One Tiny Lie

I manage to break free from his mouth. “Wait! Two more things.”

He’s breathing heavily, his brow furrowed as he gazes down at my face with confusion. “What else is there? You want my clothes too?” With an arched brow, he adds, “I’ll gladly give them to you when we get somewhere a little bit warmer, Irish. In fact, I insist.”

Shaking my head, I whisper, “I want you to get help. You need to talk to someone about all of this. Deal with it.”

Ashton smirks. “Don’t worry, I already have Stayner all over my ass. I have a feeling I’ll be taking up your ten a.m. slot on Saturdays.”

Relief pours out of me in an exhale. If there’s anyone I trust with Ashton’s well-being, it’s Dr. Stayner. “Good.”

With a small peck on my lips, he murmurs, “And that other thing?”

I swallow. “You said you wanted to forget everything. But . . . I don’t want you to ever forget a thing that happened between us. Ever.”

The most gentle of smiles passes over Ashton’s face. “Irish, if there’s one thing I’ve never been able to forget, it’s a single second with you.”

EPILOGUE

“You know, I haven’t had cheesecake in almost year,” I murmur, dragging my fork along my plate as I watch the June sun setting over Miami Beach from the comfort of my lounge chair. “I don’t think I like it anymore.”

“I’ll eat it, then,” Kacey mutters, one step from licking her plate clean. “Or Storm will. I swear she puts back fifty thousand calories a day feeding that hog of a child.” As if baby Emily heard the magic word from her bouncy chair in the kitchen, the hungry wails begin. Again. Emily was born in early January, immediately affixing herself to Storm’s ni**les and fighting to stay ever since. Things have not been easy for Storm, but she’s handling it with all the patience and love that you could ever expect from her.

With me back home, it’s given her a bit of respite. Emily is even taking a bottle from me now. Storm calls me her lucky charm.

I stayed to finish the year at Princeton after all, even managing to pull my overall average up to a solid B. It’s ironic that my English lit final mark ended up being one of my strongest of that first semester, given it was also the most difficult course for me.

Ashton was definitely a motivating factor in my choice to stay. Once all the confusion, the pressure, and the lies were gone, I was left with nothing but choices. Small, large, easy, hard—all of them mine to make. For me.

I started with the easy ones. Like choosing to be where I could see Ashton whenever I wanted. That was a no-brainer. He had less than a year to go for a Princeton degree and he decided that he wanted to see it through, regardless of his reason for being there in the first place. Plus he was committed to his role as crew captain through the spring season.

Eventually Connor, Ashton, and I reconciled. It didn’t take long for Connor to see that I wasn’t just another one-night stand for his best friend. Connor started dating the blond girl—Julia—who’d approached him that night at the eating club. We even went on a double date. It was weird, but by the end of the night, I think it helped our friendship. By the looks I catch Connor giving me every now and then, I know his feelings for me haven’t completely disappeared. I hope with time, he’ll see that we weren’t right for each other.

Ashton moved back into the house at the beginning of the spring semester. I stayed over a lot. That was also weird at first, but Ashton quickly made me forget about my nerves . . . and anything else that didn’t involve him.

One of the harder decisions I had to make was whether or not to stay at Princeton beyond that first year. I’d applied for a transfer to Miami and, not surprisingly, it was accepted. There was nothing keeping me in New Jersey anymore, except Ashton. He would be done that year but his mother was still in New Jersey, and Reagan’s dad had offered him a position as assistant coach while he figured things out. I toiled over my own decision for weeks, not sure what would make me happiest.

Then one night, as I was lying in bed and outlining his Celtic symbol with my fingertip, Ashton told me he was following me to Miami if I chose to go. He had even started looking into hospices down there with Stayner’s help. Robert confirmed that the assistant coaching job would always be there for him.

That suddenly made my hard decision really easy. Which made me know that it was the right one.

I wanted to go home.

And I wanted to bring Ashton with me.

The sliding door opens behind us and two strong hands clamp over my shoulders. “You never told me it was so damn hot in Miami,” my gorgeous man grumbles, leaning down to steal the mouthful of cake off my fork, following it with a kiss on my lips. I squeal as drops of sweat land on my face.

My eyes drift over the sheen coating his bare chest. Ashton has taken to evening jogs without a shirt since moving down here, and it’s doing very bad things to my hormones on a nightly basis.

“The kid’ll get used to it,” I hear Trent mutter from behind as he steps out of the house, also sweaty and shirtless, with a towel around his neck. There’s about an eight-year difference between Ashton and Trent but their maturity levels seem to be equal, because they get along perfectly. I’m not sure yet what that says about either of them.

“What is this—the sweaty guy convention?” With a blanket over her shoulder to discreetly hide the baby latched to her boob, Storm joins us, followed closely by a third shirtless, sweaty man—Ben. And just like that, the deck has come alive with people.

“You’re too fast, Princeton,” the rugged blond mutters, high-fiving Ashton.

I smile at the nickname. Everyone has taken an instant liking to Ashton. Including the small group of women passing by on the beach. It’s the same group every night. They’ve discovered that if they swing past our house at this time in the evening, they’re likely to find fit, half-naked men lingering out on the back deck. That Kacey, Storm, and I are usually sitting here too is a minor inconvenience . . .

“Hello!” Kacey waves dramatically at them as she does every night, clearly enjoying the fact that her man is being drooled over. She points at Trent. “He’s five hundred for two hours!” Swinging her hand Ashton’s way, she adds, “Seven-fifty for him because he’s young. You should hear how he makes my sister scream!”

“Kacey!” I snap, but it’s too late. Everyone’s laughing and my cheeks are burning. Ashton bends down to plant a kiss on my neck, as if that will distract me from my mortification. As much as I’ve come out of my sexually repressed shell, so to speak, I still like to keep what’s private . . . private. Ashton respects that and he doesn’t tease me as much as they do. But he can’t resist when the rest of them get into it. They seem to have so much more material on me now, thanks to my welcome-home party, complete with too many Jell-O shots and thin walls.

“What about me? Am I not worth some coin, Madame Kacey?” Ben’s hands are held out in question, a mock look of insult on his attractive features.

“I’ll pay them five hundred to get you out of my hair for one night,” Kacey moans. But she follows it immediately with a wink.

“I can take a hint. I’m heading over to Penny’s for a beer, anyway. Hey, Princeton, you sure you don’t want me to hook you up with a job? Good money, lots of—”