Chapter 16 Jasmine
Chapter sixteen
Jasmine
For some reason, I don’t remember Asher’s living room being this wide.
The last time I was here I was too busy counting bruises and trying not to panic to notice…
well, any of it. Now the space opens around me like a calm breath: a walnut mid-century credenza under the TV; a framed Art Deco print of a pastel Miami lifeguard stand; a rattan accent chair draped with a coral knit throw; a jute rug with a faded indigo border that looks like it remembers salt air.
On the glass coffee table sits a shallow driftwood bowl filled with sea glass and a couple of old hotel keys stamped MIAMI BEACH.
“All of this on an officer’s salary? Damn. How much is the station paying you?” The joke falls out of me before I can stop it. I can already feel my pulse settling just from being near him. Which is ridiculous. But also—true.
“I brought most of it over from Miami,” he says, shutting the door gently behind me.
I brush my fingers over the sea glass. “You’ve got taste.”
“Most of it belonged to Rebecca,” he says.
I glance up. He doesn’t flinch when he says her name, but the room tilts a little anyway: the chrome-and-cane bar cart holding a tiny stovetop Cafecito pot and two espresso cups; a set of Cuban-tile coasters; a sun-bleached longboard leaned in the corner like a retired sentinel. Oh.
“It’s a nice set,” I manage, softer. “She had great taste.”
“What are you doing here, Jasmine?” he asks, voice even but edged. Not unkind—just braced.
“Hey, Brick,” I say instead, turning toward the floor. He’s sprawled on his stomach by the coffee table, pencil clenched in a death grip over a worksheet, eyes snapping between fractions and a cartoon on mute. He glances up at me and gives a small, shy wave. I wave back.
“It’s almost ten,” I whisper to Asher. “You let him stay up this late?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and heads for the kitchen, somehow both patient and exasperated. “Are you here to audit my parenting, or do you have something important to tell me?”
“The latter.” My voice is steady now in that fake, floaty way it gets when I’m two seconds from spinning out.
“Uh-huh.” He lifts his chin toward the hallway. “Brick, bed.”
“But they’re about to start Dog Rangers,” Brick protests without looking up.
“You’ll catch the rerun on Sunday. Teeth, then bed.”
Cue epic sigh. He thumps toward the stairs and disappears in a grumpy cloud of eleven-year-old doom.
“Kids,” I say.
“I know.” He pulls a bottle of wine from the chrome bar cart—of course he has one—sets out two stemless glasses, and nods toward the couch. “Sit.”
I sit. He pours.
“It’s Harold,” I say, and the name drags the whole awful evening back up my throat.
“What happened?” He hands me a glass and chooses the other couch—the slightly less comfortable one like he’s giving me space. I want to ask him to sit beside me. I don’t.
“I got off work, drove home. On my street I passed three parked motorcycles—same kind of blacked-out helmets from the diner thing. Odd, but I didn’t think they were about me.
I should have.” I take a gulp big enough to make my eyes water.
“My spare key wasn’t where I leave it. And before you say anything, Riley drops in a lot, so yes, I keep one under the planter.
She keeps losing the copies I give her.”
His mouth opens, then closes. Good boy.
“I go in and he’s there, Asher. In my house. Harold, plus three of his muscle. I couldn’t get to my phone without giving one of them a reason to slap it out of my hand, or my face along with it. He acted like he was…taking inventory. Of me.”
“What did he say?”
“That the offer still stands. Tripled it again, even—” I shake my head, anger buzzing under my skin.
“Then he listed people I love like bullet points. My mom. Riley. Eloise and Heather. He never said the word hurt but the way he rolled their names in his mouth…” I swallow.
“He left after five minutes. All polite. Like a gentleman who’d stopped by to borrow sugar.
I don’t think he will be polite next time. ”
Asher sets his glass down with care. “This is about the buy offer.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still not selling.”
“No.” I lift my chin. “You know what happens if he gets Scotty’s. It’s not just one deed. It’s a domino. I won’t be the first tile.”
He studies me for a long beat, hazel eyes clearer than I’ve ever seen them. Then he exhales, shoulders dropping a fraction. “I get it now.”
I blink. “What?”
“I understand what you’re trying to do,” he says, and when he says it he moves—finally—to the couch beside me.
Not touching. Close enough for his warmth to lap against my arm.
“It isn’t just nostalgia for the town. It’s quality of life.
If people like Harold and Hartley buy out streets and punch holes in the ground, the folks who can least afford it get displaced first. I… should’ve seen that sooner.”
Somewhere in my rib cage, a flock of tiny birds goes berserk. “Are we in an alternate universe?”
“Probably.” The corner of his mouth tilts. “It doesn’t mean I’m signing off on trespass and obstruction. I’m still me. But I get your why.”
