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They stare at each other a beat. Ash forks her fingers at her eyes, directs them to Tater. “We both have seen nothing,” she whispers ominously.
“Roger that.” With that agreement, Tater slips into Augustus’s room.
Ash stands in the middle of the hall, scarcely able to breathe. There it is. That spark of guilt vortexing deep down in her soul.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Isn’t this what she’s always done? Make a mess of it? This time, she’s determined not to. Because there is nothis. No her and Nathaniel. Sex on the beach between frenemies with benefits. Nothing more. It’s a situationship. Ending when the vacation does. Sure, she’ll see him because of Augustus, but that’s where it ends.
Or is it? Is that what she wants?
“Ugh, shit.” Ash rubs at her eyes. Tries to fight the realization, the fierce want that’s rising up inside her like a tsunami.
Block him, delete him from her memory, throw her heart across the Pacific Ocean, dosomethingto get Nathaniel Whitford out of her brain cracks.
Now.
She’d be insane to ever play that dirty game of love again.
Even if Nathaniel hasn’t shied away from her. She never feels judged when she’s with him. He accepts who she is, maybe even likes it.
Trying for something more serious with him wouldn’t be fair, anyway.
How can she ask anyone to love her, when all she does is ache to push them away?
She’s gnawing her lip, weighing her options, when her CGM alarm goes off. Loud. Sharp. Angry.
She checks her phone. Groans.
Sixty-eight.
Not wanting to bother Augustus and Tate as they puff away, she heads for the elevators.
At the hotel bar, she orders a glass of orange juice. As she waits, she scans the lounge. In a corner booth, Claire sits alone. Her face is free of makeup, and she’s wrapped in a shawl. A glass of wine to her left, a closed book to her right.
Ash sips her juice and moves in the direction of Nathaniel’s mother. She’s still debating about what to say when she stops. Clears her throat. “Claire?”
The older woman startles like she’s remembering where she is. Her pale-blue eyes, so much like Nathaniel’s, land on Ash. “Ash? What are you doing up?”
“Oh, uh…” God, she can’t tell the woman that less than twenty minutes ago, her son was folding her up like a lawn chair. “Juice,” she says, lifting the cup like a torch. “Minibar was out.” She peers closer. Claire’s face is puffy and red. “Are you okay?”
“Are you having fun on this trip?” Fingers on the stem of her glass, Claire spins it in a slow circle. “Because I don’t think I’m having fun.”
Ash shrugs, goes for nonchalant. “I am surviving as much as the next person, I think.”
“I suppose we haven’t made it easy on you, have we?”
Ash offers a small smile. “No. But I’m not in this life for easy. And I probably deserve a little hazing after what I did to your son.” She looks Claire in the eye. “I apologized to him. I’m very, very sorry.”
“I appreciate that.” Nathaniel’s mother sips her wine.
Taking that as the signal to go, Ash turns. Before she can get far, Claire’s shaky voice sounds at her back.
“I don’t think I can do this. With my father.”
Slowly, Ash pivots. She walks back to the booth. Takes a chance and sits across from Claire. Waits for her to go on.
