Take Me Home

Chapter Ten

Despite all of Ash’s adjustments, the tree trunk stuck out past Hazel’s back bumper, and the top flopped down onto the windshield. Ash tied it as securely as he could with twine then joined her in the car, where she was cupping her hands around the heat vent. “Sure you’re okay to drive? We could always come back in my dad’s truck.”

“And let someone steal my tree?”

“They’ll hold it for you.”

“Yeah, I see how effective that is.”

He frowned at the branches obscuring the upper windshield. “Will this even fit in your dad’s house?”

“The house is a mansion,” she said. “It’ll fit.”

“That’s what she said,” he mumbled. “Sorry. That was—”

“So mature.”

She was still teasing him when, a mile from the tree lot, a cop pulled them over. Hazel turned an apologetic smile up at the officer, who pointedly lifted a branch out of the way to lean in the window. As Hazel retrieved her license, the officer bent even lower. “Ash Campbell?”

He recognized her, a friend of his mother’s. She asked after his family, and Ash asked about her son. More than once, Hazel shot disbelieving looks his way, still clutching her license to hand through the window.

“Is this beautiful tree going to the children’s hospital?” the officer asked. “Your mother outdoes herself every year.”

“Uh…you know how she is!” He was going to hell, probably.

After a few more minutes of his best small talk, the officer let them go with a warning.

Instead of pulling back onto the road, Hazel gaped at Ash. Her hazard lights clicked on and off steadily. “Is this what it’s like coming back home regularly? You know everybody and get out of tickets?”

“Well, you have to be a little charming, too.”

She snorted. “And where did this charm of yours come from?”

“I’ve always been charming.” He flashed a grin.

“Not always. At least, not around me.”

He was hyperaware of the way his smile faltered, tried to salvage it anyway.

“You’re charming with people at the café. I thought it was an act before.”

“An act?”

“Ash, the friendly barista. I thought maybe you were just angling for better tips.”

“But now…” he prompted.

She shrugged. “Then I thought it was just me. Even in high school, you smiled at everybody. Just never at me.”

This again. How could he make her believe he’d never hated her without admitting that, actually, he’d been kind of in love with her? “It wasn’t because I didn’t—”

She squared her shoulders to him fully. “I’m sorry for how I acted at that party.”

“That’s not why I brought it up.”

“We’re friends now, though. Right?”

“Yeah. If you want to be.”

She nodded once. “I want to be.”

He stuck his hand out, and she laughed, shaking it with an affectionate eye roll. But as quickly as her amusement rolled in, it ebbed away. “So, I should take you home.”

It wasn’t a question, but she sounded uncertain nonetheless. Did she not want to drive after getting pulled over? Did she not want to part ways just yet? Hope fluttered in his chest.

But when she checked her watch, the flutter died. It was only midafternoon. She just didn’t want to go home yet.

“Come hang out at my place. I’ll follow you back later with the tree in my dad’s truck.”

Even as he spoke, alarms rang out in his head. Inviting her back to his house was a terrible idea. All his sisters were there. His mother. He swallowed hard. He hadn’t ever found a way to tell Hazel about his dad’s injury, partly because he didn’t know what he was coming home to, and partly because offering the half-truth that his father had broken his hip without the full context of his MS felt more explicitly deceptive than saying nothing at all.

Hazel played with her curls, uncertain but…hopeful? “You don’t have to do that.”

“You seem to think you’re forcing yourself on me here. You’re not, okay?” He squeezed her shoulder, intending only to reassure her, but his thumb swept of its own volition into the dip of her clavicle, and…

Damn, didn’t he know by now touching her was dangerous? He was suddenly back in the dark Lovebird Suite, when she’d pressed her freezing fingers to his neck, and he’d grabbed her hands to warm them, emboldened by the cover of darkness. He’d rocked forward on his toes, barely stopped himself from crowding her back, all shadowy lines and curves in the blackout. She hadn’t pulled away, hadn’t cracked a joke to ease the pulsing tension, and he’d wondered, fleetingly, achingly, if she was waiting for him to do just what he’d barely managed not to before breathing warmth into her fingers instead.

He wondered it now, too, as her tongue darted out between her lips. Her chin dipped closer, like she intended to lean into the contact but caught herself, and that tiny move made him swipe once more with his thumb. She didn’t retreat. Their bodies were twin flares: Come to me. No, you come to me.

