Home > Boys South of the Mason Dixon (South of the Mason Dixon #1)(6)

Boys South of the Mason Dixon (South of the Mason Dixon #1)(6)
Author: Abbi Glines

That entire year I’d worshipped him from afar. When he asked if I needed a ride, I always said yes. Then that summer before the ninth grade, my body had decided to change.

My first day of high school, Asher became my shadow. If any guy even looked my way, his mere presence had them scurrying the other way. I loved it. Although I hadn’t understood why he was doing it.

It wasn’t until October of the year I turned fifteen that he made a move. Asher Sutton backed me up against his truck and placed his hands on both sides of my body. I knew it was all about to change. When his lips touched mine, my body lit like a firecracker, and we were inseparable after that. He took a football scholarship at the local junior college instead of going to a larger school just so he could be near me. He said he’d wait and that he could always transfer to somewhere else when I graduated.

But that didn’t happen. None of that happened.

One night he was loving me, telling me he wanted me forever. The next day he couldn’t even look me in the eyes. And he never told me why.

The crunch of gravel under the tires snapped me out of my trance. I’d let myself be carried away by the memories, as I always tended to do. I squinted against the glare of the sun. Steel’s white truck was coming down the drive. He was here to tell me Asher was home. I wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. When Asher came home for Christmas, I was in Oklahoma at my grandmother’s. I didn’t have to face him then. But now, if Asher was home, I’d have to face him with Steel. I wasn’t ready for that, and I doubted I would ever be ready.

The truck stopped and I watched as Steel jumped down from his jacked-up raised vehicle. He looked good in his worn jeans, but no one compared in my eyes to his older brother. And I hated myself for it. Steel didn’t deserve this. Not when he had been so good to me.

“Hey,” I said, forcing a smile I didn’t feel as Steel walked up the steps. His serious expression was fixed on me and it made me fearful of what he had come to say.

He ducked his head a moment and sighed, before looking back at me. “You already know, don’t ya?” But he already knew the answer from the look on my face.

I nodded.

Steel released another deep sigh and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I ain’t seen him yet. Bray called to warn me he was here. Asher knows about us. Bray told him, Dixie.”

He knew about us? I had a million questions to ask at that moment: why Bray had told him, what he had said exactly, how Asher had reacted, whether he was upset. But I didn’t ask any of them.

“Okay,” was all I could say without betraying all I was feeling.

Steel took one more step toward me, standing now only a few inches from me. His light blue eyes were the same as Asher’s, but the golden hue of his hair was fittingly different, matching his boyish optimism, even though he wasn’t looking all that optimistic at that very moment. “Both of us are gonna have to face him. Bray don’t think he’s leaving soon and I don’t want him to. I miss him, you know. I want him around. I know Momma wants him around too. And I think he needs us, Dixie. So, this thing between you and me,” he said, with a grin tugging on his lips, “is something he’ll have to deal with. I think he’s gonna be okay. We just need to get it over with. You both need some closure.”

Closure. For the past three years, Scarlet had been saying the same thing to me. But I didn’t even know what closure was. If Asher suddenly told me why he stopped loving me, would that actually make it better? Would I then be able to move on? Or would it make it even worse? That wound might never heal, but at least now I knew how to pretend.

“Come on, baby,” he said, reaching out to take my hand and tug me gently to him. “He’s my big brother, I want this to be okay with us . . . and also him. Because I love the both of you.”

“You go spend time with your brother. We will deal with bringing me into things after you’ve caught up. I don’t want to cause anyone to be uncomfortable,” I replied, hoping to buy myself more time to prepare for the inevitable.

Steel pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “He’ll be okay with this. Once he sees how we feel, it’ll all be good, I promise.”

I knew that Steel completely believed this. And I let him. Maybe he was right? Really, what did I know? It wasn’t that Asher verbally ever said that he hated me. He just never acknowledged me again. When I went to his house, after calling several times and him never answering the phone, he’d looked right through me, and then he left town. He went to stay at his uncle’s in Texas for a month and no one had an explanation to give me. They all looked at me with pity in their eyes.

