Chapter 2

The reason I’d come back in the first place.

Not the bar itself, but the man owning it. The best friend I’ve ever had. The boy who’d preferred chocolate milkshake over strawberry, but had loved buying records as much as I had.

Asher Cross.

We’d been fifteen the last time we’d seen each other. He’d towered over me, tall and gangly, with limbs that had grown too fast and refused to be controlled properly. He’d reminded me of a newborn foal: staggering around on long, unfamiliar legs, trying to gain his footing. With coal black hair in a wild mess and bangs slanted over his forehead—more often than not, covering his eyes—he’d been the cutest boy I’d ever seen.

His hair was one of the many things that had driven my mother crazy.

And it had been one of the many things that had lit my heart on fire every time I’d lain eyes on him.

He hadn’t known. I’d just started to figure it out myself. Figure out why I had a hard time breathing as soon as he was around, or why my stomach had ached in the most delicious way.

I hadn’t had time to work up the courage to talk to him about it. My chance to find out if he felt the same had been taken away from me when my parents decided to move across the country.

Sixteen years later, when my therapist had asked me in one of our many sessions what I wanted if I could choose anything in the world, the answer had been easy.

I want to see Asher again.

So here I stood. Staring at his bar, trying to find the courage to walk over and knock on the door.

I pulled off my baseball cap, rubbed the back of my neck, and exhaled so hard, my lips made a sputtering noise.

My eyes were glued to the three-story building in front of me. Big neon, rainbow-colored letters covered the entire front of the narrow house: Broken Brick Bar.

The ground floor was made up of enormous windows, but the second and third stories looked like a residence with red brick walls and white trim. The building was dark, except for one of the classic Budweiser signs hanging on the door and a dim light coming from the single third-floor window.

When I’d rushed out of my hotel early this morning, I hadn’t taken into consideration that any time before noon wasn’t prime hours for a bar.

Before I had time to start obsessing about what to do next, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and groaned when I saw who was calling.

Of course.

I smacked the hat back on my head, turned, and started walking back from where I’d come before accepting the call.

“Hi, Mother.”

“Cory? It’s Tuesday. You didn’t call yesterday.” She sounded genuinely worried, which was unusual for her. I also had to give her credit for waiting until a decent hour instead of calling at six A.M. like she would have done a few months back.

“No.” I grimaced. “Yesterday was a bad day.”

She was quiet for a few seconds. “I thought you were supposed to be better now?”

As usual, that was all it took. Merely alluding to the big, forbidden D-word turned her worried tone into steel, and she went back to her regular, demanding self.

“I told you it’s not that easy.”

“It’s been over a year, Cory.”

I stiffened but didn’t bother to answer. We’ve had this conversation more times than I cared to count, but she never listened.

“And I don’t understand why you can’t tell us where you are.”

Drawing a ragged breath, I repeated for the millionth time. “I need to do this on my own, Mother.”

She would explode if she knew where I was. She’d detested everything about Asher; primarily that he came from a “middleclass family”—always said with a wrinkled nose like it was the most disgusting thing in the world.

Thinking back, I was surprised she hadn’t forbidden us to be friends.

“Why can’t you do whatever it is you’re doing here in New York? Where your home is?”

My control started to waver. I jammed my hand in my pocket to keep it from shaking. “Do we have to talk about this every fucking time?”

“Language, Cory!”

“I’m thirty-one years old, Mother. I say what the fuck I want.”

She inhaled sharply. I had no trouble imagining her thinning, white lips and her ramrod straight back. After all, I’d seen it a lot this last year, after I’d finally learned to say no to my parents, instead of bowing down to their every wish.

“This…time off…will not look good on your resume.”

Time off? She made it sound like I was on a fucking vacation.