The thing was, Hazel’s problem with afters wasn’t just an abstract concept to him now, wasn’t just something she did with other people. Sure, he was relieved to finally clarify his intentions, both the night of that party and in the last weeks she’d dated Justin. But she’d avoided him all the same since, erased all the possibilities the last four years may have held. All this time, they could have been friends.

The other thing was, if she had any idea how he’d felt at that party, how freeing it was to finally relax, to be himself with her, she’d understand just how deep this went for him—well before she came to the café, before they’d even left Lockett Prairie. He thought the attraction simmering between them now was mutual, but new, reciprocal interest was an entirely different beast than one-sided lust that had been hibernating for years. If she saw all that, she might bow out of this little dance. She couldn’t have made herself any clearer: nothing could change.

He dropped his hand from her shoulder. “I’ll take the tree for you whenever, whether it’s later or right now, but you want to kill some time, right?”

She looked like she wanted to disagree, or clarify some point, her head tilting to one side, mouth pinching. But after some thought, she said, “Okay.” Then, she pulled back onto the road.

Toward his entire family of nosy, oversharing sisters, his mother who so desperately wanted him to find a serious girlfriend, and his walker-bound father.

“So, listen. There’s something I should probably tell you.”

My whole family knows I had a crush on you in high school.

“My dad had this accident at Thanksgiving. He broke his hip and had surgery, so he’s using a walker.” Maybe indefinitely. “Temporarily.”

“Oh my God. Is he okay?” The sudden deep concern etched between her eyebrows told him that the other conversation about his father would be way too heavy.

Unlike the day before, when Ash led Hazel into his house, it was brimming with the loud, joyful voices of his entire family and upbeat Christmas music playing on the kitchen radio. Half of them shouted the standard Campbell greeting, an indiscriminate, “Hello! Come on in!” before they realized it was him.

He fidgeted under the collective double take from his mother and sisters at the sight of a woman trailing close behind him. Then, there was the silent but obvious “Is that her?” look from Maggie, and the “I told you” look from June, who had undoubtedly blabbed about Hazel picking him up that morning. Ash’s Hazel. That was what June had called her in high school after one slip, one mention of the cute girl from the volunteer field day he’d had to leave early. He prayed June had the sense not to repeat it now.

He debated ushering Hazel straight back out the door until Cosette tore through the room and launched herself at him, her hands, arms, face, and hair dotted with glitter. She scrambled back down out of his arms just as quickly, and Hazel picked errant sparkles from the shoulder of his jacket. Maggie was the first to cross over to them under the guise of wrangling her child. “You must be Hazel.”

“And you must be Maggie.”

Maggie flashed an impressed look at Ash, straightening with pride at having warranted a mention. She reached to ruffle his hair, and he ducked away, his ears burning.

From their positions around the kitchen island and dining table, his family each greeted Hazel before resuming their various tasks. The little kids were making construction paper Christmas cards. The twins were stringing popcorn and cranberries on fishing line and arguing about the ratio of each while his father ate from the bowls. Ash’s mother monitored the whirring KitchenAid mixer. June did a piss-poor job of tucking paper liners into muffin tins because she was watching Hazel and Ash, likely plotting an ambush.

“I didn’t realize you guys were having a party,” Hazel said apologetically.

Ash’s hand settled at the curve of her lower back. To his surprise, she shuffled closer.

His mom held out a perfectly golden blueberry muffin to Hazel. “Oh, this is just the usual Campbell chaos. The more, the merrier.”

“Mom, give her a minute before you force-feed her,” Ash complained as Hazel stepped out of his touch to take it.

Hazel moaned. “Wow, this is delicious, Mrs. Campbell.”

“Oh, please, call me Annie.” Food compliments were the surest way, after adoration of her children and grandchildren, to Ash’s mother’s heart, and she pulled Hazel over to the other counter to have her weigh in on the next batch.

Ash watched from the living room until his father said, “You gonna join us or lurk in the corner?” and he shrugged out of his coat.

“Hazel Elliot. I remember you.” June was suddenly right beside Hazel and cast a mischievous glance at Ash that screamed, I’m totally going to fuck with you. Everything in Ash tensed with adrenaline. “He used to talk about you all the ti—”

Ash chucked a marshmallow from the open bag on the counter at her face, cutting off her comment. She retaliated by pelting him with chocolate chips.

“All complaints, I’m sure,” Hazel said with a nervous laugh.

If he weren’t on the verge of tackling June, he would have addressed this persistent misconception of hers.

“I remember you, too,” Hazel added. “You played Sandy in Grease, right? You were so good.”

