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His father had left practically at dawn this morning to play golf and had announced that he wouldn’t be home until after dinner.
And his mother had decided to go with him.
Ouch.
It wasn’t like he was trying to be difficult, but there honestly wasn’t anything for him to do but obsess about his current predicament. He’d even gone and visited his old station and talked to his former chief about everything but other than a little sympathy, there wasn’t anything anyone could do.
So he cleaned up his old room and washed all the bedding, packed up the few things he had purchased to get him through since he hadn’t brought anything with him, and left a note for his parents thanking them for putting up with him. When he climbed into his truck and started to head back to Sweetbriar, he knew the first thing he needed to do was go and talk to Ashlynn. He’d battled with himself the entire time about whether or not he should just pick up the phone, but he was in such a dark mood that he couldn’t do it.
He was sure there’d be hell to pay for that one.
But…no matter how much he could argue that he was doing it for her own good, the bottom line was it was the coward’s way out and he was more than a little ashamed of himself.
“Grovel. Be prepared to grovel,” he murmured as he hit the highway.
For two hours he thought about what he was going to say to her and how he could possibly make it up to her or if he had completely blown it. They had something good—something that had the potential to be great and lasting—and that meant he was going to fight for it.
For her.
All this nonsense with the fire? Well…it would be devastating if he lost his career over a damn phone call. He was equally prepared to go and fight for his job too. This investigation was going on for far too long and he was going to report the fire inspector for dragging his feet on it. Reid had learned in his own training how to investigate quickly and effectively on buildings ten times the size of Lavish Locks. What the hell could possibly be taking this long?
“I should have questioned that sooner too,” he muttered.
Yeah, the longer he drove, the more the self-loathing built.
He’d been so focused on himself and making sure he looked good, that he had completely failed in every other way.
Especially with Ashlynn.
Hell, he’d worked hard to regain her trust and then what did he go and do? He destroyed it.
“Is there something deeper than groveling? Because I’m clearly going to need to do that too.”
There was no traffic and he was pulling up to his apartment complex in just under two hours. He didn’t see Ashlynn’s car, but considering it was just a little after one in the afternoon, he figured she was either out running errands or over at the new salon. It would have been easy to simply go upstairs and settle in until she got home, but he was anxious to talk to her right away.
Even if it meant chasing her around town to find her.
Pulling back out of the parking lot, Reid drove through town toward the building on Ridge Way to see if anything was going on there and if Ashlynn was there.
She wasn’t.
“Okay, it was a long shot, but…” With a shrug, he drove around the block and slowly made his way through the grocery store parking lot looking for her car with no luck. “This would be so much easier if I thought she’d answer my call.”
And because he didn’t have much to lose at this point, he parked in a spot and pulled out his phone and called her.
“Hey, you’ve reached Ash! Leave me a message or…better yet…text me! I’ll always respond faster to that! Thanks! Bye!”
“Hey, Ash, it’s me,” he said and suddenly felt like he had no knowledge of words or how to speak to people. “Um…I’m back and looking…you know…around town and stuff…”
Ugh. What is wrong with me?
“Anyway, I thought we could speak…I mean talk…and I’m in the parking lot of the grocery store if you need anything…”
Her voicemail beeped and cut him off and honestly he was relieved because…yikes.
With his head thrown back, Reid opted to take a minute before driving away.
And then decided to try to text Ashlynn.
