Page 25 of Asher

“Haley. Wait.” Asher called, followed by the sound of him putting the bags down on the porch. I swiped at the lone tear rolling down my cheek. He caught up to me just as I grabbed the door handle.

“Haley? What’s going?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come,” I said, pulling open the car door and slipping inside.

“Haley. Stop.”

Asher’s expression filled with confusion and panic. His strong grip caught the door when I attempted to close it. “Why are you running away?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt. You have plenty of help.” I peered past him to see the Stella girl standing on the porch watching us closely. Asher turned to see what I was looking at. I dropped my gaze and focused the keys in my hand as I started the car. Another tear slipped free without my consent, and I knew the exact moment Asher saw it.

I wiped it away.

“Hales,” he whispered.

My hands shook in my lap. “I need to go.”

He protested fiercely. “No. You need to stay. Talk to me.”

I met his gorgeous brown eyes. Eyes that I loved. Eyes that were breaking my heart. He begged me to understand with those eyes. I understood perfectly. Asher, being the grumpy asshole he was most of the time, truly cared about how people felt.How I felt.He didn’t want to hurt me. I knew that. You can’t help who you love, and I stupidly fell for him when he was clearly dating someone. “I’m fine. We’re fine. You’re busy.”

“You know I’m never too busy for you.”

My chest tightened as tears burned the back of my eyes.

“Asher?” Stella moved closer to us.

Ash sighed, pinching his nose. “Stella. Please go back to the house. I’ll be back in a minute. I need to talk to Haley.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly before she nodded and walked back in, closing the door behind her.

“Will you get out of the car?” His head tilted to the side and he held his hand out to me, waiting for me to take it.

I chewed the inside of my cheek. I just wanted to leave. I needed to be as far away from this as possible. “I think you should go back inside.”

“I think we should talk,” he said firmly.

“Please, Ash.” I hated how weak I sounded. How much my voice cracked.

His jaw ticked as he nodded his head once. “Fine. But this isn’t over.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

ASHER

“Fuck,”I mumbled under my breath as I tapped on my phone screen for the millionth time this week. I texted Haley no less than thirty times since she ran away from me without so much as one single word in response.

Not even a middle finger emoji.

Something she sent at least once a week without fail.

I would take anything from her at this point. Anything but the silence that was slowly killing me. If wouldn’t have had a sick kid, work, and spring practices this week, I would’ve spent every night pounding on her door until I forced her to talk to me.

The only thing that saved me from going completely unhinged was that Mason had texted me a couple of time to let me know Rylie had heard from her.

“That’s a bad word, Daddy,” Phoenix said, not bothering to look away from the picture she’d been working on for the past hour, laying on her stomach in the middle of the floor. Her mismatched socks kicked through the air.

“What?” I tossed the phone onto the cushion next to me before gathering my hair and tying it back.