Now or Never(40)

He didn’t get it. But, Ashlyn did. She squeezed Em’s hand, silently asking if she was all right. Em nodded almost imperceptibly, and followed on shaky legs as Mason led them back to the car.

This time Mason got behind the wheel, with no argument from Ash. She climbed in beside him, knowing without having to be told that Em would need her space.

“Did you guys still want to go to the show or . . .?”

Ashlyn glanced back at Em and shook her head. “I think we’d better just go home.”

“Okay.”

They sounded disappointed and though the guilt ate at her, Em couldn’t bring herself to argue. She had to go home. There was no way she could stand a crowd as big as a concert after what had just happened.

She barely made it through the front door before she started tearing off the soiled clothes. Dropping the sweater over the back of the couch, she shut her bedroom door before stripping off the dress and throwing it into the farthest corner along with the heels.

Em stood in the middle of the room, shaking, in nothing but her underwear when Ashlyn knocked on the door. “You all right?”

“Fine.” Em was proud of the fact that her voice didn’t waver. “Just tired. Long night. Thought I’d hit the sack early.

“You sure? Mason’s calling the police to file a report. Do you want to come out and talk to them when they get here?”

“No. I didn’t even have anything stolen. Besides your jewelry, but I’ll replace that. I—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I got them on the sale rack at Macy’s. They aren’t worth anything. Don’t worry about it, Em. I’m just worried about you.”

Em steadied herself, cracked open the door, looked her best friend right in the eye . . . and lied. “I’m fine.”

Ash studied her face, looking for cracks, but Em held solid. Masks were something she’d always been excellent at.

Seemingly satisfied with what she saw, Ash nodded. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure with—”

“I know. Thanks. Mason’s right, I overreacted. I haven’t eaten much today and I think all the excitement just sent my brain into a tailspin for a second.”

“Are you hungry? We could—”

“Just tired, really.”

“Okay. Well, get some sleep. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

“Good night.” Em barely got the door shut before she fell apart.

Hitting the floor hard, her knees were grateful for the carpeting. She buried her face in her hands to muffle the sobbing and tried to fight back the feel of his hands on her body.

A knock at the front door, voices in the living room, the squawk of a radio. Em stayed there, curled up on the floor, listening to all of it, afraid of getting into bed and falling asleep, terrified of what awaited her there.

At some point, after the house fell silent and Ashlyn shuffled off to bed, she dragged herself across the hall and into a scorching shower. Her skin reddened under the hot spray as she sat huddled on the floor of the tub, frantically scrubbing away his touch, but she made no move to get out until it had run cold. It was nearly four AM before she finally collapsed into bed, and almost immediately the nightmares dragged her under.





Chapter Twenty-three





Jay



Morning shifts sucked, there was no two ways about it. Jay rolled out of bed and slapped the alarm harder than strictly necessary. He’d just closed last night and was running on a grand total of three-and-a-half hours of sleep. The rate he was going, he might as well just set up a cot in Bart’s office. He saw more of that place than he did of home anymore, and still it wasn’t enough. Nothing he did ever seemed to be enough.

Jay continued to set aside money for his father to make sure what happened with Em would never happen again, while the unpaid bills piled up on the counter, the most recent labeled as “final disconnect notices”. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, though. Shit was falling apart faster than he could keep it together and he had no idea what to do other than keep his priorities straight, in which case Em would always come first.

After a quick shower—a luxury he wasn’t taking for granted anymore—Jay dragged on his jeans and shuffled out to the truck. He was still rubbing sleep from his eyes when he stepped into Bart’s and found himself ambushed by Ashlyn.

“We need to talk.”

That woke him right up. “What happened? Is Em okay?”

“She says she is.”

“What does that mean? Is she or isn’t she, Ash?”

“I-I don’t know. Something happened last night.”

Jay’s jaw clenched hard. If his father had—

“We were robbed. On our way to this show with Mason, we had some car trouble and I . . . I pulled over. And there were these guys. They had a gun.”