Page 3 of Take Me Home

“Shut up. You don’t exist.”

She was already scanning through her notes, mentally sweeping everything else off the counter to focus only on what mattered, so she heard his echo of her words—“Ah, right. I don’t exist”—but didn’t fully register until a minute later that it had been oddly mirthless, almost…

Nope, no more distractions. She was at the finish line. After this, everything she’d put off could come for her, but not before she shut the door on this long, grueling semester.

—

A half hour later, tinny ringing pulled Hazel from her essay, followed by a voice. “This is Ash.”

She un-Quasimodoed herself, straightening her spine and rolling her neck. Her eyes were slow to refocus past the short distance of her screen. Her coffee had gone cold, but Cami was by the door, flirting with a UPS delivery woman, so she reached over the counter to refill her mug herself.

“Ah, shit. Really? Five hundred?” Ash rose from the green chair, squeezing the back of his neck. He met Hazel’s gaze then turned away and drummed his fingers on the table. “Four days?I was supposed to go home tomorrow.”Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.“No, I get it. Just crappy timing. Go ahead and do the repairs.”

Hazel supposed this explained why his car wasn’t out front.

He ended his call and hastily packed up his belongings. The evening crowd had filled in around them while Hazel was lost in her paper, and he had to weave his way to the front. As he stalked past her to the door, he grunted, “All yours,” as if she’d orchestrated his personal crisis just to lure him out of the chair. Through the big front windows, she tracked his path to the door that led up to his loft.

Hazel surveyed her sprawl—laptop, a stack of articles, highlighters, pens, paper clips, two separate legal pads of notes, a worn APA manual, coffee. She’d practically moved in here, and she was so close to being done. Maybe she’d just finish her paper and then relocate to the chair.

While she debated this, the UPS woman left, and Cami sidled casually back behind the counter, some thought brewing behind her narrowed eyes.

“What?” Hazel asked, wary.

Cami’s gaze darted pointedly to Hazel’s bag, and she knew instantly what she was referencing: the invitation. “Lockett Prairie,” Cami mused. “Small world.”

Unease pricked Hazel’s skin. She sensed where Cami was going with this. Best to get ahead of it. “I’m not leaving for a few more days.”

Guilt flared. She’d put her father off for weeks about her travel plans.

She switched tacks. “If you’re thinking I should give Ash Campbell a ride across Texas, you haven’t been paying attention. We’d kill each other before we reached the hill country.”

Cami’s look suggested killing each other wasn’t the only way it might go, but she raised her palms. “Okay.”

They didn’t even know if he needed a ride.

Plus, it was an eight-hour drive. He’d probably eat corn nuts or beef jerky or something that would make her gag the whole way.

“We have a bad historyspecificallywith being in cars together,” she said.

Cami, who was already turning to welcome a customer, laughed. “I said okay.”

But Hazel’s mind supplied one final defense, just in case:That party freshman year.The first andlasttime they’d acknowledged each other in undergrad. She knew he’d let the last four years harden around that night, preserving it like amber, just like she had, because when she’d found her new favorite study spot two months ago and returned the next day to discover Ash already seated in the wingback, claiming it washisregular spot, he’d set his jaw and said entirely too smugly, “There are, like,twenty thousandother places to study.” Throwing back her own words from that night.

Hazel’s laptop screen dimmed, reminding her of her paper. Even when he wasn’t here, Ash was still a distraction. She rubbed her tired eyes, retraced her mental steps, and got back to work.

—

Hazel was uploading her essay to the online submission portal when Ash returned at five minutes to seven. He’d changed into black jeans and a gray Henley for his evening shift behind the counter—his barista uniform, though there wasn’t officially an employee uniform. He refilled her mug, complete with her usual shot of creamer and two sugars, without asking and said, “So, I was right.”

“Shush. I’m almost done.” She hesitated over the submit button, though there was little she could do at this point to improveher paper. Clicking it, she let out a long sigh, and brought her mug to her lips.

He was waiting.

She humored him. “You were right about what?”

He nodded behind her at the chair. “You only want it when you can’t have it.”

“I was just already settled in over here.”

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