And damn, does Star ever look good. I don’t know where she even got those clothes, but when she walked out of the bedroom in those tight jeans and that little leather jacket, it took everything I had not to suggest just staying home and doing some “dancing” on the living room floor.
Well, if there was room on the living room floor, anyway. Which there wasn’t. We hadn’t gotten that far in the clean-up yet.
Soon, I think as I follow Star out to the parking lot, my eyes following every curve of her body as she walks ahead of me. Soon.
“Come on,” she says, reaching back and snagging my hand in hers. Smiling, she raises her hand in mine and twirls her body underneath it like a ballerina. “You promised me dancing.”
I smile and pull her close, wrapping my free hand around her waist, and press a kiss to her temple. “Are you sure you still want to do that?” I ask. “Because I can think of a couple other things we can do. By ourselves.”
“Hey, mister,” Star says, laughing and shoving me away from her playfully. I laugh and fake a stumble into the side of her mom’s station wagon, clutching at my chest like she’s wounded me. “You promised me dancing.” She wags her finger at me. “And that means that we are definitely goi—”
“Well, look who came crawling back.” A voice cuts through the darkness, and it makes something cold shoot up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I know that voice. I know it extremely fucking well, even though I haven’t heard it in five goddamn years. My heart in my throat, I squeeze Star’s hand and slowly turn around.
Fuck.
She looks different. Her hair’s shorter now, up around her shoulders instead of trailing in curls down her back, but it’s still just as red. And her eyes are just as fucking cruel as they were the last day I saw her.
I take a deep breath, trying to brace myself, but my voice still sounds like a hormonal fucking teenager when I force it out.
“Hey, Gina,” I say, trying not to wince at the sound. “It’s been a long fucking time.”
My ex-girlfriend just smirks at me and cocks her hip out to one side as she crosses her arms over her chest.
“Yes, Ash,” she says, “it has.”
Star
This is her, I realize. This is Ash’s ex. The one that broke his heart and dropped him when the accident happened. The one who abandoned him when he needed her the most. I grit my teeth as I look her over. She doesn’t even glance at me, even though Ash and I are still pressed close together.
I want to rip her eyes out.
“I should have figured I’d see you around here,” she says. “After all, this is where you used to take me all the time.” Her gaze darts over to me finally, giving me a cold once-over before dropping down to where my fingers are linked with Ash’s. Then she looks back up at me and smirks before turning back to Ash.
“It’s my favorite restaurant, Gina,” he says. He’s gripping my hand so hard that I’m going to have bruises, but I don’t care. I squeeze back just as hard. I’m here. I’m his now, and he’s mine. This girl is his past.
And the past doesn’t matter. Not to us. Not anymore.
But she just scoffs. “This dump?” she says. “Not exactly fine dining, is it?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re complaining about,” Ash says. “In case it has escaped your notice, you’re here, too.”
“Only because I saw you in the parking lot. Brenden and I are having dinner at the new French place across the street.” She tilts her nose up into the air like that’s supposed to mean something, like she’s better than us, somehow. Yeah, right. Ash has told me all about her. Little rich girl who wanted to walk the wild side, wanted to get her parents attention by getting into drugs and drinking. But she’s the one eyeing him like he’s the worthless one. “You remember Brenden, don’t you, Ash?”
Smirking, she takes a step closer, and Ash takes a step forward and tugs me behind him slightly, so that he’s standing between the two of us, the line of his back stiff as an arrow.
“They should have let you rot in prison,” she says. “You deserve it, after what you did.”
I lay my free hand on Ash’s back, trying to soothe him, but it’s no use. He’s tensed up completely, muscles coiled like he’s ready for a fight.
But instead of snapping back at her, like I expect him to, his muscles begin to loosen. As I watch, Ash almost seems to shrink in on himself, becoming smaller and smaller as this horrible woman goes on and on, telling him how useless he is, how terrible. Her voice is like the scraping of nails across a chalkboard. It’s killing him.
Then she draws her arm back, hand twitching like she’s about to take a swing at him, and I can’t take it anymore.
“Get the hell away from him!” I yell, stepping forward around Ash, and the girl jerks away from me, her eyes widening as I reach down and pull my phone out of my bag. I can’t help the smirk that starts to tug at the corner of my mouth as I turn on the phone and waggle the screen in her direction. “You lay one finger on him and I’m calling the police and having you charged with assault.”
She takes a step back, eyes darting back and forth between me and Ash, probably wondering who the hell I am. Good. Little redhead wasn’t expecting anyone to actually say anything, even after she spewed all that crap where anyone could hear it. I can’t imagine why. Did she think that she was so damn intimidating that she could just walk all over everybody?
I take a step forward and, hilariously, the girl—Gina, Ash said her name was—actually takes another full step back. “Yeah,” I scoff, dropping my phone back into my bag. “That’s what I thought.”
For a split second, she fumbles, her perfect little persona slipping for an instant before she manages to shake it off and pull herself back together. But it’s too late. I’ve already seen straight through her. She’s weak. The worst thing that ever happened in her life didn’t even happen to her. It happened to Ash. She’s had nothing that hard in her life, nothing she’s had to live through, to force herself to be strong just to keep breathing through.
But I have. And that makes me stronger than her.
Much stronger.
But she’s the one who’s crossing her arms over her chest and looking at me like she’s the queen of the world, like I’m beneath her. Like Ash is nothing more than a bit of dirt on her shoe, and I’m no better, having associated with him.
How wrong she is.
She whirls on Ash, what little is left of her fire flashing in her eyes. “Are you going to let this little bitch talk to me like this, Ash?”
I can feel as much as hear the breath Ash takes and blows back out as he comes back into himself, and I smile as his hand lands on my waist, pulling me closer.
“She can say whatever she wants,” Ash says, and I turn to look over my shoulder at him, feeling my belly flip at the warmth in his eyes when he looks at me.
I turn back to Gina, crossing my arms over my chest. “That’s right. And what I want, right now, is to tell you to go to hell. So guess what?” I take a step forward, feeling Ash’s hand drop from my side as I move into Gina’s personal space, and whisper, “Go to hell.”
I flick my hair over my shoulder and turn away from Gina, a grin spreading across my face. I can practically feel it as her glare burns into my back, smack dab between my shoulder blades, but I don’t give a shit. She abandoned Ash when he needed her.
He deserves better.