Southern Secrets

by Madison, Natasha

  "I do not," I say, and I stop talking when Mayson gets close.

  "What are you two talking about?" he asks, and I send her a don’t fucking say anything look.

  "We were wondering if the food was ready?" Chelsea says, putting her arms around his waist.

  "They said five minutes," he says.

  "Excuse me, I have to wash my hands," I say, walking away from them.

  "You can run," Chelsea says, and I turn around, looking at her and walking backward. "But you can’t hide." She smiles at me, and when I stick my two fingers up, she puts her head back and laughs.

  I stay as far away from him as I can all afternoon. Instead of eating with my cousins because Asher is there, I eat sitting on the grass with Gabriel.

  After a couple of hours of playing with the kids, I get up and walk over to say goodbye to my parents and my grandparents. I duck out before anyone sees me, and when I walk into the house, I head straight for the shower.

  Dressing in a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt, I walk back to the kitchen when the front door opens and then slams closed.

  "You didn’t even tell me you were leaving," Asher says, standing there, his hands on his hips. "I was looking for you all over the place."

  "Why didn’t you just call my phone?" I ask. His eyes are a deep brown, the same color they turn when he’s angry with something.

  "Why the hell would I call your phone when we were both at the same place?" he says, huffing out. "I was ready to leave an hour ago, but I was waiting to see if you needed a lift."

  "Well, clearly, I made it home okay," I say, opening the water bottle and putting it to my lips. He doesn’t say a word to me. All he does is stare. My neck is getting hot. "I heard that you stopped a couple of fights last night," I say, putting one hand on the island.

  "Who told you that?" he asks now.

  "Are you denying it?" I step away from the counter to walk to the dining room. He stands there not too far away from me. "Someone told me that two girls were fighting over you." My hands start to shake. "Have you decided yet?" I finally cave and ask him the question that I’ve wanted to ask him ever since I found out he was thinking of leaving.

  "Decided what exactly, Amelia?" He says my name, and I hear the whisper of him calling me baby, right before we almost kissed.

  "If you are staying or going?" I ask, everything that I told myself all day is out the window. The not knowing has been killing me this whole time.

  He walks over to me, standing right in front of me. "This isn’t a good idea," he says, his voice going soft toward the end of that sentence. "I know this isn’t a good idea. You know that this isn’t a good idea." He points at me and then back to himself. "No matter how much I tell myself to get my shit and leave." He steps one step closer to me. "There is always something that stops me from leaving." I swallow now as his scent surrounds me, my stomach flip-flopping. He steps even closer as our chests are touching. "And that someone, Amelia …" His finger trails my cheek. "Is you."

  Chapter 19

  Asher

  I take a step even closer as our chests are touching, our breathing in sync. "And that someone, Amelia …" My hand lifts to touch her cheek, to touch any part of her, and her breath hitches when my eyes go from hers to her mouth. "Is you." I admit it to her as well as myself.

  "Asher." She lifts her hand and touches my face with her fingertips, and my whole body becomes alive. My eyes look into hers, and my heart soars in my chest. My thumb rubs her cheek, the touch of her skin like silk.

  "One chance," I say, and I feel her fingertips move on my cheek. "One last chance." My voice comes out in a whisper, praying like fuck she doesn’t say no. Hoping like fuck I can finally get the kiss that has been haunting my dreams.

  My palm holds her face, my fingers in her hair, and our eyes meet one last time before I close the gap and take her lips. My hand drops from her face to go around her waist, my head tilting to the side just a touch as our lips meet. I don’t know if she lets out a sigh or if I do. My tongue slips into her mouth, and I’m pretty sure this is what heaven would feel like. I’m pretty sure that all the shit that life has handed me was done with this as my reward. I would go through it all over again, just for this one second. Just for this one touch.

  Her hand falls from my face to my chest as she kisses me back. I turn my head from one side to the other, and I can’t get enough of her. I could spend lifetimes searching for kisses like this.

  When I looked around at the barbecue and didn’t see her anywhere, I went into a panic. It was almost a full-on panic attack until Ethan saw me looking around like crazy.

  "Chill," he said, slapping my shoulder. "She took off not too long ago."

