Chapter 20
Ashton
The next day I’m back in Sophie’s room, like I’ve been pulled there by an invisible rope.
Sophie doesn’t ask where I was, and I don’t give an excuse. Because I have no excuse. After I got my coffee, I stayed in Battle Harbour with my sister, helping out at Hera’s for the night.
Also, drinking too much and fending off bad pick-up lines and ignoring blatant glances from women of every shape and size. And age.
I wasn’t in the mood for company last night.
I’m not sure I’m in the mood for it today, but I wanted to see Sophie.
It bothers me how much I want to see her.
I braved the cold in the morning and head to Coffee for the Sole to get us coffee and drove back to the castle.
Silas lent me his car, because Fenella still refuses to.
Spencer and the others have seemed to have gotten past my part in Sophie’s accident, but my sister won’t. And will not, if I know Fenella.
That was the first and last time I will drive that Charger, and I’m fine with that.
“Reading again?” I ask as I settle on the couch beside her. I notice the canvas beside the window with the painted waves and moonlight, looking too real for an art project.
I don’t say anything about it. Not yet.
Sophie lifts her ereader, but I only see words, no cover. I raise an eyebrow, hoping for more information. “The Stand,” she supplies.
“The Stephen King Stand? The one like the beginning of Covid?” She nods. When I wondered what books Sophie would like, I wandered through the romance section. The Reese and Jenna and Oprah picks.
I would have picked wrong for her. Like I am a very wrong pick for her. “Huh.”
“It came out years before Covid,” Sophie says. “I think it’s spooky that he came up with the idea before Covid was even a thing.”
“Yeah, but Stephen King is spooky. I mean—It? Killer clown. Dude’s got issues.”
“It’s one of my favourites.”
I would have never thought Sophie was into killer clowns. “You like reading about things that grab you under the bed? Did not see that coming.”
She laughs, and I can feel the sounds smoothing out another of my sharp edges. “I don’t think there’s anything that grabs you under the bed in this book. Definitely his other ones, though.”
“You read all the other ones?” I ask, interested despite myself.
“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing?”
I shrug. “I’m not one for the written word.”
“You wouldn’t like my book club, then.”
“You have a book club?”
Sophie looks… not exactly uneasy, but definitely not comfortable talking about a book club.
Because—yeah. She’s a twenty-five-year-old single woman. Who likes to sit around and read books with other people, who are probably twice her age with no other social life other than the kind that revolves around books.
“We meet once a month,” she says. “There’s six of us, and I’ve asked the king if they can come here, because…” She points to her foot.
“When is this club of books meeting?”
She shifts her gaze away from mine. “Tomorrow night.”
“Were you planning on inviting me?”
She chokes on a laugh. “I was not.”
“Why? Don’t think I’d have fun?”
“I’m not one for the written word,” she echoes my earlier statement. “So, no. I didn’t think it would be something you’d be interested in. You’re… you, and the book club people are…” Sophie trails off, looking very uncomfortable.
Which is why I keep at it. “You don’t think they’d like me?”
“I think they’d like you fine. They’re very nice.”
“And I’m not.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t nice.” She laughs awkwardly.
“But that’s what you were thinking.”
“How can you tell what I’m thinking?”
I speak without thinking. “You scrunch up your nose when you think you’re going to say something to offend the person,” I say. “You bite your lip when you try not to laugh. Your eyes shine when you do laugh. It’s…”
I trail off. Pretty, I was going to say, but maybe that’s too much.
From the amazement on Sophie’s face, it is too much. “I can tell what you’re thinking,” I finish. Because they way the amazement fades to a softness suggests she’s… thinking… things. Feeling things.
“I didn’t know that,” she whispers.
“What book are you reading this month?” I need to stop Sophie looking at me the way she is. Because it’s making me feel things... things I’m not used to. “The Stand?”
“This month, we’re reading a romance,” she admits.
“So you do read romance,” I crow.
“Of course I do. But you…” She looks uncomfortable, and maybe if I were a nicer person, I’d let her off the hook.
But I’m a selfish person, and I want to find out more about this. “What’s the book called?” I demand.
“Great Big Beautiful Life. By Emily Henry. It’s—”
“I saw it at the bookstore,” I say proudly. The orange cover drew me in, and I thought she’d like it. There’s a swell of pride that I was right.
“If you’re here, you can stop by,” she concedes. “But honestly, I can’t see it being your thing.”
She’s right; it’s so not my thing. But it is Sophie’s.
Sophie, who belongs to a book club. “Maybe,” I concede, like the whole thing was her idea. “Maybe I’ll stop by.”
She blinks, and I know she’s confused about the whole thing. But so am I, and I don’t know how to unconfuse things.
