I couldn’t listen to this. He was my brother. Asher was my brother. The horror of that washed over me, a wail filling the Jeep as I curled into a ball and allowed the sorrow to consume me.
Asher stood with his arm around me as he laughed at Brent mocking Bray, the two battling it out over pool. I was at Jack’s after a game. At Jack’s and I was with Asher. This was another daydream I’d repeatedly played in my head so many times, I had a hard time now believing it was happening. That I was here with him, my daddy knew about it, and everything was okay. Asher went to see him after school, before he’d gone to the fieldhouse to prepare for their game. He’d talked to daddy and promised him I’d be safe and with him at all times. When daddy agreed to let me go, I threw myself at him, hugging him tightly and thanking him right there in front of Asher. I’d expected him to say no. But Asher was good with people. Everyone liked and trusted him.
“You want another Coke?” Asher asked me.
“No, thanks. I’m good,” I replied.
He pressed a kiss to my temple and whispered, “If you’re bored, we can go.”
As if I could ever be bored with Asher Sutton. “I’m enjoying myself. This is the first time I’ve ever been in the front of Jack’s. Daddy always made me pick up the food in the back.”
Asher chuckled. “I know. I’ve seen you more than once through that door over there.”
“And I’ve also seen you,” I replied. I’d been looking for him. I knew he was in here. I’d seen his truck. But that sounded stalkerish, so I kept that information to myself.
Andrea James then cooed, “Hey, Asher, you were amazing tonight,” sauntering up to him, and pressing her body against his as if I wasn’t standing right there next to him. “I have a special treat for you. Want to leave this party?”
Asher tightened his hold around me, scooting closer, and moving back from Andrea. “I’m here with Dix. I thought that was obvious.”
Andrea finally looked at me, as if she hadn’t realized I was there. “Oh, I didn’t think you’d be with her. Asher, she’s a freshman.”
“I’m aware of that and yes, I’m with her.”
Andrea smirked. “Okay then. When you get tired of babysitting, you know my number.”
When she turned to walk off, Asher looked down at me. “She’s a bitch. The crazy kind. Sorry about that, Dixie.”
“And Asher never tapped that ass. He’s smarter than that,” Bray said, a little too loudly for my taste. “But I might now that Asher’s off the market.”
“You know he’s an idiot, right?” Asher said with an apologetic smile. “But he’s right. I’m off the market.”
I laughed. It felt right. Being with Asher. Laughing at his brothers. I’d grown up with the Sutton boys. This fit. Made sense.
As for Andrea James, Asher would get a lot of that kind of attention in his life. I could get jealous every time it happened or accept it for what it was. The way Asher had kept his arm around me and dealt with her made it easier for me to handle, giving me no reason to feel insecure. He was beautiful and women loved him, but now he was mine.
“Don’t worry about her sister either. He won’t be going after Emily James’ ass. After Asher set her straight for doing that shit to you, he wrote her off. Hell, we all did. She messed with our Dixie,” Brent said, winking and smiling at me, like I knew this had happened.
I tilted my head back and looked up at Asher, who was glaring at his brother. “You made Emily stop?”
He sighed then nodded. “Yeah.”
“How did you know it was her?”
“Asked a few questions,” he responded. “Didn’t want you suffering anymore.”
There was no possible way for me not to love Asher. He owned my heart. I stepped to his front, wrapped my arms around his neck, and held him tight. “Thank you,” I said. “You’re my hero.”
“Hey, I threatened her, too,” Bray called from across the pool table.
“She’s not hugging you. Back the hell off,” Asher returned as he hugged me back.
If my life could always be this perfect, I never wanted it to end. There’d be no one for me but Asher. I was young, but that I knew. When your soul finds its match, there’s no doubt in your heart. Telling Asher I loved him right now was too soon, I knew I had to wait. So as much as I wanted to pepper his face with kisses and tell him how I felt, I didn’t. Instead, I let him turn me in his arms and hold me against his chest. I would have been happy to stay there forever.
Steel Sutton
ASHER HADN’T COME home last night. Bray and Brent went to look for him and came back after two in the morning with no sign of our big brother. Momma was going to notice that he wasn’t here. Keeping his disappearance from her would be hard. I could smell the bacon now and knew we’d have a big breakfast waiting on us.
I believed I’d done the right thing. Dixie needed to know. It was wrong to keep that kind of thing from her. Why couldn’t Asher see that? I wouldn’t desert her the way he had, but she needed to know the reason we couldn’t be together anymore.
One day Dixie would’ve found out the truth on her own and we wouldn’t have been there to help. She planned on finding her real mother at some point. She didn’t need to be blindsided by some bitch who didn’t love her anyway.
And nothing had changed for me. I loved her as much as before and I wasn’t sure those feelings would ever go away.
“His bed’s still empty,” Brent said, as he walked into my room.
“Truck’s gone, too. But his shit is still here,” Dallas added, following Brent. He’d gotten up early to go work out in the barn. It was his normal morning routine.
“Momma ain’t gonna be happy about this. What’re we gonna tell her?” I asked, looking to Bray for an answer. He shook his head and walked over to the window. “Hell if I know. Can’t tell her the truth. It would kill her dead on the floor.”
“Sure didn’t matter to Steel that it might kill Dix like that.” Dallas said it like I wasn’t in the room. He just glared in my direction. He’d been pissed at me when he realized Asher had kept it from Dixie to protect her and I had told her anyway. Dallas thought Asher could do no wrong. He didn’t remember our dad because he was too young when dad died. Asher had always been the oldest male in his life, his onlyrole model.
“Dixie needed to know,” Bray said, looking back at Dallas.
“Really? Cause you want to keep it from Momma, to protect her just like Asher wanted to protect Dixie,” Dallas quickly shot back. He was two inches taller than Bray and his shoulders were wider and stronger, but we still saw him as the baby of the family. And even though no one else in Malroy messed with Dallas, we still treated him as the youngest.
“Shut up, Dallas! You don’t understand.”
“The fuck I don’t! I understand Asher told that dipshit a secret and trusted him to keep it from Dixie. And he didn’t do it,” Dallas accused, pointing at me.
“Take it down a notch or ten,” Brent said as he walked into the room, squinting against the sunlight streaming in from the window. He was still in his flannel pajama pants, his blond hair sticking up in several directions. He rarely went without a shirt, still hiding the tattoo on his waist from Momma because he didn’t want to deal with what she’d say. Brent was the last one of us anyone expected to get a tattoo. The word “yesterday” was inked on his right hip bone and no one knew what it meant. Except possibly Bray, because those two communicated without words. Their twin bond was fucking freakish at times.
Bray drawled, “sleeping beauty, glad you could join us.”
“Y’all woke me up. I bet Momma heard y’all, too,” Brent grumbled, flopping back on Dallas’s bed, which was unmade and torn to pieces. “And for the record, I think it was a shit thing to do for you to tell her that,” Brent added, lifting his head from the pillow to look at me with disgust, before dropping it down and leaving it.
“Majority vote is you suck,” Dallas said.
Bray groaned and turned around to shoot an angry glare at his brothers. “It’s done. Shut up and let it go. Now she knows and Asher has got to get a fucking grip. We can’t let him fall off the deep end. He was pretty damn close before this happened. He’s carried this shit around on his own for three fucking years. Remember that. Our goal is to find him. Not sit here and discuss if Steel did the right thing or not.”