Page 4 of Loving You

One year. One fucking year was all it took for him to remember how to read me like a book.

“That’s not it,” I say, and he barks out a laugh.

He leans to the bar top, resting on his forearms. “Sure as shit it is.”

I groan.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky, and she won’t return this summer.”

Now it’s my turn to laugh.

“Considering she texts me weekly to check in and let me know she’s still planning to come, I don’t agree with you.”

I pull my phone from my pocket to show him the unread message I received this morning.

He glances at my phone and then stands tall, grabs a ticket off the printer, and starts to make a drink in front of me. “Tell her you don’t want to see her.”

“I have. Either my text messages aren’t going through, or she can’t read. And before you suggest it, I’m not calling her.”

Even though people think I’m a dick, I don’t try to be. And this situation is complicated. I’d be stuck on the phone with her for far longer than I want. Hudson knows it.

“You’re not calling who?” Luca pulls up the chair next to me. He reaches for my plate and slides it toward himself. I already ate the burger, so all that’s left are fries, and now they are clearly his fries.

It’s okay, though. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.

“Cherry,” Hudson answers before I can reroute this conversation.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

Yep, that’s her name. The tourist from last summer. Cherry Lucial Pepperton, to be exact.

Shit. Her full name alone should have told me to run and never look back.

I’m chalking it up to a weak moment.

I was watching my brother fall in love, and perhaps a tiny piece of me wanted that, too.

Unlucky for me, though, I went searching in the wrong place.

“Oooh, not Cherry,” Luca says and makes an absurd noise next to me. I punch his shoulder.

“Fuck. Ouch,” he says with a laugh. “You two made fun of me for three years over one of my hookups. This is just payback.”

“This is different,” I snap.

“How so?”

“Cherry is coming back this summer, and Miles here,”—Hudson grins—“is super looking forward to it.”

“No, I'm not looking forward to it. I’m dreading it. She can’t take a hint, and I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

Add to that the fact that the apartment I built for my dad behind my mechanic shop is still empty because he isn’t ready to move out of his house yet, I’m three months behind on the books for my shop, and I need a shop hand to help me get caught up. The list of shit I need to accomplish is growing fast. The last thing I need is Cherry showing up at the shop every single day and asking me to hang out.

Not to mention, if a tourist, namely Cherry, gets wind of the apartment being for rent before I can find a tenant, I’m screwed. I’d take it off the market, but my plan is to pressure my dad to move in now by leasing it to someone else. I know it sounds terrible, but his house is too big for him, and whether we want to admit it or not, he’s getting older. He doesn’t need a tri-levelhome with his bedroom upstairs and the laundry in the basement.

I’m just being practical.

As for the rest, well, I need help, but it's no secret asking for help is not something that comes easily to the Asher family, which is exactly why I’m behind.

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