Here’s the Thing (Seddledowne #4)

Chapter 12 – Ashton

twelve

ASHTON

Is not general incivility the very essence of love?

— JANE AUSTEN

T his was a train wreck.

I don’t know what I’d expected when I agreed to go out with Tally but it wasn’t this. I’d been on cloud nine for the rest of the week. Tally asked me out , played on repeat in my head.

I should’ve known it was too good to be true.

Anna, who was riding shotgun with Blue at the wheel, caught my eye in the rearview mirror. Her forehead furrowed, looking as confused as me. She tipped her head, encouraging me to scoot closer.

Tally was hugging the door on the other side of the back seat like Uhura maintaining distance from an overly flirtatious Captain Kirk. Only, I hadn’t flirted with her. At all.

In the last three hours since I’d arrived and we’d walked around the street fair, Tally hadn’t made eye contact with me once. She’d stayed glued to Anna’s side like I was following her in a white van with a free candy sign on the side.

My knowing about the sexual abuse probably made her confidence wobbly, but her reaction today seemed out of proportion even for that. Then again, what was the barometer for something like that?

Was she afraid of me? Did she think I was going to hurt her? Was it the fact that we were in the backseat together? We’d been in back seats together plenty of times before and she’d never acted like this.

I gave Anna a wink like I had the situation under control. I definitely did not.

She peeked around the headrest at the two of us. Her lifted brows sent me a silent message. She was going to attempt to pull Tally in with her next words. “I still can’t believe you’re Leggs,” she said to me. Anna and Blue had known Tally was Austen all along.

I smiled but glanced at Tally, hoping she’d respond. She only refocused her gaze out the window. I shrugged. Anna sighed and turned back around.

I tapped Blue on the shoulder. “Admit it. You know where you’re going.” The NFL draft was in a few weeks and he was nervous after not having played for two years. He’d chosen being with Anna until she graduated from vet school over the NFL with the hopes that there was a team that would want him later. That time had finally come. He’d been working hard, and from what Anna said, he was in better shape than ever.

He chuckled. “I don’t. I promise.”

“So they don’t actually call you ahead of time and schmooze you?”

“Oh, they schmooze. ”

Tally’s head was resting against the window as she looked outside.

Anna turned in her seat to face me and Tally. “Tell the truth.” Anna’s eyes narrowed. “How did you really break your hand?” Then to Tally, she asked, “Did you see it happen?”

Tally stiffened and shook her head, but said nothing. Then she gave me a nervous side eye and reached for the door handle like she might jump out of Stella right here on the freeway.

I shrugged like that didn’t hurt and told Anna what I’d told everyone. “I tried to swat a fly on the wall. The wall won.”

Anna gave me a pfft and faced forward again. She caught my eye once more, her expression daring me to make my move.

I reached my finger into my cast to scratch my palm. “I think Blue will end up going to the Bills. Third pick in the draft. We’ll see if I’m right.”

“Nah,” Anna said. “Kansas City.”

Blue shook his head. “I’m not going third. I haven’t played in two years. Maybe a hundred and third. If I’m lucky.”

While they argued the point, I unhooked my seat belt and slid to the middle, which was more elevated than the outside seat. My legs were too long to be in this backseat anyway, but now they were halfway up my chest like a grownup riding a tricycle. I probably looked ridiculous.

Enough of this.

I reached over and tugged on her arm which she’d tucked across her body for safekeeping. She glanced at me like she’d done something naughty. She knew she was being a pistol.

“Hey,” I whispered. “This girl I really like asked me on a date, and I’d like to hold her hand. Would that be okay with you?”

Her face said it wasn’t but her mouth said, “Okay.” So I slid my palm against hers and pulled her fingers through mine. At that contact, my heart pounded wildly, blood spinning through my veins like a frenzied centrifuge. You’d think after kissing her, this would’ve been nothing. But it had been so long since the kiss that it felt like I’d been in a famine and finally gotten sustenance.

