Chapter Twenty
The next evening, after joining Ash’s sisters and nieces for their delayed ice-skating outing—and accepting that she was not going to become an ice princess at twenty-three—Hazel was back at her dad’s house, debating changing her outfit again. She was supposed to be leaving in a few minutes for her father’s station holiday party, and she looked like an accountant in her white button-down and pencil skirt.
Hazel wasn’t looking forward to spending the evening with a bunch of her father’s colleagues, but he’d agreed Ash could come to the party.
As she buttoned and unbuttoned her collar for the third time, her phone lit up with a text from Sylvia. Tap, tap, tap. This thing on?
Hazel smiled. She’d meant to reply to Sylvia’s latest proof of life request, but she hadn’t trusted herself to take a picture while teetering on ice skates. She took a selfie and sent it, adding, Be honest. Am I going to look like one of the servers at this holiday party in this outfit?
Sylvia: Undo another button and leave your hair down.
Sylvia: Are you going to do a red lip? You should do a red lip.
Sylvia: Is that an enormous Christmas tree in your bedroom?
Sylvia: And who are you trying to impress by not looking like a waiter?
There was no time to explain everything before she had to go pick Ash up for the party. But the answer to Sylvia’s last question—who was she trying to impress?—pulled a giddy smile across Hazel’s face. She wanted to make Ash look at her again like he had in the barn. And a not insignificant part of her wanted to tell Sylvia everything about him.
But for now, she had to go.
Hazel: Can’t I just not want to be asked for cocktails all night?
The event hall had a distressed brick fa?ade, faux gas lamps burning romantically on porch posts, arched windows in the upper level, and a gleaming red vintage pickup parked in the side lot.
While Hazel parked, she felt Ash crane around, using her seat for leverage to see out her back window.
“What’s back there?” she asked.
The look he gave her was cautious, considering.
But before he could say anything, the front door of the event hall opened, and a woman in a sparkly blue evening gown and long wool coat waved urgently at them, beckoning.
“Hang on,” Ash said. But as soon as she opened her door, the wind gusted and bit, and Hazel ran for the building.
“Come in, come in, come in,” the woman said, practically shoving them inside and letting the door slam. “You just made it.”
Hazel checked through the window, half expecting an apocalyptic dust cloud or a tornado touching down in the parking lot, but nothing was amiss, just her father’s silver SUV turning into the entrance.
“Hazel,” Ash began just as the woman said, “The family is arriving now,” and prodded them toward another set of doors, which opened into a dim dining room. Sixty or more people sat at round tables with winter floral centerpieces and flickering tea lights, all arranged around a parquet dance floor. Was it her imagination, or did everyone deflate a little at the sight of them?
“We’ll find your seats in a moment. For now, wait over here.” She nudged them toward a string quartet already crammed into the corner and ducked back out to the foyer, leaving them standing in strange silence.
Hazel whispered, “Wait, is this a surprise party?”
Ash took her elbow. “Listen, I think—”
Someone shushed him.
“I could be wrong, but—” He tugged her farther into the corner, eyes darting about the room.
She laughed, an uneasy itch spidering up her spine. “What’s wrong with you?”
Someone shushed them again. Greetings were volleyed in the foyer, heels clicking on the tile. Then, the big doors opened, and even though Hazel had figured it out, she still jumped when the entire room chorused, “Surprise!”
Right away, the hostess whisked her father, Val, Lucy, and Raf to a table across the room with the largest centerpiece and red sashes draped on each of the chairs. Not red, cranberry, she thought. Only then did Hazel notice a banner that announced Congratulations and Best Wishes and blown-up prints of her father and Val, some with Val’s kids, propped on stands around the room.
When the hostess offered them flutes of champagne and a toast, acknowledging their desire for a small wedding but insisting on the people’s right to celebrate, Hazel’s father made his own impromptu toast back to the room. He credited his colleagues for bringing out the best in him on-air, making him appear “decent enough” that Val overlooked how stilted and awkward his side of the conversation was when they’d met at some charity event. He could be stiff one-on-one—exactly what he was alluding to—but in a room full of people, something clicked on, carried over from his on-camera persona. Everyone laughed warmly at his self-deprecating speech.
“This is weird.” Hazel bumped into a cello and apologized to the stony-faced woman holding it.
“Do you want to leave?” Ash asked.
“We can’t leave.”
“We can, actually.”
“And say what?”
“Bye,” he deadpanned. “Or nothing. Just slip out. Who cares?”
“A Hazel getaway.”
“What?”
“That’s what Sylvia calls it. Like an Irish goodbye?” He didn’t crack a smile. “My dad will notice.”
