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Chapter 1
Ten Months Ago – August 2nd
Ash hovered over my shoulder with something like disappointment flowing off him. I let go of the computer mouse and craned my neck backwards, giving him a look. “Why are you glaring?”
“I’m not glaring,” he said, faking this innocent look like everything was fine.
“It sure as hell feels like you’re glaring . . .” I mumbled under my breath, turning back to the LSU student portal webpage.
“It’s just—do you really want to sign up for classes online?” Ash scowls at the screen, ever the guy to hate technology.
“The only other option is to sign up in person and that would mean standing in some long line forever.”
“But then you could visit the campus,” he said, lifting a finger like he’d just made some excellent point. “You really need to do that, you know.”
I lifted my shoulders and rolled my neck. I was tired of having this talk. With Ash, with Mom, with Dad. Even Molly had mentioned it in her oh-so-nice-way, her brown eyes watching me with this hopefulness that maybe she’d be able to get through to me. Everyone wanted me to tour the stupid college. But honestly, I didn’t care about the campus.
I wanted to be here, with Ash. On the track with my friends. I wasn’t ready to pack up and move into a dorm, even though the scholarship I received meant living in a dorm for the first year of college. All those years of homeschooling myself with slow internet and used school books was supposed to be my big start in life. Graduating early so I’d be able to go to college, get a job and have an awesome life free from debt and dead end jobs. Mom had wanted it for me and I had wanted it as well. But now, I suddenly felt entirely too young for college.
“I could just wait a year,” I said, my hand moving the mouse around in circles on the mousepad. “Travel the country with you and then go to college next year.”
“But then you’d be a year behind,” Ash said. He turned around, leaning against the computer desk and watching me with those piercing eyes. “The sooner you’re out of college, the sooner you can travel the country with me.”
“Or I could just not go to college,” I said with a goofy expression. Those words were blasphemy around here and I knew it.
“I’m not letting you screw up your future because you want to spend more time with me,” Ash said, shaking his head. “Let’s pick your classes and then tomorrow if I have to shove you in my truck while you’re sleeping just to make you take a tour of campus, I will.”
I gave him a coy grin. “I love how you’ll resort to violence for me.”
“It wouldn’t be violent,” he said, looking up as if it were a real possibility that he was thinking it through detail by detail. “I’d wrap you up in your comforter so your head wouldn’t hit anything on the way down the stairs. Plus, the burrito effect would be great for keeping your arms tucked in and out of range to strangle me. Then I’d just toss you in the bed of my truck and drive really fast until we get there so you couldn’t jump out.”
“Oh right,” I said, laughing. I punched him in the stomach. “Not violent at all.”
“You’re one to talk,” he said, rubbing his abs.
When I’d finished signing up for the first official semester of my college life, I printed out the schedule and held it up like it was some symbolic tome.
Ash and I celebrated with a kiss and then plopped onto my bed, turning on the television. Ash took all the pillows that had been neatly arranged on my bed and shoved them behind his head, making the ultimate pillow recliner against my headboard. I snuggled up beside him and used his chest as my own personal pillow. It was harder than a real pillow, but I liked it that way. Ash leaned back and I tucked into him, inhaling his scent.
He wrapped his arm around me and I played with his fingers, lacing them between mine. “If I make it through these four years of torture, I hope you’ll still be here waiting on me.”
“Where would I go?” Ash said, kissing my forehead.
I listed off the places on my fingers. “Anaheim, Orlando, Salt Lake City, Paris . . .”
“None of those places mean anything to me.”
“You know what I mean. I’ll be stuck here in Texas and you’ll be visiting all these places, meeting new people and—”
“Hana, stop.” Ash paused the TV and adjusted to where he was looking at me. His brows knit together and he took my chin in his hand. “This relationship will never work out if we don’t have full trust and faith in each other. Believe me when I say I am totally crazy about you.”
My bottom lip quivered as I listened, taking in his words and holding them close to my heart. His lips softened and he kissed me, deepening the kiss until I reached up and grabbed his shoulder. He pulled away and shook his head as if reorienting himself. “Hold on, I’m not done. I am crazy about you, Hana Fisher, and I only want you, Hana Fisher, and it doesn’t matter where I travel or what I do, that’s not going to change.”
“Okay,” I said, breaking eye contact only to let my head rest on his chest again.
He ran a hand through my hair. “You don’t sound very convinced.”
“Babe, I’m sorry,” I said, sitting up and untangling myself from his arms. “I believe that you believe yourself, Ash. I swear I do. But . . . I don’t know, people change. Fame changes people. I’m just scared you’ll go off and leave this stupid town and forget all about me. And it won’t even be your fault, either. That’s the shitty thing. You’re allowed to become someone who wants better than me.”
“Hana, that will never happen,” Ash said. A fire shifted behind his eyes and in those few seconds, I actually almost truly believed him.
“Okay,” I said again, kissing him on the cheek.
“If you don’t believe me now that’s fine.” Ash’s shoulders lifted, his voice turning cocky. “I’ll just have
to prove it to you.”
Chapter 2
Present Day - May
Dad and Molly’s house—my house, I guess I should say—smells like warm sugar cookies when I walk through the front door. I draw in a deep breath, vowing to find those cookies and eat them all, and glance around the foyer. Everything is flawless and tidy as always. It’s as if I hadn’t been gone for the spring semester of college, like I’d just walked outside for a few minutes and then come back in.
“Hello?” I call out, even though I’m pretty sure no one is home. It’s three in the afternoon on a Friday. Teig’s sixth grade class is getting out right about now, and Molly will be in the car rider line, waiting to pick him up. Dad’s most likely at Mixon Motocross Park, the business he owns. The track is just beyond our own backyard, so I’ll probably go see him once I unpack.
I roll my suitcase and carry my backpack through the living room and toward the stairs, where it quickly becomes knowledge that I’m not about to drag this heavy freaking suitcase up the stairs. I probably shouldn’t have packed it full of books. Tilting it back into standing up position, I shove down the pull handle and leave it where it sits. I just spent my freshman year at college living in a dorm with the worst roommate. I worked my ass off to get straight A’s. When it comes to this stupid suitcase, I’ll worry about it later.
This is summer break, and I’m going to make it count.
I’ll work at the track, I’ll help Molly around the house, I’ll take up a hobby—or ten hobbies. Whatever it takes, I will do it. I will stay busy until it’s time to head back to school in the fall.
I’ll learn to build an entire house from the ground up if that’s what it takes to keep my mind off of it.
The breakup, that is.
The fact that Hana Fisher is as single as the last kid picked for a kickball team.
Warm tears threaten to fill my eyes, so I blink them away, grit my teeth and trudge up the stairs. My bedroom door is closed, but once I open it and see my Paris-themed bedroom looking exactly as I’d left it four and a half months ago, I immediately regret it. Everything in here reminds me of Ash.
There’s a photo of Ash and me on Christmas Eve, dressed in ugly Christmas sweaters and felt reindeer antler headbands. On my vanity mirror, I’ve taped four photo strips from the movie theater where Ash and I went on a rare weekend when he was home and I had driven back from school. The last frame in each strip is of us kissing.
He was such a great kisser. And those photos will have to go.
