ASHTON

W hen Gunner Mitchell sent me a text on Saturday, inviting me to his parents’ place for dinner on Monday night, it’d completely slipped my mind that it was my birthday. At the moment I’d received it, I’d been distracted by my job. My real job, that is.

Not the one that led me to my rendezvous with Rose.

But, every other moment since Friday night, it’s been her that I’ve been distracted by. The memory of her breathing, her initial hesitancy and ultimate submission to her needs, the way she’d kissed me like she’d known me forever, like it mattered...

Like I mattered.

I was having a hard time letting go of Rose.

Maybe that’s why I agreed to go hang out with his family, and my own. I’d never been one for the comradery between our families, unable to figure out why we couldn’t just be the Butlers, instead of the Butlers and Mitchells combined. But, for the first time in a while, I had two consecutive days off from work, and the idea of mindless distraction and a little family time did sound good.

So, I agreed to show up. I was even pretty happy about my decision.

Until right now.

Because, now, I’m not just happy about it. I’m fucking ecstatic.

I haven’t seen Sadie Mitchell in years, which is partially my own fault for avoiding our families like the plague, but there’s no denying that she definitely isn’t the annoying little teenager I remember.

Because Sadie isn’t just all grown up. She’s hot.

Hell, she’s fucking beautiful. And not just in that dressy, heavily made-up way that so many girls depend on to look sexy. Sadie’s standing in front of me in jeans and a fitted Nike t-shirt with not an ounce of makeup on her pretty face, her hair tumbling down past her shoulders...and she’s downright gorgeous.

Judging by the shell-shocked expression on her face, I’d say she likes what she sees when she looks at me, too. So do her friends, and the identical expressions the three of them are wearing have me struggling to bite back my laughter.

Women . If I were so obvious about checking her out, they’d be disgusted with me and calling me a pig. But there they are, undressing me with their eyes unabashedly.

I steal a glance toward my mother, arching an eyebrow, but she’s just watching with a mix of humor and something that might resemble pride. Awkward.

I resist the urge to shake my head, choosing instead to clap my hands together in the hopes of breaking everyone out of their trance. “So, dinner smells good. What’s on the menu?”

***

I knew without a doubt that the meal would be fantastic. Anyone within a five-mile radius of this house, and who’s ever attended the community potlucks in our subdivision knows damn well that there’s no one who can rival Mrs. Mitchell’s cooking. Sorry...Anna , as she’s been trying to get me to call her all night. I’ve just never got the hang of that one. She still sees me as a kid, and I still see her as my best friend’s mother.

What I don’t expect is that neither Sadie nor her friends talk to me throughout the entire meal. I don’t exactly try to initiate conversation, either, but that’s mostly because I can’t get a word in edgewise. Nothing has changed over the years—if you put my parents in a room with Rick and Anna Mitchell, there is still no shortage of conversation.

A buzz sounds from my pocket, and I look down. Perhaps I only heard it because I felt the vibration of my phone, because there isn’t even a hitch in the conversation as I dig the phone from the holster clipped to my belt, glaring at it.

“Are you on call?” My mother asks me.

The conversation has died abruptly, and I realize that all eyes are on me. Well, to be honest, I’ve noticed that Sadie and her friends have been glancing my way quite often over the course of the evening, but this is the first time she’s looking at me with a piqued interest instead of her gaze just flitting over me in hopes that I won’t notice.

“No,” I reply to Mom, shrugging. “I just still get notifications for fire calls even though I’m not scheduled for tonight.” I press ignore on the text screen after reading through the information, and tuck the phone back into my pocket. “Sorry about that. That was rude to pull out my phone in the midst of such a great dinner.” I nod in apology toward each person at the table, lastly to Mrs. Mitchell. “Thanks, Anna. You really outdid yourself.”

Anna waves a dismissive hand my way, and I swear she blushes as she pushes her plate away. “Now, now. No need for apologies.” The woman stands, grinning. “Besides, I haven’t even served dessert. You haven’t seen anything yet.” She tosses her cloth napkin onto the table and begins to clear away some of the dishes. “Black forest cake. Anyone want coffee with it? I know Sadie does.”

