Page 40 of Take Me Home

He laughed. “Oh, I know.”

The few times she’d tagged along with Justin and his friends to parties in high school, she’d easily declined every cup and joint passed her way. But everything had changed that summer before college. Old Hazel had been toopassive. Things wouldn’t happentoCollege Hazel.Shewould make things happen.

So, she’d tried a beer, just to see if she liked it. But the noise and congestion inside the apartment sent her out for fresh air, only for the soupy August heat to plaster her short hair to her forehead and neck. Bored and hot but determined to make it at least one hour at her first college party, she drank more. When Ash stepped through the sliding patio door, the extra syllable tacked itself onto his name. But it also sounded weirdly right.Asher.An uptight chauffeur, judging her in his rearview mirror.

“When I saw you,” he said across the picnic table, pressing a palm to his chest, “I thought,Thank God I don’t have to recite my hometown for the hundredth time.Butyou.You were like, ‘Just fucking great. Forty thousand students at this school, and you had to come tothisfucking party?’ ”

“I didn’t swear that much.”

“Hazel, you swore like a damn sailor from the moment yousaw me. At one point, you turned to some random girls on the lawn, shouted, ‘Hey, this guy is the fucking worst’ and got them all to boo me.”

“Well!” she said, defensive. Then…nothing because she had no good argument or explanation for herself. Shehadbeen annoyed to see him. Her first college party had seemed like a great opportunity to try on the new, improved version of herself. But a new haircut and a borrowed skimpy top from the roommate she barely knew hadn’t automatically banished Hazel’s old ways. When that guy spilled beer on her,she’dapologized tohim. And instead of drunkenly yelling the school fight song or making out on the lawn like the rest of the partygoers, she’d spent her time texting her lost roommate, fretting about how to replace her dropped ID, regretting her new ponytail-resistant haircut, and slapping futilely at mosquitoes.

Ash’s arrival was a cosmic taunt, a barb from the past hooking her. He’d lurked in the periphery of her relationship with Justin, and now, everything she’d spent the summer trying to forget slammed back into focus. Justin had lied to her about losing his baseball scholarship, let her think they were still coming to college as a couple. So, she’d fallen that last bit in love with him,sleptwith him, only to find out at graduation, when the principal announced everyone’s post-commencement plans, that he’d landed a walk-on spot with a school in Missouri she’d never heard of. And that was that. Her first love: over. He’d expected her to still join him at a graduation party that night and to “make the most” of summer before they parted ways, but she’d ended it in the parking lot, not yet free from her scratchy commencement robe.

“You wanted your fresh start,” Ash said, turning his hot chocolate cup in circles on the picnic table, “and apparently, you couldn’t do it with me around.”

“I told you. I didn’t keep in touch with anyone after I lefthome. I wanted to be different in college. I thought it would be easier without any ties to people who knew me before. Especially someone who never liked me to begin with.”

He nodded, thoughtful. “I’m not sure when you decided that.”

“What?”

“That I didn’t like you.”

Hazel didn’t realize she had a guffaw in her repertoire, but welp, there it was. “You literally used to groan when you saw me coming. When Justin started talking about us all going to college together, you acted like I was some parasite who’d glommed on to your best friend, like you dreaded having to put up with me for a minute longer. I got early admission, for Christ’s sake—beforewe’d even started dating. I might have stupidly believed we’d last, but I was never just following him.”

“I didn’t think you were aparasite.”

“Once, I overheard you ask what he saw in me because I wasn’t even his type.”

Ash’s leg bounced erratically under the table. He didn’t speak, apparently had no defense on that point.

“Yeah, that was pretty harsh,” she said.

“Youweren’t.” He shook his head, nostrils flaring and jaw clenching. Finally, he looked directly at her, his dark eyes stormy. “You were sweet and smart, and you didn’t care about baseball or being cool or any of the dumb shit that whole crowd was into. You cared about school and those kids you mentored. You planned that whole sports day for them.”

Hazel nearly interrupted to point out that at that event—a field day for little kids with tough upbringings, which she’d convinced the baseball coach to make a mandatory volunteer day for his team—Ash had bailed early. She’d even thought he was kind of cute at first. The other guys had shown up hungover and tired, complaining about giving up their Saturday morning, buthe’d seemed excited to meet the kids and amused by her whistle-blowing to rally the lethargic group. Fifteen minutes into the morning, though, he was glued to his phone. Then he walked out without an explanation. Justin had been the one to horse around, his energy and attention for the kids boundless. Both had made a strong impression.

“You weren’t Justin’s type,” Ash insisted, “but that wasn’t criticism, just fact.”

He lifted a stern eyebrow, as though asking if she was getting this statement through her stubborn head, and she swallowed, feeling weirdly chastened.

For the first time, she wondered if Ash and Justin were still close. After the breakup, Hazel had left Lockett Prairie earlier than planned to visit her mom in New York, wanting to nurse her broken heart as far away as possible, but rumors of a fight between the guys had reached her. She’d never learned the specifics or whether they’d made up. She hadn’t cared at the time.

“What,” she asked quietly, “does any of this have to do with that party?”

“Because for a minute that night, I thought—” He cupped his hot chocolate carefully. “For just a minute,” he repeated, cautious, “it was…fun.”

“What was fun?”

“Talking.”

“Ustalking was fun?”

He laughed. “I mean, yeah, at first you were pissed I was there. You wanted to divide campus into your side and mine so we’d never cross paths again. Which, come to think of it, is kind of a recurring theme for you.”

She glared at him.

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