Boys South of the Mason Dixon ~ Abbi Glines

by Abbi Glines

  “You want another Coke?” Asher asked me.

  “No, thanks. I’m good,” I replied.

  He pressed a kiss to my temple and whispered, “If you’re bored, we can go.”

  As if I could ever be bored with Asher Sutton. “I’m enjoying myself. This is the first time I’ve ever been in the front of Jack’s. Daddy always made me pick up the food in the back.”

  Asher chuckled. “I know. I’ve seen you more than once through that door over there.”

  “And I’ve also seen you,” I replied. I’d been looking for him. I knew he was in here. I’d seen his truck. But that sounded stalkerish, so I kept that information to myself.

  Andrea James then cooed, “Hey, Asher, you were amazing tonight,” sauntering up to him, and pressing her body against his as if I wasn’t standing right there next to him. “I have a special treat for you. Want to leave this party?”

  Asher tightened his hold around me, scooting closer, and moving back from Andrea. “I’m here with Dix. I thought that was obvious.”

  Andrea finally looked at me, as if she hadn’t realized I was there. “Oh, I didn’t think you’d be with her. Asher, she’s a freshman.”

  “I’m aware of that and yes, I’m with her.”

  Andrea smirked. “Okay then. When you get tired of babysitting, you know my number.”

  When she turned to walk off, Asher looked down at me. “She’s a bitch. The crazy kind. Sorry about that, Dixie.”

  “And Asher never tapped that ass. He’s smarter than that,” Bray said, a little too loudly for my taste. “But I might now that Asher’s off the market.”

  “You know he’s an idiot, right?” Asher said with an apologetic smile. “But he’s right. I’m off the market.”

  I laughed. It felt right. Being with Asher. Laughing at his brothers. I’d grown up with the Sutton boys. This fit. Made sense.

  As for Andrea James, Asher would get a lot of that kind of attention in his life. I could get jealous every time it happened or accept it for what it was. The way Asher had kept his arm around me and dealt with her made it easier for me to handle, giving me no reason to feel insecure. He was beautiful and women loved him, but now he was mine.

  “Don’t worry about her sister either. He won’t be going after Emily James’ ass. After Asher set her straight for doing that shit to you, he wrote her off. Hell, we all did. She messed with our Dixie,” Brent said, winking and smiling at me, like I knew this had happened.

  I tilted my head back and looked up at Asher, who was glaring at his brother. “You made Emily stop?”

  He sighed then nodded. “Yeah.”

  “How did you know it was her?”

  “Asked a few questions,” he responded. “Didn’t want you suffering anymore.”

  There was no possible way for me not to love Asher. He owned my heart. I stepped to his front, wrapped my arms around his neck, and held him tight. “Thank you,” I said. “You’re my hero.”

  “Hey, I threatened her, too,” Bray called from across the pool table.

  “She’s not hugging you. Back the hell off,” Asher returned as he hugged me back.

  If my life could always be this perfect, I never wanted it to end. There’d be no one for me but Asher. I was young, but that I knew. When your soul finds its match, there’s no doubt in your heart. Telling Asher I loved him right now was too soon, I knew I had to wait. So as much as I wanted to pepper his face with kisses and tell him how I felt, I didn’t. Instead, I let him turn me in his arms and hold me against his chest. I would have been happy to stay there forever.

  Steel Sutton

  ASHER HADN’T COME home last night. Bray and Brent went to look for him and came back after two in the morning with no sign of our big brother. Momma was going to notice that he wasn’t here. Keeping his disappearance from her would be hard. I could smell the bacon now and knew we’d have a big breakfast waiting on us.

  I believed I’d done the right thing. Dixie needed to know. It was wrong to keep that kind of thing from her. Why couldn’t Asher see that? I wouldn’t desert her the way he had, but she needed to know the reason we couldn’t be together anymore.

  One day Dixie would’ve found out the truth on her own and we wouldn’t have been there to help. She planned on finding her real mother at some point. She didn’t need to be blindsided by some bitch who didn’t love her anyway.

