“Of course. Oh, hi, Dixie, can I help you with something?” Hannah asked and I shifted my focus to her. She was giving me a fake smile. It was too bright and it didn’t meet her eyes.

“I, uh, no, I’m just, I,” I stopped stuttering and pointed to a wall of hoes and shovels, then hurried toward them.

“Dixie,” Asher’s voice called after me. I was not turning around. She’d caught me off guard. I hadn’t been prepared to speak yet. Not as I was still processing what I had witnessed.

Maybe they were just friends. He said before they were friends and I believed him. But the way she had talked to him, the tone in her voice . . . it said something else.

“Dixie, wait,” he was closing in on me. I could start running, but then I’d look ridiculous and draw even more attention to myself. That would, of course, make Asher and I the topic of everyone’s dinner conversation tonight. Including my own family’s. Wincing, I stopped walking and just waited on him to reach me.

His fingers wrapped around my upper arm and I let him turn me around. “Why did you walk off?” He looked completely confused.

“I don’t know,” I lied. I knew I was overreacting.

He frowned and looked around. “Come out back to my truck.”

I felt eyes on me. I was almost positive they belonged to Hannah, but I didn’t check. I didn’t care. I only cared about being alone with Asher.

“Okay,” I acquiesced and let him lead me to the back. Once we were around the storage bins, his truck came into view. When we were on the far side of the truck, hidden from view, he backed me up against it and placed his hands on either side of me. His palms sat flat on the door behind me. “Tell me what just happened.”

Sighing, I closed my eyes because this was embarrassing. “I came to get flowers for the salon in hopes of seeing you. Then I heard you and Hannah talking. Y’all were friendly. She was being flirty with you.”

Asher put a finger under my chin and tilted my head back. “Open your eyes, Dix,” he sounded amused. I slowly opened them and then blinked against the sun.

“Hannah is my friend. We work together.”

I nodded.

He just smirked and pressed a kiss to my lips. “I like you jealous. I have to admit it.”

“I don’t,” I pouted.

He laughed, but then dropped his hands from the truck behind me and stood back up straight. “I’ve got to eat lunch, you’ve got to get flowers, and if I stay back here with you any longer, I’ll start kissing you the way I want to. We can’t do that just yet. Not in public.”

Because of Steel.

“Okay,” I replied, wishing things were different. But I understood.

“Come on,” he said with a gentle tug of my hand, walking us back around the truck. I wasn’t embarrassed anymore, so when my eyes found Hannah looking at us, I smiled. I didn’t care what she thought of me. I had acted silly and if she wanted to think I was nuts, I couldn’t blame her.

“I’d share half my sandwich with you if it wouldn’t make people talk,” he said.

“I’ll eat back at the salon.”

“I won’t enjoy my lunch company. I promise.”

I laughed at that. He quickly squeezed my hand, then moved away.

It wasn’t until I lifted my eyes to start looking for flowers that I saw him. Steel. He was standing just outside his truck watching us. His angry glare caused my breath to hitch, making Asher follow my gaze. He tensed and immediately put distance between us.

“Come on, you. Time to eat. Thanks for helping Dixie with that. I had no idea where to find it,” Hannah said brightly as she walked in between us and wrapped her arms around Asher’s arm.

“Wha—” Asher started to say, but then nodded. “Yeah. No problem.”

Hannah was saving him from Steel. I understood that, but it still didn’t feel good to see her cuddling up against him. “Oh, hey, Steel!” she called out waving and walking Asher away from me. She glanced back at me. “Just take what you need to the front. Nora will check you out. We’re taking our lunch now.” There was a challenge in her gaze as she looked at me. Then she gave me a slow smile, went up on her toes and pressed a kiss to Asher’s face. “He’s just the sweetest.”

I waited to see him push her away. To tell her to stop. To question why she thought she could do that. But he did none of those things. He let her continue to cling to him. I didn’t want to watch anymore. My stomach felt sick as I walked away, back toward the street. Away from Steel, away from Asher, and away from Hannah. I didn’t want to pretend anymore. I had pretended for years. Pretended that I was okay. That I wasn’t hurting every single day. That I wasn’t lost. I was done with it all.

Last night, I’d allowed myself to hope that maybe sometime soon, Asher would want to fight for me, too. That after the sex, he’d want more. He’d want back what we had taken from us. But what I’d just witnessed hadn’t been fighting. That had been acting. That had been just one more lie to add to the growing pile between us all.

Asher Sutton

“THAT FUCKING QUICK?” Steel asked as he continued glaring at me like he hated the sight of me. I wanted to see if Dixie was gone, but I knew not to look in her direction. Steel would go crazy and I didn’t want him doing that here.

“Not what you think it is,” I told him.

“She just came by needing help with some flowers for the salon. I had Asher show her the newest stock out back that we haven’t displayed yet. That’s all, Steel,” Hannah offered cheerfully. She was a good actress, her easy-going tone convincing and confident, and the way she stayed attached to my arm suggested that something was happening between us.

Steel looked at Hannah, then back to me. “You fucking her?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if he meant Hannah or Dixie.

“Steel,” I started to correct him, because Mr. Horn, the nearly eighty-years-old pastor at the Baptist church, had just heard him cuss while he shopped for gardening gloves for his wife. But Hannah interrupted me.

“Our sex life isn’t your business, Steel. Never will be, either.”

Hannah and I would never have a sex life. I didn’t correct her, though. I’d do that later after Steel had left. If this was just a grand act to appease him, then I was thankful for it. Bit if she thought it was the beginning of anything more between us, I needed to clarify to her that it wasn’t.

He continued to study us.

“You been home? Momma is worried.”

He shrugged “She’s pissed as hell. Not worried.”

“That, too,” I agreed.

More silence filled the space between us.

“She only loved you. Never loved me,” he said before walking away. He sounded defeated. I wanted to tell him that he meant something to her. That he’d been important to her. Instead, I just let him go, hating myself for putting that pain in his eyes.

“She’s really messed with his head,” Hannah said in a whisper.

If the past wasn’t what it was, if things hadn’t happened the way they did, if a lie hadn’t kept us apart, I’d agree with her. But Dixie was as much a victim as he was. We all were.

“She never meant to,” I told her.

“You sure?” Hannah asked.

I moved away from her and was tempted to just walk back to my truck and drive off, away from the questions. Back to the lake where nothing mattered but me and Dixie. But I couldn’t do that.