“
My phone dinged, and I glanced at the text message.
Beau: Ash, I’m sorry. Please tell me where ur at.
I clicked ignore and kept heading toward the football field.
Right before I reached the gate entrance, headlights illuminated the darkness behind me. I didn’t stop walking. If it was Beau, and I was pretty sure it was, I needed to get away from him. I wanted to cry, and I couldn’t cry with him around to watch. His truck door slammed, and I heard his feet running on the gravel. I’d never be able to outrun him, but I could try.
“Ash, I’m sorry.” His arms came around me before I could break into a run.
“Beau, let me go. I want to be alone. I’ll call Sawyer, and he can pick me up later and take me home.”
“No,” he replied.
“That wasn’t a yes or no question. It was a demand. Now leave.”
“Ash, you’ve got to listen to me. I didn’t mean anything I said. I was just trying to see the fire behind your eyes. I’ve missed it, and I selfishly lashed out knowing you’d get angry. I was wrong, and I’m so, so sorry. Please.”
He buried his head in the crook of my neck and took a deep breath. If I had any intention of staying mad at him, it flew right out the window when he did something so vulnerable as nuzzling my neck.
“So you don’t consider this a babysitting job in which Sawyer ‘owes you one’?” I asked in a much softer tone than I’d been using.
“God no, you know that,” he replied, still nuzzling my neck. He threaded his fingers through mine.
“And asking for me as your spirit girl wasn’t some great service you did for him? Because I can refuse to do it, and you can ask for another girl.”
He stilled, then made a trail of kisses up my neck to my ear.
“The thought of you doing things for Sawyer on game day is hard enough. I couldn’t imagine you making cookies for some other guy and decorating his locker and kissing his cheek at the pep rally. The only spirit girl I’ll ever want is you.
”
”