Page 93 of Emergency Exit
I hope that’s a joke.
Ash stared at Rowan’s message, realizing he’d misjudged the moment. It wasn’t a joke. Ash didn’t track money that well, but the cash he ended up with did keep going into the closet, and he was pretty sure he’d stuffed at least one stack of ten grand in there at some point. Why hadn’t he given that to Harper? Probably because that would have meant cleaning out the closet and facing all the things he kept shoving in there, but today wasnot that day.
Sure. A joke. I would never be irresponsible about money like that.
It worries me when he says these things.
Forest included a scared face emoji on his text. His brothers were so literal with their emojis. It made Ash shake his head.
It worries me that you don’t worry about bribing border guards.
Some countries are more flexible than others. You have to roll with the local customs.
Uh-huh. Can both of you just not do anything crazy for the very brief amount of time that I’m out of the country?
I’m an angel baby.
Ash typed in his message with pious certainty.
I said both of you, but both of you know I was talking to Forest.
That’s true.
That’s true.
Ash laughed as his text went through at nearly the same time as Forest’s.
Hey.
Ash started the text and then paused, nearly chickening out. No, he could do this.
When you get back, can we all do lunch or something? I need to talk to you about Emma.
Nooooooooo! We like Harper. We’re not going back to Emma.
Even over text, Forest was vehement. He wondered how long Forest had been holding back on saying something about Emma. It made Ash happy that he’d never said anything about Chloe.
We are definitely NOT going back to Emma, but there’s some stuff. I just need to talk it through.
Yeah, of course, bud.
Anytime.
Ash sighed. His brothers were so annoying and supportive atthe same damn time. But at least he was committed to telling them what was going on. Now, he just needed to tell Harper.
He glanced at his phone again. Harper still hadn’t texted back.
29
Harper
Not Your Pookie Bear
“Hey, Harper,” said Piper, leaning around her cubicle. “We’re going to Doyle’s after work. You in?”
Harper didn’t think she and Ash had made formal plans, but her personal agenda was to have him provide dinner, watch more of the weird anime she liked, and hopefully end up with Ash doing fun naked things to her.
“No, it’s been kind of a long day,” Harper said. “I’m kind of over the existence of humans.”
