“I didn’t know.” Ashley shivered, not from the chill. “She was all handsy with you in school the other day.”
“We’re not together. Never were.” He gave her a quick glance. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No. Do you?”
His eyes twinkled. “I currently don’t have a boyfriend.”
A gurgle of laugher bubbled up. “A girlfriend?”
“I’m not attached to anyone.” His gaze moved over her face, like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
“Good.” No, idiot! “I mean, I wouldn’t want to upset anyone if we’re seen walking together.” And they could be seen. Even in October, the main drag of Serenity Harbor was hopping. Restaurants were thriving, some shops were still open. A movie played on a roll-out screen set out in the village green, where a couple dozen people sat wrapped in blankets, cupping steaming mugs.
He made a small, crooked grin. “I’m glad you don’t have a boyfriend, too.”
“Oh.” All moisture wicked from Ashley’s mouth. “Why is that?”
His lips curved again. It wasn’t a smile, just a slow show of amusement. This wasn’t a boy who smiled often. She could see it in his mouth, the set of his jaw. Maybe he had crooked teeth. Maybe he had few reasons to smile. Whatever the cause, Ashley wanted to see a smile on him one day. It was probably magnificent.
“I think it’s pretty obvious why I’m glad you aren’t with someone.”
“Actually, nothing about you is obvious,” Ashley said, pulse kicking up a nice pace, now. What little experience she’d had with boys was all confusion and subterfuge. And her mother was the queen of emotional ambiguity. Until she let that piece of shit, Mark, move in with them.
“Do you think so?” he murmured. “Am I being unclear now?”
“Kind of.” She gulped down a breath. “You don’t say hi to me in the halls. I have English and physics with you and you don’t ever look at me.”
“I look.” He was looking at her now, blue eyes flashing in the lamplight. “You’re bored with Shakespeare and doodle in your notebook instead of taking notes in physics.”
He noticed that? “I sketch clothing designs, not doodles. My old school was ahead in the curriculum. And I am a little bored with Shakespeare. I can’t stand King Lear.” She folded her arms, a little unwound. This could be a convoluted way of saying he liked her, or he could be messing with her.
They stopped behind the group of movie watchers to catch a bit of the film playing in the green––Ghostbusters. “This is such a good movie,” Ashley said. But Tyler wasn’t looking at Bill Murray getting chased by the green spud. He gently turned her so she faced him.
The air vacated her lungs. The movie faded to white noise. “What is it?” she asked.
“That’s exactly my question,” he murmured. “What? What is it about you that makes it impossible for to be around you and think about anything else?”
Every coherent thought scattered. “There’s nothing about me.”
“I messed up a song because of you.” He leaned in, a little closer. “I never do that.”
“We just met, you know.” Her voice was little more than breath. “You don’t know me at all.”
“Maybe that’s it––the blank slate. No history. There’s something freeing about that, you know?”
Ashley thought she did, but she suspected there was a heavy meaning to the “blank slate” for him.
His gaze dipped to her lips.
Holy crap. This might be happening. This kiss, that felt like it mattered, from a boy who made her heart hammer like it was trying to bust out of her chest.
She felt his fingertips on her waist, through the wool of her coat. Breathe, Ashley. Breathe.
He dipped his head. Long lashes fanned his cheek as his eyes closed. Ashley tilted her mouth up to his and––
“Hey, Tyler!” A male voice called from a passing car. “Duuuuude.”
Tyler’s head whipped around. He located the speaker, a kid Ashley recognized from school but didn’t know the name of, and bit back a curse. “Jake Ashcourt,” he muttered and waved as the car passed by. “He was our original drummer, before he decided to join a metal band.”
“Oh.” Ashley smoothed back some hair that had escaped her buns and tried to clear the fog from her brain.
“Bad timing.”
“Yeah.” She put her hands in her pockets, firmly away from him. The moment was utterly lost. In fact, the rational part of her brain was asking, what were you DOING, about to kiss a guy you barely know?
“We should be getting back,” he said gruffly.
