Chapter 4
Ash raised his hand to knock on the bedroom door, but it flew open before he made contact so that he was face-to-face with his new roommate who was wearing nothing but a white cotton robe, a towel dangling from one hand, and her dark-brown hair now wet and soaking the fabric on her shoulders.
“Oh!” Willow said, taking a step back. “I mean, hi. Did you need something?”
They’d ridden back to the barn together after deciding a couple lines of a song were good enough for day one. Once inside the house, Willow had disappeared into her room while Ash decided to make the front hall closet his, stashing his boxed belongings in the small space. He had an entire house worth of possessions in Nashville, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent more than a week there, let alone called the place home. So he traveled with the barest of essentials and bought what he needed along the way.
Right now, he needed a shower.
“So, here’s the thing,” he told her. “The bathroom out here has a toilet and sink, which is great. Love me a good toilet and sink.” Inside, he cringed at himself. “But if I’m going to live here, I’m going to need to shower here too.”
She stared blankly at him for several seconds before exclaiming, “Oh!” Again.
“Oh,” he repeated, then raised his brows. “I can wait for you to get dressed if you want. Or…”
“Right,” Willow replied. “No… I mean…”
“There you go with that favorite word again, Morgan. Are you saying I should find somewhere else to shower for eight whole weeks?”
She rolled her eyes. “Have you always been this impossible?”
“Since the day I left the womb.” He winked. “So you’re not saying that I can’t shower? Because last time I checked, that there is a double negative, which translates to a positive, which means you better have left me some hot water.”
She lifted the towel she was still holding, squeezed the ends of her dripping hair into it, and then tossed it on the bed.
He could smell her shampoo again, that familiar, intoxicating scent, and he hoped to hell he could find another brand of shampoo in the bathroom because how the hell was he supposed to walk around day to day smelling like her? Or more to the point…smelling her on himself .
She gently poked her finger against his chest for the second time today, urging him out of the doorway so she could slip past.
“The ‘no’ was for not needing to get dressed before letting you borrow the shower. I was going to grab a snack and have a seat on the back porch, let what’s left of the sun air-dry my hair.”
Ash swallowed as she sauntered past him, bare feet padding toward the kitchen.
“It’s our shower now, Morgan,” he called after her. “Which means I’m not borrowing anything other than some time in your room.”
She waved him off, not bothering to turn around, and he shook his head and laughed.
Then he made his way into the room, kicking the door shut behind him and glancing at the still-unpacked suitcase sitting open atop the giant bed, at her jeans, T-shirt, and undergarments lying in a heap on the floor. In the bathroom, another towel hung on the doorknob. Bottles of lotion and face wash along with a tube of toothpaste and her toothbrush were scattered across the counter.
He laughed again. He might still be an asshole, but four years later, Willow Morgan still lived like a frat boy.
He hung the wet towel on a hook on the back of the bathroom door and then lined up her few toiletries against the backsplash below the mirror. Then he turned on the shower and peeled off his clothes, stepping into the hot spray in the hope of washing himself clean of the night before—not only the hotel, his arrest, and the surprise publicity of his divorce, but also of reuniting with Willow the way he did, drunk off his ass and scaring her like that.
Not that this was any sort of true reunion. It was a tolerance at best. Ashton Murphy knew resentment when he saw it, and he knew he deserved it.
So he rested his head against the cool ceramic tile of the shower wall, hot water and steam allowing him to start fresh, at least in the physical sense.
When he spun toward the mounted shelf of bath and shower products, he exhaled with relief to find a tall, dark bottle of a drugstore-brand shampoo simply labeled as shampoo, no frills or bells or whistles. That didn’t stop him from grabbing the white bottle next to it, the one with words like daily hydration and nourishing coconut milk . He flipped open the cap and squeezed, releasing the scent of its contents into the steam so that the whole shower seemed to fill with Willow.
“You’re a damned jackass,” he said out loud, while silently answering himself with, I know .
***
Ash raised his hand to knock on the apartment door and realized that for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he was an interloper in someone else’s space, in someone else’s life. He could turn around right now, pretend he was never here, and leave everyone in peace…maintain the status quo. Wouldn’t everyone be happier that way?
