Page 93 of Chasing Your Ghost

“You don’t really like mayonnaise sandwiches do you?”

Her face broke into a grin. “We’ve been over this. Of course, I don’t.”

“I just wanted to confirm,” he replied. “And do you remember what I said I’d tell you when I was sure you weren’t a mayonnaise-sandwich eater?”

Butterflies began flying around in Riley’s stomach. She nodded.

“Right, so now that I know you’re not a completely unreasonable person with awful taste, I can safely say that my favorite thing about you isn’t your hair.” He shifted onto his side so that they were looking at each other and wound a strand of her lavender hair around his finger.

“What is then?” she asked in a whisper.

“It’s a few things really,” he admitted. “Your strength. Your dry humor.” His gaze lowered to her mouth, and his eyes heated. “And now that I’ve tasted them, your lips.” He lifted his gaze to her eyes again, the corners of them crinkling as he smiled. “But most of all, your big heart.”

Riley’s lips parted in surprise. Of all the things he could have said, that was possibly the last thing she’d expected. “I don’t have a big heart,” she argued quietly, her gaze lowering. “If I did, I wouldn’t be so hard on Edith.”

He tipped her chin up, forcing her to meet his unyielding gaze. “If you didn’t have a big heart, you wouldn’t have helped Hugh with his work, you wouldn’t have made an effort with Olivia after the way she treated you at first, you wouldn’t ask Noah how his mom is doing every time you see him, and you wouldn’t have gone above and beyond to help me.”

“Anyone would have done the same.”

“No, they wouldn’t have.” He shifted his hand so that his fingers were cupping her cheek. “You’re so good. So kind. It’s a pity you don’t see it, but I do. I see it in the way you stayed up late night after night to help a ghost you didn’t even know.

“I see it in how you immediately closed your curtains when Ella told you her migraine made her sensitive to light. I see it in how you’ve been helping me, even on days when it looks like you’re seconds away from breaking over the loss of your dad.”

Riley pulled in a sharp breath. She’d thought she’d been hiding it well. She’d thought she’d done a good job of pretending to be okay, but Asher had seen right through it. He’d seen how much she was struggling.

“I wanted to tell you not to worry about me on those days,” he admitted, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “I wanted to let you grieve, but you jumped right back into research before I could ever say anything, and I was always worried I’d only make things worse by bringing it up.” He searched her face, looking worried. “Was I wrong not to?”

“No,” Riley breathed out. “You did exactly what I needed you to.”

She blinked back the sting in her eyes, uselessly willing herself not to cry even as a tear escaped and rolled down her face to drop onto her pillow.

“Losing my dad was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and maybe it isn’t healthy, but helping you let me forget for a time. It sounds horrible, but I can forget that he’s gone when I’m with you. I still miss him so much, and I’d do anything to have him back, but when I’m helping you, I don’t feel the loss as keenly. I don’t feel so broken. I feel happy.”

“It’s not horrible,” he reassured her. “I know what you mean because being here with you when I thought my life was over did the same thing for me.”

“Some people would think that meant we were using each other to forget,” Riley pointed out, her teeth biting into her lower lip as soon as the words were out. Maybe she shouldn’t have said it, but she needed him to know that wasn’t how she saw it, and she wanted to know if it was what he thought of the time they’d spent together.

“Some people might,” he agreed. “But that’s not how I see it.”

Riley breathed out a silent sigh of relief. “How do you see it?”

He only needed a second to formulate his response, and how little time he needed to think about it was just as significant as his words. “I see it as two people who were going through terrible things, leaning on each other for support and finding happiness where they could.”

Her bottom lip worked free of her teeth as her lips curved up. She covered his hand with her own, wishing she could feel warmth beneath her fingers but grateful that she could feel anything at all. “You kept thanking me for helping you, but I needed you just as much as you needed me.”

He nodded. “Can I ask you another question?”

She let out a sigh as though she had grown weary. “Fine, but this is the last one.”

Asher paused before asking his question, his hesitation letting her know this wouldn’t be about something as trivial as mayonnaise sandwiches. “Why haven’t you unpacked yet?”

Riley lowered her gaze. “You noticed that, huh?”

“Kind of hard not to when your suitcases are lying right there.”

Her lips twitched up in a shadow of a smile. “True. Honestly, aside from the fact that I’m leaving soon and will take all my things to Georgetown, I haven’t unpacked because—” She breathed in, but the fresh oxygen did little to make the words easier to say. “Because I promised myself I wouldn’t let this place feel like home.”

His eyebrows drew together. “Because of Edith?”

---