  "Alone?" I asked, pissed since the threat was still out there. It also didn’t help that I hadn’t slept more than two hours last night.

  Getting in the truck, I ignored that my body was sore. I didn’t think about all the times today she walked away from me. I didn’t think about sitting down and eating and wishing she was there beside me. I didn’t think of any of that as I drove to her house.

  Instead, all I could see in my head was the smile she had on her face most of the day. The smile was fake, and anyone who knew her would realize it. The thought that she was upset with me or at me, I just couldn’t stomach the latter.

  It pushed me off the ledge with whatever little restraint I had. Driving back over here, I tried to calm myself. I tried to talk myself down, but coming into the house and seeing her looking like she did, with her hair down and a surprised look on her face, everything I told myself flew out the window.

  I let go of her lips, but I quickly grab her face and pull her back to me. My tongue slips back into her mouth as her tongue slides with mine. Round and round, our tongues fight each other. The kiss gets deeper and deeper. She groans into my mouth and arches her back against me. Her hands going around my neck. "Asher," she says my name breathlessly when I let go of her lips, and then her lips come back to mine. She bites my lower lip; my hands go to her ass. My palms on her ass, I pull her to me. Her head goes back as she feels my cock on her stomach.

  She brings her mouth back to me again, and the kiss is harder than the first one. When I feel her hand lifting my shirt, my lips leave hers, and I move one step away from her. Her hands drop from my stomach, and my hands drop from her ass. "I’m sorry," I say to her, and her eyes open. Her eyes are a deep blue, her lips plump. "I shouldn’t have done that." My heart wants to come out of my fucking chest as it pounds. "I shouldn’t have just kissed you."

  She blinks a couple of times. "I kissed you back," she says, her hand coming up to touch her lips. Her middle finger traces her bottom lip. If you look close enough, you can see little red dots that my beard left.

  "If I didn’t kiss you, would you have kissed me?" I ask, and I shake my head. "Don’t answer that." I don’t want to know the answer. Whatever the answer is, I can’t be the man who deserves her.

  "No," she says softly. "I wouldn’t have kissed you."

  "Well, there you have it," I say, running my hands through my hair as I swallow down the lump in my throat. Even she knew I wasn’t worth this. If I didn’t think I had to leave before, I definitely think it’s time to go now. I turn, walking toward the bedroom.

  "Just like that?" she snaps at me, and I turn to look at her. Her chest rises and falls with one hand on her stomach. "So just like that, you come in here." She uses her other hand to point at the floor in front of her. "And kiss the ever-loving shit out of me." Her voice goes louder. "And then just say you’re sorry?"

  "I don’t know what else to say," I say.

  "Why did you kiss me?" she asks.

  "I couldn’t stop myself," I say. "I’ve been dreaming of kissing you since I first met you. Since you smiled at me the first time and extended your hand out to me." I replay the first day we met. "You were wearing jeans and a white shirt. Your hair was tied on the top of your head. You reached out and smiled at me with your hand extended, and all you said
was, ‘I’m Amelia.’" She just stares at me. "From that moment, I’ve wanted to kiss you," I admit. "From that moment, I fought kissing you every single day."

  "But …" she says and shakes her head.

  "I’m not the man you deserve," I say, the burning in my stomach feeling like my body is on fire. Like the poison in me is burning on the inside trying to get out.

  "I never said that," she says, blinking away the tears in her eyes. "Not once did I ever say that."

  "You don’t have to." I laugh bitterly. "Being here, being around your family. I know that I have nothing to offer you. I have nothing to offer anyone." My heart beats so fast in my chest I don’t know what to say. "There are things about me you don’t know."

  "There are things about me you don’t know either," she says as one lone tear runs down her face.

  My mouth is getting dry as my heart screams for her. "There are parts of me irrecoverably broken." Her hand flies to her chest, and I would give anything to feel her heart under my hand. "We are from two different worlds," I say, and for the first time in my life, I tell my story to someone.