The euphoria only lasted five seconds until I realized her hand was a dead fish in mine. My excitement crashed. I let my grasp match, not wanting to force anything. Anna caught my eye again and I gave my head a tiny shake. She let out a frustrated exhale.

Same.

Blue’s gaze kept flashing to us in the rearview, his forehead crunched.

I’d waited years for this chance and I was blowing it. But I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. Playing it cool hadn’t worked. And now being bold had flopped. I didn’t know what to do.

By the time we arrived at the restaurant, an Italian place in the outdoor mall, our palms were barely touching. I dared a glance at Tally. Her chest was rising and falling at an abnormally fast pace, like she was having a panic attack. Or what I imagined a panic attack to look like. I dropped her hand and she yanked it to her lap like it had been burned. As soon as Blue put Stella in park, she flung the door open and bolted from the car.

Anna and Blue both looked at me in the mirror, eyes wide.

“Y’all,” I said, my lungs on the verge of respiratory depression. “I’m so confused right now. Why did she want to do this?”

“Bro,” Blue said with a baffled tone. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

I shoved my left hand into my bangs and tugged in frustration. “Was she like this with Madden?”

Blue shook his head. “Not at all. She was super confident.”

That was concerning.

Anna’s expression turned sad. “Just be patient?”

I didn’t know whether it was good advice or not seeing as how Anna didn’t know what I knew about Tally.

“Yeah.” I got out of the car to try, try again as Mom always sang after a failed attempt at just about anything.

Tally attempted to fall in next to Anna but the sidewalk wasn’t big enough with Blue on the other side. So she was forced to walk with me. Maybe she was feeling insecure. I mean, obviously, she was. But about what specifically? Gah. I didn’t know. I fell behind, pulled out my phone, and made a quick group chat with the women in my family.

Me: This date is falling apart faster than an Oreo in a glass of milk. Everything I do sets her on edge. I gave her space. Wrong move. I tried to talk to her. Won’t look me in the eye. I tried to hold her hand. Limp fish. She keeps hiding behind Anna. What am I doing wrong?

Ten seconds later the responses started rolling in.

Christy: She asked *you* out?

Me: Yes.

Christy: Did you Listerine before you left?

Me: Yes. Anna checked my breath and said it smelled good.

Lemon: I’m sorry to say it, Ashbucket, but ‘limp fish’ is never a good sign.

Mom: No! I love Tally!

Me too, Mom.

Christy: Yeah. I have to agree. None of that sounds positive. Sounds like she’s friend-zoning you.

Lemon: Look on the bright side - in another 9 years, you might get a second date!

Mom: Sounds like it’s a dud. Come on home for a big hug and a pan of brownies with peanut butter chips. Her loss.

Me: I should’ve made a group chat with the guys. This is not helpful.

Christy: Okay, okay. Tell her she looks nice. Every woman wants to hear that. Even ones that aren’t interested.

Me: Even ones that aren’t interested?

Lemon: I second Christy. It’s a winner every time. Even if some gross rando at the gas station tells me I look nice, I blush a little. Makes Silas so jealous. Haha.

Gross rando?

Mom: Hear, hear. If you’re going out, might as well go with a bang.

I scoffed.

Me: Worst halftime speech ever. Thanks, ladies.

I slipped the phone into my pocket and caught up as they went inside.

“We have a reservation,” Blue said to the host. “Bishop. Party of four.”

“One moment while we grab some menus,” the teenage girl said, motioning for her friend to do it. Then she looked up at Blue through her lashes. “You’re Blue Bishop, the Virginia Tech quarterback.”

He slipped his arm around Anna’s waist. “I was. Two years ago.”

Then he wiped a hand over his mouth so that she’d see his wedding band. The boy had it down to a science.

The girl’s eyes widened. Then she looked at Anna and her eyes widened even more. She cowered a bit. Anna’s beauty tended to have that effect on people. Amplify that beauty with the fact that she was married to a sports semi-celebrity and Anna could be a bit overwhelming.

