A Little Bit Dirty

I take big, deep breaths and calm down. I’m done now. I’ve cried. I’ve felt my feelings. Now it’s time to focus on work like the grown woman I am.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation,” my mother says and then she tells Autumn to get back to it. With a pat on the back, she leaves me be but tells me I can head home early if I need.

I need to buy them both flowers the next time I’m out. Or chocolate or something nice.

Pulling my hair back into a makeshift ponytail, I pull myself together, one breath at a time.

I’ve already had a full crying session and it’s not even lunch. Ugh.

My phone lights up and I assume it’s a message from Katelyn as I let my hair fall and reach for it. There’s a hard beat in my chest when I see it’s a message from Asher.

I force myself to pick up my phone casually, as if getting a text from him is no big deal.

Asher: We didn’t get to have breakfast together. Want me to bring you lunch at work?

Chewing on my bottom lip, I glance at my mom and then my sister, both of whom are back to work tapping at their keyboards … like I should be.

I text him back: I want to have lunch with you, but you don’t have to drop it off.

Asher: I don’t?

Brianna: I can step away for a few minutes. I want to talk to you.

Asher: Okay.

His next message takes a little more time.

Asher: If you want to get away, let’s do that.

Asher: Meet me at the bakery?

Asher

“I want to talk.”

Fucking hell. Why, woman? That’s all I wanted to text her. Bri’s always overthinking, always worried about what’s happening the day after next.

Everything is good, better than good. We’re the way we were meant to be. It’s easy. But I know exactly what those words mean. It’s not like it’s the first time she’s told me: I want to talk.

Hell, the last time she said that, I wanted to talk too. I wanted to tell her my father got drunk and when Mom tried to take the bottle away, he hit her. I wanted to tell her he’s not okay and I’m not okay either. He’s a better man than that, but he’s an alcoholic and we don’t know what to do.

I remember it all, balled up at the back of my throat. When I found out the bills weren’t paid. When everything came down on my shoulders and I was fucking drowning. All I wanted was to tell her everything.

But my mother didn’t. She didn’t want anyone to know.

I had to protect them all. I had to step up and be a man.

I had to protect everyone involved. I didn’t want to betray my dad by telling anyone outside our family what he’d done. That’s not the kind of man he is. And I didn’t want Bri to risk coming home to try and fix things for herself. Not when she was living her dream.

I couldn’t be a burden to her.

Bri was off at college, and she didn’t need to come back for me.

My stomach knots as I walk down Main Street. My palms sweat. Why does she want to talk so much? I love the sound of her voice, but we could just … not talk. I just want us to be. Bri overthinks everything, and she doesn’t have to. We click. We work. I felt it last night.

It should be that simple.

An older lady I’ve worked for before, Martina, comes out of the antique store she owns just as I’m going by. “Oh, Asher, I’m glad to see you. Do you have a second?”