“You had to pee?” he offered and I felt my face become an inferno.
I simply nodded.
“Then someone grabbed all your clothes and shoes?”
I nodded again.
“Fuck, wish I knew who did it.”
I knew but I didn’t say. Emily had slept with several of Asher’s friends. She was tall and curvy and the older guys loved her. My house was finally in view and I wanted to leap out of the moving truck and start getting homeschooled tomorrow. Never leave my house again. Never have to look at Asher again.
“Your daddy is heading out to his truck with a concerned scowl on his face. Reckon he’s coming to find you. Knew he’d be worried.”
He had probably already talked to Coach Jones. He wasn’t happy with the harassment I’d been dealing with this year. It had escalated. Today was the worst yet though.
“I need to stop him,” I said, hoping Asher would speed up.
He honked his horn and Daddy stopped and looked our way. The relief on his face when he saw me made me feel bad. He had been worried. I should have called him from the school instead of trying to hide this. I just hated upsetting him.
“He ain’t gonna be happy about this,” Asher said.
“No, he ain’t. Thanks for the ride,” I told him and reached for the door.
“Dixie,” he said my name gently.
“Yeah,” I answered without looking at him again.
“Girls are mean as hell. But only because they’re jealous. Whoever took your clothes didn’t know you’d look just as pretty in a damn potato sack. Don’t let them get to you. Don’t let them change who you are.”
Those words weren’t the first Asher Sutton ever said directly to me in my life. But they were the most important for two reasons. I remembered them every single time Emily James did something cruel to me during that very long year. And they made me fall in love with Asher Sutton. Not because he was popular, beautiful, or the football captain. I fell in love at thirteen because a boy was kind to me.
Dixie Monroe
THE PAPER BAG was being crushed in my hand. The death grip I had on it from the moment I noticed that old blue Ford truck, slowly pulling through the caution light, was causing my hand to go numb. I wasn’t ready to see that truck. Not yet. Steel hadn’t warned me. Not about this he hadn’t.
But then again . . . Steel may not know yet. I glanced over my shoulder to see if the truck was going to drive by, so I could breathe again. My heartbeat quickened as the truck pulled into a parking spot right outside Harrod’s Pharmacy. He was getting out. It was him.
I knew I needed to look away. I didn’t want him to catch me staring. Really, it was pathetic. Completely ridiculous and sad. Asher Sutton had destroyed me. I shouldn’t react to him anymore, and I most definitely shouldn’t care anymore that his face was still chiseled perfection and his body that of every woman’s dreams.
Before I could gather my bearings, control my reaction to him, self-preservation kicked in, and I instinctively took a step out of his line of sight. His truck door swung open, long jean-clad legs stepping onto the pavement. The dark hair I used to run my fingers through was cut short, highlighting his stone cut face, the stubble covering his jaw making him appear like a dangerous angel. The flannel shirt he was wearing was faded and tightly joined across his chest. A chest I knew all too well was smooth and paneled with muscle.
“Don’t go there, Dixie.” Scarlet North, my best friend since middle school, whispered in my ear. Her hand clamped around my arm and she tugged me hard, enough to snap me out of my foolish stupor.
“Evil. Remember that, Dixie. That man is evil. He’s more beautiful than any one male has a right to be on the planet. But he’s the devil. You know that. Besides, don’t forget about Steel. You’re now dating Asher’s little brother.” Her last six words were a murmur. Only I could hear what she said.
Gossip in a small town was bad. In Malroy, Alabama, it was worse than bad. The place was a mecca of gossip. Everybody knew everything and everybody was in everyone’s business. There was a very good chance, right there on Main Street, that people were peeking from their windows to see if I would look Asher’s way. There had been enough talk about us in Malroy to last a lifetime and two years of Asher being away at college didn’t change a thing.
“I didn’t know he was coming home,” I said, simply trying to slow down my heart rate from seeing Asher for the very first time in years. He didn’t come home last summer. He stayed in Gainesville, Florida taking summer classes and seemed to have forgotten about Malroy.
“He’s probably just here to see his momma. He’ll leave soon enough, you’ll see. Steel would’ve told you if Asher was coming home for the summer,” Scarlet assured me.