Chapter Two
The Student Center wasn’t entirely vacant. A custodian buffed the wide hallway floor. A lone student played something mournful on the piano. But even at the early hour, it didn’t bode well that Ash could hear the squeak of his shoes on the linoleum all the way to the rideshare board. Everyone had left town already.
The cork map of the state, where people needing rides or offering them pinned their contact information, had probably last been used in earnest at the turn of the century. Ash had often wondered who still thought this a relevant system in a world with social media and a feature in the university’s transportation app for this exact same purpose. But after exhausting all those options himself and coming up with nothing more concrete than a moving truck driver’s sketchy response on Craigslist—Might could swing through to grab ya, if you’re not too pansy assed to get your hands dirty—he’d prayed to find a note on this board anywhere in the vicinity of Midland, the closest major city to home.
He’d even ventured onto a dating app last night—had to update it first, it had been so long—with the aim of pivoting a potential hookup into borrowing someone’s car but realized there was no non-creepy way to word such a message. If this didn’t pan out, his last resort was the bus, like Hazel had suggested, but the eight-hour drive would balloon to thirteen, and he’d have to buy a second ticket for the one oversize, delicate gift he already had, and there were no side-by-side seats available for four days. Then he’d still need a ride for the final twenty miles west to Lockett Prairie…Et fucking cetera.
Only three cities had notes—Dallas, Houston, and El Paso. The two nearest Dallas weren’t folded up in a feeble attempt at privacy like the others. Both were asking for rides, not offering them.
El Paso was at least in the right direction, and he could probably get dropped off early—it was less than an hour straight north from I-10 to Lockett Prairie. He unpinned the pink paper. His heart leapt at the loopy writing: Have car. Need gas money to El Paso. Leaving on 12/18. Text, don’t call.
Today was the eighteenth. Finally, a break. Ash texted immediately. Then he pulled one of the extra thumbtacks from the cork map and pinned the flyer he’d made—yep, he had gone full Luddite at this point—papering over most of West Texas. He tacked another to the community bulletin board nearby. The flyer wasn’t clever or particularly eye-catching, but the board had been recently cleared, so it couldn’t be missed, assuming anyone actually walked by. In all caps, he’d written, NEED A RIDE TO LOCKETT PRAIRIE ASAP. WILL PAY $$$$$. The excessive dollar signs were an uncomfortable promise, but he’d figure that out later.
His phone rang—not a response to his text, but an incoming video call from his oldest sister. He debated not answering. But Maggie never called without texting first. And she’d planned to fly home with her family yesterday, which meant a call from her could be about their dad. Ice trickled down his spine. His thoughts went straight to the worst possible scenarios, which had been on mental speed dial since Thanksgiving.
Yet again, he kicked himself for not going home in November when his car was still running. He’d worked through Thanksgiving at his various jobs to negotiate time off at Christmas. But if he’d gone home, he would have been there for his father’s accident, could have helped, could have verified his mother’s cheery reports that it was just a freak fall and not a relapse of his MS, rather than what Ash did do—pace, google, and bite his fingernails down to the bloody quicks. If he couldn’t get to Lockett Prairie now because of his shit car, that trade-off would have been for nothing.
Ash accepted Maggie’s call, bracing himself for the surroundings of a hospital room on her end. He couldn’t make out the shifting shapes on the screen, nor the muffled scraping sound like something was sliding across her mouthpiece.
“Maggie?”
The shapes gave way to a ceiling fan. Footfalls retreated, then a little voice called, “Mama, Mama, Mama.”
His niece. And he recognized that fan. It was the one in his parents’ living room. “Maggie?” He winced as his voice echoed in the empty Student Center hallway.
Soon, his sister’s face peered at him upside down, confusion and impatience pinching her eyebrows together. She picked her phone up and her face righted, but the terse expression remained. “Why are you FaceTiming me?”
“You called me. Or Cosette did, I guess.”
Her expression softened. “She was playing with my phone. Where are you?”
He turned his shoulders to block the closed campus bookstore behind him. Even though Cosette had called by accident, he couldn’t quite shake the worry that Maggie’s name on his screen had triggered. “Everything okay there? How’s Dad?”