  "From the story my mother told me, she was sixteen when I was born." I tell her the story, my eyes never leaving hers. "Sixteen. She didn’t even have a mother herself. She was in a foster home when she met this guy who promised her the world. She was a waitress at a local diner. He came in one day, and she knew right away he wasn’t from there. The thick gold watch on his wrist, along with the brand-new SUV he drove made them both know they were from two different parts of the world. She didn’t think twice about him, and the next day, he came back, and this time, they started talking." I shake my head. "One thing led to another, and she got pregnant. He stopped showing up. She finally tracked him down, and when she told him she was pregnant, he laughed at her."

  "Asher," she says my name.

  "That’s not even the worst part. She had me, and it wasn’t an easy delivery. The doctor gave her pain pills, and she got addicted." My voice goes softer. "Having me killed her." I admit one of my biggest secrets that I’ve never told a soul. Not even my foster brother.

  "You can’t believe that." She takes a step forward.

  "If she didn’t have me, who knows where she would be," I say. "She tried." I think back, and if I close my eyes and concentrate just hard enough, I can see her face. "She tried to kick the habit, but one thing after another kicked her back, and then she was hanging around with another guy who promised her the world." I look down. "I was in foster care for three days, and she was sitting in a morgue. I didn’t attend her funeral because there was no one to pay for one. They got me dressed up one day, and I thought I was going to be adopted. I didn’t even know what that meant, but I knew kids said when they dress you up, they take you to your new family. Not me, they got me dressed up to take me to court to officially say I was a ward of the state. My grandmother showed up for five seconds to sign her rights over. My mom looked so much like her when I saw her, I cried ‘mom’ after her."

  "Oh my God," she says, putting her hand to her mouth, the tears staining her cheeks. I should stop. I should stop right now and not tell her the rest. But the flood gates have opened, and everything wants to come out.

  "And that was the good part of my life," I say. "I was in and out of foster homes, never staying at one too long. I was treated like a waste of space. I was told time and time again that all I was, was a paycheck. Stay quiet and don’t mess this up for us." I swallow. "When you are told your whole life that no one wants you and that you aren’t worth anything, you start to believe it. Even if I didn’t want to believe it, the kids at school were good at telling me that I was nothing since I came from a foster house."

  "You are worth so much," she says, and I just shake my head.

  "I went five days with only eating a loaf of bread," I say. "My foster mother was in Mexico. She left a ten-year-old for five days with a loaf of bread. No one would have known had the apartment downstairs not flooded. You grow up fast, that’s for sure. When I was thirteen, my foster father climbed into bed with me." I watch her face. "Lucky for me, I always went to bed dressed in all my clothes. Also lucky for me, I learned to yell real loud. Then I met Ryan, and the two of us made a plan to take off. We lived on the streets for six months. We had each other’s back, and then he got sick. I worked my ass off to make sure he was okay, but it wasn’t good enough; nothing was good enough. I couldn’t even rent a room for him to die in a bed. Instead, he died in a crack house with people doing meth around him." She swallows as my own tears fall from my eyes. "You learn two things in foster care. One, no one is going to protect you like you, and two, only the strong will survive."

  "You survived," she says. "You are the strongest person I know."

  “I survived by running,” I tell her. “Survived by never staying in one place for too long. Living paycheck to paycheck by the skin of my teeth.” The weight of my past still presses on my shoulders. “That’s the man you just kissed,” I tell her, leaving out the fact I’m hiding the biggest secret not only from her but also her whole family, and it’s eating me up inside.

  She wipes the tear that runs down her face, and I want to go to her so much, but I know it’s just prolonging the inevitable. "I’ll get my things."

  Chapter 20

  Amelia

  "I’ll get my things," he says and turns to walk away, his shoulders slumped and his head down. This man who is worth so much yet doesn’t see it.

  "Stop," I snap, taking one step forward. He turns around, and my eyes meet his. The look of defeat is all over his face. "You don’t get to do this," I say, my hands shaking, and I really wish I could sit down. "You don’t get to give me all that and not listen to what I have to say."

  "Amelia," he says my name in a broken plea. "Just." I hold up my hand to stop him from talking. I hold up my hand, and he sees it shaking. He takes a step forward, but I shake my head. I can’t do this if he’s next to me.

