Page 58 of The Ruse

I had always been pretty in-tune with other people’s energy—my mom had always called me her little empath. And now that I’d calmed some of my own anxiety, I was able to see that what I’d felt earlier had come purely from my own thoughts on things I’d been told and not from anything I’d actually experienced with Asher.

I was pretty embarrassed that I’d been so scared before, because if he’d really wished me harm, he could have just left me out in the snow this afternoon instead of being patient and encouraging when I was on the edge of giving up.

“So…I know we’ve talked all about your crush on Nash, and your amazing talent for the theater,” Asher broke into my thoughts as he leaned against the counter beside the stove. “But I’ve been wondering something else ever since I met you.”

“You have?” I looked up, curious about what he would want to know. I didn’t think I was that interesting.

Hopefully, this wasn’t another segue into how we had a kissing scene coming up—Asher had been all too happy to talk about that particular subject ever since my big mistake last night.

But instead of bringing that up, he said, “I’ve been curious about why you and Ava decided to come to Eden Falls for your senior year. Was it so you could be closer to Brendon and Mack? That first night we talked, you said that you only found out about each other recently.”

Oh, so he wanted the family gossip. This was a slightly better topic than I’d anticipated. Though, I was pretty surprised that someone hadn’t already filled him in on everything.

“You didn’t ask Hunter to tell you all the details?” I scooped some of the eggs around so they wouldn’t get stuck to the pan. “You guys are roommates, right?”

“Sure, we board together.” He shrugged his broad shoulders, and I couldn’t help but notice how nice his fitted black T-shirt looked on him. He definitely had nice forearms that were usually hidden under his school uniform.

I looked away before he could notice me admiring him.

He continued, “But as someone who’s had his fair share of chatter circling him, I try to get my information from the source.”

Interesting.

“You really don’t know anything about Ava and me?” I asked.

“Nothing aside from what you’ve already told me,” he said. “I know that your mom raised you and Ava on her own. That you weren’t well off financially until this year. And that you didn’t know who your dad was growing up.”

“Huh.” I leaned back on my heel as I stirred. “I’m actually really surprised that you haven’t heard anything.”

“I’m not exactly everyone’s best friend at school,” he said, his voice lowering. “You and Hunter are pretty much the only people who will really talk to me. Well, aside from Owen and Miss Crawley.” He rubbed a spot on the counter, as if embarrassed by what he’d just admitted. When he looked back at me, his cheeks were ruddy. “But who wants to brag about teachers being their closest friends?”

I didn’t know what it was about him, but my heart squeezed in my chest at the vulnerability in his voice.

How would it be to be Asher Park? To go from sitting at the cool table in the great hall where he was adored by everyone, to suddenly being the school outcast—the pariah that no one wanted to touch with a ten-foot pole?

To have people actuallyfearyou.

From what I’d picked up from little whisperings here and there, Asher and Bailee had beenthepower couple of the school last year. They’d been Prom King and Queen. Both had the leading roles inLes Misérableslast year—Bailee had played Jean Valjean’s adopted daughter Cosette.

Bailee had been the queen bee, with all the freshmen and sophomore girls hoping to be her royal subjects. She’d ruled the social scene at the school, and Asher had been made popular by affiliation.

She’d taken him from loner boy to the hot, unobtainable guy that all the girls secretly wanted to date.

It had to be crazy to go from a beloved fellow student to the guy everyone was afraid of.

And the fact that his parents weren’t even in the picture to help him out when all the chaos ensued—that he only had his barely-out-of-college older brother to lean on before his aunt and uncle swooped in…

It had to have been a nightmare.

I didn’t know how he’d been strong enough to come back to Eden Falls Academy, knowing what kind of a welcome he’d be receiving.

If I’d gone through what he had, I probably would have just stayed at the Carmichael’s big house on the hill and written off this place as a really bad memory.

Since I already knew about the skeletons he probably wanted locked in a closet, I found myself saying, “Ava and I actually didn’t know who Brendon and Mack were until after we came to Eden Falls.”

“Did your mom introduce you?” Asher asked. “Or did it come out some other way?”

“My mom didn’t breathe a word about it.” I sighed, remembering how little my mom had shared about our father while we were growing up. “She just enrolled us here because she’d gone to the academy when she was our age. She thought it would be a good place for us to live since her job started taking her out of town a lot.”

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