Page 63 of Until Tomorrow (Love Doesn’t Cure All: The Ashwood Duet #1)

Rhett

My sister, Sasha, and I didn’t chat much—not for a lack of wanting to.

My sister chased her Indiana Jones inspired dreams of being an archaeologist. Her adventures were wild and full of all kinds of discoveries, but they also took her around the world.

That meant we were rarely in the same time zone to make long conversations work.

And most of the time, her satellite phone couldn’t keep a signal strong enough to make the call.

Still, we tried. We made plans to talk, which was why I sat outside the bowling alley waiting for the video call to connect. I was kind of tipsy from drinking with Elliot, which made passing the time easy, especially considering the choppy faces she made while her connection lagged something awful.

“ Look at you !” she exclaimed when everything settled.

“And look at you!” I said. “You look good for a woman with a leaf in her hair.”

“ I do not !” She combed her fingers through her long, dark hair, frowning.

“Correction, two leaves,” I told her when she found a second leaf.

“ This is what I get for hiking through the rainforest, ” she replied. “ It could be worse. You have no idea what the bugs are like that I bring back to camp. So gross, but that’s better than eating them. ”

“ You’re eating bugs now? In South America?” I asked. I guessed the last part. The rainforest could’ve been anywhere.

“ I tried them, yes. Could barely swallow them. Not my thing ,” Sasha explained.

“I thought you were in Greece.”

“ That was my vacation. I don’t wear a bikini on a work site. ”

“No, you just eat bugs,” I teased.

“ Shut the fuck up, ” she replied with a smile. “ Tell me about you! You look happy. No, like you actually look happy. What happened? Oh my God! Did you meet someone? You did, didn’t you? Who is she? Where did you meet her? I want the details! ”

“I can’t tell you the details if you don’t fucking shut up,” I cut in. “Breathe, woman.”

“ Start from the top. Who is she? ” Sasha demanded. My sister leaned toward the camera, giving me the most intense look she could muster, which was pretty intense, even from thousands of miles away.

“What makes you think I met someone?” I countered instead. Yeah, I was being fucking difficult.

“ You’re happy! ”

“That’s not an answer! I’ve always been happy.”

“ Rhett, I love you, ” she began, “ but you’re an idiot. A lovable idiot, but still. You haven’t been happy in a long time. You adopted the broody artist personality a little too well. Or the grumpy mechanic. Depends on the day. Sometimes, it’s a double whammy, and we get both. ”

“Fine!” I cut her off, ready to shut her up. “Yes! I met someone. Are you fucking happy now?”

“ Yes! ” She clapped her hands together happily. “ Who is she? ”

“Her name is Eva,” I told her and said nothing else.

“ And? ”

“And she likes me.”

“ Jesus Christ, Rhett! Pulling teeth is easier! ” Sasha snapped, but I just laughed. I liked pushing her buttons a little every once in a while. It was fun.

“Her name is Eva. I met her at a country bar when I punched out the guy she was on a date with,” I said.

“ Oh, Jesus Christ, you walking red flag. ” She sighed. “ Why? ”

“The guy had it fucking coming,” I shot back. “He was being a dick to her about how she owed him sex because the woman has curves.”

Fuc king incredible curves.

“ Tell me you broke his goddamn nose. ”

“Of course, I did.” Okay, maybe I was a little too proud of that. “And then I got arrested—”

“ Rhett! ”

“—and she bailed me out of jail.”

“ And now you’re dating her, ” Sasha finished for me. She shook her head, rolling her eyes. “ Christ, it’s a match made in red flag heaven. Well, at least you’re happy. ”

“I am,” I replied. And I was. Happier than I’d been in a long time. “And you? Are you safe? Where you’re at, I mean. It’s safe, right? I don’t need to come down there and fuck some people up, do I?”

I was only half-joking. I was five years older and ten times meaner.

Growing up, Sasha had always had a hard time with the other kids.

Sasha was born in the wrong body. She came out as trans to us when she was ten.

That didn’t fly for a lot of people in our small Tennessee town, which led to me getting into a lot of fights. I was fiercely protective of her.

She didn’t need me to fight for her now—not really. Sasha was a force of nature and a little bit terrifying. I preferred her that way. It made watching her travel the world easier. But only by a little.

“ We’re encroaching a little on the cartel, but it could be worse, ” Sasha said. “ So far, we seem to be safe. But I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it if I have to. ”

“The cartel?” My voice rising a whole fucking notch.

Jesus fuck. I groaned as I ran my hand over my face.

The shit my sister got into. It terrified me sometimes.

She was all full-steam ahead with little thought about her safety.

I worried that one of these days, the phone call I’d get was going to be a bad one. “Sasha—”

“ Are you still wearing your wedding ring? ” she interrupted. I faltered and glanced down at my hand, where the ring sat like it always had.

“Yeah. What of it?” I asked.

“ Rhett .” Her tone was softer as she said my name. My lips came together tightly as I knew where the conversation was going. It always went in this direction. “ You’re dating again. ”

“I know.”

“ What does Eva think of you still wearing your wedding ring? ”

“She doesn’t have a problem with it.” Considering she also wore one. I kept that to myself. I’d rather explain that whole thing to my sister in person whenever I saw her next.

“ But is it fair to her? ” Sasha asked. “ I know you love Aimee, and what happened— ”

“Don’t,” I warned. There was no way I was digging into old memories again, especially that one.

“ I know, I know, but Aimee wouldn’t want you to stay stuck where you are, Rhett, ” she continued without hesitation. “ You deserve to be happy. I think it’s great that you’re finally letting someone in, but maybe it’s time to take the ring off. It’s time to give yourself a new start. ”

“I hate this conversation.”

“ I know you do, but someone has to say it to you. ”

“A lot of people fucking say it to me.”

“ Then someone you’ll listen to needs to say it, ” she corrected. “ I get it. I get there’s a lot of emotions tied up in that ring, but you deserve to be unstuck. ”

I just grunted, looking anywhere but the damn screen.

The problem was I’d already had the same nagging thoughts—more so now that I had Eva.

While she never said a thing about it and wasn’t bothered, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was holding myself back.

Holding my future with her back—whatever that looked like.

“Tell me about the work site you’re on,” I said finally. “What kind of fucking trouble are you getting yourself into now?”

“ So much! ” Sasha laughed. She launched into story after story about what she was up to, and I used her voice to drown out the annoying one in the back of my mind.