Chapter 12
ASHER
Jared watches Summer as she rushes past him, her face red with embarrassment, a delicate hand darting to her neck to try and hide the bruise. Once she’s gone, he squints at me. He crosses his arms, glaring, and I know that I’m in trouble for something. Jared rarely ever gets pissed at me.
“Dude,” he snaps. “Nikki texted me saying you practically blew her off on your date on Halloween.” He unbuttons his blazer, and I notice that he has chosen to wear a Ghostbusters T-shirt today.
I sigh, guilt spreading through me like a wildfire.
I know I owe Nikki some sort of explanation.
I’m just not sure what I was supposed to say.
‘Sorry I disappeared for the majority of our date and was wholeheartedly distracted for the other half. I’ve been having inappropriate fantasies about a student of mine and just couldn’t help accosting her in the public bathroom of the bar we were at. ’
“Yeah,” I groan. “I wasn’t the best date that night. I’ll make sure to apologize to her,” I offer up lamely.
He hesitates, debating whether he wants to speak his thoughts aloud.
“Look, if you don’t like her… or if there’s somebody else…
” he trails off as his eyes flick to the exit Summer had just left through.
“Just tell her, okay? Don’t string her along because she looks good for you on paper.
” He strips off his blazer, revealing more of his graphic T-shirt as he continues to scrutinize me.
“There was a reason I gave her your number and not Elijah’s.
Dude’s an animal, has been ever since that one girl he was seeing years ago ghosted him.
But Nikki doesn’t deserve someone who won’t take her seriously…
which is why Elijah never got her number. ”
I feel like an even worse piece of shit than I did this morning.
He is absolutely right. It’s wrong to string Nikki along simply because I feel like I should be with someone like her. I clearly don’t feel for her the way I do for Summer.
I nod. “I won’t lead her on,” I promise. “I’ll set everything straight today.”
“In any other circumstances, would Nikki—”
“She was perfect,” I say, cutting him off. “It just wasn’t the right time for me. But I’m sure she’ll make someone very happy someday.”
He nods and gives me a small smile. “When she inevitably bitches to me about you, I’ll be sure to tell her it was all your fault.”
I grin in response. “That’s fair.” I clap a hand on his shoulder as I hesitantly ask, “No hard feelings?”
“We’re all good, dude.” He smiles. “All you had to say was that you weren’t into it. Nikki’s a catch; she’ll be fine and with someone new in no time. It’s you I’m worried about. You’re grumpy as hell, have zero social life, and let’s be honest, you peaked in high school.”
I shove him away, earning a laugh in response. “Oh, fuck off.”
I decide to meet up with Elijah later that evening for drinks at his place. There is no way I’m returning to The Pour House after my recent actions. I clearly can’t be trusted.
As I’m walking up to his apartment complex, I dial Nikki’s number, ready to apologize my ass off for my poor behavior.
“Hello?” she answers, and I can tell by the tone of her voice that she is not pleased to see my name pop up on her screen.
“Uh, hey, it’s Asher.”
“I’m aware.”
“I, uh, just wanted to call and apologize. For Halloween. For how I acted on our date. On Halloween.”
There’s a stretch of silence when I enter the elevator and hit the button for the top floor. So long that I have to check my phone to make sure she hasn’t hung up on me.
She exhales before responding. “Were you distracted or something? Or was it something I said or did?”
“It wasn’t you,” I assure her quickly. “I was distracted. It had nothing to do with you. If I’m being honest, I shouldn’t have agreed to go out with you, and I certainly shouldn’t have gone on multiple dates with you.
That wasn’t fair. I’m not in a good place to date right now, and I’m sorry I didn’t realize that until after we had gone out a few times. ”
I hear her take a deep breath on the other line. “Thank you for being honest with me, Asher, though I wish you were honest a bit sooner.”
“I’m sorry.” It feels like the lamest thing to say. Maybe if I hadn’t met Summer, or if I hadn’t let myself pursue her in some completely inappropriate way, there could’ve been something with Nicole. But she never really had a shot. Not when Summer had just walked into my life.
She sighs. “It’s fine, Asher. It’s not something I wanted to admit, but I probably shouldn’t be dating right now either.”
I don’t ask her to elaborate because, realistically, it doesn’t matter. “I hope this won’t affect your friendship with Jared.”
She laughs. “Oh, please, this isn’t the first bad date Jared has set me up with, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
“Full honesty here? Same.”
