Chapter 18

Ash had taken to playing loud music while she sewed. The activity had soothed her more than any other since the age of twelve, but she’d done it so often, large parts of her brain were open for thinking even while she stitched together difficult pieces and types of fabric.

The music helped drown out any thoughts that might sneak in, specifically about Burke. She could keep the fabric under the needle with her eighties pop music in the background, and she got a lot more accomplished when she could just focus on the work.

“Too busy to talk for a minute?” a man yelled, making her jerk, her foot coming off the pedal but her needle still going awry. Great. Now that seam would need to be redone.

She lifted her eyes to the doorway. Burke stood there. Or a heavenly vision of him, because it certainly couldn’t actually be him.

Could it?

Ash stumbled to her feet, one foot still in her wedged sandal and one shoeless as she sewed. She braced herself against the table, her heart thundering in her chest like a racehorse’s hooves.

“Burke?” She searched for the remote to the stereo, finding it on the edge of the table and lunging for it. She hit it with her hand, sending it flying across the hard floor. Somehow, even over the music, she heard the crack of plastic against the laminate, and the cover for the battery bounced free.

Burke said something she didn’t catch among the lyrics, and he moved toward the remote control at the same time she hobbled after it too. When it became clear he was going to reach it first, she paused where she was. Getting too close to him would be dangerous.

He bent and picked it up, fitting the cover back over the batteries. Pointing the remote toward the wall, he pushed a button. Nothing happened. Cyndi Lauper continued to sing about her manic Monday.

He tried another spot, and another press of the button. The music continued to blast, and Ash stutter-stepped over to him and took the remote from him, being very careful not to breathe or touch him.

“I just wanted to talk,” he said, but she moved away before she could get even a note of his cologne. Ash tried pressing the power button to silence the whole radio, but again, nothing happened.

She took off the battery cover and made sure the power supply was properly seated. It was. And still pressing a button did nothing.

“Where is it?” Burke yelled over the chorus.

“Where’s what?” Ash looked directly at him, which was a huge mistake. Because even though the music continued to blare, everything slowed and stopped in that heartbeat. The moment lengthened, and she lost herself in those blue, oceanic eyes, giving herself the moment she’d missed so much these past few weeks.

“The stereo?” He gestured like it should be mounted to the wall.

“Oh.” Ash turned in a full circle, feeling like she was doing a weird pony dance with the different heights due to her shoeless foot. “It’s in that cabinet.” Which was very high up, near the ceiling. She couldn’t reach it, and though Burke had a few inches on her, he wouldn’t be able to without a chair or ladder either.

The song ended, and the fraction of second before the announcer spoke brought a brief respite. Burke said, “I just wanted—” before the man started speaking again, detailing the weather for later that day and into the weekend.

“—to talk,” Burke said loudly. Another song started to play, and it wasn’t the calm, ballad-y type they could talk over, but more of a rock jam Ash used to dance around to when she was younger.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he said, yelling over the drums and guitars. “I need your advice. I can’t figure things out without you, because you’re who’d I go to when I need to talk things through.”

Ash folded her arms, her senses completely overloaded. “Not true. You never talked to me about Bridgette.”

Frustration rolled across his expression. “I was embarrassed about Bridgette. You knew anyway.”

“Some stuff,” Ash said, unsure about why she was arguing with him about this, of all things. But he had not told her he’d proposed to her, not even once. And he’d done it over and over again.

Burke looked away, his gaze eventually migrating back to hers. “I don’t know what to do. You always help me figure out what to do.”

Even with the pounding song, she heard the desperation in his words. It tugged against her heart, pulling harder and harder with every passing moment. But her heart resisted, though she did want to work things out with him.

But not this version of him.

She shook her head and backed up a step. “I’m not helping you figure this out. This is a Burke issue you need to identify and solve.”

“I know the issue.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“What?”

“What is it?” she yelled over the guitar riff.

