Hold the Forevers

He looked at me in distress.

“Go after her!” I cried, pushing his shoulder.

Ash dashed out of the house, running after his girlfriend. I picked up the rest of my stuff while Sunny jumped up on the couch and made herself comfortable.

“Well, that makes one of us,” I grumbled at her.

I wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to be outside while Heather was yelling at him either. It had been awkward enough, being here as she’d gone off. And I hardly blamed her. I probably should have stayed away from Ash. Let him have his relationship just the way it was. Healthy and happy. But staying away had been impossible. It always had been.

Ash came back inside ten minutes later. He looked like he’d been beaten up. His hair a wreck. His suit disheveled. His eyes wide and lost.

“Fuck,” was all that came out when he sank into the couch next to Sunny.

She settled into his lap, curling into a tiny ball. He stroked her back.

“So, that … was a disaster.”

“Yeah. Fuck.”

“Is she going to give you another chance?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what the fuck she’s going to do.”

“Sorry.”

Finally, he looked up at me. Those blue eyes so set on me. “Well, she wasn’t wrong.”

I flushed. “Ash …”

“You have to know that I’m still in love with you.”

My body broke out into goose bumps at the words. Of course I knew. I wasn’t immune to him any more than he was to me. But I also wasn’t ready for that. Ready for anything from him. Especially not minutes after his breakup.

“We can’t do this, Ash.”

“Why not?”

“Heather just dumped you.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “I know that.”

“I can’t be a rebound or hidden or anything. That’s not fair to me or to her. We need to trust each other, to actually be friends before this could ever happen.”

“So, there’s hope,” he said with a sad smile.

“Be alone, Ash. Just … be alone for once.” I picked Sunny up off of his lap. “Then, maybe …”

“That’s a lot for a maybe,” he said, repeating what he’d said to me about Cole months earlier.

“Maybe it is. But only you can figure out if it’s worth it.”

Then I walked my puppy out of his place.

24

Savannah

December 31, 2012

Marley popped open another bottle of champagne. The good stuff—yellow-label Veuve. It was pretty much the only champagne that Ash would drink, which was why he’d stocked the yacht with it for his blowout New Year’s Eve party.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Marley asked as she poured flutes for me, Maddox, and Maddox’s girlfriend, Teena.

“This being?”

“Look, I like that we can use his yacht and drink his fancy champagne and shit,” Marley said. “But should you be dating him?”

“Shut it, Mars,” Maddox growled. “We get these benefits too.”

Teena laughed. “It’s pretty amazing.”

“I’m just being practical,” Marley argued.

“Josie asked the same thing,” I said.

Marley snorted. “Josie did not ask that. Josie blew a fucking fuse when she found out that you and Ash were—quote—‘casually seeing each other again.’ ”

“Well, Josie holds grudges.”

“She sure does,” Maddox said. “You definitely shouldn’t listen to what Josie says.”

“Shut up, Maddox,” Marley snapped. “Just because you and Josie are at each other’s throats has nothing on this situation.”

He shrugged. “Josie’s just Josie.”

“She is,” I agreed. I’d watched Josie and Maddox step around each other since we were teenagers. He’d been smitten in high school and then something had happened when she’d been at SCAD that neither of them talked about. Since then Maddox had been so weird about Josie, and Josie shrugged it off.

“Anyway,” Marley said with an eye roll. “I’m just saying … maybe you should learn to hold grudges too.”

“They take so much energy. And anyway, Josie isn’t one to talk. She went and eloped with her costar on Christmas. Didn’t even invite us!”

“Sounds right,” Maddox said under his breath.

“She’s a whole other topic. My best friends are so much work.”

“You love us.”

“I do. But I’m still worried about you.”

“Look, what happened with Ash was so long ago. We were kids, and I don’t even know how much of what happened was what Shelly even said.”

“Okay, let’s choose to ignore that statement. Because that’s a lot to unpack, considering we’ve spent the last five years deriding him for every little problem.” Marley took a sip of the champagne.

“I know we did. I was there. I remember how much it hurt.”

“Can I interject?” Maddox asked.

“No!” Marley said.

“Ash seems like a nice guy. He loves Lila and Sunny.”

Marley waved her hands at her twin brother. “That’s enough from you. You weren’t there after prom and you didn’t hear about what happened at Frat Beach.”

I blew out heavily. “I get it, Mars. But we’ve spent the last couple months not dating. Just being friends. And it feels different this time. I’m not walking into this blind. I want to be with Ash.”