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Abe nodded and kept working.

Asher tramped through the woods to his cabin. When he walked in, he couldn’t help but look at everything that was just how he’d left it before it all had turned on its head. He was not ready for the upcoming changes.

After snatching his keys up off the counter, he took off to get Ruby.

When he pulled up to the elementary school to pick up his niece, he saw her dark braid before she turned and grinned at him. Many things were wrong in the Hollow, but Ruby would always be a bright spot.

Suddenly, a knock on the window pulled his focus.

Meredith Baker was smiling at him. “Asher?” she asked, waiting for him to roll down the window.

He cranked the window down and held in a groan. “How’s it going?”

“Good, I haven’t seen you at Corner Tap lately.”

“What?”

Distracted, he was not really wanting to have this conversation.

“I just miss seeing you around. It’s karaoke night. You should come,” she said, smirking at him before biting her lip.

So, maybe he’d hooked up with her a time or two . . . He’d hooked up with lots of people in the Hollow a time or two in the years since Sunny left.

“Hi!” Ruby said as she climbed in his truck.

“Hey, Peanut. I’m supposed to drop you off to Abe and Julie.”

“Can you take me to my piano teacher’s house? I left one of my books there.”

He looked at her with a cocked brow. “Okay, where are the lessons?”

“At Mr. Whittaker’s house.”

“Nox Whittaker? You’re taking lessons from him?” Asher raised a brow.

“Yeah, he’s really nice.”

“Well, let’s do this.”

After Ruby got her book, he dropped her off at Abe’s and went back to the studio. Maybe painting would help pull him out of this funk. He wasn’t sure what to do, but he hoped if he could paint, he would find his center.

Pulling out a blank canvas from the back, he set up his workspace. He turned up his music and attempted to lose himself. Paint filled the canvas.

Before he knew it, he was standing before a field of flowers, a place he knew all too well. Of course, in trying to clear his mind, he would paint this place. When he roughly smeared the yellow paint on the fabric, his spade pushed through the entire canvas.

“Fuck.”

What was he going to do? He would have to deal with this Sunny situation sooner or later. It had been almost four years since she’d left.

But the thing is, when your mate leaves you, it feels like there is a bottomless pit deep inside of you. Always.

He had managed to deal with it as time went on, but nothing would ever fill that pit.

He’d tried to fill it. Fill it with booze, women, work—none of it ever helped.

After washing the paint off his hands, he changed his shirt before grabbing his keys off the shelf. This time, he might as well try to fill it with women and booze again.

Before he knew it, he was pulling up to the Corner Tap. As he pulled the door open, off-key karaoke greeted him, along with the stench of stale cigarettes and beer. The Corner Tap might have been a little divey, but there was something to love about a dive bar.