“What do you do in your spare time, if you don’t read?” Sophie asks as politely as if we’re discussing the weather. Good. Moving on.
But it’s not the easy question she meant it to be. Because what do I do? I don’t think of myself as overly busy, but I don’t have a lot of time where I can sit and read like Sophie is doing. Not that I would.
But now I know she’s not only doing it because she’s got a broken foot.
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever dated a woman who liked to read. At least not one who told me she did.
“I watch YouTube,” I manage to come up with. “I look at TikTok. I do read—about racing. I watch movies. I—” I take a deep breath. “Shop.”
“You like to shop?” I don’t think it’s possible for Sophie to sound more surprised. It makes my mouth quirk up.
“That was me with Abigail,” I say, but Sophie looks confused. “Did you not watch my season of The Suitorette?”
“I watched how you tried to make Abigail fall in love with you,” she says carefully.
I pause because the way Sophie says that… “It didn’t work,” I finish. There no need for a long dive into why I never admitted my feelings for Abigail. “Obviously.”
Guess that’s why she sent me home.
“No.” Sophie’s face is a blank slate, and I can’t tell if she’s pleased by the result. Or laughing at me.
“The shopping date was my idea,” I admit proudly. “So, yes, proof I like to shop. Even though it would have been the best date for Abigail, we wouldn’t have made it anyway.” Not that it was ever an option. In no reality would me and Abigail have been a couple.
Sophie cocks her head, book now forgotten. “You don’t think so?”
“I know so.” I wave a hand down the length of me. “This is a lot for some ladies to take on.”
“But you stayed on after Lyra left?” she reminds me. I only shrug because I still haven’t figured out why I did that, other than the bet Milo made with me. He said he’d get me a racing job, and that never happened.
I must have been bored to stick around as long as I did.
“What do you think the problem was?” Sophie wants to know, sounding like the therapist my mother insisted I talk to when I was twelve.
“I never said there was a problem,” I shoot back. “Who said anything about a problem?”
“You said on the show that you haven’t had a meaningful relationship.”
“I did not say that the problem was me. Why is that even a problem? Maybe I don’t want a relationship.”
I tried the relationship route before and that didn’t work out for me. So why would I bother to try again?
“Why not? Why wouldn’t you want to be happy with someone? Having someone care about you and support you… Being in love isn’t a bad thing.”
I just asked her about her book, and now we’re talking about love?
“Yeah? Is it a bad thing how you feel about the Martin guy?”
Sophie’s cheeks flush, and I immediately want to pull back the words. “That’s not love,” she says in too quiet a voice.
“How can you be so sure?” I press. “Have you ever been in love?”
She drops her gaze. The shake of her head is so quick that I wouldn’t have caught it if I hadn’t been staring at her. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe love isn’t all it’s cut out for.”
Sophie raises her eyes and looks at me, like I’m strapped to an operating table and she’s looking where to make the first cut. “I don’t think you believe that.” My voice is suddenly gruff.
Right now, I don’t know what I believe.
All I know is that after I split with Mera, I couldn’t get past the certainty that every girl I was interested in was going to find someone better. I stopped trying. I stopped caring because you don’t get hurt that way.
Mera was the last woman I cared about and the last one who ever hurt me. “Yeah.”
Her face falls. Does she actually think I’m going to convince her to give love a chance with some nobody who lacks the intelligence to realize when the best thing for him has lain herself out in front of him like the buffet at the Mandarin?
“Yeah,” she echoes.
What am I doing? I’m supposed to be making sure Sophie falls for me, and here I am badmouthing the idea of love?
“I never met the right girl.” Lame. It’s a lame excuse, but at least it’s something.
“You sound like an old-fashioned bachelor.” Sophie laughs.
“That’s what I am, then.”
“Did you want to be the next Suitor?”
“Absolutely not.” I give a shiver. “No, my father would’ve killed me.”
“Do you need his approval?”
I think about that for a minute. And then a longer one. And then I shake it off.
“What’s happening in your book?” I ask instead of answering her.
“Do you know anything about the Stand?”
“I think I saw the movie.”
“It was a miniseries, and it was long.”
“Tell me what’s going on. You can read a little if you want.” I stretch on the couch, feeling like a cat sitting in a warm patch of sun. I pull in my legs, close to her thigh, but not close enough to touch her.
If she reached out, she could touch my foot. She could put her hand on my foot, maybe touch a toe.
I have an urge for Sophie to touch me.
She doesn’t.
She does start to read aloud, and for a few moments there, I’m taken with her sweet voice telling the story of Gary and Stu and Franny and Mother Abigail. I’m intrigued. I might want to know more.
But unfortunately, before I find out more, the late night mixed with the heat from the fire works its magic, and I drift off while listening to her voice.