His eyes roll back, and he’s out.
I turn to Ash. “Great. We can’t leave him out here like this. Help me get him into a bed.”
I come around to the back of the chair and reach under his arms while Ash wraps his arms around the man’s legs.
“Poor bastard,” Ash says as we lift him. “He’s had a rough go of it.”
After we get him situated on a bunk, Rhonda shows up at the trailer. “Is he okay?”
“He’ll be fine,” I tell her. “He just needs to sleep it off.”
“Keep an eye on him, okay?” Ash adds.
Rhonda nods. “I’ll take good care of him.”
Ash eyes her for a moment, looks over at Top passed out on his tiny bed, then back at Rhonda. “I bet you will.”
Rhonda huffs. “There’s nothing going on between us. We’re just friends.”
Ash quirks an unconvinced grin then turns and walks away.
Rhonda sticks her tongue out at his retreating back before she turns to me. “Have you heard from Maddie?”
That catches me off guard. “No, we haven’t spoken.”
“She still loves you. You know that, right?”
I’m… I don’t know what I am. “You’ve been talking to her?”
“All the time.”
“Tell her… No, don’t tell her anything, not about me. It’ll be easier for her this way.”
Looking a little woozy, she plops down on the vehicle’s oversized bumper and looks up at me with sad eyes. “Don’t you even want to know how she’s doing?”
“You have no idea,” I mutter under my breath as I turn to follow Ash. I take two steps, then pause and look back. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad she has a friend like you.”
She’s staring at the ground deflated. I don’t know what’s going on between her and my brother, and it’s really none of my business, but I hate seeing her down like this. “Hey.”
She looks up.
“I keep hearing good things about you. This next month is going to be a big opportunity to really shine. You’re the whole crew now, and for what it’s worth, I think you’re going to do great.”
A smile paints across her face, but she doesn’t say anything.
I chuckle. “Have a good night, Rhonda.” And with that, I head off to join Ash.
CHAPTER 46
Maddie
Sales are up. Business is booming… and I’ve never been more miserable.
I wish I could say the first week back from New Zealand was the worst and things have slowly gotten better in the two months since, but they haven’t. If anything, I miss him even more now. How is that even possible? I should be getting over the man already.
I keep throwing myself into my work hoping that will help. It’s helped the business, but it hasn’t done anything to make me feel any better. I don’t get it. The whole point of breaking up was so I wouldn’t feel like this. Life is so unfair sometimes. No, scratch that. Not sometimes—all the damn time.
I miss Rhonda too. But at least we’ve been able to talk. Riggs kept his word and got her a satellite phone. I wish I could be happy for her, but it sounds like things have been falling apart there. She said people keep quitting, and that’s caused all kinds of problems. And something has been going on between her and Ash, but she won’t tell mewhat. She just says she needs a break from him. It’s not like her to be so cryptic, especially about a guy she’s dating, so that’s confusing, not to mention frustrating. I want to know.
