“Hey!”

“I’m not finished!” I yell. Everyone is looking at us now. Good.

Good.

“First of all,” I repeat, more slowly this time. I lean forward, planting the palms of my hands against the table, to get in her face. “Ash never fucking goes near you. Second of all, Ash is not fucking dangerous. He made a mistake. He got in a car when he shouldn’t have and he drove when he shouldn’t have. He’s not a murderer. He didn’t go out there intending to hurt anyone. He made a mistake. And yeah, it was awful. It was heartbreaking. But that’s life. But you, little miss perfect, and your boyfriend wouldn’t know a thing about that, now, would you?”

Lacey’s sitting there, dumbstruck. Her mouth sort of sags open as she stares at me. But then she pulls in a breath, and starts to push forward, moving as though she’s going to respond. But I’m not done.

“Finally,” I snap before she can say anything. “Finally, how the hell do you get from your stupid boyfriend thinking that Ash could possibly be threatening to you, to him and his buddies beating the shit out of Ash’s car?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the three teenagers behind the counter hovering together, whispering. One of them kind of sighs and then his eyes dart over to me, and when he sees me looking at him, his entire body actually jerks. Great. Now I’m the crazy one. Those poor kids are probably over there drawing straws for who has to ask me to leave. Fantastic.

I turn back to Lacey, but my eyes can’t even focus on her. I’m just looking through her, like she doesn’t matter to me anymore.

And as I take a deep breath and force myself to calm down, I realize that’s exactly it.

She doesn’t matter.

None of these people do.

Only Ash and I matter. And that’s the way it should be.

“You need to get your life together,” I tell her and pull myself back into a standing position as I scoop my laptop off the table and snag my bag off the back of my chair. I shove the computer inside and pull it over my shoulder. “Because no one should think that what you and your little boyfriend did was okay.”

Then I pick my tea up off of the table, turn on my heel and walk out the door.

Ash

I hear Star’s car pull up in the driveway and I wipe the palms of my hands against my jeans for the millionth time.

I can’t believe how fucking nervous I am. We’ve been messing around for weeks, and just the thought of asking Star to actually go out with me has my knees shaking. My palms are sweating like I’m thirteen fucking years old and about to ask Jessica Kirkley to our first middle school dance.

But this is going to go better than that had. It has to. I am sure of it. Jessica Kirkley had laughed in my face and told me to try again when I got taller.

Bitch.

Star wouldn’t do that to me. Not after everything we’ve been, though. Even if she hates the idea, she’d be nice about it. I’m sure of it.

Pretty sure.

I think.

“That stupid bitch!” Star groans out once she’s in the door, and my head whips around to look at her. What the fuck happened while she was gone? She hauls the strap of her bag over her head, sending her hair flying, and dumps the bag on to the sofa once it’s free. The living room isn’t quite clear, but it’s getting there. Soon we’ll actually be able to use it for, you know, living.

Okay, for sex. The air-conditioning will be fucking glorious for that.

“What’s the matter?” I ask, a million different scenarios running through my mind. “What happened?”

“Lacey,” Star snaps, like that explains everything. It doesn’t. I have no fucking idea who Lacey is. And after a second of me just staring at her, Star seems to realize that. “The waitress,” she says, reaching up and rubbing a hand over her face. “The blonde from the diner that was rude to you when you applied for a job. That Lacey.”

“Oh . . . kay,” I say. Progress. We’re getting there. “What happened?”

“It was her boyfriend that trashed your car,” she says, and throws her hands up in the air. Unfortunately, the house is still a little too packed to be expressive in, and her hand knocks against a precariously-placed—and what appears to be empty—shoe box at the top of a pile, and it comes falling down. We watch it as it somersaults to the floor, knocking down a grocery bag full of grocery bags—why the hell are there so many of those in this house?—and a plastic Christmas tree topper in the shape of a star. Everything goes tumbling, and Star is standing there, looking like the goddess of fury and in that moment all I can think is she is really fucking hot.

She hauls in a deep breath, and, once the dust has settled, continues her rant like nothing happened. “She told me, at the tea shop that Maisie told me about. It was Preston and his brother and their stupid asshole friend. They’re all assholes. And Lacey is the biggest bitch of all because she had the absolute gall to try and tell me that they did it for her protec— Wait. Ash? Why are you looking at me like that?”

I can feel the smirk tug at the corner of my mouth, and I don’t bother trying to hide it any more. Instead I just look her up and down and take a step forward.

She, in turn, takes a step back. “Ash . . . seriously?” she says, eyes widening. But I can see the flush that’s starting to spread up her neck, and I’m struck by the urge to see just how far down it goes.

“Mmmhmm.”

“Seriously? This is doing it for you?” She takes another step back. But it’s the last one. Now she’s backed up against the row of boxes against the far wall, the ones we’ve been working up to going through. I grin and reach out and press my hands against the boxes on either side of her, bracketing her body against the stack of boxes with my arms. I lean closer and press a kiss to her jaw before pressing my lips against her neck and just breathing her in.

“You have no idea,” I say, because hell yes this is doing it for me. “Somehow you’re even hotter when you’re all pissed off.”

She scoffs, but her hands come up to spread against my chest. “Somehow I don’t think you’d be so into it if it was you I was pissed at.”

“Hmm, well we’ll just have to see, then, won’t we?” I say, and lean in for a kiss.

***

Afterward—way, way afterward—we’re in the kitchen and I suddenly remember what I’d been meaning to ask her when she walked in the door all mad and hot. So while we’re waiting for our macaroni to finish cooking, I swallow down my fear and say, “So . . . you wanna go out dancing with me tomorrow night?”

Star kind of stares at me for a second, all deer-in-the-headlights, and I can’t help it. I start laughing. She harrumphs out a sigh and reaches over to whap me on the belly with the back of her hand. “Stop laughing,” she says. “It’s not funny.”

“Yes, it is,” I say, reaching out and poking her in the side before stepping around her to poke at the noodles in the pot. Another couple minutes, I think.

“Well it’s not like I was expecting it,” she says, exasperation in her voice. But when I turn to look at her, she’s smiling this soft little smile, and I want to wrap myself around her and never let go. “Why do you want to go out, anyway? You hate this town.”

“Yeah,” I say, “I do. But the place I want to take you isn’t in Avenue. It’s in the next town over. And besides, I want to take you out.” I take a deep breath and blow it out, bracing myself a little. “You deserve it.”

You deserve a hell of a lot better than I could ever give you. But I’m willing to try.