Page 91 of Emergency Exit
“What?”
“Your phone and the key to my house. I’ve already called the office. You are no longer allowed in the building. I’ve got Mel doing a complete sweep of my computer right now. Give me the damn key.”
He’d been impressed by how swiftly Mel had acted to lock Emma out of everything. And by how easily the auxiliary people in his life had followed suit. He’d never tried to flex his social muscles like that, but getting Emma away from him had been imperative. Romeo’s soft-voiced phone calls to anyone who’d been used to giving Emma whatever she wanted on Ash’s tab had worked more swiftly than any public announcement. Everyone had fallen into line with barely a blink, but getting her out of his life had kept him on edge for months.
Until Harper.
Harper never asked for anything. Emma had always just givenhim a cute little pout and asked for something, and then, at some point, she’d point blank asked for a credit card to make thingseasier.He’d said yes. He’d always said yes. Meanwhile, Harper had spent weeks trying to figure out how to afford flying home at Christmas. And then feeling bad about being happy that she couldn’t.
Ash had been torn between buying her a ticket and letting her be happy to be stuck in Seattle. Who was he kidding? He had been elated. He wanted her to stay in Seattle and never see Cooper Martin again. From reading between the lines, Ash thought Cooper had been happily letting Harper slave away, organizing his life and taking the blame for all of his shitty decisions, all while continuing to degrade her self-esteem in a way that was borderline abusive.
Harper still hadn’t texted back by the time he was on his way up to his condo. He glanced at his text again and felt a flutter of nerves. He’d said home. He’d automatically assumed she would come over to his place after work. They had been doing that a lot lately, but he didn’t think they had explicitly said it today. What if she thought that was weird?
Ash shook his head. Harper already knew he was weird and didn’t care. No, the people who were going to think he was an idiot were his brothers.
Once inside, he flipped on his computer and logged into the work server, following Mel’s instructions on the office Slack channel. Within a few minutes, Mel was driving his computer remotely, and Ash was free to roam about his house.
But Ash didn’t roam. Instead, he stared at his phone, debating whether or not to call Rowan or Forest. He kept meaning to tell them about Emma and not doing it. He had to admit that it was because he was embarrassed. But while Rowan and Forest might give him shit about it until the end of time, they would help out. He just needed to put his pride aside and bite thebullet.
He unlocked his phone and nearly dropped it in surprise as it dinged with an alert, the haptic buzz jangling his nerves and fingers.
OK, so neither of you are allowed to ever say shit about this because Mom is super embarrassed.
Ash stared at the message. That was not a good start to whatever was about to be said.
She was going to call Ash, but she could only do one phone call and didn’t want to interrupt Ash and Harper. You know, again.
I don’t like where any of this is going.
That was Forest.
Also, who the hell is Harper? Chloe says Harper is lovely.
Ash started to compose a reply. How was he supposed to explain who Harper was now?
I liked her. She really put Mom at ease. I also liked her acronyms.
Rowan interrupted Ash’s single word of a text, derailing the entire message he had yet to type.
Is that a double entendre?
Forest sounded confused, which was reasonable.
No, she works with FEMA or something. All the letters made me feel at home.
Ash couldn’t help hitting the laugh emoji repeatedly. Rowan’s military service had left its mark on him.
WTF? How does everyone know who Harper is but me?
Harper is my girlfriend. She thinks your company is impressive, and it’s indirectly responsible for her moving to Seattle. Also, that Olly is adorable.
I like this girl. She sounds great. Stick with this one.
Rowan just sent laughing emojis, but Ash didn’t find it funny. Rowan couldn’t just start a story this way and not finish. Ash thought about switching to an actual phone conversation, butRowan had started on text, so that meant it probably wasn’t urgent.
Can we get back to Mom and why she only has one phone call?
Right. So, I’m on my way to Mexico.