Of course he has to say that. Of course he does. It still lands like a hand around my throat loosening.
We sit there inside a small bubble of quiet. I study the scar over his eyelid, how it animates when his eyes narrow. He looks at my mouth. I look at his. The bubble goes prickly.
He’s the one who pops it. “You can stay here,” he says abruptly, as if he had to say it before he lost courage. “For now. Guest room’s made up. Harold won’t try his luck in a cop’s house.”
My heart does a dumb little skid. “I—I can’t ask you to do that. I was going to crash with Riley—”
“Didn’t you text me that Riley ‘basically lives in a cardboard box’?” He arches a brow.
“Figuratively.” (Mostly.)
“You’ll be more comfortable here. Brick won’t mind.” He nods toward the hallway. “He’ll probably demand scones as rent.”
I can picture it too easily: waking up in the palm-print guest room with the old map of Biscayne Bay on the wall; the smell of coffee; Brick’s sleepy hair; Asher moving through his kitchen, all broad shoulders and quiet competence. The picture is dangerous. It is also safe.
“We’ll go to the station tomorrow,” he continues. “File for a restraining order. I know it’s a thin shield, but it’s something. If he violates it, I’ll have leverage.”
“So the plan is…hope he tries me again so you can nail him.” I grimace.
“The plan is to make sure you’re not alone when he decides to test boundaries,” he says, steady. “And to make sure there are documented boundaries to test.”
I lean back into the couch and stare around his living room. Back when I was twenty, I used to think the brave choice was always the hard one. Sometimes the brave choice is the practical one. Sometimes it is saying yes when your pride wants to say no.
“Oh, screw it.” I drop my head into my hands, then lift it again with a thin, wobbly smile. “I guess I could stay a while.”
“You sure?” His eyes light up—quick, contained—like a porch bulb clicking on at dusk.
“Yes. What’s the worst that could possibly happen?” I spread my hands.
He deadpans, “You snore. Brick teaches you every theme song to Dog Rangers. I arrest you in my own living room for stealing my cafecito pot.”
“Ha-ha.” I nudge his knee with mine. “Ground rules. If I’m living here, you are not allowed to flash your badge at me when we argue about oil rigs.”
“And you are not allowed to offer me pity discounts.” He points at me with the wineglass.
“Fine. But only because Brick is my favorite Vaughn.”
He tries not to smile; fails.
I glance toward the hallway. “Does he…mind me? I don’t want to make anything weird.”
“He likes you,” Asher says simply. “You’re loud.” He tips his head. “I mean that as a compliment.”
“It is,” I say, and somehow we’re both smiling down into our wine.
“Okay,” he says, clapping his hands once, the way he must when he has to cut through a room full of noise. “Let me show you the guest room.”
He leads me past the staircase. Family photos hang in a neat grid along the wall: Brick missing his front teeth on a pier; a sunset over a Miami skyline; Rebecca in a sundress on a boardwalk, laughing at something beyond the frame.
I don’t linger. I don’t need to. I already understand why he shipped a whole life here—why he kept the colors and textures that used to live around her.
Keeping a home is its own kind of mourning.
The guest room is fresh white with a blue quilt, palm-print pillowcases, and that old map of Biscayne Bay over the dresser. He opens the closet. “Fresh towels on the shelf. Lock on the door works. Window latches are new.”
“You had window latches installed?” I ask.
“Last week.” A muscle ticks in his jaw. “After your first run-in with Harold, I—prepared.”
The birds in my chest do another ridiculous flutter. “Thanks.”
We drift back to the living room, where the driftwood bowl glows soft under the lamp. I set my glass down. “One more ground rule.”
“Shoot.”
“If I wake up early, I’m making breakfast. No arguments.”
“You own a diner.”
“Exactly.” I grin. “You’ll survive my pancakes.”
He groans. “Please don’t say the P-word in this house. Brick will put it in the custody agreement.”
We’re both laughing when Brick reappears on the landing in pajama shorts, hair sticking up like a dandelion. “Dad?”
“Everything’s okay, bud,” Asher says, turning. “Jasmine’s going to hang out here for a while.”
Brick blinks down at us, then at me. “Can we have scones for breakfast?”
I press a hand to my heart. “My favorite Vaughn speaks truth.”
He gives a sleepy thumbs-up and vanishes again.
After the house goes quiet, the living room exhales with us. Outside, the desert night hums against the windows. Inside, the Miami lifeguard stand keeps its candy-colored vigil, the longboard leans like a calm old friend, and the driftwood bowl holds a pocket tide.
“You’ll be safe here,” Asher says.
For the first time all night, I believe it. I believe him.
“Okay,” I say softly. “Then I’ll be brave here.”