Sadie smiles graciously up at her mother, but her eyes only leave me for split second. “You’re a firefighter?”

I nod, relieved that she’s finally opened up a line of conversation with me, and I’m about to respond when I pick up on something her friend—Chelsea, I think?—is giggling about to Sadie’s other friend.

“...need to get Anna to turn that coffee into those tequila shots we were tossing back the other night...” She’s chuckling like a schoolgirl, her voice low enough that I know the comment is meant only for their ears, but I lean in anyway, thankful my own mother has followed Anna into the kitchen, and my dad and Rick are engrossed in their own chat about the NHL game they watched last night.

“Coffee and tequila?” I interject, my voice suddenly huskier than it had been only moments before.

Maybe it’s my own paranoia kicking in, but Sadie suddenly looks more on edge. Her friend, however, is all too keen to elaborate.

“Yeah,” Chelsea grins mischievously, matching my pose as she leans across the table, too. “Coffee liqueur and tequila with espresso. Wake The Dead , I think they called the shot.” I can tell she’s enjoying having my undivided attention, but each word she offers me is making my head spin in a nauseating spiral. “Damn good stuff,” she adds in a whisper. “Especially if you like coffee the way Sadie does, right?” She gives her friend a playful nudge, but Sadie isn’t seeming to find the humor in it.

Neither am I.

I can barely breathe, and flashes of Friday night are hurtling through my mind at a dizzying speed.

It’s my birthday, but not until Monday.

Wake The Dead.

I press my palms against the tabletop in attempt to stop the room from spinning. What else had she said to me?

Chelsea is laughing now, amused that Sadie’s giving her a warning glare. “What? Those shots were good. Guaranteed to jack you up, right?” She chuckles even louder, and Sadie’s hand jerks slightly, hitting her friend under the table.

“Shut up, Chels,” she says with forced laughter, her smile coming out more as a grimace.

Oh my God. Oh. My. God.

I can barely form a coherent sentence, and I can see Gunner out of the corner of my eye, one eyebrow arched high on his forehead. I must look as sickly as I suddenly feel. “Where’d you guys have these shots?” I choke out. “Never heard of ‘em.”

“Ow!” Chelsea cries, glaring at Sadie now. “Why the hell did—fine!” She sighs dramatically, turning back to me. “At a bar. We took Sadie out for her birthday.”

“It was nothing,” Sadie speaks up, but her tone is telling me that it was the furthest thing from nothing. “Just a few shots, then we went home,” she explains needlessly. Unfortunately, her guilt-ridden features and incessant need to downplay it are creating more of a reaction than she would have received if she’d just stayed quiet, but her vagueness and unease is telling me more than I wished to know.

This isn’t happening.

My mind is wielding a thousand thoughts around, and I’m chaotically bouncing between wanting to push my best friend’s little sister in the other room and demand to know where she’d been on Friday night, and wanting to throw up the meal her mother had just fed me.

Because I already know where Sadie Mitchell was that night. There are too many coincidences in that short-lived conversation for the truth to be anything else.

She was on my lap.

I fucked my friend’s sister, unknowingly. And at Club fucking Sin, no less.

Hysteria is quickly kicking in, and I’d laugh at the situation if Gunner wasn’t staring at me so damned suspiciously.

Oh my fucking God. My own sin catapults through me like a vile disease, spreading heavily into my limbs, gut, and mind, rendering me speechless. All I can do is repeat it over and over again in my mind, because to say it out loud would make it even more real.

I had sex with Sadie Mitchell, and Gunner’s going to crucify me if he finds out.

But, that’s not the worst of it. The next thought that comes quickly in the wake of the first is even more terrifying, and so dangerous that it has me standing abruptly and excusing myself while I duck out of the room and head straight for the bathroom down the hall.

I had sex with Sadie Mitchell, and I’d give anything to do it again.