  "I know a man who woke up at the ass crack of dawn to go out to help an old man fix his fence. An old man he isn’t even related to, I might add." I shake my head. "I know this man who lost everything and was sadder because of the impact that loss had on my family. I know a man who puts other people before himself. I know this man who would give anyone the shirt off his back." I stand straight and pull my shoulders back. “There are things about me that you don’t know either," I say, and he just looks at me. "Things no one knows. And I mean no one. Not my parents, not my grandfather, not even Chelsea."

  "You don’t have to do this," he says, but after everything he gave me tonight, I owe him this right now.

  "I don’t have to but"—I look down at my hands—"I want you to know." I swallow the fear that he might look at me differently. "I fell in love when I was fourteen years old. He worked for my grandfather, doing stuff around the barn and then he was the up-and-coming rodeo champion. He trained with my cousins, and there was no denying he was going to be a champion. He was two years older than me." I ignore the pain forming in my heart. "One night, I found him alone in the barn, and we started talking. Then slowly, we would spend more time together. In secret, of course. No way would he even acknowledge me when any of my family members were around. When I was fifteen, he gave me my first kiss." I wipe the tear away, the memories that I’ve kept in a locked box coming out.

  "Of course, he made me promise not to tell a soul." Just thinking about it, I was so stupid. "He had me convinced that my grandfather would fire him if he knew and that my family would block him from becoming the rodeo champ. So, for three years, we hid our relationship, or whatever it is that you want to call it. I would sneak out of my house and meet him at the barn. It was stupid, so fucking stupid." I laugh, putting my hand to my forehead as I shake my head. "I didn’t tell a soul. Not one fucking soul. Not my mother, not my grandfather, not even Chelsea and Quinn." I hold up my hand with my finger up. "He was my secret and only mine. We would stay up all night sometimes as he spoke about his big dream of owning his
own farm and being rodeo champ. Everything that he wanted to achieve with me by his side. Every single time he mentioned his dream, I was the one beside him holding his hand." The tears come. "I loved him so much that his dream became my dream. I would have followed him anywhere." I shake my head. "I was going to leave everything that I know and love just for him. Because he was my everything."

  "Amelia," he says my name softly.

  "I know, stupid, right? Who the fuck falls in love when they are fifteen?" I laugh as the tears pour down my face. "I mean, besides my parents and my grandparents and my aunt Savannah and my uncle Beau." He smiles softly as he looks at me.

  I gather the strength to continue, knowing that the next part will take me back to a place I never wanted to go. There was never a need to tell anyone this, but I want Asher to know. I want to give him a piece of myself that he just gave me. "The plan was that he was going to get us a place, and the minute I turned eighteen, we would get married. Every single weekend, he would head down and see if there was anything we could afford. Then he would come back and tell me all about the apartments he looked at and how it was going to be perfect for us." I put my hand to my stomach, feeling like I’m going to be sick. I take a second, the lump in my throat getting bigger and bigger. Even though I told myself he would never get another tear from me.

  "I counted down the days. Counted down the hours until the day I turned eighteen. He had been gone a week. He was fixing up our place, he said, and putting the final touches on it. He even sent me pictures." The hurt is like it was yesterday instead of years ago. "The night I turned eighteen, I didn’t sleep a wink. Not one fucking second. I was so excited for him to come and get me. I was on pins and needles all day. I couldn’t wait to finally tell everyone about us. I was so excited to finally do all the things I dreamed of doing with him. Walking into my parents' house. Holding his hand. Kissing him when I wanted. Finally able to show everyone that I found someone I was going to spend the rest of my life with. My parents threw me this ridiculous party with everyone there." I close my eyes as my heart shatters yet again in my chest. "His truck got there. I got up with a huge smile on my face as I saw him get out of the driver side. I was one second from running to him when I saw the passenger door open. My feet were stuck to the ground. This woman climbed out of the truck, and he held out his hand for her, and together they walked into my party." I look into his brown eyes, feeling all the warmth that a hug could give from one look. "He introduced his new wife to everyone." Saying the words almost cut me off at the knees. I put my hand out onto the table. "He was married." I take a deep breath in. "He was married to someone else."