ASHTON

T welve Years Ago.. .

At one point in time, I probably would have thought that being turned down by Layla Miller when I asked her to prom was the biggest blow to my ego I’d ever experienced. It fucking sucked when it happened, and I still can’t figure out where I went wrong. I mean, she’s the captain of the cheerleading squad, and I’m the quarterback for our school’s football team. We’re supposed to go together like—

Whatever, that’s beside the point now. Because the only thing worse than getting rejected by Layla, is having to celebrate my eighteenth goddamn birthday alongside my best friend’s little sister.

I don’t begrudge the girl having a party. Hell, she can take all her little teenybopper friends and go catch a sugar high at some Hannah Montana concert, if that’s what they want to do.

And that’s what they should want to do.

Which is exactly why I’m mortified and disgusted by the fact that my parents think it’s just fucking dandy to shove our families together and have an outdoor dinner and celebration in our backyard, celebrating my eighteenth birthday...and Sadie’s twelfth.

Sadie’s brother, Gerard—or Gunner, as he’s always been called—is my best friend, and he has been since I can remember. We’ve lived beside each other our entire lives, and our parents are best friends with each other, too. It’s sickeningly insane, really, just how interconnected and entwined our families are.

But having a joint birthday party with a godforsaken twelve-year-old? That’s a new low, even for our parents.

And Sadie’s not even the shy, quiet preteen that might have enough grace to eat her fucking birthday cake and leave me alone. No, Sadie Mitchell is boisterous, animated, and annoying as hell.

“It’s just a backyard BBQ with the Mitchells and a few friends, Ashton. You’ll survive.” My mother shoots me a glare, and for once it’s not because of the ripped holes in my jeans or the curse words coming from my mouth.

“Explain to me again why I have to be there for cake and ice cream with the Mitchells, Mom, because I don’t get it. You want to celebrate Sadie’s birthday, go right ahead. But, she’s twelve. I can think of better things to do with my time.” I pull my denim jacket from the back of the kitchen chair, shrugging it on. I don’t know where I’m planning to go, but there’s got to be somewhere better than here, with an impending joint birthday party with a kid.

“Oh, stop. It’ll be fun. You know that Rick and Anna enjoy the fact that you and Sadie have the same birthday, almost as much as your father and I do. It’s like fate brought us together,” she rambles on.

I can’t hold back, and I roll my eyes dramatically. “We’re not Mitchells, Mom. And they’re not Butlers. We’re two separate families, in case you and Dad haven’t noticed.”

I watch as Mom puts the finishing touches on the cake she’s working meticulously on, never once turning her attention away from it to look at me. I also notice that the cake has white and purple icing. Girl colors.

They can call it whatever they want, but the backyard party they’re tossing me into is for Sadie, the Mitchells’ daughter.

The daughter my Mom and Dad always wanted, but never got. Instead, they’re stuck with me, and they make no efforts to hide their disappointment in that fact.

“We’re practically family,” she halfheartedly argues back.

“We share a lot line with them, Mom. Not blood. Not last names. They’re neighbors. We can do things without the Mitchells every now and then, you know.”

Her lips pull tighter then, and her gaze flickers to me for a split second. “That’s enough, Ashton. I mean it. You and Gunner have been inseparable basically since birth, so I really don’t know where—”

“Gunner and I are the same age!”

“And Gunner will be at the birthday party at five o’clock,” Mom says briskly. “And so will you, so you’ll have each other to keep company, if you can’t bring yourself to give Sadie a few moments of your time on her special day.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to remind her that it’s my day, too. It’s my goddamn birthday, and all I want to do is spend it with someone other than a goddamn twelve-year-old girl. But there’s no use. Mom isn’t listening now, just like she hasn’t listened the last eighteen years I’ve been alive.

The Mitchells and the Butlers will always be one and the same, as far as she’s concerned. And Gunner—yeah, he’s been my best friend since before we could walk, but I understand that we aren’t brothers.

Like brothers, sure. But not from the same family.

And I sure as hell am not Sadie Mitchell’s brother, either. The last thing I want to be is any closer to that annoying little girl than I have to be.

***

“I thought eighteenth birthdays were supposed to be full of stolen liquor and chicks in the backseat of our cars?” Gunner stares straight ahead, his elbows leaning against the back of the top of the picnic table, legs sprawled out in front of him. “How the fuck did we get lucky enough to be here, with our parents, and Sadie, eating hamburgers and chocolate cake?”

His summation does little to help my mood out. “Your guess is as good as mine.” I sit beside him, drinking Pepsi from the can in my hands. We both have done everything we could for the past hour to avoid hanging out with our parents or their friends. “You can thank your sister for this.”

That comment earns me a cocked eyebrow from him. “Seriously? You can’t blame her. It’s not like she purposely was born on your birthday to spite you. It’s their fault.” Gunner juts his chin out toward the group of adults on the patio. “Our parents have gone all fucking Brady Bunch on us. One big happy family, and all that.”

