Read Ash: A Bad Boy Romance for Free Online Page A

you?”   I ask her.
    She takes a sip of her coffee and groans. “That’s what you said before.” She takes a few more angry bites of tomato.  
    “I said I knew you’d be back. That’s different. I got myself a job at Frank’s Gym, and then I opened my own. That didn’t quite work, but I’m moving towards fixing that now. I wasn’t waiting , not necessarily.” I was waiting at first, but after a year, I wasn’t anymore. It’s not like I saw other women. I was seeing fighters, and recovery, and a new way to make money that didn’t involve slicing people’s fingers off at the second knuckle.
    “It sounds like you’ve moved on, Ash. Doesn’t it?” Summer pushes her plate of fried green tomatoes away, empty now except for a pile of the remoulade sauce. She looks around, like she’s searching for an escape, or like she wants to call the waitress over to ask for the damn check. But just in the nick of time, the waitress brings more food, and she tucks into her grits, still leaning away from me.  
    I haven’t moved on. Not by a mile.
    I don’t say anything. Sitting here, like this, it doesn’t feel like there’s a solution, at least not a simple one. I wanted to go to the hospital today and tell her I loved her then, that I didn’t want to leave her, it wasn’t my choice. The words are on the tip of my tongue.
    Summer turns to look at me. “Ash, do you know what I went through?”
    I sigh heavily and run my fingers through my hair. “I—”
    “No you don’t. You don’t have a damn clue. I cried every night for the first month I was in Syria. You don’t even know what happened to me there—Jesus.” She looks down. “I felt stupid. I felt angry at myself and at you for letting me believe you cared about me. You didn’t. Not even enough to say goodbye. Not enough to sign the divorce papers.” She toys with her grits and polishes off the rest of her coffee, looking angry and red. “Not enough to do anything.”
    “That’s not why I didn’t sign—”
    “I’m not asking you why anything.” Her accent seemed so flat to me back in New York, but on her home turf, her twang turns up to a fever pitch. “I’m telling you how it felt. I know there was a reason. There had to be.”
    “There was, Summer. I couldn’t—”
    She looks straight at me. “I don’t want an explanation. I’m not letting you suck me back into the past. I came with you to show you I can be a reasonable adult and get you to sign the papers.”
    “The papers—”
    “ Divorce papers. We need to get this shit over with.”
    “I know damn well which papers. I was going to say that the papers aren’t what I want.”
    Her face goes pale, and she turns to me slowly. “You can’t—you can’t mean that—”
    “I mean it. I’m not signing any fucking divorce papers, Sunshine.” I swill my coffee, and then I lean in and wink at her.  
    She goes pink with embarrassment and anger. “You have to—” Her voice nearly breaks, and I reach to take her hand in mine. She pulls it away. “My job. My life here. Ash—you can’t be serious.”  
    “A divorce has to be agreed on by both parties, from what I understand, Summer. That’s why it didn’t go through in the first place. You were abroad. We owe this relationship a chance—”
    “We owe it exactly zero chances,” she sighs. I might be imagining it, but there’s a hint of uncertainty in her voice, and she’s getting more and more flustered.
    “At the end of the day, I’ll do what you want, Sunshine.”
    “I want a divorce .” She hisses that last word, teeth clenched, all eyes in the bar turning to us. Several of the pink-shirted frat boys by the door go silent, just watching us.  
    “Summer—”
    “Waitress?” Summer leans forward and signals for the woman behind the bar. The place is starting to get crowded with tourists, their voices drowning everything out so that I can’t think. “I’ll take the check. And the rest of the grits to go.” The