June smoothed her hair and smiled, pleasure diverting her from her devious plan.

Until Cosette piped up from the table, “Are you Uncle Ass’s girlfriend?”

June’s face brightened in triumph, and she rewarded Cosette with the remaining chocolate chips in her hand. “Good girl.”

Maggie—good, protective, oldest sister that she was—pointedly snatched the chocolate chip bag from June and said, “Well, it’s nice to meet a friend of Ash’s.” Maggie’s refusal to conspire made June pout, but she dropped—for the moment—her mission to mess with him, sitting down with Isabel and Cosette to help cut construction paper trees.

Ash started a fresh pot of decaf while his mom and Maggie pulled Hazel into conversation. She was nervous at first, hugging herself and nodding politely. She smiled gratefully at him when he interrupted to hand her a mug of coffee with cream and way too much sugar, the way she liked it. He ignored Maggie’s raised eyebrow and then his mother’s subtle swat at Maggie’s shoulder with her dish towel, confirming that she, too, knew this was the Hazel that June had teased him endlessly about in high school.

They asked about grad school, and soon, Hazel relaxed, encouraged by their genuine interest. Ash was still on guard for June’s shenanigans, but the tableau of Hazel here in his kitchen, talking warmly with his family while Christmas music lilted in the background, was some kind of magic. He didn’t bother to disguise his rapt attention.

Hazel was telling them about her lab’s study on language development in toddlers. He hadn’t even known what she was working on and appreciated Maggie pressing for details about how they studied toddlers—the children wore vests with a recording device in their homes—and if they were studying bilingual households—they were. Ash realized Maggie’s underlying concern when she asked what parents should do if their toddler communicated in more grunts and gestures than actual words.

Hazel must have realized it, too. She followed Maggie’s glance to where Isabel was babbling excitedly but incoherently in June’s lap and squeezed Maggie’s wrist. “The best thing you can do is continue to be so responsive. Anyway, I don’t want to bore you all. I’m actually hoping to transfer to a different lab next semester.”

“What’s the other lab?” Ash asked.

Everyone’s eyes cut to him, as though they’d just remembered he was there. It broke the spell of Hazel being casually folded in with his family, and she blushed, waved her hands as if to say she’d already monopolized the conversation too much, but he kept her on the spot so she couldn’t weasel out of answering. “The one you’re wanting to switch to.”

“Dr. Tate’s. She’ll be studying children separated from their mothers due to incarceration. We already have a pretty good idea of the negative development outcomes for kids. They’re basically collateral damage, and it’s unjust and unnecessary—these women are mostly nonviolent offenders. But through the study, Dr. Tate hopes to identify policy changes that might better preserve attachment between the moms and kids and support family reunification.”

As she launched into specifics, the physical shift in Hazel was magnetic. Her whole body became involved, eyes bright and open, a passionate flush in her cheeks, hands emphasizing her words. She exuded competence. And that competence, at once both admirable and a little intimidating, was unbearably sexy. A brain and a heart like that were completely unfair in a body like hers, which on its own made him stupid with want.

“Won’t that be kind of depressing?” June asked over her shoulder, helping Isabel press her paint-covered palm onto paper. “Will you have to go to a prison?”

Hazel shook her head, not in answer but because going to a prison clearly didn’t daunt her. “I’d take it over transcribing scratchy audio files any day.”

Ash’s father rose from the table. He was stiff, his movements deliberate and slow. On instinct, Ash crossed the kitchen to help just as his mom grabbed one of the orange pill bottles on the counter. His father held up a hand to stop him, but Ash fetched the walker just out of his reach and set it before him. “You tired?”

Everything continued around them, this choreography of care nearly invisible, the way his parents preferred it.

“She’s got a good head on her shoulders, that one,” his father said quietly, nodding at Hazel. Pride surged through Ash. If the comment was an attempt to distract him from assisting his father, he let it slide.

He looked back at Hazel just in time to catch her gaze on him. She didn’t falter in whatever she was telling Maggie, but he clocked her interest in his dad, the concerned little furrow between her eyebrows. If he hadn’t jumped to help, if he’d let his mother handle it alone, Hazel probably wouldn’t have even noticed his dad’s achy shuffle to the recliner in the living room. She thought it was just the hip, of course. But Ash considered whether he could have told her about the MS, too. He’d thought it would be too heavy, but then, most people wouldn’t choose a prison study over toddlers. As much as she seemed to paper over discomfort in her personal life, she didn’t shy away from it to help other people.

