Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
I didn’t, did I? Not with Beau. He was too good a man for that, too honest and real. He always had been, which was why my over-the-top antics had always annoyed him so much. “I don’t really know where I am,” I admitted. “I’m a little drunk.”
“No way! I couldn’t tell,” he teased.
I looked up at the streetlight. The green light was fuzzy, but I saw a sign I managed to make out. “Against a brick wall by a light on Bishop Street. There’s a furniture store on the corner.”
“I know where you are. I’ll be right there.”
“Wait,” jumped out of my mouth before he hung up.
“Yeah?”
“You were with someone? When I called?”
“Yeah, but I’m not anymore. I’ll be right there, Ash.”
“Okay.” I hung up and waited, knowing Beau would come…knowing everything was about to change.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Beau
Beau is magic. He makes everything okay. ~ Love, Kenny
What in the fuck was I doing? There hadn’t been a doubt in my mind that I was going to go home with the man I’d been dancing with. It had been my plan, what I needed, to fuck Ashton Carmichael out of my damn thoughts.
But that hadn’t happened, had it?
He’d called…he’d called, and now I was going running.
I was lucky the plan had been to hook up tonight, because I never had more than one drink if I was going home with someone I didn’t know. I liked to be in my right mind when I was letting someone inside me. So I’d been able to go to Sawyer’s, who lived close to the bar, and borrow his car since my truck was at home. I didn’t figure Ash was in a position to want to be around a driver he didn’t know.
“Funny you should mention dick, because mine’s broken. I couldn’t even get hard tonight. She wasn’t impressed.”
He’d tried to hook up with someone…he’d tried, and he couldn’t perform. I knew how something like that had to affect him—Ash being so damn proud and having used sex to lie to himself…maybe for his whole life.
“Fuck,” I groaned as I approached Bishop Street. I saw him sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall, looking down, with his arms on his bent knees. The set of his body screamed sorrow. How long had Ash been feeling this way? How long had he been lying to himself?
I pulled the car up to the side of the road and rolled the window down. “Ashton.”
“Sorry, wrong number,” he replied without looking up.
“Not sure that works in this situation.”
“Ashton who?” he tried again.
“Get in the car, Ash.”
“Not sure I can.”
Sighing, I got out, walked over, and held my hand out to him. He looked up at me, his hat—my hat—backward on his head, enabling me to see the pain in his eyes, the confusion…the loneliness…the fear.
“Stop wearing your hat like me. You’ve always tried to be like me.”
“Because you created backward caps?” I teased.
“No, but I’ve always worn mine that way. You didn’t start until senior year.”
“You remember that?” Jesus, how could he remember something so small? Something like when I started wearing baseball caps a certain way.
“Um…no…?” His brows knitted together as he attempted to lie. “We can pretend it was a lucky guess.”
I wrestled with my emotions, wondering what that could mean, because now wasn’t the time for me to think about the fact that Ashton Carmichael remembered inconsequential details about me. This was bigger than me. It was about him. “Okay. Lucky guess, then. Take my hand. I’m not carrying your drunk ass to the car.”
Okay, so I knew this was fucking crazy, but I swear to God, it was like it happened in slow motion. His fingers twitched, hand slid, arm moved, lifted, and then Ash clasped his hand with mine. His skin was warm, so fucking warm, the pads of his fingers rough, and damned if I didn’t feel a jolt of lightning shoot up my arm.
See? Crazy. Why did Ashton always make me so crazy? It didn’t matter if he was annoying the shit out of me or just touching my hand. He made me feel.
Ignoring it, I pulled him to his feet. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but I twined my fingers with his, didn’t let go as I made a move to walk to the car. Ash’s feet were rooted to the concrete, and when I realized he wasn’t going to budge, I stopped, looked back at him. “What?”
“Thank you for coming. I didn’t mean to cock block.”
“It’s fine.” I tried to walk again, but he still didn’t move.
“Don’t pretend like it’s nothing. You make sacrifices for people. You’re a good man, Beau. Just say ‘you’re welcome.’ I’m not getting into the car until you say ‘you’re welcome.’”
I chuckled. Leave it to Ash to throw a temper tantrum to get his way when I was trying to help him. But I guess if he was going to throw one, he picked a sweet reason to. “Well…he was really hot.”