Page 17 of Bourbon Breakaway

Molly asks Ashton about his move back. “So where do you live?”

It’s an innocent question, but heat rises next to me.

A not-so-proud scoff escapes him. “With my parents. I’m cool like that.”

Logan punches him in the shoulder. “You’ll find somethingsoon.”

“I better,” Ashton says. “The closet in my high school bedroom is only a few sweatshirts wide.”

I can’t help myself. Why on earth would a woman who owes her career to Ashton’s fame, his generosity in putting himself in the limelight, something I constantly couldn’t understand… “Fucking bitch. She better not ever step a foot in this town or I’ll cramherin that closet. She owes every fucking ounce of her career to you.”

I stop myself, but “bitch” slips out under my breath one more time because I’ve been drinking.

Logan cocks his eyebrows. “Tell us how you really feel.”

“You don’t agree?” I poise myself for an argument.

“You know I do.” He nods.

Ashton shoves his fingers in his eye sockets, but in the shadow of his hand, his half-smile is there. Good. It might have been a very long time since Ashton and I were last together, but once an ally, always an ally. I have this man’s corner and I don’t care what the blogs and gossip mill suggest.

Now Molly is curious, and unfortunately, keeps the conversation rolling. “So, your ex is still in LA?”

“Thank God, yeah,” Logan answers for him.

Georgie piles in. I should have given the girls a memo of off-limits discussions. I’m not enjoying this one and I suspect Ashton isn’t either.

“Why did you only just now move back for real? You played last season with the Scorpions and you and Chloe broke up like a year ago?”

The shot must have gone straight to her head or she doesn’t pay attention to tabloids, because the question couldn’t put Ashton on the spot more. But truly, it’s a question I want the answer to myself.

An image of Chloe and Ashton holding hands on aspread inSnowedmagazine appears in my mind. It was the first one I saw of them when I still carried a torch for him. It took years to get over my childhood crush. Loving him felt like something fundamental.

I examined it so hard way back when that ink stained my mind. And often when I’d think of him, he wasn’t there in my memories on his own. He was with her. Slowly, but surely, my heart caught up with that tattoo on my brain. He wasn’t mine.

My heel bobs up and down, tapping at the floor like somehow my foot is trying to signal danger to my reptilian flight response. I fidget, and questions flood my mind.

Was he hanging on to their relationship all that time? Trying to save it? Did he have a mistress back in LA? I never could believe that. For a while, those questions ran through my mind as much as they did the general public’s, but not so long ago, they stopped. Something in my heart cut off the outside and remembered the man I know. Ashton has always been a loyal guy. I couldn’t believe he’d cheat. Though I knew in my heart what hedidn’tdo, I still couldn’t figure out whatdidkeep him away from Starlight Canyon all those months when he played for the Scorpions and it would have been a hell of a lot easier to move home or to Santa Fe.

Ashton tips his empty drink to the side. “I’m going to need a lot more of these to get into that. And for the doors to stay open past closing.”

The alcohol evaporates the decade between us, and I instinctively rub his back for a moment but yank my hand away almost as fast as it got there. Nervous energy continues to feed down my body, and my leg jitters back and forth until the ticktock motion of my leg hits Ashton’s. Oops. He gives my leg a restrained shove back, not realizingI did it by accident, and his deliberate touch sends a puff of butterflies out of my belly.

And a real desire to make him touch me again.

I let my leg flop back on his, and he nudges mine again, and somehow, this playful game calms me. We bang thighs against each other gently under the table like a game of footsie, and I think our legs will move in perpetual motion until I feel Logan’s eyes on us.

And it’s the same look he’d give us when we’d play football in the snow and I’d tackle Ashton to the ground and he’d pretend I got him good. It’s the same look Logan would give when I’d jump on Ashton’s back and tell him to giddy up when the boys took me out too long but I didn’t want to admit I couldn’t walk another step. Ashton, of course, always carried me home.

And Logan had that same exact look he does now. It’s hard to read. Maybe he thinks I’m being annoying to Ashton. Maybe he thinks we shouldn’t touch each other. Maybe he just doesn’t know what to think, but in any scenario, his features aren’t approving.

I pull my leg away for good, but it doesn’t matter that I stopped. I already feel filled with everything I needed and wanted to take away from this night. After months of being back in Starlight Canyon, somehow only now do I feel like I belong here. Now with my brother, and Ashton, playing like we’re still in elementary school under the table.

And then, the most unlikely thing that could make me feel like I’m back in Starlight Canyon happens. A cowboy asshole decides he’s welcome at our table.

“Well, if it isn’t Miss Manager herself,” he sneers at Molly.

Who the fuck does this guy think he’s messing with?

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