“We should.” She checked her phone and saw a text from Ella. “Uh oh. Ella’s car battery died. She said she texted you to ask if you’d drive me home.”
Tyler read his text message. Apparently his was more extensive. He had to scroll the screen to read the whole thing. His lips twisted as if something was funny. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“I don’t.” Ashley rolled her shoulders. Riding in a car with Tyler was an unexpected turn of events, but the idea was thrilling. She hadn’t really wanted the evening to end, anyway. “Is her battery really dead?”
He grinned. “What do you think?”
Chapter 4
Tyler
They returned to Mister Moon’s packed parking lot and Tyler showed Ashley to his car. Ella’s was not there, as Tyler knew it wouldn’t be. Apparently Benny had spilled to Ella about his on-stage goof up over Ashley and they were playing matchmaker. Not funny. It was a thing he’d deal with later.
He was still shaken by almost kissing Ashley. He’d gotten lost in those pretty eyes and pink lips and completely forgotten that a girl from a fancy neighborhood like hers had no business whatsoever with a guy like him.
“Wow, cool ride.” Ashley climbed in his car. Climbed, because the oversized tires of the SUV jacked it a few feet off the ground.
“Thanks.” He patted the dash of the hulking, twenty-year-old rusty lunk. “Her name is Kitten.”
As he’d hoped, Ashley laughed. He liked the sound. It was low and rich and genuine. It settled his nerves and restored some normality between them.
“You named this ‘Kitten’?” she asked. “I must hear this story.”
“Well, she came with this bumper sticker of a fluffy white kitten.”
“I can’t imagine anyone putting a kitten sticker on this thing.”
“It’s true. And I could not get it off no matter what I tried. It was like baked onto the bumper. Finally had to get Benny’s cousin at the repair shop to take a blow torch to it. The sticker went, but the name stuck.”
She laughed again. “You should have left it.”
“Nah.” He put in the key, hoping tonight wasn’t the night Kitten decided to crap out. He was nervous enough. “A car like this with a kitten bumper sticker would be too much for the ladies. They’d be chasing me down everywhere I drove.”
Tyler paused. Wouldn’t she get the sarcasm or think he actually meant that?
She snorted. “Yeah. That would totally happen.”
He smiled and turned the key. Fortunately, the engine started right up and began purring, or rather, growling. Kitten made some frightening noises, but was generally reliable.
Ashley buckled her seat belt without comment. She was trusting him–-and Kitten––it appeared, and Tyler felt a frisson of uneasiness about that. He had nothing. He and his mother lived paycheck to paycheck and struggled to pay the bills every month. Ashley was a Sloane, and that name rang a bell. A fancy bell. A family by that name had founded the Cascade Beer Company a few generations back, which was still family owned and which had its facility a few towns inland. Cascade Beer had been all over the local news last year as the only family-owned brewery of its size that hadn’t sold out when the mega-corporations came sniffing around, throwing around billion-dollar offers. Cascade Beers were on tap in almost every bar in America. Tyler’s drunk of a father often staggered around town with a bottle of it clutch
ed in his hand. The thought brought a wave of nausea and anger.
But if Ashley was one of those Sloanes, then why had she enrolled in public school and not the private academy a few towns over? Also, he’d checked out the older Ford Escort she drove to school. It certainly didn’t scream “rich kid.” She didn’t act like she was better than anyone. Maybe she was a normal, mortal person named Sloane, and not at all related to the wealthy, prestigious Sloanes of Serenity harbor.
“What’s your street?” he asked.
“Frontwater Drive,” Ashley replied. “Do you know where that is?”
“Yes.” Tyler’s gut clenched. Nope. She was definitely one of those Sloanes. All possibility of starting something up with Ashley Sloane-Whittaker evaporated. So much for thinking maybe they existed in the same solar system. Frontwater Drive was the elite oceanfront neighborhood. It was old money, gorgeous estates, perched above the sea. Ashley wasn’t just wealthy. She was filthy stinking rich. Emphasis on the filthy and stinking.