Now the hostess was watching Anna with wide, unblinking eyes that practically glittered like Anna was a movie star.

Tally watched the scene with amusement, smiling for the first time tonight. I stepped a little closer and she tensed. But her smile held and her doe eyes were doing their normal Tally twinkle—as if she was asking me if I could believe this nonsense.

A momentary surge of bravery pulsed in my veins and I wanted to tell her she was the prettiest woman in the room. She’d dressed up for the date, wearing a skirt that showed off her long legs. Her hair was curled in loose waves. And she had some kind of makeup on that made her cheekbones glimmer. Even without makeup, she was stunning. But tonight, she took my breath away.

I gathered my courage and closed the distance, placing my hand on her lower back as I bent to whisper in her ear.

“You—” was all I got out before she jumped, rearing like a horse who’s been spooked.

If I hadn’t seen Tally’s head coming straight for me, I would’ve thought someone had taken a sledgehammer to my face. There was a loud crunch—like someone stepped on a bag of potato chips—at the same time that a sharp pain shot up the length of my nose, landing between my eyebrows. Everything went dark. A swear word I didn’t tell myself to say hissed from my mouth at the same time that my vision went black. My eyes teared up and I groaned but it couldn’t come out of my lungs because it felt like I was sucking air through a straw with a hole in the side.

Tally gasped. “Oh Ash, I’m so sorry. You caught me off guard.”

Someone tugged on my arm. I stumbled and they righted me. Then they leaned me against the wall. That had to be Blue. The hands were too big to be one of the girls.

Everything burned and my mouth tasted like copper. I touched where I thought my nose ended. It was wet.

“His nose is gushing,” Anna yelped. “Napkins!” I heard her snap, probably at the hostesses. A few seconds later she was next to me, pressing the cloth against my face. I knew it was Anna because she was half-cussing under her breath.

Spots started to appear and then the top of my vision cleared. I blinked and Blue’s forehead came into focus.

“Can you see, man?” Blue asked.

“Kind of.”

His eyes were next. Oh good. There he was. Mostly. He was kind of grainy. He touched the bridge of my nose, reinforcing the ache in my skull that was making me rethink every life choice that led to this moment.

“Ah.” I winced. “Don’t do that.”

“I think it’s broken,” he said.

“You think?” I snapped. I didn’t need him to touch me to figure that out.

And then, finally, Tally was next to me, leaning against me, tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

I should’ve told her it was okay but I couldn’t. As irrational as it was, it felt like she’d attacked me purposely. Emotionally, this whole date had been as painful as my face felt right now. The throbbing in my skull was egging me on, gaslighting me to lash out. I needed to get away from her before I said something I’d regret.

I pushed off the wall and strode outside, the napkin still pressed to my nose. Then I lowered myself on the closest bench and slid down until my head was resting on the back, eyes to the sky.

Anna sat next to me. “You’re not supposed to tip your head back when it’s bleeding. You could choke on the blood. At least that’s what Gramps always says.” She dropped her voice into a Gramps newscaster impression. “Choking on Nosebleeds—America’s Silent Killer.’”

“Perfect. Maybe I’ll be out of my misery soon.”

“Oh, Ash,” she whispered as she lay her head on my shoulder. “I think we need to take you to the hospital.”

“I can’t afford it.” I lifted my cast. “Already been there once this month. I have a stupid-high deductible.”

“We’ll pay for it. Or Ford will. We’ll blame it on him somehow.” She laughed but it sounded sad.

Ford was the last person I wanted to pay my medical bills. Or anyone really. I was a grown freaking man. A grown freaking man who’d had the crap kicked out of him this year, physically and emotionally. Between Madden punching me twice, breaking my hand, and now this, I was afraid for what the rest of the year would bring if I kept pursuing a relationship with Tally.

Anna sighed. “I’m so sorry for how this day has turned out.”