The conversation turned to embarrassing stories about him. His fear of horses—“Distrust, not fear,” he corrected—after a carnival pony ran off with him when he was a toddler. Crying at his first T-ball game because, after he hit the ball, he thought everyone was yelling at him.

“I was a kid,” he pointed out.

“You weren’t a kid when you made the duct-tape vest,” Maggie sang. As the big sister, her protection was selective.

“Wait, I have a picture.” His mother rifled through the millions of photos and invitations on the refrigerator and plucked out a four by six of him at fourteen. He’d gotten bored one day and constructed a vest entirely out of duct tape and, unfortunately, put it on and paraded around in it. Other than a pair of boxers with dinosaurs eating pizza on them, it was all he was wearing, his scrawny, pale chest exposed and glasses sliding down his nose. Why that photo remained on the fridge after all these years, he’d never know.

Hazel’s expression was pure joy. “This is kind of impressive, actually. You could have gone into fashion.”

He snatched the photo and shoved it into a drawer.

“Wait, is this the origin of your whimsical accessories?”

“My what?”

“The floral ties.”

Ash raked a hand through his hair, wishing he could steer the conversation to anything else.

“He actually wears them?” June asked. Her eyes looked almost feral with delight.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

June turned to Hazel. “You should hear how he complains. ‘I’m not your Ken doll,’?” she mimicked.

Maggie cut in, “?‘I’m a person, not a project.’?”

“They gave you the ties?” Hazel asked, loving this whole situation.

“Does he wear the rad two-tone wingtip shoes?” June asked.

Hazel nodded. “There’s a very snappy herringbone vest, too.”

Laurel and Leanne high-fived across the kitchen table.

Hazel covered her mouth, but not before a giggle escaped. “I thought a girlfriend was dressing him.”

“Nope,” Ash said, giving the melodramatic sigh they all wanted, “just a bunch of meddling sisters.”

His mother invited Hazel to stay for dinner, and although Ash knew she was avoiding going home, he was still glad she accepted. The price for his family not fully exposing his old crush appeared to be roasting him more, but he took it in stride, glad to have her there, laughing along with them. For a while, he even forgot to worry about his dad, about his parents’ finances, about the house and his sisters.

Later, he followed her home in his dad’s truck, the tree in the back. At the gate, she spoke to the security guard for a long time before passing her sweater out the window. He remembered her story about losing her scarf and realized neither of them had come prepared with a donation. He was ready to offer his hat, but when he pulled up, the guard waved him through, saying the previous car had covered him. On her father’s long driveway, Hazel waited for him to park, shivering.

“At this rate, you won’t have any clothes left by the time we leave town,” he said, hopping down from the truck. He pulled off his jacket and held it out to her.

She looked longingly at it but didn’t reach out, so he moved behind her and draped it over her shoulders. She quickly slipped her arms into the sleeves and turned up the collar. With frequent stops, they carried the tree awkwardly, her at the top, him hoisting the substantial trunk. She peeked through the front door window, checked her watch, and whispered, “Shit.” Wincing theatrically over her shoulder at him as she entered, she called, “Uh, it’s just me.” She tugged at the tree, and Ash lifted his end. The force of it knocked her forward, and they both stumbled into the enormous foyer.

She hadn’t exaggerated when she’d called it a mansion. He felt like he was stepping into a palace, his boots scuffing too loudly across travertine tile. Alongside the contemporary elements typical of a newer build—open floor plan, soaring ceilings—the place had unexpected design specificity with arched doorways, wainscoting in the entry, and exposed rough-hewn beams in the living room. It was a shame that visitors came to marvel at the homogenous, somewhat boring all-brick exteriors, professionally decorated in the same excessive but classy holiday aesthetic while the most interesting details were kept private in highly customized, expensively sourced interiors like this one.

A woman and two teenagers—the stepfamily, he assumed—exchanged perplexed looks over their meal at the dinner table around the corner.

Hazel busied herself fluffing branches. “Sorry I missed dinner. After the other tree broke, I wanted to get you all a new one. Should we put it over by the window?”

The stepmother rose from her seat. “That’s a real tree.”

Hazel peered up at it, breath short from the effort of hauling it in. “Yeah, it’s pretty big.”

“No, I mean, it’s real.” She sniffed the air. “Your dad—”

“My dad what?”

The stepmom gave a pained smile. “He’s allergic? That’s why we had the artificial tree.”

Hazel cast a worried glance Ash’s way, brows knitted together, but she quickly returned to fidgeting with the needles. “I—” She shook her head, a flush climbing up her neck.