  And nothing had changed for me. I loved her as much as before and I wasn’t sure those feelings would ever go away.

  “His bed’s still empty,” Brent said, as he walked into my room.

  “Truck’s gone, too. But his shit is still here,” Dallas added, following Brent. He’d gotten up early to go work out in the barn. It was his normal morning routine.

  “Momma ain’t gonna be happy about this. What’re we gonna tell her?” I asked, looking to Bray for an answer. He shook his head and walked over to the window. “Hell if I know. Can’t tell her the truth. It would kill her dead on the floor.”

  “Sure didn’t matter to Steel that it might kill Dix like that.” Dallas said it like I wasn’t in the room. He just glared in my direction. He’d been pissed at me when he realized Asher had kept it from Dixie to protect her and I had told her anyway. Dallas thought Asher could do no wrong. He didn’t remember our dad because he was too young when dad died. Asher had always been the oldest male in his life, his onlyrole model.

  “Dixie needed to know,” Bray said, looking back at Dallas.

  “Really? Cause you want to keep it from Momma, to protect her just like Asher wanted to protect Dixie,” Dallas quickly shot back. He was two inches taller than Bray and his shoulders were wider and stronger, but we still saw him as the baby of the family. And even though no one else in Malroy messed with Dallas, we still treated him as the youngest.

  “Shut up, Dallas! You don’t understand.”

  “The fuck I don’t! I understand Asher told that dipshit a secret and trusted him to keep it from Dixie. And he didn’t do it,” Dallas accused, pointing at me.

  “Take it down a notch or ten,” Brent said as he walked into the room, squinting against the sunlight streaming in from the window. He was still in his flannel pajama pants, his blond hair sticking up in several directions. He rarely went without a shirt, still hiding the tattoo on his waist from Momma because he didn’t want to deal with what she’d say. Brent was the last one of us anyone expected to get a tattoo. The word “yesterday” was inked on his right hip bone and no one knew what it meant. Except possibly Bray, because those two communicated without words. Their twin bond was fucking freakish at times.

  Bray drawled, “sleeping beauty, glad you could join us.”

  “Y’all woke me up. I bet Momma heard y’all, too,” Brent grumbled, flopping back on Dallas’s bed, which was unmade and torn to pieces. “And for the record, I think it was a shit thing to do for you to tell her that,” Brent added, lifting his head from the pillow to look at me with disgust, before dropping it down and leaving it.

  “Majority vote is you suck,” Dallas said.

  Bray groaned and turned around to shoot an angry glare at his brothers. “It’s done. Shut up and let it go. Now she knows and Asher has got to get a fucking grip. We can’t let him fall off the deep end. He was pretty damn close before this happened. He’s carried this shit around on his own for three fucking years. Remember that. Our goal is to find him. Not sit here and discuss if Steel did the right thing or not.”

  I glanced down at my phone. Dixie hadn’t texted me. I’d almost expected something from her. We’d been fucking engaged . . . well, nearly. Now we were related. My stomach turned again. The only thing keeping me from losing my shit was the fact we hadn’t had sex. We had come close, but she always put the brakes on. As pissed as I was getting, I’m damn sure glad she did. Asher had to live knowing he’d slept with her. And that he’d taken her damn virginity. Fuck . . . I couldn’t imagine that.

  “I can’t imagine what he’s been dealing with. Three years of dail
y hell. All I want to do is go drink so much I can’t feel a motherfucking thing.” Bray’s scowl deepened and he headed for the door. “Fuck drinking, I’m going to find him,” he said, before leaving us all sitting there, watching him exit the room.

  “Guess that leaves us to explain their absence. Momma’s gonna love this,” Dallas said, moving toward the door himself.

  “I should go with him,” Brent added, sitting up and scratching his head. He wasn’t a morning person and Bray had looked like a man on a mission.

  “You’ll be in his way, and he’ll be gone before you can slide into a pair of jeans anyway. Let him go, you go charm Momma with pretty boy.” I spoke, nodding my head for him to follow Dallas.