I closed my eyes. A tear slipped down my cheek—from the nose or from the date, I didn’t know. It was all terrible. “You really think I need to get it looked at? It’s that bad?”

She peered over, checking my nose again. “Let’s just say it’s reminiscent of the scene where Malfoy hits Harry with the Petrificus Totalus curse and stomps on his face.” She rubbed my shoulder. “Kidding. But yeah, I think we should get you checked out. It might need to be reset.”

“Awesome.” I blotted my nose and checked the napkin to see if it had stopped. Nope.

We sat there for a few minutes, my nose still gushing, Anna stroking my arm.

“Is this even worth it?” I asked quietly. “I mean, if it’s right, it shouldn’t be this hard. Should it?”

“Eh.” She laughed softly. “I think Blue would disagree. I put him through the ringer.” She squeezed my hand. “But I also think he’d tell you it paid off in the end.”

I grunted and stared at the clouds, wondering if she was right.

Three hours later, after Dr. Bryner, a middle-aged woman with short cropped salt and pepper gray hair had repositioned my nose, the four of us pulled up to Anna and Blue’s place. For the first time tonight, Tally didn’t run away as soon as she got out of the car.

On the sidewalk, she hugged Anna goodbye as I fist-bumped Blue.

Then Anna stepped over and gave me a tight squeeze. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive home? You know you’re welcome to spend the night. We have a guest bedroom.”

“Super comfy bed.” Blue winked. “Trust me.”

Anna smacked him on the chest and Tally giggled off to my right.

“Dude,” I said. “She’s my niece.”

Blue shrugged and grinned. “She’s my wife.”

Anna’s face was bright red. “Seriously, though. You’re welcome to the bed if you want it.”

“I think your husband has soured me on it forever. ” I laughed. “ Seriously though, maybe another time. Tonight, I just want to sleep in my own bed.”

“Okay.” She pushed up on her tiptoes and put her mouth right next to my ear. “Go easy on her. I think she feels pretty awful."

Then she waved to us and walked inside with her husband. I watched them go, envious. They didn’t have to do this painful dating nonsense anymore.

I turned to find Tally gone. Not the least bit surprising. But then I saw her standing next to my truck, waiting for me.

When I approached, she did that thing where she hugs herself. She looked up at me, her eyes turned down. “Sorry, I was so…” her words trailed off.

“Tightly wound?” I offered.

She winced. “Yeah.”

I sighed. “I’m so confused, Tally. First, you kick me out of your room like you’re disgusted by the sight of me, then you ask me out, and then…I don’t even know what today was.”

“I know. I messed up.”

“Why?”

Her head tilted to one side and her chocolate brown hair caught the light of the setting sun. “Why’d I mess up or why’d I ask you out?”

“Any of it. All of it. Let’s start with why you’re so uptight?” I started to scrub a hand over my face but thankfully realized my mistake before causing any more damage to my nose. “When we kissed to now…it’s like you’re a totally different person.”

“Because.” Her chest rose and fell twice. “You weren’t a threat then.”

If she’d head-butted me in the nose for a second time it couldn’t have hurt more. “You see me as a threat ?”

She peeked up at me. “I know it doesn’t make sense and it’s just…” She waved her hand in a lazy circle. “A trauma response.”

I rubbed my neck. “I’m not… him .” Whoever had done this to her. “I wouldn’t hurt you like that. ”

She went back to hugging herself. “Logically I know that, but also, sirens are going off in my head screaming danger, danger. ” Her laugh was tinged with bitterness. “When anxiety takes hold, it's like I'm caught in mental quicksand. My thoughts start racing, and before I know it, I'm in way over my head.” Her hands made a mind-blown gesture. “And it’s…a mess.”

“Did sirens go off with Madden?”

“No.” She hunched like she wished she could hide. “But Madden was never a threat. Until he put a ring on my hand.”

I chewed on that for a moment, trying to ignore the fact that my entire face throbbed. “Maybe you walked away from the right guy,” I mumbled more to myself than to her.