Footsteps came from behind Ash on the porch, and he had to shuffle out of the way to let Channel 2’s Dan Elliot into his own living room.

“Whoa.” Dan let out a low whistle. “Where’d this come from?”

Hazel tried block him. “I didn’t know—”

He bent in and breathed deeply. “Love that Christmas tree smell.”

It was almost comical how quickly he sneezed.

“We always had a real tree,” Hazel said quietly. Ash wasn’t sure to whom specifically she was saying this since he was closest and barely heard her. Louder, she said, “Every year, we went to the lot and picked one out. It was, like, the one thing we did.”

Her father leaned back to take the whole tree in. He sniffled. “This is a great tree.”

“But you’re allergic to it.”

He shrugged and shook his head, fixed on the tree rather than looking at his daughter. Hazel tilted her head and inched closer, trying to make him see her. He just kept looking up at the tree and sniffling, like he was waiting for a teleprompter to give him his lines.

“Dad.”

“You always loved a real tree. I used to take extra allergy medicine.”

Hazel pressed her lips into a tight line. Ash could see her mind at work, calculating. “Okay. Fine. We’ll take it back.” She leaned the tree back toward Ash, and he braced to catch it, but her father grabbed it.

“No. It’s a nice tree. We’ll keep—” A sneeze cut off his sentence.

“God,” Hazel muttered.

“You always wanted a tree in your room,” her father said. Confusion crossed his face briefly as he took Ash in for the first time.

“I got it for them,” she said, tilting her chin at the family hovering around the dining table. “For all of you.”

“It’s so thoughtful,” the stepmother chimed in.

Her father pulled at the tree. “We’ll keep it. This is what allergy medicine is for.”

She yanked the tree back. “That’s stupid. Your eyes are watering. You’re starting to wheeze.”

He was, a little, and after attempting to deny it again, he told her to wait while he went to take a dose. Ash knew, though, that as soon as her father was gone, she would haul that tree out of the house by herself if she had to. Her eyes glittered under the crystal chandelier.

“Would your family want it?” she asked, not meeting his eyes.

“Too tall.”

The stepfamily were still watching from the table, uncertain. Her father would be back soon.

“Let’s just put it in your room,” he suggested gently.

“Fine.” She started dragging it before he could pick up his end, grunting with the effort.

To his credit, her father came back with a tree stand and handed it to Ash from the doorway. “I’m Dan, by the way,” he said, holding up a used handkerchief as an explanation for not offering his hand. His teeth were blindingly white and straight, and from only a few feet away rather than on Ash’s TV at home, he could make out subtle makeup in the creases by his eyes. “You’re a friend of Hazel’s?”

“Asher,” he blurted. “Not Asher, actually. That’s what she calls me. Just Ash.” Then, for reasons unknown, he added, “Campbell.”

“Glad to meet you,” Dan said. No sign of recognition. It shouldn’t have bothered Ash. He knew Hazel and her dad weren’t close, and if she ever did mention Ash, she probably would have painted him as annoying at best. But he couldn’t ignore the absolute gulf between his long-standing feelings for her, so poorly contained his whole family practically salivated at the sight of her, and her long-standing dismissal.

Hazel busied herself clearing a spot in the corner, and Ash helped her hoist the enormous tree into the stand, crawling under the scratchy, low branches to tighten the pegs. Sometime during this process, her father eventually drifted back from the door without another word.

While Ash crawled back out and took in the tree—leaning only slightly—Hazel sat heavily on the bed and covered her face with the too-long sleeves of Ash’s coat. With caution, he sat beside her, sinking into the mattress and tilting her into him, hooking an arm around her back. His heart hammered. He wasn’t entitled to hold her like this, but what else was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just sit there.

“Don’t look at me,” she whispered.

“I’m not,” he said, his heart tugging. “I’m looking at this adorable photo of you in a beret.”

She tried to bolt from the bed, but he pulled her back. She’d uncovered her face, and he saw the tear streaks, the wet eyelashes she’d tried to hide.

“It’s so embarrassing,” she said, sniffling and ducking her head.

He squeezed her shoulder, tucking her into his side. “It’s cute as hell.”

After a few breaths, her resistance gave. She pressed her cheek to his shoulder, blew out a shaky sigh. “You can go whenever.”

He rubbed his hand up and down her arm. She smelled like mint and vanilla, and he hoped a trace of her stayed on his jacket. “I will. But not yet.”