27. ashton
twenty-seven
ashton
. . .
Painting Pillows - Lauren Alaina
The days are noticeably shorter now than when I flew out here two months ago. The world is bathed in a darkened haze, one that settled uncomfortably, suffocating, three nights ago.
For a moment, the world was brighter. For a moment—when Brooks’s hand was in mine, when he spent nights in my bed and days on my mind and all the time in between seeking secret kisses behind barns—I was on top of the world.
Invincible. When Brooks kissed me, none of the secrets and lies crossed my mind. They all melted away beneath his touch.
But in the harsh daylight, with no rose-tinted glasses to warm my view, there’s too much at stake.
I should’ve known we could never last, but the romantic in me just wanted to hang onto a little hope.
At least he had the nerve to say it to my face, rather than ghosting me.
The guilt of my lies gnaws at me, and as I pack the last of the clothes I brought with me from New York, the weight of it feels crushing.
This doesn’t feel like losing Declan and Jessa. This feels like losing myself.
I’ve never really had girlfriends. Growing up, there were girls in school that I was friendly with, and even invite over to watch movies sometimes, but for the most part, it was me and the boys. And I liked it that way. I never felt like I was missing out. But right now, I could use a sister.
My thumb hovers over Harriet’s number for a moment.
She’s the closest to a sister I’ve ever had.
I don’t know what she’d say if she found out about me and Brooks.
There’s a part of me that suspects she already knows—that wonders if she’s read the signs all along.
A part of me thinks she’d be thrilled. Another part is afraid she’ll say it’s a terrible idea.
That she’ll tell me the same things Brooks did, that it’s too big a risk.
That what we have now is too good to put on the line.
That if it fails, our families will be forever changed and the damage will be irreparable.
I consider calling Ruth, but in spite of all the time we’ve spent together over the last two months, I still don’t know her well enough to know if that’s a smart idea.
I like to think Ruth is a girls’ girl, and she hasn’t shown me anything to make me think otherwise.
But there’s the fear that whatever I say will make it back to my brother immediately, and I don’t know if I can take that risk. Not right now.
And then there’s Ellison. She might be almost ten years older than me, but when I first started baking in my teens, and showed an aptitude for it, she took me under her wing without hesitation.
We’ve been friends ever since, and I know she won’t tell anyone.
But telling her this just doesn’t feel right.
I leave my suitcase open on my bedroom floor. I left an ATV outside my house last night and I head straight for it, driving myself over to the stable block and finding Mayo sniffing around a fencepost in the paddock outside. I click my tongue.
“Hey buddy, you want a ride?” His ears prick up at the sound of my voice and he trots over, snorting, and pushes his head over the gate into my chest. I bring my hand up to his mane instinctively. “I’ll take that as a yes. Come on, bud.”
I unlatch the gate and pull it just wide enough for him to trot out.
I secure it behind him, making sure Grover and Della—who are munching on some hay on the other side of the paddock—can’t get out on their own.
It only takes me a few minutes to get Mayo saddled up for a ride.
I guide him out past the paddock and onto a lightly-worn path; one I know leads to a remote wooded area that is, for the most part, left to grow wild for the birds, bugs, and other small critters.
About halfway to the woods, the path forks.
It’s even less worn than the one we’re already taking, and if you don’t know the fork is there, you probably won’t even notice it. But I know it, and I nudge Mayo along.
One of the best things about living in Hill Country is the landscape.
This path will take me to the far eastern boundary of our land, where the plains give way to limestone hills and among them, a small cavern entrance that Ev and I once squeezed through as children.
That’s how we discovered the aquifer that supplies water to both our ranch and the Fishers’, and feeds the well that supplies a good portion of Skillett, too.
There’s a ledge in the rising landscape, just beyond where the ground rises into the first of the hills, and it’s perfect for me to climb up onto and sit, kicking my boots against the rough hillside.
Mayo drinks leisurely from the easternmost end of the creek that flows through the ranch and I pull my phone from my pocket.
I know exactly who to call. My thumb hovers over a decade-old photograph.
“What’s up, Ash?” Reston Fisher’s voice is honeyed and rich, even through my phone speaker.
His picture on my screen is a little jumpy and his arms jerk like a robot as he moves, but something settles in my soul when he smiles.
It’s that lazy smile, the one that looks just like his brother’s.
The one that matches his slow, southern drawl. It’s a smile that feels like home.
“I fucked up, Res.”