He continued with the mental gymnastics, vaulting from one convincing excuse to another so that he wouldn’t have to do the thing he didn’t want to do, which was why when someone tapped him on the shoulder from behind, he nearly leaped out of his own skin, a string of expletives firing off from his lips as he spun to face his…attacker? Nosy neighbor?
“Language!” Boone Murphy exclaimed with a laugh, brows raised in admonishment. Next to him—and several feet closer to the floor—stood a blond, pigtailed, blue-eyed toddler who was now repeating that string of expletives like she was reciting her ABCs. “Oh shit,” Boone added.
“Oh shit!” the girl mimicked.
And all the anxiety that had caused Ash’s mental gymnastics in the first place dissolved into a fit of laughter as he watched his niece send her father into an all-out panic.
“Casey is going to kill me,” Boone told him through clenched teeth. Then he reached past Ash and opened the apartment door, the small girl running ahead of him and down a hallway he assumed led to her room.
Boone followed the girl, jogging after her, and then returning fifteen seconds later.
“She’s coloring,” he informed Ash, breathing a sigh of relief. “And no longer dropping f-bombs. Though she’ll probably surprise us with a doozie at dinner.” He crossed his arms and looked Ash up and down.
“What?” Ash asked.
“Are you a vampire or something?” Boone countered.
Ash’s brows furrowed. “ What? ” he repeated, apparently having lost all other words that used to be in his vocabulary.
Boone shrugged. “Just figured the only reason a Murphy would have to not enter another Murphy’s property would be because the undead can’t enter without an invitation.” He leaned forward and stage-whispered. “If anyone asks, Casey makes me watch The Vampire Diaries with her, but the truth is, on my days home with Kara, it’s my goddamn favorite thing to binge while she naps.”
“Goddamn favorite thing!” Kara exclaimed from her bedroom.
Boone threw his hands in the air. “I’m already a dead man, so if you’re going to drain me of my life force, or whatever, you might as well put me out of my misery now.” He stepped aside and motioned for Ash to enter.
Ash stepped over the threshold into one of his two older brothers’ homes, a place he’d never visited before today. “I’m…uh…not going to drain you of your life force, by the way,” he told Boone.
The older Murphy brother shrugged. “In that case…”
And then, for the second time in a matter of minutes, Ash was thrown for yet another loop as Boone pulled him in for a bear hug.
He just stood there, stiff, as his brother clapped him on the back and then grabbed him by the shoulders, pushing him an arm’s length away so he could get a good look at the prodigal son now returned.
“What’s the matter?” Boone asked with a wry grin. “Has superstardom beaten the ability to hug outta you?”
Ash cleared his throat. “No… I just… It was unexpected.” But the truth was, Ash Murphy couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged someone…or that someone had actually hugged him without the gesture turning into some sort of transaction.
He finally had a chance to get a good look at Boone. His dark hair was longer than Ash had remembered, and there were lines at the corners of his brother’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. But Ash could tell those lines were evidence of happiness, of too much smiling when the Boone he’d known in his later teen years had been anything but.
The two men who stared at each other were strangers now, and Ash wasn’t prepared for the virtual sock to the gut he felt as he realized this.
“You look good, Boone,” he admitted, trying to hide the guilt from his tone.
Boone huffed out a laugh. “And you look like you just got hit by a truck.” He nodded toward the butterfly bandage on Ash’s temple, the one he’d had to reapply after his shower yesterday when he realized he probably should have gotten a stitch or two.
“Not a truck,” he told his brother, absently brushing his fingers over the bandage. “A vase. My welcome-home gift.”
Boone slipped past Ash and into the kitchen opposite the living area. Though all of it looked like one big room, with big being a generous term. It gave a whole new meaning to open concept , the term Sloane had used to describe the house he bought sight unseen simply to have a place of his own. Yet this little apartment felt more like a home than Ash’s open-concept five-bedroom ranch ever would.
“You look like you could use a drink,” Boone called from over his shoulder.
Ash spun to face him just in time to catch a cold aluminum can in his left hand. He was about to tell his brother that it was too early to start drinking, even for him, when he caught sight of the words Raspberry Lime Sparkling Water written in pink and green on the whimsically decorated aluminum.
“Oh,” he said instead. “Seltzer. The un-spiked kind.”