She didn’t miss the flash of doubt that passed across his face before he said, “That woman didn’t even know who you were.”
“She’s never met me.”
“There should be pictures of you. And I only see four chairs at that table. Didn’t they know you were coming?”
Hazel’s cheeks flared hot with embarrassment. “I don’t know, Asher. I didn’t see the guest list.”
He squeezed her hip, frustrated, she guessed, by her deflection, or sorry for calling attention to the slight against her. But she couldn’t think too hard about it right now, not in front of all these people, not when she was so close—just the wedding and Christmas the day after to get through—to escaping this week mostly unscathed. Not after last night in the kitchen with her father, when it had finally seemed like…
Best not to hope, not even in the safety of her own mind.
Right now, her father was making his way across the room toward her, pausing periodically to greet and thank people. “I had no idea about this,” he said when he got to them. “We’ll get an extra chair—two chairs. And another table. I added your name to the list, but they obviously had a whole other plan here. They didn’t make the connection.”
“They didn’t connect the last names?” Ash asked.
Hazel pushed in front of Ash, gesturing back the way her father had come. “It’s fine. They’ll add a table. No big deal.”
“Hazel, hold on,” Ash said.
She marched after her father.
The situation wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Hazel’s father hadn’t expected assigned seating, especially not a table of honor for his family. If not for the surprise, a simple, overall head count would have sufficed, so he hadn’t called attention to Hazel’s late RSVP. It was all very understandable. No one had intentionally left her out. Besides, who could really be blamed when Hazel was never around? Unlike Lucy and Raf, who probably got dragged to these kinds of events, Hazel was always across the state, living her own life.
Hazel could tell Ash was biting his tongue to not point out that, still, someone should have said, Wait, but isn’t there another kid? His kid?
“Let it go,” Hazel sang through a smile while caterers slid a two-top against the larger round table. It was a slightly lower height and rectangular, but someone was already placing an extra floral arrangement in its center, and someone else was pouring ice waters for them.
“It’s not just that. There was a truck in the lot. I wasn’t sure, but— Hazel.” He tugged her arm, making her stop helping arrange tea lights and look at him.
“What?”
“Justin’s here.”
“Justin…” she echoed dumbly. Her pulse kicked up.
He tipped his chin to some point over her right shoulder, but his eyes stayed steady on hers. “He’s coming over here.”
She felt leaden. Her usual fight-or-flight response simply never kicked in, leaving her with only freeze. She could feel every second with which she might have fled or devised a plan tick away.
It was fine. She’d seen Franny, and that turned out fine.
Ash was watching her, though, like maybe her face was saying something else. Like she looked not fine. Then his eyes darted just over her head, his expression morphing from serious to friendly just as Justin’s familiar voice announced behind her, “Hazel freaking Elliot.”
He turned her by the shoulders and pulled her into a tight hug, swaying her back and forth so one foot lost contact with the floor and then the other. When he set her back down, he didn’t release her immediately, just kept crushing her body to his, his mouth tickling the shell of her ear as he murmured, “Been too long.”
She squirmed free with a nervous laugh and an awkward pat on his shoulder. Reaching back, she latched on to Ash’s wrist. His chest, steady against her back, grounded her as he reached around to offer Justin his hand.
“Campbell.” Justin’s eyebrows bunched together. “Uh, hey. What are you…?” He looked to Hazel for an explanation.
She shot back the same question. “What are you doing here?”
“I was…invited? Didn’t you—” He glanced at her father a few feet away. Shaking his head, Justin smiled, eyes scanning her from head to toe and back up her stretchy black skirt, her white button-down. His eyes didn’t quite make it back to her face, a cocky smile kicking up at one corner. “Whatever. Look at you. You grew up nice.”
That slow perusal and his lopsided grin sent Hazel further off-balance. But politeness reigned. She heard herself say, “Thanks. You, too.”
His voice dropped into the confident purr she used to jokingly call his Casanova voice, the one he used when trying to get her to go skinny-dipping or to sneak him into her room after curfew. “No, I mean…damn.”
She didn’t thank him this time, crossing her arms over her chest.
“You been working out or something?”
“Um.” She frowned down at her body. Yes, she’d been working out, at least before Dr. Sheffield’s students ruined the gym for her. She suspected her new muscle tone wasn’t what he meant, though. She swallowed loudly, fidgeting under his gaze, which she preferred to think was on her necklace, and not the extra button she’d left open at Sylvia’s urging.
“You should let me give you a workout.”
Hazel choked on nothing.