“Whatcha do?” He places the guitar he’s holding carefully in a stand, much like the ones I’ve seen in Brooks’s cabin. “Wreck a car? Tip a bull? Wait, this isn’t a murder confession, is it? I ain’t goin’ to prison for abetting a crime, I got plans on Thursday night.”
“I slept with Brooks.”
“Fuck,” Reston says. He drags out the single syllable and rubs a hand over his face in the way that only men seem to do. I’m pretty sure that was the last thing he expected me to say, but then he surprises me. “God damnit. I owe Harriet fifty bucks.”
“Yeah, exac—wait, what?”
“She said it would happen before you finished school. I said you’d be thirty and have a trail of ex-boyfriends begging you to come back before you’d finally get your head out your ass. You’ve only been in love with him your whole damn life.”
“You know?” I ask. If Res knows and Harriet knows, who else does?
“Of course I know, Ashey. Everyone knows. Your dad and Miss Celia both had bets on him chasin’ you to the city two years ago. Ellison was in on it too, apparently, but she bowed out years ago.”
I swallow hard. Suddenly, Ellison’s flippant jokes start to make sense. My stomach hurts. My head hurts. Breathing hurts.
“Everyone?”
“Y’all had it bad for each other since we were kids. Your parents definitely know. Mine know. Bet Ms. Josie and Mr. Hart know, too.”
“And Everett? Jody?” My mouth is dry. I fumble to open the draw of my water bottle, shaking hands lifting it to my lips as I suck from it.
“They ain’t dumb, Ash. They know you. They know Brooks. They tellin’ themselves a fat old lie if they ain’t noticed how gone for you he is. Maybe they don’t wanna see it, but surely they gotta know.”
“He don’t want me, Res,” I say. The tears begin to fall and I sniffle. Reston frowns at me through the screen.
“What do you mean, he don’t want you?”
“He told me we ain’t worth the risk. We had our little secret for a couple weeks, and now he don’t want anything to do with me. Fucking dumb as shit, huh? Come back home to fix my broken heart and just get it even more broken.”
“Fuck that asshole,” Reston growls. “You want me to come home, kick his ass? Defend your honor and all that?”
I chuckle and it turns into sob.
“My honor don’t got much honor left anymore. Stay in Nashville. I’ll be fine. I just needed to get it off my chest.”
“What happened in New York?”
Another laugh turns into a garbled sob. “I fell for a guy. Turned out he was married… and I fell for his wife, too.”
“You—a throuple?! Ashton Tanner, you dark, dark horse!” Reston’s surprise shows up as a whoop and a holler; he places his coffee cup on the countertop and looks right at me.
I blink, holding my eyes closed. Jagged shards of color stab at the edges, even behind closed eyes.
It’s a threatening aura, flashing kaleidoscope patterns in neon shades and bright white, regardless of whether my eyes are open or closed.
“We spent eight months together. Three of us. And one day they stopped answering the phone. I knew it was dumb, but I-I loved them, and I let myself believe. They weren’t good people, Res. It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t real. I know that now. And then I came home, and Brooks—”
“You ain’t dumb, Ash. You fell in love. Ain’t no way that could ever be dumb.”
“Even when I get my heart broken twice?”
“Even then. I mean it, Ash. If you need me, I’m on the next flight home, okay? You’re my big sister. I ain’t lettin’ no one break your heart.”
“You’re a little late on that one, Res.”
“New York, maybe. But I ain’t lettin’ Brooks Hart get away with hurtin’ you. I’ll kick his ass. I’ll break his neck.”
“He’s got four inches and at least sixty pounds on you, scrawny.”
“Garrote ‘im with a guitar string, then. He won’t even see it comin’.”
“I’m gonna hang up now.”
“Ashton. Brooks is crazy about you. Whatever he’s sayin’ right now, it’s fear.
It ain’t so simple goin’ from friends to more, especially when your families are as twisted together as ours are.
Your brother is his best friend. Your mom employs his entire family.
She practically raised him herself, and his mom raised you.
He’s known you your literal whole life. Those stakes?
They ain’t just high, Ash. They’re fuckin’ stratospheric.
He’s probably shittin’ his pants tryin’ to figure out how to keep you and keep the rest of his life as he knows it, too. ”
“All he has to do is want it,” I whisper. “Because I’d let him have me, if he wanted.”
“He’s a man, Ash. He don’t have enough brain cells to figure that out fast. Give him time.”