Tyler swallowed his disappointment around the lump in his throat and steered the car away from downtown Serenity Harbor, toward the coastal route where she lived. “Do you like living out here?” he asked, to cut the silence. She seemed to sense his unease. Maybe she was realizing how different they were, too.
“It’s very beautiful.” She was watching his profile. “My dad has a nice house.”
A nice house. If she thought her mansion was nice, she’d laugh at the sight of his mom’s small house. He bet anything her bedroom window offered a prime view of the sparkling surf and busy harbor. It probably even had a balcony. He pulled onto her street and slowed to the posted twenty-five miles per hour. People used the words quaint, charming, adorable, to describe his neighborhood with the closely spaced, brightly painted houses and tiny yards. He’d always been proud of his mother’s tidy cottage, but his home was probably smaller than Ashley’s garden shed.
“That’s it.” She pointed to a mailbox marked number ten.
He slowed to a stop at the end of the curving cobblestone driveway. There was no way he was pulling down it. They probably had guard dogs down there, trained to sniff out and attack Those Who Do Not Belong. Tyler peered down to the house at the end. His palms began to sweat on the steering wheel. It was dark, but flood lights illuminated a massive brick and wood-beam home every bit as grand as he’d feared.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You’ve been acting strange this whole ride.”
“No, I’m good.” He let his gaze trail over her pretty face and felt the pinch of regret deep in his gut. Concern creased her brow. God, she has no idea. No clue that he was feeling so acutely inadequate, that he was regretting the offer to drive her home. The conflicting desire to belong here clawed at his gut with sickening ferocity. “This is your stop, right?”
“You can pull down the driveway.”
“I’ll stay here.” He tried for a smile, but managed a grimace. “Don’t want to set off the dogs.”
“What dogs?”
“Never mind.” Why wouldn’t she just go? “Thanks for coming out to the show. Have a good night.” He poured formality and finality into the words. She may not grasp why he was blowing her off, but she would get the message––this thing between us is not a thing.
“Sure. Okay.” She scowled and climbed out of the SUV. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem.”
She gave him one last puzzled look and started down her driveway, shoulders hunched. Tyler watched her retreating form, feeling like an ass. Which he was, of course, but it was easier for both of them to put an end to this strange attraction before it began. To say he and Ashley’s lives were different would be an understatement. They weren’t just from different walks of life, they were from different worlds.
Chapter 5
Ashley
The light was still on under Ashley’s dad’s office door when she came inside. She knocked and entered.
“Hey, Pumpkin.” He looked up from his laptop. “How was your evening?”
Ashley flopped on the leather chair opposite his desk. “Fine.”
“Hmm.” He pulled off his glasses. “What’s going on?”
He always did this––stop what he was doing to talk to her. It didn’t seem to matter what he was doing, he always gave her his full attention. She didn’t have to resort to stupid antics or corner him in a long car ride to make him listen, like she did with her mom. Even when Mom was “listening,” she was distracted by something on her phone. Ashley never had her mother’s full attention, but her dad not only listened, he acted like he really cared. It gave her this weird feeling, like she was important to him. She wondered why she’d turned down so many of his offers to let her stay with him more often. Or permanently.
Ashley took a deep breath. Why not talk to him about it? Boy stuff was usually reserved for chats with her girlfriends, but the time and distance had diminished her friendships from Boston. Maybe see what her dad could handle. This conversation would be a test for both of them.
“I met this boy.”
“Oh?” Dad’s brows went up. “Who?”
“Tyler Fitzsimmons. I don’t think you––“
“I know who he is.” Dad’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “I went to school with his mother. And father.”
“Okay, well Ella and I saw his band play at the coffee bar, then we hung out after. It was fun. I…thought he was cool.” This was going to be seriously condensed. No almost-kissing, for sure. “Ella’s car died, so he drove me home, and he got all withdrawn and moody. Especially when we got to the house. He wouldn’t even pull in the driveway.”
Her dad stood up abruptly and walked to the window. For a few long moments, he stared outside. “I’m a lawyer, pumpkin, not a psychologist, but I don’t think you had anything to do with Tyler’s behavior tonight.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I, ah…” He raked a hand through his hair. “I dated Tyler’s mother in high school––now, don’t roll your eyes. I was young once, too. Anyway, she broke it off abruptly, saying we came from different worlds and that we should each stick with ‘our own kind.’ I had no idea what she meant, then.”
