Chapter 2 Ash
Ash
The thing about being left on the side of the road is that it's not even the worst part of the night.
The worst part is that I saw it coming. I felt it build in the car like a change in pressure: Marcus’ jaw tightening, his answers growing shorter, the air between us thickening into something edged.
I’d been talking about the ranch, that was the mistake.
I’d mentioned his older brother, Teague, the funny one who always made me laugh before I stopped going.
It was some stupid memory too, something from last Easter when he’d tried to ride one of the yearlings bareback and ended up flat on his ass in the mud and even Ledger had laughed. Marcus’ hands squeezed the wheel so hard his knuckles went white.
“Can you fucking stop,” he said, phrasing it almost as a command rather than a question.
“Stop what?”
“Talking about them. For five minutes. Can you do that?”
I never understood why speaking about Marcus’ family got him so angry. They were wonderful and everything I never had. I barely even remember my parents after they died nearly 20 years ago and I was shipped off to grandparents who were all too happy to get rid of me at 18. “I was just saying—”
“You’re always just saying. You’re always just bringing them up. Teague this, Ledger and Cass that. Boone’s porch, Boone’s kitchen. You sound like a kid at summer camp.”
I should’ve stopped. I knew the signs by now. I should’ve said, “Sorry, you’re right,” like I always did, changed the subject, and folded myself into something smaller and less irritating. I’d gotten good at that with two years of practice.
But I didn’t stop, because I’d been thinking about the ranch all week. I’d been thinking about how the kitchen smelled in the morning when someone already made coffee. The rattle of the screen door. The way—
I’d been thinking about Boone’s hand on the back of my neck.
I always thought about that. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, the weight of his palm, the way his fingers curled just slightly, the way I leaned into it before my brain caught up to what my body was doing. That was Easter, eight months ago. I haven’t been back since.
“You want out?” Marcus said. Still not a question.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You want to walk, walk.”
“Marcus, come on—”
The car decelerated, not quite stopping, just enough to show that even this small mercy wasn’t worth the effort of a full brake.
I looked at the road, at the dark shoulder and the dead grass, at the closed gas station a quarter mile back with its busted sign dark against the sky.
I did the math the way I always do: fight and make it worse, or get out and make it easier. On him. Always easier on him.
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine.”
I stepped out and closed the door softly, because slamming would give him a reason to call me dramatic. I can’t be dramatic, or difficult, or give him any excuse—
The car pulled away before I’d completely shut the door.
Taillights shrank down Meridian, then the turn signal blinked, then nothing.
Gone. Off to Halston’s party, where nobody would annoy him, where nobody would talk about his father’s ranch like it was the only place they’d ever felt like a person.
I check my phone and grimace. He kicked me out of the car around eight, which was almost six hours ago.
Now, I’m sitting on the concrete base of the dead gas station’s sign, which still reads RON’S FUEL I can feel my pulse racing in my fingertips. Four rings… five.
I can’t answer, because Ranch means Boone’s voice, and Boone’s voice means everything I buried.
The reason I stopped showing up at family dinners.
The memory of him looking at me over the kitchen counter that Easter night.
That was no casual fatherly glance toward his son’s boyfriend, but something more focused, like he’d been forcing himself not to see me and suddenly stopped trying.
I can’t handle his voice right now. I’d crack. I’d say something I couldn’t take back.
Voicemail.
I drop the phone onto the concrete beside me, trying to weigh my options.
I don’t think Marcus is coming back. Curious, I pull up my social page, scrolling through to see if I can find where my boyfriend is now and immediately groan at the first picture.
There’s a group of several men in a selfie, all of them behind the bars at the county jail save the one outside taking the picture.
They look ridiculously happy for being locked up.
The problem is that just off to the right is Marcus. Asshole.
My phone lights up again. Same number. Ranch.
My chest compresses with a pain I can't name, squeezing air from my lungs in a slow vise. Boone never calls more than once, let alone really at all. I’ve had more calls from Teague and Cass, checking in, asking me to come hang. Little things I never took them up on because I didn’t trust myself.
However, now, I’m wondering if this has to do with Marcus. Or maybe one of his brothers are hurt. Maybe Boone is hurt? My fingers hover over the screen while my pulse hammers against my wrist. I answer on the third ring.
"Hello?" The word scrapes out of my throat. I swallow the thickness of tears and try to sound normal.
"It's me."
His voice flows through the phone, the same voice that used to rumble across the dinner table, across kitchen counters, and across thresholds at night.