  Brent agreed with a tilt of his chin and then left the room, hopefully planning to find a shirt first before he joined Momma and Dallas in the kitchen.

  Asher Sutton

  THIS MORNING AT seven, I’d been sitting in my truck parked behind the football field, when I got a text from Dixie. She asked me where I was. I stared at my phone for ten minutes before responding. She didn’t need to ask me why I was here because she knew. Here, I felt safe. The place was deserted, with school being out, and it was the only place I could think of where I could park and be left alone.

  Half an hour later, the passenger side of my truck opened and Dixie climbed in. She didn’t knock but I was expecting her. I knew she’d come, but then again, I knew Dixie better than anyone else. Better even than Steel.

  Steel.

  I loved him, but I couldn’t be trusted to be around him right now.

  “You been here all night?” Dixie asked.

  “Yeah,” I muttered.

  “You sleep any?”

  “Nope. Not a wink.”

  I hadn’t been able to close my eyes. I wanted to, needing the escape, even for the briefest of moments, but I couldn’t, not when all I saw when I closed my eyes was Dixie sobbing in Bray’s arms. Then I had to fight the urge to go find Steel and beat the shit out of him for doing this to her.

  “Bray came by late last night. He was looking for you.”

  I’d ignored all their texts and calls. My phone was on silent, wanting to sit here alone and think, knowing I wouldn’t find peace. They wanted to make sure that I was alright because they worried about me, but I hadn’t been alright.

  “I was mad at you yesterday. I hated you for a moment. For not telling me. For keeping it from me.” Her soft voice cut right through me. I knew she hated me and had reasons. But hearing it from her lips wasn’t easy.

  “I know,” I managed to croak through the emotion clogging my throat.

  “I get it. I thought about it all last night. I understand, I do,” she said, then her hand touched mine and I flinched, the contact unsettling, confusing.

  “Just wanted to protect you,” I replied, needing Dixie to know that I never meant to hurt her and I’d do anything not to hurt her again.

  “I know that now . . . everything . . . I let myself remember it all. Stuff I’d blocked out because it was too painful, I remembered it all last night. How you used to be with me . . . how we used to be together . . . how sure I was you would love me forever. Then you just turned away without a word. I never understood how you could do that to me. It haunted me. I loved you . . . I loved you so much . . . but you also loved me, too. It’s why you did it. I get it. I understand now.”

  Fuck, this was hard, it was past time we did this, but still, it was brutal. The familiar smell of coconut and honey filled the cab of the truck. It had been so long since I’d been close enough to Dixie to smell her scent. It reminded me of how good she’d felt in my arms, how soft her skin was, like satin, warm satin. And how when I sank into her, molded to her body, nothing had been that perfect. The pleasure on her face had made my heart pound just to possess her. She was mine. Back then, all mine.

  “I can’t do this . . . you . . . I need you to leave. Please. Being this close to you . . . I’m not ready for that. I don’t think I’ll ever be. My heart doesn’t seem to understand I can’t have you . . . that it’s fucking impossible. Please, Dixie.” I sounded desperate. I couldn’t look at her. I needed her to go.

  Dixie moved, but she didn’t open the door. Instead, she scooted closer to me, her smell making me light headed. Fuck, she had to get out.

  “Dix,” I warned, gripping the steering wheel.

  “I’ll leave, but first, would you hold me?”

  How did I tell her no? And how would I let her go if I allowed myself to touch her again?

  “Please, Ash? Hold me this once. I need this.”

  I learned a long time ago that I would do anything, sell my soul for this girl if needed. Now she was a woman and it was no different, so I released my death grip on the steering wheel and rested my arm on the seat. Dixie cuddled against me, then laid her head on my chest. Closing my arms around her, I inhaled deeply, letting her warmth fill my senses one final time. We didn’t have a goodbye. I didn’t give us one. She was right, this was the end, the one we’d needed back then, but I hadn’t been ready to give it to her.

  “I think I’ll always love you. I can’t help that,” she said quietly.

