Chapter Six
Evelyn
Bolting upright, frozen peas in hand, I turn and comes face to face with the man who is apparently stalking my dreams and my reality. He’s standing a few feet away with a basket in his hand, his fingers clenched. He’s wearing a pair of grey sweatpants, slung low on his hips, and a black shirt pulls taut across his broad chest, and I swear I whimper at the sight of him.
How does he manage to make casual look so fucking good?
I bite my lip and wave uselessly as Asher takes me in. “Oh, hi.”
He doesn’t say anything, he just stares. He drinks me in slowly, taking in the dress and the heels and the messy, teased up hair and his eyes flash with something heated. But before I have a second to think on the impossibility of that his green gaze flashes to my knuckles, or more accurately, to the red, throbbing mess that used to be my knuckles.
In a flash of movement, he drops his basket to the ground and stalks forward, his fingers reaching for my hand, holding it tenderly as his fingers ghost over the bruises, the split.
“Who did this to you?” He growls, and the look on his face is murderous.
I swallow and my pussy throbs at the look I find in his face. “I … I mean technically I did it to myself.” I shrug my shoulders. “Apparently punching people hurts.”
Asher’s jaw tightens. “Evelyn. I want you to tell me what happened. Now.”
“Just some stupid drunk jock who pushed it too far.” I say. “I’m fine. I promise.”
He shakes his head. “No. You are the opposite of fine.” He takes the peas from my other hand and presses them against the bruises with a tenderness that makes my heart ache. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
I shake my head. “No, there’s really no need. It’s barely even a scrape, I’ll be fine once I clean and bandage them.”
“Evelyn, this—” he picks up my hand gesturing to one of my knuckles that is swollen and throbbing, “looks split. You need to have this looked at.”
“No hospital. I …” I wince. “I don’t have health insurance.”
“You haven’t set up a student plan?”
He looks confused, his face twisted in a quizzical expression as I shake my head. The thing is I’ve never had health insurance and it isn’t exactly in the budget either.
“Nope.” I say simply.
He stops for a moment and his eyes flicker, unfocused, as if they’re flipping through a book of options. After a moment, they dart back, the green settled. “I’m not letting you go home without it being seen to, but I have an alternative to a hospital.”
I stay silent, waiting.
“My brother lives close by and he’s a doctor. I’ll get him to meet us at mine to take a look at it. And before you try and say no, it’s this or the hospital because you do not want that healing wrong if its broken. Okay?”
I think on it for a moment as the muscles in my stomach coil uncomfortably tight. People rarely give help for free, no matter what they want others to think, but Asher seems genuine. Like he wants to help.
“Okay. I’ll accept.” I reach for him and squeeze the warm skin at his bicep, trying to ignore how the muscles coil, ready to strike. My pussy throbs, desperate and wet at the smallest touch of our skin, the energy zapping between us. I push it away with a smile. “Thank you.”
He nods before steering me through the store, placing me at his side as he pays for his groceries and my peas. When we’re in the parking lot, he points to a silver pick-up truck. “That’s mine. You can go hop in; I’m just going to call my brother.”
I do as he said, slipping onto the sticky leather seats and pulling the seat belt across my body, careful to avoid using my right hand too much. It’s not the car I would have pictured Asher having, though what do I know. I’ve barely known Asher long enough to _, never mind knowing what kind of car would fit him and yet, my body seems to respond to him as if it’s always known him. Like something deep and primal connects us together. Like we’re tied by a thread, fate weaving a sense of familiar comfort between us, linking us integrally together.
I shake my head, my thoughts spiralling. Don’t be ridiculous, Evelyn.
The driver’s door opens and then the car is filled with his scent, that intoxicating fresh, earthy smell like the forest after a rainstorm. It settles over me like a blanket, stirring my blood and I want to drown in it. To soak it in. To remember it for when I no longer have it.
“Are you going to help me track down the fucker who you punched?” He says into the dark car as it pulls out of the parking lot, the headlights shining over the trees on either side of us as we drive.
I shake my head. “Not a chance.”
“I’ll find them.” He says, voice low, and his fingers fist the steering wheel. “My brother said he needs to know how much you’ve had to drink, or around abouts.”
“I haven’t had anything.”
Asher glances at me before his eyes flicker back to the road. “Not a single drink?”
“Not unless diet coke counts.”
“You don’t drink?”
I shake my head. “Nope.”
“Ever?”
I laugh. “Never. Is it really that unbelievable?” I shake my head and before I know what I’m doing the words are slipping from my tongue, gone before I can scoop them back in. “Addiction runs through my veins.” I silently curse, wondering why I even said that. I never talk about my parents to anyone, but Bree. I clench my jaw. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”
Asher’s eyes dart to mine once again, the green open and honest without a flicker of pity or judgement. “You can talk to me about it if you want.”
I shrug my shoulders. “There’s not much to talk about.”
A part of me wants to open up, to tell him, to share with him, the fear I hold within me. The fear I’ve not even discussed with Bree. The fear that no matter how hard I try, the impulsive part of me, the part that whispers do it, I dare you, to things that aren’t part of my carefully crafted plan, will win. That one day, I’ll end up in the exact same place as the people who raised me. I want to tell him about it, to hand him my fear and let him keep it safe.
And that terrifies me.
“Anyway,” I say brightly pushing away all thoughts of fear and changing the topic. “I’m excited for the next class; you know the first one that isn’t filled with introductory bullshit.”