My eyes blur with sudden tears and I tilt my head back, blinking at the vast darkness above me.
Heat spreads through my chest despite the midnight chill seeping through my jeans from the concrete.
I haven't felt warmth like this in six hours. In months, if truth matters anymore.
"Boone." I inhale slowly, willing steadiness into my lungs. "Is everything okay? Are the guys okay? Is Marcus—"
"Where are you?"
"What?"
"Where are you right now, Ash."
His question confuses me. There’s no mention that Marcus got arrested. Just this question, as though he already sees me sitting here alone and waits only for my confirmation. The sound of tires against gravel have me sitting up a little straighter. Maybe Marcus asked his father to come get me.
"I'm fine. I'm just out walking." I press my palm against the cold concrete. "Did Marcus call you?"
"He called me."
"Okay, so I'm sure he's freaking out about the party thing. It's really not a big deal, they'll probably let him out in the morning. You don't have to worry about—"
"I'm not calling about Marcus."
My lips press together as silence fills the space between us.
I hear thunder rolling closer, its rumble vibrating through the concrete beneath me, climbing my tailbone and settling in my spine. A small sound escapes my lips before I can swallow it, the mixture of fear and panic building in my chest. Anywhere but outside would be preferable by now.
“Ash. Tell me where you are.”
“I’m walking home. It’s not that far.” My voice wobbles anyway, so I cough to cover it. “It’s only like another mile. Maybe two. I’m fine.” Lies. I have no idea how far I am from my apartment and worse, I don’t even really know where I am.
“You’re not walking.”
I swallow. “What?”
“I can’t hear your feet. I can’t hear gravel. You’re sitting somewhere.”
I open my mouth but no words come, because he’s right. I hate how easily this man sees me when my own boyfriend can’t figure that shit out. “I’m at the old gas station,” I say. “Ron’s. Off Meridian.”
“Stay there. I’m coming to get you.”
“Boone, you don’t have to do that. It’s the middle of the night and I can just—”
“How long have you been out there?”
I hesitate. “Ash.”
“A while.”
“How long is a while?”
“…Six hours. Around six hours.”
A low growl permeates through the ear piece as the sound of his car making a sharp turn hits my ears. It speeds up, my heart kicking up in my chest at the hope that I’m finally not going to be sitting out here any longer. And yet, I still don’t want to be a burden.
“Boone, seriously. I’m okay. I’ll walk home. It’s not—”
“My son left you on the side of the fucking road for six hours.” His voice goes flat, letting the weight of those words settle between us. “That bastard told me three.”
Marcus can’t count. That’s all that is. I force a smile onto my face. “It’s okay. He called you to come get me, so it’s okay.”
A hard laugh hits my ears before it stops abruptly.
“Ash, god, you’re too fucking good for that boy.
He called me for a fucking lawyer. His first priority was his freedom and his reputation, not you.
If I hadn’t asked… fuck.” He cuts himself off and then starts on a different path.
“We don’t need to talk about it right now.
But you’re not walking two miles in the dark because he decided you weren’t worth the extra five minutes. Ash, you still there?”
I press my hand over my mouth but the sound gets out anyway, a wet, choked thing that betrays everything I've been holding in since the car pulled away.
I bite down on the heel of my palm and breathe through my nose and my eyes are streaming and I can taste salt and I hate this, I hate this, I hate that I'm crying to his father on the phone at midnight like a child who can't take care of himself—
“I’m here,” I whisper, my voice barely there.
“Good, I’m fifteen minutes out.”
“He’ll be mad.” I say it quietly. “If he finds out you came and got me, he’ll—”
“He doesn’t get to be mad.”
“He’s your son.”
“And he had his chance.” Another sharp turn and screech of wheels. “He’s had every chance I could give him, and he wasted every single one. I’m done watching that.”
My breathing shatters, my shoulders shaking as the sobs of being left out here alone finally catch up to me. He hears every broken sob through the phone but he hasn’t hung up. He hasn’t told me to calm down. He hasn’t called me dramatic.
“Ten minutes,” he says. “Don’t move.”
“Okay.”
“Ash.”
“Yeah?” I choke out the word.
“I should’ve called a long time ago.”
I don’t know what to say to that so I stay quiet. Any response I could give would blow wide open feelings I’ve refused to face. I gave up the family dinners, the ranch, the guys, Boone… I’d given all that up to prove my loyalty to a man who, tonight, kicked me out of his car for being annoying.