She frowned at his evasion. “Dad? He’s—” A smaller voice cried out from somewhere on her end, and Maggie twisted from the phone to ask someone to grab Isabel, her younger daughter, before she climbed out of her high chair. “I’m sorry, what? Are you coming in time for dinner? Cosette has been asking nonstop when Uncle Ash is going to be here.”
He smiled at her emphatic pronunciation of his name. Last summer, at his niece’s fourth birthday party, Cosette had been patently unable to form the sh sound and kept calling him Uncle Ass. To both Maggie’s and Ash’s annoyance, their three younger sisters hadn’t helped matters by laughing hysterically and then coaching her to repeat the mispronunciation. By the end of the party, even Ash’s own mother had begun to slip up.
Damn it. This sucked. He didn’t want to disappoint them, didn’t want to tell them that, barring a miracle, he wouldn’t be coming home today at all. “Dad, though?” he pressed, unable to stop himself.
“Didn’t Mom tell you his last appointment was good?”
“Mom doesn’t want anyone to worry. But since you’re there, in person…”
“I mean, he’s currently giving my toddler handfuls of chocolate chips with her breakfast,” she said, projecting her scolding voice.
“Maggie, be honest. Is he—”
“It’s chaos here.” She was on the move now, looking off camera. “Just get here soon, okay? I could use the extra hands. Nick’s work trip got extended.”
“Nick’s not with you?” Her husband was a climate journalist who traveled frequently.
“And June didn’t get her ticket until the last minute—surprise, surprise—so she’s on a red-eye in two days.”
That his middle sister had put off something so important was indeed no surprise, but it tightened his jaw another notch. He should have reminded June weeks ago, even offered to help her if money was tight, which he assumed it was. But he’d already dipped into his savings to help the twins last month, and although his savings existed for just this purpose—taking up slack—he had hoped not to dip in again so soon. Especially since other, bigger expenses were on the horizon, no matter what his mother claimed. His stupid car helped absolutely nothing.
Maggie scolded Cosette not to pull on the Christmas tree, not to touch the heater, to stop playing with Grandpa’s walker. Then, as Maggie stooped to physically remove her, Ash caught a glimpse—his first—of the walker. He swallowed thickly.
“Dinner then?” she repeated, turning back to the camera.
“Yes,” he said, with more certainty than he felt. “I’ll be there.”
Ash was securing another of his flyers to the magnetic board just inside the café entrance when Hazel jogged in, a chunky red scarf wrapped excessively around her throat and up over her nose for the five-second trek from her car. She breezed past him then doubled back, peeking over his shoulder to read the flyer. He could feel her at his back and straightened involuntarily at the near contact, wanting, absurdly, to lean back into the warmth of her, to have her hook that defiant chin of hers into the dip of his shoulder.
“Asher, no,” she said, her voice muffled by the scarf.
Ah, the name thing again. It had been a couple weeks since she’d pulled that one out. He knew she knew his name, that this was just payback for never giving her the chair, but as juvenile a tactic as it was, it worked. Her pretending not to know his name made him unconsciously flex, as if by making himself physically bigger, she’d have to see him. He hated to but gave her exactly the reaction she was looking for, correcting, “Ash.”
Unwrapping her scarf, she marched off to claim the green chair with her bag, then came back to the board. “You’re going to end up with some wacko serial killer. Like…the Merry Murderer. Or the Jingle Bell Butcher.” Her eyes danced. “Wait, no. The One-Horse Open Slayer. Get it? Sleigh-er?”
He swallowed the laugh building in his throat, not so much at what she’d said as how she’d said it, with such open delight. This unstressed, post-finals Hazel had an entirely different energy from the past several weeks—more like how she’d been in high school. Her playfulness sparked a little flame in his chest, a small flickering thing.
“You think we get a lot of murderers in here?” He dropped his voice, nodding to the knitters by the back window. “Sweet old Edna?”
“You never really know people as well as you think.”
“I think I could take her.” He gestured at his comparatively bigger frame.
One corner of her mouth twitched. “I don’t know. She’s pretty spry. She could get a knitting needle to the jugular.”
“You’ve given this some thought before now, haven’t you?”
“Anything to get you out of my chair.”
There was a long silence when Ash could have asked the obvious question. It wouldn’t be that weird to bring up her plans for the break. He made similar small talk with the other regulars. But she’d already watched him scramble for a ride last night and said nothing. As far as he knew, she never went back to Lockett Prairie. He’d never seen her on breaks, and her old friends, whom he occasionally ran into there, never knew more than he could glean from her Instagram himself.