Burke didn’t say anything, just as Ash suspected he would. Burke didn’t say a whole lot about what he was feeling; he never had. Emotions stormed across his face though, and Ash got the answers she needed from that.

“If you’re still in love with her—”

“I’m not,” Burke said, the words loud and powerful. “I’m not, Ash.” The song ended, but he continued in his near-yell, “I’m in love with you.”

She stared at him, sure her brain had been muddled because of the loud eighties rock song. Sure the ringing in her ears had made his words vibrate and reform into something they weren’t.

The announcer came back on, and Ash really needed everything to be silent so she could think. “I have to go,” she said, kicking off her other wedge and heading toward the exit.

“Ash,” Burke said behind her, but she fled as fast as her bare feet and narrow pencil skirt would let her. The fall sunshine hit her, and she stumbled when her feet hit the hot cement. But she kept going.

She was not going to give Burke advice on how to make up with her.

And he doesn’t love you.

Her mind wouldn’t let go of the words though, spoken in his voice.

I’m not, Ash.

I’m in love with you.

Ash didn’t return to her sewing studio until that evening, and she wore a pair of leggings, an oversized T-shirt with a giant flower on the front, and sneakers. The door was locked, which would’ve been thoughtful and considerate of Burke had Ash not left her keys inside. She cupped her hands and peered through the glass. All the lights had been turned off, and she couldn’t hear any music, so he must’ve figured out how to silence that blasted stereo at some point.

She turned to leave, vowing to wait until morning to call a locksmith. Then she wouldn’t have to pay the after-hours fee. But her foot slipped on something, and she found an envelope beneath her right foot.

Her heart jumped as if it had transformed into a rabbit, and she bent to pick up the envelope. It had her name on it in Burke’s messy script, and she simultaneously wanted to rip it open and read it and toss it in the nearest fire.

But as there were no fires nearby, Ash pinched the envelope in her fingers. She glanced up and down the street like someone would be there to arrest her for looking in a window—a window she owned—and picking up a piece of paper.

No one even seemed to notice her standing there. She made it back to her car and shoved the envelope in her purse before heading up into the hills to her mother’s house.

Her bag felt like a lead weight as she shouldered it and took it inside. Her mom stood at the stove already, onions and red peppers sautéing while she chopped a green pepper to add to the pan.

“Hey, Mom.” Ash set her purse with the envelope in it on the counter and leaned over to give her mom a kiss.

“There you are.” She turned and wiped her hands on her apron. “I was beginning to worry.”

“You were?” Ash glanced at the clock on the stove. “I’m not even late.” She still smoothed her hands down her hips as if she’d done something wrong by stopping by her shop before coming straight up here.

Her mom turned back to the stove and scooped the green peppers into the pan. “Burke came by,” she said as if she was discussing the size of her pumpkins in the garden.

Ash sucked in a breath. “Burke? Came here?”

“He was looking for you. Seemed a bit panicked, honestly. Wanted me to tell you he’d stopped by, and that you left your phone and keys in your shop. He’s got them.”

“He’s got them? Like, what? He’s holding them hostage?”

Her mom turned away from the vegetables again. “What?”

“We broke up, Mom. Weeks ago.” Ash paced out of the small kitchen, the outdoors calling to her in a way they never had before. She didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Not today. Probably not ever.

“You broke up?” Her mom came after her and touched her shoulder. Ash faced her, wishing she didn’t feel like her whole world had collapsed without Burke to keep her steady. “Oh, and I can see it’s not a good thing.”

“I really liked him, Mom.” Ash’s voice sounded like she’d just taken in a large lungful of helium. In the next moment, her face crumpled, and Ash started crying.

She hadn’t cried once since she’d broken up with Burke, and it felt like weeks and months and years of tears came streaming out of her.

“I really liked him.”

Her mom gathered her into an embrace, and Ash clung to her, glad and grateful she was still here in this critical time, but wishing Ash could fix things for Burke, because then she’d be able to fix things between them too.