“They can’t tell where your family stops, and mine begins.” I narrow my eyes. “It’s bullshit.”

“Easy, killer.” Gunner shifts, but by now he should’ve realized how impossible it is to get comfortable on a picnic table. “If it’s any consolation, my eighteenth is in two months. We’ll do it up right, then.”

I give him a sideways glance, the thought of it making the corners of my mouth turn up. “Now, we’re talking. Can you get the keys to your dad’s Camaro?”

“Can you talk Ashley and Madison from our history class into joyriding with us?”

“The twins in the back row?” I didn’t even know he’d been interested in them. But, hell, who wasn’t? “Shit, that’d be some birthday present, Gunner.”

“Think you can sweet talk ‘em?” He grins, nudging me. “There’s two. Might be able to salvage some of your birthday, too.”

“Damn.” I run my hand through my shaggy chestnut hair, wincing slightly as I think about the work I’d have cut out for me to pull off such a feat. “Which one do you want?”

“Madison,” Gunner replies without hesitation. “That chick’s been eye-fucking me for weeks.”

I let out a low whistle. “Can’t say I’m complaining if I can do Ashley.”

“That means you’ll do whatever the fuck it is you do, and charm them into partying with us?”

I swore after Layla turned me down that I’d lay low. I know damn well my reputation got in the way of that deal—it was no secret that I could talk the panties off pretty much any girl in our grade. “Ah, hell, why not? I like a challenge.”

Gunner shakes his head, chuckling. “You really are a manwhore, aren’t you?”

“You aren’t much better, you realize that, right?” I smile, my first real smile since this stupid party got underway. “You’ll screw any—”

I feel something hit the back of my neck before I hear the hissing sound that accompanies it. Stumbling away from the table, I clamp my hand down on my neck, feeling something wet. “What the—”

All at once, I realize that the substance is a bright shade of blue, that it’s still coming at me, covering my shoulders, back, and head...and that there’s a loud wave of high-pitched shrieks assaulting my ears.

I turn around, holding my jacket up as best as I can to shield myself, but it’s no use. “Come on!” I bellow, pissed off at the gang of young girls. “Fucking silly string? That’s enough!”

But the shrill laughter continues.

Every ounce of anger I feel about this party, this stupid family dynamic, and this day erupts inside me. Lowering my jacket and seeing Sadie there, with her finger pressed down on the silly string canister, only makes my blood reach its boiling point.

“Happy birthday, Ashton!” she screams, her laughter so loud and obnoxious that there are stray tears on her cheeks. The young girl weaves one way, then the next, trying to keep far enough away from me so that I won’t take the aerosol can from her, but never once lets up on the steady stream of string that continues to propel toward me.

“You think this is fucking funny?”

“Ash—”

I can hear Gunner trying to calm me down. Our parents are probably yelling a blue streak, too, because I’ve just cursed at their fucking beloved Sadie, but I can’t hear them over my pounding pulse.

In one foul swoop, I dive for the canister in her hand. I grab Sadie by the wrist with one hand, and tear the can from her fingers with the other.

Her laughter stops immediately. “Hey!”

I let her go, turn, and pitch the canister high into the air, into the heavily treed area behind our house. “I told you to fucking stop!”

Sadie stands there, wide eyed, her handful of friends tucked in close behind her, not saying a word. Her voice comes out no louder than a whisper. “I just—”

“You just what? Wanted to be a pain in the ass?” The words come out of me in a tsunami of pent-up rage, fed up with having to put up with this ridiculous charade any longer. “Because you’re succeeding. That’s all you are...a pain in my goddamn ass!”

Sadie’s bottom lip quivers, and any decent man probably would have left it at that. But I can’t seem to stop myself.

“You’re just a fucking kid! Go play with your Barbie dolls, or whatever the hell you irritating little girls do!” I yell.

“Ashton! Cool it!” Gunner barks.

But the damage has been done. A thin line of tears streak Sadie’s face. Despite her small stature and her thin frame, she stays standing there, taking each verbal blow as it comes. “But...it’s our birthday. I thought we were friends—”

“Friends?” I choke out the word like it tastes bad, running my hand through my hair, still tangled with blue string. “We’re not friends. Or family, for that matter, but you’d never fucking know it with this crap still going on every year.” I glare around me, at everyone who’s now stopped talking, stopped breathing, mortified by my outburst. “And our birthday? Christ, keep it, Sadie. I’m through sharing it. You can fucking have it.”

I know I’ve crossed a line, and I damn well know I’m an asshole for taking it out on a kid, but that doesn’t stop me from turning away from that little girl’s tear-streaked face and storming past everyone on the patio.

No one says a word. Which is good, because by the time I hit the pavement of the driveway, I’m not sure there’s anything anyone could say that would make me feel any worse than I already do.