Bad Habit (Bad Love 1)

I close my eyes, pretending that Ash is still here. He’d sneak into my room and wrap his arms around me, telling me that everything would be okay. That no one else matters but us. If I try hard enough, I can feel his breath on my neck and his stubble against my cheek. Eventually, exhaustion beats heartbreak, and I feel myself drifting off to sleep with Asher’s ghost.

Chapter 15

Asher

One week later…

“The fuck!” I groan, my voice hoarse as hell as I’m woken up by freezing water being sprayed on me. Where the fuck am I, and why is it so bright? I shield my eyes from the sun with my forearm and survey my surroundings. I’m in someone’s front yard, facedown in the grass. Not just anyone’s lawn—Dare’s—and he’s standing over me with the hose pointed in my direction.

“Morning, Sunshine,” he deadpans. I have a solid thirty seconds of being blissfully unaware before I remember why I’m here and the events that led up to it. I ran, literally ran, the four miles from the hospital to Adrian’s place. Hopped in my truck, drove to Briar and Dash’s to grab my shit, and then hit the highway, heading straight for River’s Edge. I showed up at Dare’s door twelve hours later, then told him about the last couple of months, while I drank myself into oblivion. How did everything get so fucked up?

“You had your pity party. Time to man up and deal with it.”

“Fuck off, Dare. I don’t need your big brother shit right now.”

“I don’t really give a shit what you think you need. I know from experience that you’re about to spiral, and then you’re going to spend the rest of your life regretting it. Trust me on this one.”

That might be the most Dare has ever divulged about himself in one sentence. I know something happened, and I’ve always gotten the feeling that it was a tragedy, but I’ve never asked him. Dare likes to talk even less than I do.

I stand up, brushing off the pieces of grass stuck to my bare stomach and follow Dare inside. The house is just like I remembered it. A cabin style home with vaulted ceilings sitting right on the lake. It’s still pretty bare. A couple of couches in front of a huge stone fireplace. A couple of rooms with beds upstairs—one of them mine—and not a lot else. Not even a TV, which has made for a very boring week. Dare’s been tattooing at the new shop he opened, and I’ve been doing a lot of drinking myself into oblivion and sleeping. Rinse, repeat.

“It’s been a week,” Dare says, handing me a cup of coffee, his not-so-subtle way of sobering me up. “You need to bury your dad, man.”

The mug is scorching, but I ignore the burn as I clench it so tight that I expect it to shatter in my hands. I’ve been in contact with the funeral home. John made most of the arrangements on his own. He’s to be buried right next to my mom. He was an organ donor, which is pretty goddamn ironic if you ask me, so the process takes a little longer than it would otherwise. And now, they’re just waiting on me. But I can’t go back. I won’t.

Briar. Just thinking her name feels like a fist around my heart. I left her in a fucking hospital bed. She was only there because of me in the first place.

“Asher, please don’t leave me.”

Her voice haunts me, and I squeeze my eyes shut. I promised her I wouldn’t leave her, and even though it’s for her own good, I can’t stop picturing how it must have felt when she realized I wasn’t there, and again when it was clear that I wasn’t coming back. I told her this would happen. This, right here, is what I was trying to avoid. But, what I feel for Briar transcends logic, rules, and societal norms. She’s so deeply ingrained in me, that I’m not even me without her. My best side was her worst creation.

None of that matters, though. I’m not the one for her. I don’t belong in that town with those people. Briar is inherently good, while I’m rotten, and it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch.

Chapter 16

Briar

Day Eight

My parents are coming. It took them an entire week to check the voicemail that the doctor left on my mom’s cell phone, informing them that their daughter was hospitalized. To their credit, they hopped on the next flight out, as soon as they heard. The utter despair I’ve been feeling for the past week shifts into anger, and my blood boils thinking about my dad’s part in all this. My father isn’t the softest man in the world, not by a long shot, but I didn’t think he was capable of something like this. Especially not when it hurts his own children. But, clearly, I was mistaken.

I stretch out my legs from the fetal position I’ve spent the majority of the past week in and yawn. I’ve done nothing but sleep and watch Tombstone from my bed. I can’t even use the media room anymore because it hurts too much. He managed to ruin my favorite place.

“Fucker,” I mutter under my breath.

I’ve called the funeral home, but they didn’t have any information on services planned for John. He wasn’t a bad man. He was a man who sometimes did bad things. A man who couldn’t deal with all the hurt inside him, so he pushed his son and everyone else away while he quite literally drank himself to death. My worst fear is Asher suffering the same fate. I thought I could be that person for him. I thought I could make him happy. Because even through all the dysfunction, the sneaking around, and the lies, he made me happy. He made me whole. I promised myself I wouldn’t let him complete me. I didn’t want to fall in love. Falling in like, and then losing him, was hard enough.

I hear the shrill, neurotic voice of my mother coming through the front door, her heels clacking against the hardwood floors. My father is silent, but I know he’s with her. I blow out a deep breath, rolling onto my back, bracing myself for them to come barging through my door. Swinging my legs over the side, I sit up on the edge of the bed.

“Briar!” Mom shrieks, running into my room. She bends at the waist, taking my face in her hands, checking to see if I’m still whole. And I am, on the outside, save for some stiches and some gnarly bruises. But the inside is another story. I don’t speak. I don’t move. I’m limp as I stare straight at my father while she checks me over. He’s foreboding in his sharp suit and crossed arms. He looks ruffled. Concerned. But it’s all an act. His tall frame takes up the entire doorway, but he doesn’t intimidate me one bit. Not right now. A loaded gun wouldn’t scare me at this point.

“Sweetheart,” Mom says, tipping my chin up to force me to look at her. “What’s going on?”

“Ask him,” I say, jerking my chin out of her bony fingers.

My dad doesn’t even have the decency to look guilty. He arches a brow, jaw clenched, and straightens his tie.

“What is she talking about?” Mom asks, looking genuinely confused. Maybe she wasn’t in on it. Maybe he didn’t even tell her.