Page 127 of The Influencer

I love you, I barely whisper in my head, concentrating very hard on keeping my mouth shut.

At least we’re not breaking up. Yet. That should make me feel better. Asher will be around. It might be awkward for a few days, but I have plenty of costumes and looks he hasn’t seen yet to help break whatever ice may develop between us. A few moves he hasn’t seen. “I won’t change my mind,” I tell him.

“Good.”

The following day is Sunday, and I wake up alone. I smell coffee and eggs, which brings some comfort, but I’d be more comfortable if Asher were still in bed with me. We need to get back to more fucking and less talking. Maybe our problem has always been that we talk too damn much. It’s too healthy, and it’s giving me all the wrong ideas about who we are for each other.

In the kitchen, I surprise him, sneaking up behind him at the stove and snaking my arms around his waist. He jumps, but then relaxes and rests his hand on mine, letting out his breath. “Good morning, you sneaky little bitch.”

I giggle against his back before letting him go to make myself an Americano. Silence once again descends, but this one is heavier, the weight of last night still pressing down on both of us.

“So,” he begins, once it’s gotten to the point where I want to go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day. “Adam, Jax, and I are going over to my apartment to get the rest of my things. Adam said I could keep them in his garage in Malibu until I get a new place.”

From one awkward topic to another we go. All right, well… “Do you have that much stuff, or did you just want the back-up for when you go to the apartment?”

“Both,” he says.

“I didn’t realize Adam was in town.”

“He flew in for this. He’s the one who arranged the whole thing. He informed me in a text this morning.”

“That’s kind of obnoxious,” I mumble.

“Huh?”

“I just mean it’s a good thing you didn’t have plans,” I say. It does seem a little presumptuous, though. Assuming Asher can’t handle his life by himself.

“Oh, I had plans,” Asher says, casting a gaze my way and deliberately glancing down at my bare legs. I’m wearing a tank top, white Calvins, and the socks I fell asleep in last night. He’s in jeans and a Violent Femmes t-shirt that looks like it’s forty years old.

“Then it’s obnoxious to make plans for you without any warning,” I say, choosing to stand my ground.

Asher shrugs and looks back down at the frying pan. “It’s just how he is.”

“You make that excuse for people a lot, you know?” I say.

“Do I?”

“Adam especially. And Olivia. Gideon. Me, too, probably when I’m not around.”

He purses his lips and turns off the heat because in the time that whole exchange took, his eggs have browned at the edges.

“What do you think it means that I do that?” he asks.

I lift my brows, leaning my hip on the counter and crossing my arms to face him. “You admit it?”

“Sure. Yeah. It’s accurate.”

I blow some of the heat from the top of my mug before saying, “I just find it interesting that a man who’s operating a very successful business leaves most of the rest of his life up to the whims and needs of other people.”

“Is that what I’m doing here?” he asks.

“I don’t mean you and me. I mean before we met.”

He scoops the eggs into a bowl. “To be fair, we don’t talk all that much about what my life was like before we met.”

“True,” I say, “but I’ve gathered a few breadcrumbs along the way.”

“I’m not sure how,” he says. “I’ve been a real wild card these past few weeks.”

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