When Asher returned, it was as if the man didn’t know who I was. The Asher who had loved me so fiercely was gone and in his place stood an emotionless, cold stranger. He then accepted a scholarship to the University of Florida and I never saw him again.

I was left to claw my way out of despair all on my own, never knowing what I had done to lose him. Then just when I thought I had my heartbreak finally under control, Asher came back.

I was now fifteen years old and I had one more year until I got my car. My body had finally started developing, giving me curves where I never had them, and even boobs I was no longer ashamed of when I looked at myself in the mirror.

I knew all this wasn’t enough to get Asher Sutton’s attention, not in the way I so desperately wanted it. But it made me feel less like a child in front of him, less like a little girl he was protecting from bullies at school. That year, Steel Sutton had also begun talking to me in class, even more so since my body had started changing, and even though my infatuation with his brother was still consuming my every thought, I knew that at some point, I had to let myself date somebody else.

Steel was probably not going to be that “somebody” because I’d not only have to be around Asher, but hiding my feelings for Asher while dating Steel would be hard. Impossible even. I needed someone else to date, but he would have to be a brave soul. Asher was around me more and more lately and since our little staring game in the dark, he was talking to me even more. I rarely walked to a class that Asher didn’t walk me to these days. He was slowly becoming a permanent fixture around me. Our strange night was never mentioned. I’d sat there on the step wondering if he wanted me to walk to him. If he was waiting on me. Finally, I’d decided he’d have to come to me. He hadn’t, of course. He was Asher Sutton. And I was just an inexperienced young girl with no idea how to handle him, or how he wanted me to react.

Today though, I was older, and I finally looked my age. I had plenty to be happy about and I had decided that I didn’t need Asher to be happy. I was turning over a new leaf.

“Dixie, you have . . . uh, company,” my mother called up the stairs. We were about to leave for school. Who was here and why? Was this another birthday surprise? I’d awakened to my favorite breakfast, chocolate cake on a plate, a tradition they began when I was four. I’d wanted my birthday cake so bad, I’d asked God in my prayers for my parents to let me have cake for breakfast on my birthday. They’d found that funny and not wanting me to think God wasn’t listening to me, they’d given me cake for breakfast.

That wasn’t a surprise, of course, but during breakfast they had also given me a camera, though I’d only asked my dad to make a deposit in my car fund and nothing more. He’d done that, and then he bought the camera too, because he knew it was something I was into lately. Last summer, I’d found an old camera in the attic and ever since then, I’d been taking photos, mostly of people, the kind of action shots I’d seen in magazines.

His voice stopped me as I hit the first step. Asher Sutton was in my house, talking to my parents, on my birthday. I glanced down at the skirt and top I was wearing. Secretly, I’d thought of Asher when I picked them out, hoping he’d see me in them and like the way I looked.

“Yes sir, I’m thinking of the University of Florida . . .”

“Good choice, although Alabama’s my favorite, I’ll give them Gators a cheer, when they aren’t playing Bama, of course.” Daddy’s reply was predictable, I thought. They were talking football. Asher was thinking of going all the way to Florida? That was so far. I’d have three full years left of high school while he was away at Florida, falling in love, maybe getting engaged, which immediately made my stomach feel sick.

   
Most Popular
» Nothing But Trouble (Malibu University #1)
» Kill Switch (Devil's Night #3)
» Hold Me Today (Put A Ring On It #1)
» Spinning Silver
» Birthday Girl
» A Nordic King (Royal Romance #3)
» The Wild Heir (Royal Romance #2)
» The Swedish Prince (Royal Romance #1)
» Nothing Personal (Karina Halle)
» My Life in Shambles
» The Warrior Queen (The Hundredth Queen #4)
» The Rogue Queen (The Hundredth Queen #3)
romance.readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024