  I knew I’d always love her, but telling her that right now would only hurt her more. Dixie had to move on and find that ray of sunshine in her life, the one I knew she belonged in. A man who would love her unconditionally, give her a home, happiness and children. He’d make her dreams come true. He’d treat her like a princess and if he didn’t, I’d make him wish he was never born.

  I would never have a wife. I couldn’t do that to someone. My heart has belonged to the very same girl since I was sixteen years old. No amount of lies and sin could take that away from me. What I felt for Dixie was pure. Simple truth, one I didn’t want to change. I’d watch her live her life from afar and make sure it was everything she wanted, everything Dixie deserved.

  When I didn’t respond, she didn’t say any more. We sat there for an hour, I held her in my arms one last time and tried to memorize every moment of it. I made plans in my head to make sure that I righted every wrong done to her. It was the only thing keeping me sane.

  The sound of tires on gravel and Bray’s diesel engine suddenly broke us apart. Dixie moved over, opened the truck door and stepped out without saying a word. We’d said all there was to say. I watched her as she walked to her Jeep. She didn’t acknowledge Bray. Instead, she climbed inside and drove away.

  I waited for Bray to come to me. Obviously, he’d found me. I was surprised it took him so long to think about this spot, but I was thankful it took some time. When I saw him approaching my door, I rolled down the window and exhaled.

  “Y’all talk about it?” Bray asked with a scowl.

  “She got her closure,” I said, equaling his scowl with one of my very own.

  “Been looking for your ass all morning and also most of last night. Momma’s cooked a big breakfast.”

  I cranked the truck. “Not sure I’m ready to see Steel.”

  Bray sighed. “He thought she should know. Maybe she did. The girl never moved on. The way you left it wasn’t an ending for her. She wasn’t healing. The wound was still open.”

  “She was engaged to Steel,” I reminded him. Dixie had moved on. Put me behind her. Was going to marry my brother.

  “Shit. She hadn’t even said yes. I don’t think she would’ve been able to until she saw you again. No point discussing that now. We’ll never know.”

  Dixie was going to be okay. Her daddy would reassure her. She’d find a man to love her. I had to believe in that.

  “Let’s go home and eat before Momma comes looking for the both of us.”

  With a nod I said, “See you there,” and dropped the truck into first.

  There was no age difference. At least it felt that way to me. I loved Dixie. I loved being with her. I loved the way her laugh could make whatever shit I was dealing with better. Other girls had never done that for me. Momma said that the way I looked at Dixie was t
he way Dad looked at her. It was how she knew he was the one and that there’d never be anyone else for him. I felt that way about Dixie.

  As the months began to pass and spring drew closer, I knew I would have to make some decisions about my future. I wanted to sign with Florida, but I couldn’t leave her. My life was with Dixie and abandoning her to go to college wasn’t what I wanted. Football wasn’t my future. It was a way to pay for school. I could get another scholarship somewhere closer. Momma said as long as I used my talent to get my schooling paid for, she didn’t care where I chose to go. I just needed a good education.

  Telling Dixie all this, however, was going to be the difficult part. I’d hinted about staying around, close to her, and she’d always said, “no, you belong in a big fancy college. You love football. I want that for you.” What she didn’t understand was that I loved her more. She was my future. Not playing football.

  I pulled into her drive and she was already outside on the porch doing something, wearing a pair of cut-off jeans and a brightly colored tee shirt. Her feet were bare, but she ran down the stairs, stepping through the grass until she reached me, my heart swelling with joy and pleasure, so damn big it shouldn’t fit inside my chest. This, was all I wanted. Dixie was my nirvana.

  “I wasn’t expecting you for another hour. I’m not dressed yet,” she said with a smile.

  “I got off early,” I replied. My shifts at the grocery store were late only on weekend nights. On school nights, I left at seven. Tonight they’d let me go at five thirty because things had been so slow. Everyone was at home eating dinner and the streets of the town were usually empty as a desert by now.

  “Are you tired? We don’t have to go to Jack’s.”

  I wasn’t tired, but I didn’t want to go to Jack’s either. I wanted Dixie to myself. “I could let Bray and Brent take the truck when they get off work. We could walk down to the lake.”