“I’m getting my personal trainer certification,” he explained innocently, but the devilish smile that followed told her he’d intended it exactly as it sounded. There had been a time when his semi-lewd playfulness flattered and excited her. Now, it made her skin prickle with discomfort. He wagged his finger. “You’ve got a dirty mind.”
Ash cleared his throat. He was still behind her, so she couldn’t read him, could only feel the contraction of tendons in the wrist she was clinging to like a lifeline as his thumb popped each of his knuckles.
“I’ve been doing CrossFit,” Justin offered, not so subtly flexing, his cocky grin spreading. “You getting to the gym at all these days, Campbell?”
Ash gave an amused grunt.
“Justin,” Hazel’s father said then, coming around the table to offer his hand. To her surprise, he added, “You made it.”
“Hey, Dan.”
Hey, Dan?
“Wait,” she said. “You knew he’d be here?”
Her father clapped a hand on Justin’s shoulder. “The invitation was a bit last-minute, so I wasn’t sure, but…”
“You invited him? When did you— How?” Ordinarily, she would have swallowed such a shrill, tight question, would have opted for private confusion over appearing upset, but there was no containing her shock. What was happening here? What the hell was happening here?
“You said you were going to try to get together this week, so when I ran into him at the gym the other day…” Her father peered over one shoulder then the other. “A few other guys are around here somewhere. I invited the whole group.”
Her brain couldn’t compute all the jarring details at once. First of all, why would her father think she’d intended to see Justin? That was the last thing she wanted. Only…
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She’d lied about having plans to see friends early in the week to get out of spending time with Val and her kids. She was still lost as to how merely saying his name led to him standing here before her, but she understood with a heavy weight in her stomach that she’d brought it on herself.
So, obviously, the most logical and pressing next question was, “You do CrossFit?”
“Oh,” her father said after a beat. “No. Racquetball at the YMCA. The rec league tournament starts up after Christmas. The younger guys keep me on my toes. Justin and I wound up on a soccer team together last spring. Went head-to-head for the championship in softball last summer. Flag football, basketball…”
She cast a hard glare at Justin. Sometime after he’d led her on to sleep with her, he’d become her father’s friend.
But Justin didn’t notice her glare. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention at all, working something out behind his cool blue eyes, his lopsided grin leveling to a nearly flat line. The confident swagger he’d worn like his high school letter jacket was gone.
“So, you guys are gym buddies.” An unhinged laugh bubbled up in Hazel’s throat. What could she even say? Her father didn’t know Justin had hurt and humiliated her. She’d never told him.
As for Justin, he’d gone from his old confident, flirtatious self to a cold statue. His arms were crossed, eyes fixed on some point off to the side of the room, jaw tight. And suddenly, she knew why. His confusion when she asked what he was doing here, that big hug, the compliments and open perusal of her body—he thought she knew he’d been invited, maybe even thought she’d asked her father to do it. Now he knew she hadn’t.
“Should I not have…?” her father began.
“I’m just surprised.” She smiled wider, her cheeks aching with the strain.
Around the room, caterers placed plates before the guests. Desperate for him not to ask any more questions, she said, “Oh, look, they’re serving dinner. We should sit.”
But when she slid into her seat, she caught the corner of the tablecloth. Everything on the table tipped. Ash caught the flowers, but he could do nothing to stop both glasses of water from flooding the table and running directly down her blouse and into her lap. She lurched back. The cold—a thousand needles—stole her breath. The screech of her chair legs cut through the din in the room. Everyone’s eyes shot to her. She crossed her arms tightly, as much to hide her bra and pinched nipples through the now-see-through material as for warmth. Her wet shirt sucked against her stomach. The icy water ran down inside the waist of her skirt and into her underwear. Perfect. This evening just kept getting better and better.
An arm tucked around her back. Ash steered her out to the lobby and opened the restroom door for her.
Standing in the doorway, she plucked miserably at her shirt. “What am I doing?”
“Getting dry,” Ash said gently.
“No. I mean, what am I doing here? What is he doing here?”
Ash gave her a tiny shrug. “We can leave.”
She huffed. That wasn’t an option, and he knew it.
“Then, we’re doing what you planned. Getting through it.”
“Sure,” she said, doubtful. “Okay.”
“Hey,” he said when she still didn’t go inside, catching her eyes. “It could have been worse.”
“How?”
“The water put out the candles. So, you didn’t set the place on fire.”
Her laugh surprised her. “Can you imagine?”
“Nothing says happy to be here like a little light arson.” He turned her around, squeezed the back of her neck with his warm, wide palm. “Go dry off.”