Yeah,” I sigh, through a mouthful of buttery warmth. It occurs to me that I left the damn grits back on the bar. A waste of money, and Ash didn’t even pay for me anyway. “I guess the apartment just feels lonely right now.”
Mom paces around, back and forth, like she’s nervous too. She stops right in front of me as I shove a bite of biscuit into my mouth. “You’re flushed, baby.” She puts her cool, dry hand against my forehead. “You got a fever? You always did get a fever on the first day of school. Always so excited to do something new—something unexpected. Seems like that might be what’s happening with the first day of your residency. I am so proud of you. I was telling Bianca—”
“No, Mama. I’m fine.” I look up at her and put my hand over hers, holding it against my cheek. The last time I saw her, she seemed ten years younger. Now there are deep worry
lines at the corners of her mouth and in between her brows.
“You don’t sound fine. It’s like you’re stirred up. I thought you’d come on over here after work. Just a feeling I had. You’ve been flitting about like a little bird ever since you’ve been back.”
“Just lots of things to sort out at work. I did a lot of sutures today, one appendectomy. Helped a couple of people with a stomach virus.”
“That’s really something, baby. I bet you’re just tired.” She pats me on my shoulder and goes to straighten the stack of papers by her register. It’s the second time she’s done it in the five minutes I’ve been here. “That boy came around here—”
“What boy?” I look up and shove some more biscuit in my mouth. I have a feeling I know very well what boy. Probably the same one I couldn’t get rid of today.
“Not a boy, I guess.” She picks up her Swiffer duster and dusts around the bookshelves behind the sofa. “A man. Real good looking, red hair. He’s come by a couple times since you left, always very respectful. First time, he acted like I should know who he was. Said his name was Jeffrey—or—something like that.” She’s dusting around behind me, so I can’t see her face. “Lots of muscles. Back in my day—I’d have—well, you get my point. He came around looking for you, yesterday evening. You know who I’m talking about.”
I sigh heavily. After years of thinking he was long gone, that I’d have to file for divorce by myself and get him declared dead or missing, he’s been here. “Jonathan. He’s an old friend, I guess.”
“An old friend? Not the reason you can’t seem to sit still since you’ve been home?”
“No, Mom, it’s not like that.” She passes by me, nodding.
“How come you think he acted like I should know him? He’s got an accent like he’s from up North, can’t quite place where...” Her voice trails off like she’s expecting more information, but it’s not coming. What am I supposed to tell her?