Page 49 of When I'm With You
I think this whole thing might have been a mistake.
What did he do? Do you want to come home? I’ll pick you up at the airport and then I’ll kill him. Actually, I’ll have Jeremy kill him. He can be kind of scary when he’s not staring at Em like she’s about to disappear.
I chuckle despite my general misery because she’s right about that.
Me
I’m surprised you didn’t say you’d make Ben kill him.
Hallie
Have you met your brother? He’s more of a, try to reason with him and when it doesn’t work, swiftly cut him out of your life guy. If you want to exact violence, Ben is not your man. And if Asher hurt you, we are exacting all the violence.
So, are we? Exacting all the violence? What happened?
It’s nothing. I just…don’t think Asher is the guy I thought he was.
And here I thought you didn’t think anything about Asher. Didn’t you say it was just “a friends thing?”
Shut up.
Jules, it’s Ben. I just wanted to tell you that Asher is one of the best guys I know.
I suck in a breath at that and let it out slowly. That mayseem like a normal thing to say for some people, but I know my brother doesn’t open up his circle for just anyone, and he rarely does acquaintances. Jeremy and Jordan are his brothers, Hallie is the love of his life, and I’m his sister. Molly and Emma come with Hallie and me, and Allie comes with Jordan, and we are his people. No one else. If he says Asher is one of the best guys he knows, it’s not hyperbole. Asher is one of his people now.
Hallie
Okay sorry, it’s me again. Listen Jules, I don’t know why you’re on that road trip or what’s going on between you and Asher, but I know this. In the three days you’ve been gone, you haven’t checked in on work once. You haven’t called or texted or made sure we’re handling all your clients the way we said we would. That’s not like you, in a good way, and I think you have to consider what that means.
Fuck, she’s right. How is it possible I haven’t checked in on work once and didn’t even notice? I know the answer and I hate it because if Asher isn’t the person he has shown me over the past few days, then maybe I’m not either, and I like the person I am when I’m with him. The one who howls with wolves and doesn’t check in at work every twenty minutes. I take a deep breath and for the first time, maybe ever, I tell my best friend what’s really on my mind.
Me
I like him, Hal. I really, really like him. And that scares the shit out of me because what if he’s not who I think he is?
Hallie
But what if he is?
I toss my phone down and bury my face in a pillow as my stomach churns and my mind races. I resign myself to a long,lonely night of no sleep and unrelenting intrusive thoughts of Asher and whatever woman was on the other end of his phone today. God, I hate that bitch. And I hate myself for opening up enough that I care.
“Juliette?”
I sit straight up at the sound of Asher’s voice through our connecting door. It doesn’t sound like he’s standing at the door though. The sound is coming from lower down, like maybe he’s sitting? And my eyes fill again at the thought of Asher sitting on the other side of the door, as close to me as I’ll let him be right now.
“Juliette, I know you don’t want to talk, and that’s okay. I don’t know what’s going on, but I want you to know that I’m right here. You’re not alone. You never have to be alone. I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe with me.”
You’re safe with me.
I wish I was. I wish I could be. I probably even am. But my anxious brain that gives up control for no one and nothing has decided for me that Asher can’t be mine, even though every other part of me wants nothing more than to be his.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Asher
“Shit,” I mutter, turning up the windshield wipers as high as they’ll go.
It’s only five-thirty p.m., but it’s pitch-black outside. The snow started an hour ago. At first it was the good kind of snow. The perfect snow that we saw out of Julie’s office window the day of her panic attack. But the closer we get to Wichita, the worse it gets, and now, about forty-five minutes outside the city, it’s a full-blown blizzard.
