Page 99 of Take Me Home

Ash blinked up from the model at the sound of knocking on his door. He’d waffled on whether to repair the damage or shop for new gifts for his nieces at the last minute. All his usual tools and paints sat out of reach at his apartment, so he’d raided his mother’s art supplies in the garage and was making them work, sort of. He’d just have to accept some imperfections.

June called impatiently through the door. “Are you clothed?”

“No.”

She entered anyway, one hand plastered across her eyes, the other holding two mugs of coffee, one of which tilted anddripped onto the carpet. She parted her fingers and scoffed. “Liar.”

“What do you want?”

She set one of the mugs on his dresser and cupped the other thoughtfully under her chin, openly surveying the wreckage around him. “So, what’d you do?” At his frown, she added, “Her car was here last night. Now it’s not. We thought you had both gone, but Mom heard you hulking out up here earlier.”

She sat on his bed, plucked an errant Popsicle stick from under her thigh, and tossed it into the trash bin. “There was a small chance she was still here, and you two were just into some weird, BDSM—”

“June,” he warned tiredly.

“What? Like I wanted to come up here and see things I’d have to bleach from my brain later?”

“She’s not here.” Fuck, it hurt to say it out loud.

“And the parting was such sweet sorrow?” she said, morphing into a Shakespearean player. She was so irritatinglyJune, nosy, intrusive, perfectly capable of reading a room but always going for the joke anyway. “You missed breakfast. And now it’s starting to feel like you’re avoiding us. On Christmas Eve Eve.”

Ash glued a new piece of trim to the model wall. He didn’t have time to chat, nor did he want to address the accusation that he was avoiding everyone when they were the ones who had iced him out over the hospital visit.

“So, what happened? I mean, you’re usually pretty uptight, but you actually seemed kind of normal around her,” June said.

“I’m not uptight.”

A hyena laugh burst out of her.

“Yeah, well, you don’t know as much as you think you do. There are things on my plate that no one expects of you.”

“Oh,” June said, nodding. “You mean like you guys hiding shitfrom me? Yeah, it must have been tough to be trusted with what was going on with dad all these years.”

“That—” he started. He’d never considered that they’d beenbadat keeping the details hidden or that his sisters might resent the protection.

“So, what happened with Hazel?”

He sighed. “I told you. She left.”

“Because…”

“Because…I don’t know. Because she has a shitty relationship with her parents, and she had a shitty first boyfriend, and now she thinks every relationship can only be shitty.”

“Okay. Were you guys in a relationship?”

“Barely.” He ran a hand over his hair in frustration. “I mean, yeah, it was going somewhere. It was real. She just didn’t think it could end up any other way. And I—I got too involved with her issues with her dad, and that didn’t help.”

June nodded, suddenly affecting some serene therapist. “So, you went with her story?”

“What?”

“That things couldn’t end up another way.”

“No. She didn’t give me a choice. She left.”

“Okay, so you’re just sitting here feeling sorry for yourself? It’s not like she’s Liam Neeson’s daughter inTaken. And you have this newfangled thing called a phone.Callher.”

“June,” he said, frustrated. “She’s ignoring my texts. Even if I knew where she was, she made it pretty clear she wants space. She has this thing withafters.” He waved off her confusion. “I’m sure this will shock you, but me trying to fix things is part of the fucking problem. She asked for space. If I go after her, I’ll just push her away more.”

---