“Hard to say,” he replies. “I needed to come. The sheer amount of shit they all let slide…”
He trails off, thinking. “She would’ve hated it,” he finally says, his voice soft, and I don’t have to ask who he means.
I lean in and kiss him, gently, almost chastely, and assume that’s as far as it’ll go, especially after this morning, but he surprises me by pulling me in closer, his mouth hungry on mine, and I let him pull me down onto that red, red bed.
Afterward, he sleeps peacefully, none of that tension I’ve sensed the past few nights vibrating through his body. Instead, it’s my turn to lie awake in the darkness, thoughts churning.
One full day in Ashby House down.
A lifetime to go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Camden
“So you’re a teacher, huh?”
Ben and I are in his truck, heading down the mountain into Tavistock. We’d spent yesterday taking stock of what needed to be done, fixing what we could with the few tools Ben had around, but today, we were pulling off the damaged paneling in the upstairs bathroom, and that took more supplies. I should’ve just hired some guys to do it—Lord knew I had the fucking money—but I’d wanted to do it myself. Maybe it was guilt, maybe it was some attempt at atoning for all the years I’d been gone, or maybe I’d just wanted to lose myself in grueling but mind-numbing manual labor.
I’m actually on my phone, trying to price new paneling despite the shitty signal, when Ben asks his question, and I briefly glance over at him.
He’s got one arm resting on the door, his elbow jutting out the open window, and the scent of earth and trees is thick in the truck. I always forget just how long it takes to get into town, and now it looks like Ben has decided to fill the time with small talk.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Boys’ school in Colorado.”
“I knew that part,” he says. “What do you teach?”
I look back at my phone, and even though several people, including Ben’s dad, have died on this twisty road, I wish he’d step on the gas.
“English.”
Ben nods at that, thumping his hand on the side of the truck. “You always were reading.”
“And you were always smacking books out of my hands and wondering if I was the first person in my family who ever learned to read,” I can’t help but remind him.
He loved that shit. Not just the mocking—although I’m sure that was very fun—but making sure I knew I came from, as he liked to put it, “fucking hillbilly trash, probably.”
Not One of Us. Could’ve been the McTavish family motto.
Now, though, Ben sighs and reaches up, adjusting his baseball cap. “You know I was just a dick to you because I was jealous, right?”
I can’t help but snort, turning my attention back to my phone. “Sure.”
“I mean it,” he says just as we reach the base of the mountain. I spot a huge oak tree, its bark splintered and raw, but Ben keeps his eyes on the road ahead of us. “Dad was always in my head, man. Nana Nelle, too. ‘All this should be yours, you’re the real heir, maybe Ruby will come to her senses one day.’ Used to drive me nuts.”
“Wasn’t exactly a great situation for me, either,” I say, and he looks over at me then, one corner of his mouth lifting.
“No, I guess it wasn’t.”
A pause.
And then, “But knowing you had all that money coming probably helped.”
It always comes back to the money with them. Even now, even when Ben is, in his own way, trying to make amends, he just can’t help himself. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so fucking tragic.
He doesn’t get that the money means fuck all when everything else around you is so toxic. If Ruby had genuinely loved me, if growing up in Ashby House hadn’t felt like I was starring in my own personal version of The Hunger Games every day …
“Whatever,” I say now, like I’m a surly teenager again, and he reaches over to thump my arm.
“You really haven’t touched it?” he asks. “Everything Ruby left you?”
“I told you, I never wanted it,” I say as we pass the big sign welcoming us into Tavistock. It’s a small town, sleepy and quaint, and I’m surprised at how quickly my brain starts racing, reminding me that the K–12 school I went to is just down Main Street and to the left. The bookstore whose aisles I haunted is three doors down from the coffee shop we’re passing now, and up ahead I spot the bright blue door of the Jay, a cozy restaurant with gingham tablecloths and leather booths. It was my favorite place to eat when I was a kid, and when we drive past, there’s a part of me that expects to look through the plate glass window and see Ruby sitting at our usual table.