Boone cracked a can open for himself and then strode back into the living room, dropping onto an oversized chair kitty-corner from the couch.
“I tend not to drink when I’m with Kara. Also, I think it’s only decent to wait until there’s a p.m. after the time.” He nodded toward the couch to his right. “Why don’t you take a load off. Unless, of course, you’re just passing through.”
Of course he was just passing through. Ash Murphy didn’t belong in Meadow Valley anymore. He wasn’t sure he ever did, not like Boone and Eli at least.
“I am,” Ash admitted, making his way to the couch and sitting anyway. “I mean, I’m only in town until things in the press die down, and then…” His voice trailed off. And then what ? Make another record, he guessed, after rebuilding an image he still couldn’t figure out how to maintain even after ten years.
He sat but flinched when something hard poked him in the thigh. Peeking out from the cushion was the corner of a book. He pulled it free and produced a board book of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are , and handed it to Boone. “I think this might belong to your swearin’ sailor in the other room.”
Boone laughed and dropped the book onto the arm of the chair, a sure sign it would end up in a similar spot in the not-too-distant future. “I’ve been wondering where that book ended up. That was Colt and Jenna’s gift for Kara’s first birthday. Oh!” His eyes widened. “Colt’s sister…Willow Morgan! Isn’t she the one who…?” But Boone had the decency not to finish that sentence.
Just the mention of her made the wound on Ash’s temple throb and the blood in his veins turn molten. He groaned at the simple sound of her name, at the irreconcilable way his body reacted to just the thought of her, and at the constant realization that if she had killed him with that vase, he probably would have deserved it.
“Can we talk about something else other than my tour?” he asked.
Boone shrugged. “Are you working on a new album?”
Ash pinched the bridge of his nose. “No,” he answered with a sigh.
“On vacation? Hiding out from the paparazzi after your divorce? Not that I knew you were getting a divorce, by the way. But I guess that’s par for the course since none of us knew you were getting married until Mom and Dad sent a reel that they’d been sent by your publicist.”
Ash took a sip of his seltzer, swallowed, and then let out a bitter laugh. “There it is,” he said.
Boone set his can down on the table between the chair and the couch and threw his arms in the air. “What the hell do you want from me, Ash? ”
“What da hell do you want fwum me, Ash?” a tiny, powerful voice called from Kara’s room.
Boone’s jaw tightened as he exhaled through clenched teeth.
Ash leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “I want you to be pissed at me if you’re pissed at me! I want you to yell at me or hit me or—I don’t know—crack a vase over my head instead of acting like you’re happy to see me when I’ve been such a shitty brother!”
“Shitty brother!” Kara called.
Boone growled and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.
Ash stood. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
The door flew open, and a woman with a stylishly messy blond bun burst into the apartment. “Mama’s home!” she called. “Where’s my Supergirl?” She strode toward Ash, beaming, then stopped short of throwing her arms around his neck. “ You’re not my husband,” she said, matter-of-factly. Then she threw her hands over her mouth. “Ashton? Oh my god. Is that really you?”
And then she did throw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight just as Kara came running out of her room yelling, “Mama! Mama!” and “Shitty brother!”
“Murrrrphyyy!” Casey cried, letting her brother-in-law go.
But Boone was already up and out of the chair.
“Sorry, Babe. I really am. But Ash and I were just about to…do a thing. Be back in an hour or so, okay?” He scooped his daughter into his arms, spun her once, and then blew a raspberry on her cheek as the young girl erupted into peals of laughter.
“You better run,” Casey warned, holding her arms out for the daughter exchange. But then she jutted out her chin, placing her cheek in front of Boone’s mouth.
Boone obliged, kissing his wife and then his daughter before grabbing Ash by the elbow and dragging him toward the door.
“You boys better behave,” Casey told them as her husband opened the door. “And Ashton Murphy, you better come back here for a proper visit before you leave town again.”
“He will!” Boone called over his shoulder as he ushered Ash through the door, pulling it closed behind him.
“Where the hell are we going?” Ash whisper-shouted, knowing full well now that Kara’s superhero ears were listening from the other side of the door.
Boone raised a brow. “You said you wanted me to hit you,” he replied matter-of-factly. “So I’m taking you someplace where I can give you exactly what you asked for.”