53
" I want to rip his damn arms off his body, Ash. Sawyer, who I’d do anything for. I want to hurt him. If he touches you again in front of me, I’m going to crack. I can’t take this.”
I closed the space between us and wrapped my arms around his waist. I’d done this. My need to be near Beau had created this impossible situation.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against his chest, wishing I could make it all go away. He sighed and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tighter up against him.
“Don’t be sorry. Just try not to let him touch you. When he touches you, I see red. I can’t take it. I don’t want to see him or anyone else touch you.”
I pulled back just enough so I could gaze up at him. His jaw was clenched tightly. Knowing he was thinking of Sawyer with such ferocity made me feel so guilty. I hadn’t wanted to come between them, yet I was doing it anyway.
“What can I do to make this right, Beau? I don’t want to come between y’all. It’s the main reason I’m doing this. He’s your family.”
Beau slipped his fingers into my hair and cradled my head.
“Staying with him. Letting him touch you, hold you, God. It’s eating me alive. You may be keeping Sawyer from hating me, but you’re only making me hate him.”
I reached up and clasped his hands, pulling them away from my head as I stepped back. Tears blurred my vision. “What am I supposed to do, Beau? You tell me. What am I supposed to do?”
He opened his mouth to respond and closed it as his eyes settled on something over my left shoulder. A possessive gleam came into his eyes as if to warn off any predators that might get near what was his. I knew without turning around who he was glowering at so fiercely. I didn’t glance back at Sawyer. I wasn’t sure what to say. "
― Abbi Glines , The Vincent Boys (The Vincent Boys, #1)
55
" You really are a perfect little preacher’s daughter, aren’t you, Ash? Once upon a time you were a helluva lot more fun. Before you started sucking face with Sawyer, we use to have some good times together.” He was watching me for a reaction. Knowing his eyes were directed at me made it hard to focus on driving. “You were my partner in crime, Ash. Sawyer was the good guy. But the two of us, we were the troublemakers. What happened?”
How do I respond to that? No one knows the girl who used to steal bubble gum from the Quick Stop or abduct the paperboy to tie him up so we could take all his papers and dip them in blue paint before leaving them on the front door steps of houses. No one knew the girl who snuck out of her house at two in the morning to go toilet-paper yards and throw water balloons at cars from behind the bushes. No one would even believe I’d done all those things if I told them…No one but Beau.
“I grew up,” I finally replied.
“You completely changed, Ash.”
“We were kids, Beau. Yes, you and I got into trouble, and Sawyer got us out of trouble, but we were just kids. I’m different now.”
For a moment he didn’t respond. He shifted in his seat, and I knew his gaze was no longer focused on me. We’d never had this conversation before. Even if it was uncomfortable, I knew it was way overdue. Sawyer always stood in the way of Beau and me mending our fences, fences that had crumbled, and I never knew why. One day he was Beau, my best friend. The next day he was just my boyfriend’s cousin.
“I miss that girl, you know. She was exciting. She knew how to have fun. This perfect little preacher’s daughter who took her place sucks. "
― Abbi Glines , The Vincent Boys (The Vincent Boys, #1)
56
" He’d spread out several quilts and a couple of pillows. A cooler was in the far corner. I crawled to the middle and sat down. Beau stood at the tailgate, watching me. The shadows from the moonlight shaded his eyes, so I couldn’t be sure what he was thinking.
“Are you coming?” I asked, almost scared of his answer.
“Yeah, I got a little sidetracked by the view,” he replied.
A shiver of anticipation ran through me as he crawled onto the truck bed. Kneeling in front of me, he reached out to take my right foot and lay it against his jean-clad thigh. Fascinated, I watched him as he undid my sandal and placed it beside the cooler. He placed my foot back down on the blanket then reached for my left foot, and with the same slow careful attention, he removed my other sandal. Once both my feet were bare, he lifted his gaze to meet mine.
A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “I like your pink toenails,” he replied, glancing back down at my feet. My silly heart thumped wildly in my chest, and I let out a nervous laugh.
“It’s cotton candy. The color is, I mean.” I couldn’t even form coherent sentences.
“I like cotton candy. Those toes of yours just may be sweeter, though.”
As he moved to sit down beside me, his warm hand squeezed my foot closest to him. Neither of us spoke as we stared out over the still water. I’d never been so nervous in my life.
Beau shifted beside me and then lay back on the pillows behind us. I turned slightly to peer down at him. Did he want me to lie down too? Tucking one arm behind his head and stretching the other out beside him, Beau grinned up at me as if he could read my mind.
“Come here,” he said.
I quickly scooted over and curled up next to him, resting my head on his chest. There was a peace in his arms I’d never experienced with Sawyer. It was as if I’d come home after years of searching. "
― Abbi Glines , The Vincent Boys (The Vincent Boys, #1)
57
" Loosen up, Ash, it’s not like I’m gonna tell on you. I’ve been keeping your secrets for years. I like knowing my Ash is still there somewhere underneath that perfect façade.”
I refused to look at him. This conversation was going somewhere I didn’t want it to go.
“No one is perfect. I don’t pretend to be,” I said, which was a lie and we both knew it. Sawyer was perfect, and I worked hard to be worthy. The whole town knew I fell short of his glowing reputation.