Plus, she’d made it pretty clear their first week of college that coming from the same hometown didn’t make them friends. He could have pointed out that, with as many times as he’d driven her and Justin around so that his ex–best friend wouldn’t drink and drive, as far as rides were concerned, some might argue she owed him. But that was only an argument if she were already headed home.
When their mutual silence turned awkward, Hazel tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “So, no luck on all your posts?” just as he said, “Semester’s over. Shouldn’t you be—”
She motioned for him to go ahead.
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping off a hangover or something?”
“That’s how undergrads celebrate. In grad school, you just eat a cheeseburger in the bathtub and watch a movie on your precariously balanced laptop, hoping it doesn’t fall in and kill you.”
He huffed a laugh.
She looked half surprised, like she hadn’t expected him to reward her with his amusement, mild as it was. Holding his gaze, she walked backward to the old green chair and settled into its high back, twirling one of her dark curls around her finger. “As it happens,” she said airily, “I am here for pleasure.”
His brain went straight to unauthorized places. Hazel, in that chair, wearing that ridiculously long scarf—only the scarf— “What?”
She waved a paperback at him. “Yesterday was work. Today, pleasure. Plus, I knew you were working this morning and couldn’t take my chair.”
“You do know it’s creepy that you’ve memorized my schedule.”
“You say creepy. I say resourceful.”
“Maybe the real wacko serial killer around here is you. The Scarlet Scarf Strangler.”
She gave her scarf mock-serious consideration, and the basest parts of his brain jumped right back in.
“Coffee?” He bolted for the counter, needing the distraction of pouring her a cup.
“I want the mug with all the cats licking their butts,” she called.
And thank God for that competing image.
By noon, Ash had two leads, the sketchy moving truck driver from Craigslist who was coming through town on his way to Big Spring and a student headed to El Paso from the rideshare board, who’d texted to say she’d like to meet him first and came straight over.
When he offered his hand in greeting, she pushed back from the counter. “Wait, you’re a guy? I thought Ash was short for, like, Ashley.” Only then did he realize that in his few text messages he hadn’t made his gender explicitly clear. He didn’t blame her for rescinding the offer. If one of his sisters were in her position, he assumed they’d do the same.
But it left him with the mover, Buddy. Ash called to give him directions to the café and nail down a departure time. He could practically smell the smoke in the man’s gravelly voice, which was periodically cut off by a hacking, wet cough. Ash pulled the phone away from his ear.
“I don’t stop,” Buddy ground out, “so if you’re gonna need to eat or piss, you’d better bring your own supplies.”
Ash’s gaze darted unintentionally to Hazel. She was watching over the top of her paperback, shamelessly eavesdropping, her nose scrunched up in distaste. He turned away.
“And just so we’re clear, the ride ain’t free. You gotta help unload in Big Spring. That’s part of the deal.”
Ash rubbed his forehead. At this rate, he wouldn’t reach Lockett Prairie before his family went to bed. Still, it was a way home, and he wouldn’t have to touch his savings. He started to ask if Buddy would at least drive him the rest of the way, or even just to Midland, after they unloaded the truck, but a hand snatched his phone away.
“Sorry,” Hazel said. “His plans have changed. Have a nice day, Buddy.”
“What are you doing?”
She was shaking her head at him with a look of—what? irritation? disgust?—while tucking his phone protectively against her chest. Which drew his eyes to the snug fit of her fuzzy gray sweater. Christ, this recent sweater weather was going to be his undoing. He forced his eyes back up quickly, but her knowing squint said she’d caught him. Well, fine. If she didn’t want him to check her out, she shouldn’t hold his personal property hostage.
Her chin tipped up defiantly. “I can’t watch you do this.”
“Make a phone call?”
“Take a water bottle into some stranger’s truck so you have something to drink and then pee into.”
She had a point. But, damn it, that had been his last option. “Thanks for the concern”—frustration made his jaw and hands clench, screaming the opposite of gratitude—“but unless you’re gonna drive me home, which we both know you’re not, I need to call this guy back.”
“You’re pretty certain, considering you haven’t even asked me.”
