Read Settling Ashes: A New Adult/College Romance (The Ashes Series Book 2) for Free Online Page A

taking the girl back to where she lives?”
    My heart took flight. Could that be true? Could Paige have gone home?
    I was sprinting for the SUV before Gillian and Drew could catch up to my thoughts. I heard them thanking the woman and then they were behind me, climbing into the car that I was already sitting in.
    “She went home,” I said, thinking furiously. “She came back to me on her own.”
    “Drive!” Gillian shouted, pounding the dashboard with her tiny fist.
    She didn’t have to tell me twice.

Five
    Paige
    Beau and I sat on the couch, the silence stretching like an enormous rubber band between us. Gillian wasn’t home, and when I went and retrieved my cell phone from my bedroom to call her, her phone was turned off. So we’d sat down on the couch to wait, and to think.
    “What if she hates me?” I asked Beau, chewing my bottom lip.
    “Not possible,” he answered immediately. “It’s not possible, Paige. I mean, she’s Gillian, so she’s gonna chew you out when she sees you. But then she’s gonna hug the crap out of you and cry like a daggum faucet. Then she’ll probably yell at you some more.”
    I smiled at how well he knew Gillian. How well he knew me.
    “You’re one of those people it’s impossible to be mad at,” Beau sighed. “Trust me, I know. I wanted to hate you when you pushed me out of that hospital room after the fire. But I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried. No matter how many bottles I stared into the bottom of. I just couldn’t do it. You’re too easy to love, and you imprint yourself on someone’s soul, like a tattoo. I may as well have gotten an actual tattoo of your name, because you’re scratched into me for the rest of my life.”
    “Beau,” I exhaled the word.
    Why hadn’t I realized the depth of his feelings back then, when we actually had a chance? Now, I didn’t know if I would ever get the pieces of my heart back from Clay Forbes. I knew there wasn’t a chance with Beau anymore.
    “That’s why I’m sitting here with this pit of fear in the bottom of my stomach. Because when you see him again, things won’t have changed for him. I hate him so fucking much for hurting you, but I know in my heart, as a guy, that he just made a mistake. No way could he have stopped loving you for someone else. It just isn’t a possibility.”
    He stared down at his clasped hands. His voice had grown softer with his last words, and I sucked in a breath. He hadn’t said that to me before, that he thought Clay had merely made a mistake.
    “You think he still loves me?”
    He looked at me patiently. “You really have no idea what you do to people, do you?”
    My brow furrowed. I didn’t have time to mull over his statement because there was a soft knock on the door.
    I looked questioningly at Beau. “Gill wouldn’t knock.”
    He shrugged. “You want me to get it?”
    “No,” I said, standing. “I need to get used to opening the door again in my own apartment.”
    He nodded and watched me while I took the three steps from the couch to the front door.
    When I flung it open, Tima stared at me from the step.
    “Paige?” she gasped. “Oh, my God. You’re home!”
    She threw herself into my arms, her dark curls trembling around her head in a wild frenzy while she squeezed me. She pulled back, staring at my face and keeping a hold of my shoulders. Her dark brown eyes narrowed, and her exotic features took on a stern expression.
    “Where have you been?”
    “I’ve been hanging out in Haygood, just trying to clear my head a little. I was always going to come back, Tima.”
    She shook her head slowly. “You have no idea what your leaving did to everyone. We knew why you left but…we love you so much, Paige. I mean I’ve only known you one semester and you’re already one of my best friends. I missed the hell out of you, girl.”
    I hugged her again. “I missed you, too.”
    Beau stood up, and Tima noticed him for the first time. Her eyes grew large.
    He came around