She giggles again. “Well, I do hope that we can run into each other later, Asher. I had some nice conversations with you.”
“Yeah,” I muse. “Me too.”
She disconnects the call without saying goodbye, and I knock on Elijah’s door while shoving my phone into my back pocket.
“You won’t believe what I just got paid for,” he says in way of greeting as he waves me inside.
“This woman got caught cheating by her husband, right? He says he’s going to divorce her and use her infidelity to take everything.
Well, she calls me up claiming he’s no saint either.
So she pays me to follow him around until I can get anything useful.
Turns out he had not one, but two mistresses on the side. ”
“Jesus,” I mutter as he pours me a healthy glass of whiskey. “So what, you got paid to tell her something that it sounds like she already knew?”
“No, I got paid to provide her with photos to present to a judge.”
“How much do you get paid to do this sort of shit?”
“Enough, trust me.”
I look around, taking in the marble floors, the newly renovated kitchen, and the sheer size of his top-floor apartment. This nice apartment in Seattle probably costs more than most full-sized houses located elsewhere.
Elijah had always been well off. We met in college and have been friends ever since.
He was one of those guys who was always effortlessly good at everything.
His grades in school had never been amazing, but it was due to a lack of effort on his part.
I did not doubt that he would’ve graduated with flying colors if he’d actually applied himself.
He’d just never had to care. He had no student loans, didn’t have to worry about rent or about getting a ‘real’ job, and had a face that most women threw themselves at.
Though Jared was right, a few years back, Elijah had started seeing someone.
We never met her, but Elijah had stopped seeing anyone else.
Then she ghosted him, and he seemed to get more serious.
Opened his own P.I. business and rarely went out to social gatherings.
A few months later, he seemed to be back to his old self.
“Honestly, it’s times like this that I love my job,” he sighs, bringing me back to the present.
I think about the pure torture of having Summer sit in my class and knowing that I shouldn’t feel the way I do about her. I normally love my job, but since the semester started, I’ve begun to resent it. “I don’t seem to feel the same most days,” I mutter.
“Something up?” he asks, opening take-out boxes from one of our favorite Thai places nearby. “I know Jared’s been giving you a lot of shit lately. Didn’t he set you up with his friend? Nicole or something?”
“Nikki,” I correct. “And yeah, but I don’t think anything’s going to come out of that.”
He squints at me. “Was there any merit to the shit he was giving you over that student of yours a while back?” I grit my teeth.
Elijah has always been more perceptive than most. That means we could never get away with lying to him or to ourselves.
He presses his lips together and nods. “I’ll take your silence as a yes. ”
“Nothing’s happened,” I say quickly. “Not really, anyway,” I add pathetically.
He arches one dubious eyebrow. “Look, I’m not one to judge.
Lord knows I’ve done all kinds of fucked up things.
And I know you well enough to know that you aren’t forcing this girl into anything by threatening her grades.
But you gotta be careful, dude. What happens if she gets pissed at you for something?
What’s to stop her from reporting you out of spite? ”
“She wouldn’t do that,” I respond immediately. “She’s not like that.”
“And you know this how?” he asks with a humorless laugh. “You grade a few papers, have a few fantasies, maybe do a few things you shouldn’t have, and suddenly you think you know what this girl is capable of?”
“Careful, you’re sounding cynical.” I roll my eyes.
“If you saw the kinds of things I do in my job, you’d be more careful about the power you give others over you.”
“She’d get in trouble too if she reported anything.”
“I doubt it would be quite as much trouble as you’d get in.”
He has a point there.
“Look, nothing else is going to happen, so there’s nothing more to worry about,” I insist. “It was a temporary lapse in judgment because she’s hot, that’s all.
” Even as I say the words, bile rises in my throat, and I can tell I don’t mean the statement at all; I just don’t want Elijah to see the deep shit I’ve gotten myself in.
He takes a swig and gives me a pitying smile. “No offense, but with the way she looks, and knowing how smart she has to be to wind up in your class… I think you might be fucked, my friend.”
He has no idea.
“Thanks, dude.”
“Well, if you get fired, you can always come work for me. I’ve been thinking about expanding lately. Or trying out different things. It’s all been getting a bit stale.”
“Private investigating is getting stale?” I ask incredulously.
He shrugs. “It’s always ‘my husband is cheating on me’ and ‘my family member stole my expensive trinket’, it gets old after a while.”