“I didn’t.” Her eyes were suddenly bright and determined. “He’s not. The right guy, I mean.” Well, at least she was sure about something. Just not about me.

“If you see me as a threat, then why were you so adamant that we go out? Right now? It’s clear you didn’t actually want to be on a date.”

“That’s not true.”

“C’mon, Tal.” I cocked my head to the side. “You were miserable today.”

“See also the quicksand analogy.” Her shoulders hunched and a look of guilt swept over her face. “But also, I panicked, for other reasons.”

“Other reasons?”

In a surprise turn of events, she pulled out her phone and clicked on the TikTok app.

“I thought you despised social media.”

“I do. I joined to follow one account.” She tapped on a video that I assumed had been posted by the one account she followed. Then she stepped over so I could see. And there, staring back at me, was a grid full of…

Me .

What the?

My gaze narrowed and I wished I had my readers with me. She tapped on the first video. Pinned with seventy-four thousand views. Seventy-four thousand? As it played, there were close-ups of my butt—and my shoulders and my eyes—but mostly my butt. I yanked the phone from her hand and started the next video. That one was all eyes. The one after that was my hands. My hands? Do I have nice hands? Who obsesses over a man’s hands? Whoever ran PeerReviewedHottie that’s who. By the time I gave the phone back, I felt completely violated and objectified.

“Who posted those?” I growled.

Her face was ashen and her mouth pinched closed like she’d crossed her heart and hoped to die. It only took a few seconds to think about where in the classroom they’d been taken from.

“ Ashley. ” I spat her name like a swear word.

“You can’t say anything to her.”

“Oh, I’m saying something all right. If she takes it down immediately, I’ll be nice and consider not suing.” My molars ground together. “I’m sure Holden would be happy to represent me pro bono.”

Tally put my elbow in a death grip. “No. You can’t.” When she realized she was touching me, she dropped my arm like it was covered in poison ivy. “Ashley will never speak to me again. She just thinks you’re nice looking.” She let out a laugh that sounded like a strangled hyena. “And apparently a hundred thousand people agree.”

But I didn’t find this funny at all. “I still don’t get how this has anything to do with why you wanted to go out.”

She cowered against my truck. “Because,” she said so low I almost couldn’t hear. “Ashley has a countdown timer of how many days until graduation. She says she’s going to be all over that …” she waved a hand over the length of my body “…as soon as the diploma is in her hand.”

I shivered in disgust. Some women.

Hot anger rolled over me. “So you don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me?”

“No, that’s not…” Her hands pressed against her cheeks but she didn’t finish.

I threw my hands up. “I’ve loved you for ni-nine years,” my voice cracked. “ Nine . Do you have any idea what that was like?” She looked so ashamed. “It was hell, Tally. I tell you that I love you—that I can’t stop no matter how hard I try—and this is what you do with it?”

She was curling in on herself.

I clamped down on my jaw so I wouldn’t say what else was going through my head. That she’d hurt me. That I felt used. That I was rethinking everything . But I didn’t want to hurt her anymore than I had.

She crossed her arms and looked at the ground. “Are you mad? About your nose? Because it feels like you’re mad.”

I propped my hands on my hips as I breathed it out, trying to ignore the ache in my face and answer objectively. “No. Bones heal. And I guess that’s what I get for startling you. And honestly, karma, for going on a date with one of my students.” She reached out to give me a conciliatory hug but I held my hand up to stop her. “Lesson learned.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. But that was it. No, ‘I love you too.’ Not even an, ‘I like you a lot. Let’s try again after graduation.’

I held my hand in a wave. “Just…let me know if you ever want to go out for the right reasons.”

I pulled my key fob out of my pocket. She sniffled and I glanced at her. She looked gutted and like she felt helpless.

I shook my head. “You know how to escape quicksand?”

Her brows lifted and there was hope in her eyes.

“You stop fighting.”