Page 68 of Gin and Bear It

“Yep.”

“You seem to know this area well,” I say. “I didn’t know you came back to Nashville that often. Your mom was always saying you don’t come home enough.”

“I don’t come back to Jepsen. But Nashville is where we recorded all of our albums,” he says. “Mom always wanted me to come home more, but you know how she can be. Sticking to most holidays when we weren’t on tour was best for my sanity.”

“I get that.”

We walk in silence for a while, though my brain wants to explode with questions. I get that he doesn’t like Jepsen, but is it more than it just being boring? His mom is a bit overbearing, but is it so much that he doesn’t want to even see her? And most importantly, what did Berta mean about Ash being a bachelor forever?

“What are you thinking about?” Ash asks me.

“Hm?”

“You keep staring at me and it looks like you’re thinking about saying something.” He gives me a half smile.

“What really happened in Calabasas?”

TWENTY

ASH

Of course. Berta didn’t mean to accidentally bring that up, but I’ve been in her chair venting about that whole situation before. She tattooed over the impulsive art I’d gotten in that six-month fever dream that led up to the worst night of my life.

But I was hoping that Jada wouldn’t see what was underneath my attempts to play it off.

I sigh. Her big, brown eyes behind the frames of her glasses are open and sincere. She doesn’t have much of a filter, but she’s not mean. And I don’t think she’d accept me dodging her question.

We reach the elevator and get in with a few other people. Jada accepts my silence until we get off on our floor.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she says. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I tap our key card against the lock and open the door for her. Once the door clicks shut, I take a deep breath and say, “It’s a super long story, so I can just give you the gist of it.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

She sits on the edge of the bed, which makes her dress inch up her thighs a little bit. I lean against the doorframe instead of sitting next to her like I want to.

“Calabasas really was the night my heart got shattered, but I didn’t tell you the full truth. It wasn’t just some early twenties BS like I said,” I say. “I had one relationship. It ended kind of badly. It put me off relationships.”

Jada sits, lightly biting the inside of her bottom lip as she waits for me to continue. I haven’t earnestly spoken about this night…ever, really. Not while mostly sober.

Usually I’d stop here, but I feel like I owe it to Jada to be honest.

“Alexis—the woman I fell for—had me believing that I was everything to her, and that we were it, forever. I was young enough to think that whatever we had was the exception to the rule. I wasn’t going to end up like my parents, stuck with someone who I put up with because we were too far in to get out.

“But we speed-ran through those feelings in the span of six months. Or I guess she did, because when I saw her with another guy one night at a party in Calabasas, she acted like I was insane for having feelings for her. Like I was crazy to think we had anything, or that I would be the kind of person who she—or anyone else—would want to be with long term. Or be in love with at all.”

I swallow the knot in my throat and try to stay still as Jada takes it all in.

She nods slowly. For a brief second, I worry I’ve laid it out too much, and that I’m going to get the platitudes that I’ve heard all my life when shit I’m dealing with is heavy—just a damn, that sucks or something.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her eyes soft. “It must have been pretty bad. You didn’t deserve to have your heart broken and she was awful to you. But she wasn’t right. At all. You’re worthy of love.”

The knot in my throat comes back, bigger than before. I want it to go away, even though her words are more healing than anything anyone else has said about my situation. It’s not going to magically change me overnight, but it’s a start.

Maybe I should have talked about this to someone years ago.

“It’s what eventually launched our band, though,” I eventually say. “I took all those feelings and shoved them into songs. Dylan helped, pouring his misery from his own heartbreak into them, too. We went from some group that played small venues and self-recorded albums to something bigger than what I ever dreamed of. Now I’m not even getting the royalties I’m owed for it.”