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I was mediocre at best, but I wanted her to come.
Because you’re stupid.
I was, and the guys wouldn’t love this, but who the fuck cared?
I think it’d been my gram to convince Aspen to come up to the house in the end. It certainly hadn’t been me because her denial of the request had been adamant. Yeah, even to my cocoa invite she turned me down, but one was hard-pressed to say no to my grandma. Once she got a thought in her head, she saw it through, and that was how Aspen Davis ended up in my house. Well, my parents’ home. She toured the marble halls and polished floors, and her gray pullover was immediately taken by our main housekeeper, Janet.
I wished she’d kept it on. She wasn’t wearing one of those lace bra thingies like on the quad, but she might as well have been in her sports bra and Juicy Couture shorts. They reminded me of those shorts cheerleaders wore at practice except they were fuzzy and sat drastically low on her trim hips. Her belly button out…
How had I not noticed she was pierced?
She had a jewel in her pert navel, one I would have certainly noticed and tasted around. She caught me looking at it and, well, her, but I directed my focus to getting her in the kitchen.
“Nice house,” she said, peering around. My sister and Gram had gone ahead. “Really nice house.”
I almost recorded her statement, the only compliment I’d probably ever get from her after what happened between us. I nodded. “Thanks. It’s been in the family a while.”
My dad and his dad lived here. I didn’t know how far back it went from there, but the Reeds prided themselves on tradition.
It was weird having Aspen Davis in my kitchen.
She perched her bubbled, Juicy Couture ass on one of my parents’ barstools at the kitchen island, and I was happy my sister and Gram chose to sit in the breakfast nook. If Aspen and I were in the kitchen by ourselves, I didn’t know what would happen.
She’d probably knee you in your shit, then you’d make her ride your face.
And I would. Fuck would I, and that was some fucked-up shit. Aspen and I were really toxic, but that didn’t seem to matter.
I saw her notice me too as I maneuvered around the kitchen. I had to reach above her to get the cocoa out of one of the high cabinets, and she was definitely staring at my abs when my shirt rode up. That was after I caught sight of her staring at my ass when I got cups from another set of cabins. Her dusky eyes lingered on my dark jeans for the briefest of moments before I turned, and something told me this girl still liked what she saw despite our history.
Like I said, toxic.
“So Evangeline,” she said. I think my parents’ bar was a safer place for those dark eyes. Her gaze remained there after staring at my ass. Her black-polished nail picked at the marble. “She’s, um…”
“Not well,” I informed, and I could say that since my parents’ kitchen was so fucking huge. The breakfast nook was on the other side of the room, and my sister had Gram occupied. She had one of my gram’s favorite games out, one Gram used to play with my sister and me. Gram’s doctors said it was good for us to do familiar things with her whenever we could. It might help her condition.
It never helped, but who was I to question doctors?
I glanced up from the milk I had bubbling in a pot. “Dementia.”
The word was poison, vile, and one that twisted my insides again. Not from the word itself, but the way Aspen looked at me when I said it. A ring of sympathy rounded those brown eyes when, the last time this girl and I had been together, there’d been nothing but hate in her eyes.
I guess that’d been before she found out certain things.
Aspen’s nod was subtle. Her dark hair touched the counter, thick strands that framed her face that were loose from her high bun. I googled and found out she wore locs. Her lips turned down. “I’m sorry.”
I was sorry too. I shrugged. “She gets confused, as you can see. Thinks I’m my dad more often than not. We look alike.”
I suppose she knew that. She’d seen my father.
I’d added cocoa to the milk, and Aspen was silent for so long I gazed up. She was staring at my sister and grandma playing Monopoly.
“That makes sense,” Aspen said, chewing her lip. She shook her head. “She was so confused. She wasn’t at first, but then…”
Gram had moments where she was lucid, or at least seemed to be. From the outside looking in, one could talk to her and not know something was wrong at all.
But her family knew. How could we not?
“I ran into her at Jax’s Burgers,” Aspen said, confirming something I already speculated. Gram had mentioned “our place.” Aspen played with her hands. “She said she was meeting her son.”