Hope lifted in his chest, but he tamped it down, already too frayed to risk the letdown if he was wrong. Hazel never went home. He didn’t think she was that petty, but he couldn’t discount that she was simply fucking with him. All those times he’d refused her the chair…
“Are you going home?” he asked carefully.
“It just so happens—” She crossed her arms and heaved a sigh, and he wondered what on earth she had to be so annoyed about when he was the one who would have to beg Buddy for a ride if she wasn’t offering. Hazel started again, raising an eyebrow at his impatience. “It just so happens, I have been summoned to Lockett Prairie.”
Still not an offer. She was impossible. But he didn’t have it in him to play their game, act like he didn’t care. “What are you saying? You’ll drive me?”
She groaned, apparently agonized to have to say it. “I could be persuaded.”
That balloon of relief floated up in him, untethered. Despite her absolute refusal to just say an explicit yes, he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and twirl her. Instead, he said mildly, “So, all of this”—he circled his finger to indicate the extraordinary measures she’d witnessed him taking since yesterday evening—“was just too entertaining for you to put me out of my misery?”
“Oh, there’s going to be misery.” She trudged back to the green chair and flounced into it. “I wasn’t planning to leave for a few more days, and I thought you’d figure something out before then. If you’d asked, I would have told you that.”
He dropped into the wobbly, wooden chair across from her. “I’ll cover gas.”
“I don’t want your money…” She trailed off. “But I do have conditions.”
“Fine. What are your conditions?”
She ran a chipped, mint-colored nail down the length of the chair arm. “For starters, I want this chair. For a month. Anytime I walk in, you have to give it up, no questions asked.”
“Yeah, fine.”
She frowned. “A whole month.”
“I heard you.”
“You’re not even going to negotiate?”
“You know I’m desperate. What leverage do I have?”
“Why are you so desperate?”
A heavy weight pressed down on Ash’s chest. He fought for a nonchalant shrug. “It’s Christmas.”
“You must really like your family.”
That liking one’s family appeared to be an unfamiliar concept to Hazel piqued his curiosity. Even under normal circumstances, he couldn’t imagine a Christmas without his parents, all his sisters, his nieces. But this year, his need to get home went beyond just missing them. It was a melon baller, slowly and methodically scooping out his insides. He needed to be there, to see for himself just how bad things had gotten.
“I won’t contest your terms,” he said, “if we leave today.”
She shook her head. “Tomorrow.”
“Please?”
“NOAA is predicting a big storm for half the state tonight. We’d be better off waiting until morning.”
“Who’s Noah?” he joked. When she opened her mouth to explain like he was a complete idiot, he cut her off. “Or, if we leave soon, we can beat it.”
Hazel pulled out her phone and opened a radar image that he couldn’t immediately interpret, already squaring her shoulders for a fight.
“Please, Hazel.” He tried not to sound too pushy, to keep the desperate edge from his voice, but it came out low and serious. He reached for something true, an explanation that might garner some understanding. “I promised my niece I’d be there tonight. She’s four. I really don’t want to disappoint her.”
The front door of the café opened then, and Elise came in for the midday shift, signaling the end of his own. He could leave any time. He tugged off the rag he’d slung over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows at Hazel.
“If I say yes, I pick the music,” she countered. “And I get the chair for the whole semester. You’re right, you have no leverage.”
She bit her lip, but he didn’t protest.
“Okay,” she said.
“We leave today?” he confirmed, hopping up.
She heaved herself out of the chair. “I swear to God, if this makes you so insufferable to me that we can no longer coexist—”
He laughed at her melodrama, already running through what he still needed to pack.
Her hand snagged his elbow, utterly serious. “If anything changes between us, I get it all. The whole building.”
“You want me to…give you the café?”
“The whole building,” she repeated.
“Uh…” The fierce spark in her eyes gave him pause. He worked here. And lived here. He needed some clarification.
“And stop doing that.” She pointedly glared at his hands. He was popping his knuckles.
“Fine. Whatever. Yes. How soon can we go?”
Hazel said she still had to finish packing and gas up but could be back in an hour. Before she left, though, she added, “I’m serious. Nothing can change, Asher.”
This time, he didn’t correct her. Before she could throw in another condition or change her mind altogether, he gave her a quick salute, said, “Wouldn’t dream of it,” and headed for his loft.