“Everything go okay?” Ashlynn asked when he joined her out on the veranda.

Victor, Madison, Aidan, and Brent were standing around, chatting and laughing while Ashlynn appeared to be keeping to herself. Jase wasn’t sure why that was, but she’d been acting strange for most of the day.

“Good, I guess,” he told her.

“Where’s Leyton?” she asked.

“Hiding I’m sure,” he said.

A knowing smile tipped the corners of her succulent mouth. What he wouldn’t give to plant his lips on hers right then. Strip her bare and fuck the shit out of her the way he knew she needed.

That was the thing about Ashlynn. She dealt with her anxiety with either booze or sex. Mostly sex. Sometimes both. In many ways, she was like her mother. That made sense in a morbid way, because Genevieve had been the only female role model Ashlynn had ever had, but from all Jase knew of Genevieve, he didn’t want Ashlynn to end up like her. At all. Although Ashlynn’s mother was cordial to him, Jase knew the hard life Genevieve had lived had jaded her, making her into a shell of the woman she should’ve been.

Not that he had any control over how Ashlynn handled the demons she battled on a daily basis. Ashlynn was as ruthless as Max, sometimes more so. She’d endured a lot in her twenty-six short years and come out on the other side determined and somewhat damaged.

“Need a drink?” he asked.

Ashlynn handed him her empty glass. He was tempted to ask how many she’d had already. He figured at least four or five since she seemed rather subdued. With her, it could go either way. Sometimes the alcohol brought her down; other times it made her frisky.

He preferred frisky.

Before he could go back inside, Brent stopped him, asking for a play-by-play of what had gone down. Jase told him all that he knew, but he wasn’t able to get away from Ashlynn’s brother before he realized she was disappearing inside the house.

“I need to check on her,” Jase informed Brent.

“Sure. She okay? She seems a little out of it today.”

Jase simply shrugged. Honestly, he didn’t know what was going on with Ashlynn, but if he ventured a guess, he’d have to think her mind was on Leyton lately.

Which had been the case for quite some time now.

For both of them.

Chapter Five

Don’t ask.

Fourteen years ago

Tenth grade

“You’re comin’ over to hang out this weekend, right?” Max asked from his locker on the other side of the narrow walkway inside the boys’ locker room.

As he tugged his T-shirt off, ready to change back into his regular clothes after the torturous practice they’d just endured, Leyton tossed a brief look at Max over his shoulder, shrugging in response to Max’s question. He was too tired to talk, drained from being out in the hot sun for the last two hours.

It was no secret, Leyton fucking hated soccer, but he’d signed up for it after the counselor urged him to do something that would help with his aggression. She’d informed him that if he continued on the path he was on, he would never graduate from high school and would likely end up in a dead-end job for the rest of his life.

Like the bitch knew him or something.

“Seriously, man. Come over. We’ll do somethin’. I can get the car and we’ll go out.”

Leyton couldn’t give Max a straight answer, because at this point, he wasn’t sure what his plans were for the weekend yet. It all depended on his father, the mood he was in, whether or not he was passed out drunk or irate and on another terror. Leyton hated cancelling plans, so rather than get stuck doing that, he preferred not to solidify anything until he knew for sure how things would play out.

“Holy fuck, man. What the hell is that?” Max’s appalled tone had Leyton looking at him again. Max was staring at Leyton’s back.

Twisting, Leyton peered down at his side, the spot Max was pointing at, noticing the huge multicolored bruise that covered a large portion of his side and much of his lower back.

Shit. He’d meant to be more careful. Clearly he was too tired to pay attention.

“Your whole fuckin’ back is black and blue. And what are those? Cigarette burns?” Max stepped to the side, obviously trying to look at Leyton’s front.

“It’s nothin’,” Leyton grumbled, yanking his T-shirt on over his head with a grimace and pulling it down to cover the result of his father’s drunken rage the night before. The burn scars were old, but the bruises … nope, those were fresh.

“Bullshit. That ain’t nothin’,” Max snapped. “Who’d you get in a fight with? And why didn’t I know about it?”

“No fight,” Leyton answered, wishing like hell Max would drop it.

“Dude, your ribs are probably cracked.”

“They’re not,” Leyton said, although he suspected they could be. The pain was vicious, but he’d managed to pretend otherwise, even when he’d thought he would die during practice. He definitely didn’t want anyone knowing that his old man beat the shit out of him almost every single night these days.

“Seriously,” Max said, his tone stern, his voice lower than before. “What the hell happened, Leyton?”

Leyton turned to face his best friend. He hated not telling Max the truth, but the last thing Leyton wanted was anyone’s pity. And he damn sure didn’t want Max to think he was weak. It wasn’t like Leyton was letting his dad get the jump on him. The old bastard had started beating Leyton while he slept in order to avoid getting hit back. By the time Leyton was awake and fully functioning, the asshole would have him at a disadvantage, leaving Leyton able to do little more than protect his head from the brutal beatings.

“I told you. Nothin’. I prob’ly fell.”

“Right,” Max muttered, spinning around to his locker.

Clearly he didn’t believe Leyton, but at least he’d stopped asking questions. That was all Leyton could hope for at this point. During the three years they’d been friends, Max had become rather protective of him, although he didn’t quite understand why. It hadn’t been easy, but Leyton had managed to keep his father’s abuse from Max. Up to this point, he’d done a good job.

However, in the future, he would have to make damn sure he was more careful about changing clothes.

Ashlynn walked into the living room to find Max and Brent arguing about some video game they were playing. She’d planned to go talk to her mother, but her uncle Patrick had been there, and since he made her feel yucky with the creepy way he looked at her, she’d opted to see what her brother was doing instead.

“Man, you need to learn how to play!” Brent howled at Max.

“Quit whinin’ like a little girl,” Max retorted.

“Y’all need to shut up,” Ashlynn told them firmly, knowing neither of them would listen to her, but she said it anyway. “Uncle Patrick’s here and he’s talkin’ to Mom.”

Max peered over at her, and Ashlynn got the feeling he knew why she wasn’t in there talking to Uncle Patrick.

“Go away, you little brat!” Brent hollered, his attention never leaving the television screen.

Refusing to do what Brent said, Ashlynn curled up on the opposite end of the couch and observed the two of them. She felt more comfortable when Max was around, especially when Uncle Patrick came over to visit. She was pretty sure Max didn’t like Uncle Patrick, either.

“I heard that Leyton got in another fight,” Brent told Max.

Ashlynn watched as Max’s attention jerked over to Brent briefly. “Where’d you hear that?”