“And you do now?”
“I think she didn’t think she was good enough, which wasn’t true.”
Ashley let out a long breath. “So you think Tyler was scared off by…” she waved her hands, encompassing the room, the house, and the wealth that came with it.
“Possibly,” he said quietly.
Ashley studied the tense lines of her father’s shoulders and the set of his jaw. “Do you still like her?”
“Christine?” His voice cracked a little over the word, but he buried it in a forced chuckle. “Hardly matters now, after all this time. And I’m too old, anyway.”
“Too old? What are you…forty?”
He grimaced. “A bit more than that, but thanks.”
“Well, you’re not dead.” Ashley cocked her head. “Mom traumatized you, didn’t she?”
He laughed again. “Maybe a little.”
“She has that effect.” She leaned back in the chair. That went well. If that was a test, they both passed. Amazing, how comfortable she was becoming with her father. The longer she remained in Serenity Harbor, the less she considered Boston her home. For all his money, Dad wasn’t the lavish spender her mother was. He’d given Ashley a twelve-year-old car to drive to school with, but the day he found out Ashley liked to sew, he bought her a sewing machine, all the fabric she wanted, and let her turn one of the guest rooms into a sewing room. It was an interest her mom had found distasteful, so Ashley had sewn in secret. Too many things happened in secret in her mother’s house.
Dad scrubbed a hand over his hair. “Has your mom been…difficult? I know you didn’t get along with that new man she’s seeing––“
Ashley sat straight up. “What did she tell you?”
“Nothing.” He held up his hands. “Geez. She said you didn’t approve of the new
guy she’s seeing and wanted to move in with me.”
“I didn’t approve.” Anger sparked under Ashley’s skin. “Yeah. That was it. I didn’t like the guy.” She forced lightness into her voice. “Well, that’s mom for you. I shouldn’t be surprised. She chose most things over me. This time one of those things happened to be a guy who was a certified creep.”
Without a word, Dad walked over to her and pulled her into a hug. “If you want to talk about it––”
“I don’t, but thank you.” She snuggled into his hug. What happened with Mark the Creep wasn’t something she was ready to tell her dad. That was a test for which she was sure neither of them were ready.
“You come first to me…” he trailed off with a sigh.
“Thank you.” Her mother’s hugs were stiff and only dispensed for public display purposes: I’m a great mother. Look how well my daughter and I get along. In private, Ashley’s mom never showed affection and was rarely even around. But as she got to know her dad better––her week-long stays in the summer hadn’t afforded either of them enough time to interact as more than guest and host––Ashley had been shown more care and concern from her dad than she’d ever had with her mother. Now that she had him, she didn’t want to give him up. For the first time, she worried what would happen if her mom and Mark the Creep broke up. Could her mom force her back to Boston? Would her dad even want her to stay?
Chapter 6
Tyler
Tyler parked Kitten in the driveway next to his mom’s pickup truck. It was a decent truck, thanks to Benny’s cousin, Luke, who owned a repair shop in town. Luke had grabbed it at an auto auction and fixed it up, then sold it to Tyler’s mom at close to cost. That was one of the things Tyler loved about Serenity Harbor––people looked out for each other, especially in his neighborhood. Everyone knew one another and helped each other out when they could. Well, except for Kaylee. That was a train wreck he should have seen coming.
The instant Tyler entered his house, he knew something was wrong. The TV was on way too loud. The stench of cigarette smoke and whiskey soured the air. Tyler hated those smells more than anything in the world, and they meant one thing––his father was here. Every muscle in his body went tense and ready. He heard voices rising just above the television, which had been turned up to spare the neighbors the filth most certainly spewing from Danny Fitzsimmon’s mouth. Tyler moved quietly through the kitchen to the living room. Sweat itched the back of his neck, dripped a cold line down his spine. If his father laid a hand on his mother…
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