Beau let out a short, hard laugh. “Yes, Ash, you do pretend to be. "
― Abbi Glines , The Vincent Boys (The Vincent Boys, #1)
59
" You know Beau and I were close as kids…” I decided to start there. It seemed like the best place.
“Oh good God, you mean to tell me this has something to do with Beau? Beau Vincent?” I cringed and nodded without glancing over at her.
“Yes, it has everything to do with Beau,” I whispered.
Leann’s hand covered mine, and I took some comfort in the gesture.
“This summer Beau and I started spending time together. You were with Noah or working, and Sawyer was gone. I thought it would be good to rekindle the friendship Beau and I once shared.”
Leann squeezed my hands, and I continued to explain how we’d played pool at the bar where his mother worked, went swimming at the hole, watched a movie at my house, and then I paused, knowing what I told her next was going to be hard for her to comprehend. After all, I was the good girl.
“That night in the back of his truck, Beau and I…we”--I swallowed hard and squeezed my eyes shut--“had sex.”
Leann let go of my hands and slipped her arm around my shoulders instead.
“Wow” was her only response.
“I know. It wasn’t the only time either and…and although I know it won’t happen again…I think…I think I love him. Maybe I always have. No. I know I always have. When I’m with Beau, I feel things I’ve never felt with Sawyer. I can be me. There’s no pretending. Beau knows my worst flaws.”
“The heart wants who the heart wants. We can’t help that,” Leann said.
I sighed and finally lifted my eyes to meet hers. The unshed tears blurred my vision.
“But I’ve ruined his life. All he ever had was Sawyer. Make no mistake, I went after Beau. I can look back and see it now. This is all my fault. I should have never come between them.” I sniffled and buried my head in her shoulder.
“Beau could have said no. He knew he was destroying his relationship with Sawyer every moment he spent with you. Don’t you take all the blame for this.” The stern tone in Leann’s voice only caused me to cry harder. Beau needed Sawyer. He might not have realized it, but he did. Somehow I had to make it right.
“How do I fix this? How do I help Beau get Sawyer back?”
“You can’t fix this for them. Beau knew what he was doing, Ash. He chose you over Sawyer. Now that you’ve let Sawyer go, are you going to choose Beau?”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks and peered over at her. “Choosing Beau will cause everyone in Grove to hate him. They’ll all see him as the guy who took Sawyer’s girl away. I can’t do that to him.”
Leann shrugged. “I don’t think Beau cares about everyone else. He made that apparent when he decided sneaking around with his cousin’s girl was what he wanted to do. He has to love you, Ash. Never in this lifetime would I have thought Beau would do anything to hurt Sawyer. He loves him. So that can only mean he loves you more.” She reached over to pay my shoulder. “Question is: Do you love him as fiercely? Are you willing to snub your nose at your family and the people in town in order to have him? "
― Abbi Glines , The Vincent Boys (The Vincent Boys, #1)
60
" I love Sawyer, Ash,” Beau said quietly into the night. He sounded as if he were trying to convince me of this. “My whole life, I’ve never envied anything of his. Not his father. Not his mother. Not his money. Not his athletic abilities.” He stopped and took a ragged breath.
My heart ached for him. I squeezed my hand, which was resting on his stomach, into a fist to keep from reaching up and soothing him like a child.
“Until the day I watched from across the football field as he picked you up and kissed you on the mouth,” he continued. “It wasn’t your first kiss. I might have just been fourteen years old, but I could tell I’d somehow been left out of a secret. I wanted to plant my fist in his face and rip you out of his arms. As I took a step toward him, your eyes met mine and I saw the silent pleading for forgiveness or acceptance. I wasn’t sure which. All I knew then was that you were Sawyer’s. My best friend was gone. I envied him and hated him for the first time that day. He’d finally won the one prize I’d thought was mine.”
I closed my eyes against the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. I wanted to tell him how I’d never felt faint when Sawyer kissed me or how the earth didn’t move under his touch. Instead I stayed silent, knowing I couldn’t. Even though it was Beau I wanted, I knew I could never have him. These last two weeks were all we had. Sawyer would come home and I would be with him again. There was no other option.
I turned over and propped myself up on my elbow until I was staring down into his somber eyes. I could feel his heart beating fast underneath my hand.
“You were my best friend, Beau. You never treated me or looked at me any way but as a friend. Once I started to change and we all began to notice the opposite sex, you never seemed to care that I was a girl. Sawyer did. Maybe because he hadn’t been my partner in crime. Maybe because the connection I had with him hadn’t been the same as the one I had had with you. But he saw me as a girl. I think deep down I’d been waiting on you, but when he kissed me, I knew it would never be you. I wasn’t the one for you.”
Beau reached up and cupped the side of my face with his hand.
“I was very aware that you were a girl, Ash. I was just scared, because the one person in the world who knew every secret I’d ever had also happened to be the most beautiful girl I’d ever known. My feelings for you were scary as hell.”
I leaned down and kissed the frown between his brows.
“Right now. Right here. I’m yours. Not Sawyer’s. He isn’t who I want. Right now all I want is you. "
― Abbi Glines , The Vincent Boys (The Vincent Boys, #1)