Asher smiles but there’s something in it that tells me he’s desperate to push for me. To give me the space to talk but after a second, it’s gone, smoothed out into something easy. “Yea, just wait until we’re in my office until ten pm grading papers, that’s when the fun really starts.”
He’s teasing me, but something heats at my core at the thought of all those late nights I’ll have with him, alone in his office, no one else around. I bite my lip and his eyes flicker down, something dark and heated flashing in the gold flecks before they jerk back to the road, his jaw clenching. God, he must see the desire plain on my face and its made him … angry.
I play with the edge of my dress as the silence turns stifling. Luckily, we turn into a driveway a moment later and all thoughts of awkward tension and desire drift away as laughter bubbles out of me. He glances over at me, parking up, a question on his lips.
I shake my head. “Sorry, I’m just shocked that this is where you live.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just this—” I point at the house. “Looks like something a suburb mom would buy, not a man with a passion for art and architecture.”
It’s a two-story lemon painted house with white windows and a wraparound porch to match. It just looks so … ordinary.
He frowns. “I had slim pickings.” He says, his tone defensive.
“Yea, clearly.” I giggle. “Sorry, it’s … it’s cute.”
He shakes his head. “You know, I’d call you a brat, but I had the same reaction when I saw it. It does have one redeeming factor.”
“Yea?”
“Location.” He pulls out of the car, walking to my side to help me out. “It’s isolated and the garden leads off to a meadow that no one uses. It’s like owning a forest.” He leads me inside, seating me on a worn leather couch just as a knock on the door sounds. “That’s Cameron, my brother.”
As he disappears to retrieve him, I take in the room. The outside may not look like something he would choose, but the inside does. Art hangs around the room is wooden frames carved of oak, expensive looking and built for the best protection it can afford. Every piece of furniture is woodsy and masculine and so dark that the canvasses pop against them.
Asher rounds the corner and I feel a flush hit my cheeks, like my body is unable to help itself, like it has to respond when he’s near. Behind him, is his brother. He’s got the same dark hair, the same full lips, the same slope of his nose, but my body doesn’t pull towards him the way it does with Asher’s.
“Cameron, this is Evelyn, my TA. Evelyn, this is Cameron, my brother.” Asher says, introducing us.
I smile. “Thank you for coming out so late.”
Cameron nods, his blue eyes flickering between Asher and I, something stern in the line of his lips. “Not a problem.” He bends, opening a bag beside him. “Asher says you punched someone?”
“Yes.” I nod, wincing as he takes my hand. “It’s sore but I don’t think it’s broken.”
He hums, and goes about examining me, his eyes focused on the task. I look up to Asher who’s eyes are already trained on mine. A flutter escapes and my stomach twists. I look away. Eventually, Cameron cleans my wounds and wraps my hand up in a bandage.
“It’s not broken, just bruised and bleeding, but I would get an X-ray just in case if I were you.”
“Thank you.” I say, meaning it.
He nods, and then sends Asher a pointed look which makes me shift uncomfortably. “I need to talk to you.” He looks at me, and then away. “Privately.”
I jump up and turn to Asher. “Is it okay if I use the bathroom?”
Asher nods. “It’s around the corner.”
I leave them in private to talk, locking myself in the bathroom. After doing my business, I look up into the mirror and sigh. I look like shit. My hair is mussed, the sweat and humid heat making it frizzy and unmanageable, and my makeup is smudged, the liner darkening my eyes into something like a racoon. I blow out a breath. This was not how the night was supposed to go. At all.
I quickly wash my hands and leave the bathroom, walking silently back to the living room. That’s when the whispered hum of Cameron’s voice freezes my steps. I still, staying quiet, not wanting to disturb their conversation, which is when I hear them talking about me.
“Are you fucking stupid?” Cameron hisses. “She’s your TA.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.” Asher says, his tone bored.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Asher. I know you better than anyone.”
“I don’t know what you think you know, Cameron, but I don’t give a shit. She needed help, I wasn’t going to leave the poor girl stranded in a fucking Kmart.”
The silence is deafening, and I can hear their breaths heaving in between, the sound like a conversation between them I don’t understand.
Someone sighs, Cameron I think, and then he speaks. “Don’t do anything stupid, baby brother. That’s all I’m saying. I’ll see you at Moms on Sunday.” And then he’s gone. I hear the door slam shut and Asher’s resounding whisper of breath.
I tip toe back to the bathroom, silently opening the bathroom door before shutting it, loudly. As I walk back into the room, I force a look of confusion. “Where did your brother go?” I say, pretending that I wasn’t just ease dropping on their conversation.
“He had a call.” Asher says.
“Okay.” I smile but he doesn’t return it, his eyes shuttered in a way I’ve never seen before.
“Let me take you home.” He says, grabbing his keys.
The drive back is made in silence, one that I have no idea how to navigate. It’s thick like fog and the ease with which we’ve been growing dissipates in a second. I grit my teeth against the words I want to say, the demands I want to make, because I have no right to his moods, to his thoughts and we need this distance between us.
This is good. The distance is good.
I swallow against the dryness in my throat. “Thank you. Again. It really means a lot that you helped me tonight.” I say and slip out the car.
He nods. “Goodnight, Evelyn.”
“Night, Asher.” I slam the door shut and he peels out of the parking lot a second later, his wheels squealing into the dark night, the sound like a goodbye.
The distance is good. I repeat back to myself, but the words don’t stop the sinking in my gut as I close my eyes, wrapped in my bed. It doesn’t stop the twisting fear that roots itself deep in my stomach, clawing deep.
The distance has to be good.