Ashton

The ride home in silence eats at me, but speaking up would only make things worse for both of us. So when he drops me off and leaves without a single look, my chest quakes like it’s going to cave in but I don’t let him see me crumbling. Taking a deep breath, I enter Teagan’s house, outfit still drenched, hair sticking to my face, and heart deflating slowly inside of me.

As soon as Teagan sees me, she gawks, lips wavering to hold back laughter. “Wow. Talk about getting rode hard and put away wet.”

I blink back tears, heart caving without me trying to pick it back up. As soon as she sees that she wraps me in a hug.

“Holy baby Jesus.” She draws back, keeping me at arms-length to study me. “You have the glow. The freshly fucked one.” She bites her knuckle and stares at me, waiting for an admission.

Tears run down my cheeks, deteriorating any hope she had in her eyes. “Teagan,” I whimper through the thick tears and hollow breaths, “I just wanted to feel, but now I feel too much.”

She draws me into another hug, ignoring that I’m soaking wet and getting her pajamas damp, too.

I’m the one to pull away first, using the back of my hands to swipe away the tears on my cheeks. Staring at the evidence of my weakness only makes my body slump with exhaustion.

She squeezes my hand. “Okay, you need a bubble bath, wine, and chocolate pronto. I ordered our favorite pizza and rented some throwback movies we used to watch back in middle school. It looks like you could use some serious nostalgia.”

I sniff back tears. “I had sex with him, Teag.”

She smiles warmly. “I know. And I’m dying for the details, but I can tell I’ll need to get you good and drunk for them, so I’ll be patient.”

I manage to laugh, the heaviness disappearing from my chest in the slightest way. She pushes me toward my room, which has a master bathroom attached to it.

“Go warm up and wash that frown away,” she commands lightly. “And just know that no matter how you’re feeling now, there’s always time to change it. As far as I’m concerned, you shouldn’t be so torn up. You bagged a hottie as your rebound.”

What if I don’t want him as my rebound?

I force a smile. “Yeah. Rebound.”

Her eyes sadden, seeing right through me.

I wave her off. “You’re right, Teag. I needed to get it out of my system, and now I can move on. What’s there to be sad about?”

She doesn’t buy it for a second, but doesn’t fight me either. She lets me go soak up my troubles in a Japanese Cherry Blossom scented bath bomb that she bought me when I first arrived.

Only five minutes into my bath, Teagan comes walking in with two huge glasses of wine and a box of assorted chocolates.

Sinking into the tub until the bubbles cover my body, I say, “Um, kind of still naked in here, Teagan.”

She passes me a glass of wine, rolling her eyes. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. How many times have we changed in front of each other?”

I accept the glass, taking a big sip. “We had our underwear on.”

“Like that matters,” she dismisses. “So I was out there thinking, and you know how dangerous that is, and I decided that I couldn’t be trusted alone in my own head.”

My brows raise. “So you thought you’d watch me take a bath?”

She sighs. “I thought I’d come in here, get you started on the bottle of wine that I got out, and bribe you with chocolate to tell me the goods.”

“And by goods you mean …”

“Is his dick as big as I think it is?”

I groan, debating on drowning myself. But Teagan wouldn’t let that happen, at least not until she gets the dirty details.

“I know that you’re upset over it, Ash, but it really isn’t a huge deal.” She giggles at the pun. “And you know how my mind works, I need the juicy stuff to live. It’s like my life fuel.”

“I thought that was coffee,” I deadpan, sipping my wine.

“That too,” she agrees. “So?”

I roll my eyes. “I didn’t necessarily see it.”

Her expression goes blank.

My cheeks burn. “Things got heavy pretty quickly, okay? It’s not like we explored each other on the gym floor. We—”

“Wait, hold up.” She drags over a storage bin that has the guest towels in it, taking a seat. “He took you to a gym?”

“It’s a private one near Stella’s. He took me boxing because he thought it’d help get my frustrations out.”

She nods her head in approval, popping a piece of chocolate into her mouth. “Okay, I like him a little more now. So you didn’t ravish each other on the gym floor. Boring. What did you do?”

I stir my glass, watching the liquid move in my cup. Looking her in the eyes isn’t an option for what I’m about to admit.

“I let him take me against the wall outside.” I say it so quickly I can barely understand myself. But she obviously hears me just fine because the squeal she makes nearly breaks both of our wine glasses.

“You what?” She can barely contain the smile on her face. I haven’t seen her look this happy since I told her I won a Country Music Award for Best New Artist two years ago. She went into party-planner mode to celebrate the second the words were out of my mouth.

The thought makes my eyes bug. “Don’t look at me like you’re about to throw a party.”

She puts her hand to her heart. “I’m sorry. It’s just … my baby has finally grown up. He seriously screwed you against a wall?” She tilts her head back and groans. “God, that’s hot. Was it hot?”

Blushing, I nod.

She passes me a piece of chocolate, and I take it absentmindedly, staring at it instead of taking a bite.

“What I would do to be a fly on the wall, girlfriend,” she admits, shaking her head.

My face screws. “Um, you’d want to watch me have sex? That’s just …” I have no words to that.

“If it means seeing Dylan in action,” she retorts casually, as if my look of disgust isn’t bothersome to her.

I put the chocolate down on the plate. “It doesn’t matter because I’m pretty sure he regrets it. After it happened he didn’t say a word to me. Nothing. The whole ride home was in silence. It was so awkward, Teagan.”

Her confusion matches my own. “That seems odd, even for him.”

I rest the back of my head against the side of the tub. “And that’s the other thing! How many times have I told you just this week that I wouldn’t sleep with him? That it would never happen? My mind was set on that being the truth, but my body had different plans.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” she reminds me.

I eye her. “He’s slept with so many women.”

“So he knew how to get you off.”

“Teagan!”

“Ashton!” she blasts back. “Girl, you need to look at the bigger picture. You’re so caught up in thinking what you did was wrong that you can’t see the truth. What you did is human. You keep living in a mindset that tells you that you can’t make mistakes. But that’s what humans are supposed to do. Life would be too boring without them.”

“But what happens when you can’t stop making them?” I question quietly, feeling like my judgment has completely gone out the window in the past few days.

Between Rhys and Dylan, men are my kryptonite. No matter how much I try staying away from them, I let them weaken me anyway. What does that say about me?

The notebook.

How have I not thought about the notebook this entire time?

Because you had mind-blowing sex that helped you stay distracted. Just like I wanted. What we both wanted. Yet, just like I told him, our problems would find us again no matter what we did to hide from them.

I shake the thought away, not having time to mentally scold myself again. I’ll have plenty of time for that later.

“I have to call Stella,” I tell Teagan, setting my glass down and reaching for my cell on the counter next to me.

“She came by earlier and dropped something off for you,” she states, passing me the phone.

I gape at her. “What was it?”

“That notebook of yours. The black one.”

She got it back from Rhys?

“Oh my God,” I breathe, a smile spreading across my face.

“What?”

I dial Stella’s number, waiting eagerly for her to pick up.

“Stella!” I say as soon as she answers.

“You sound better than when we last talked,” she notes, suspicion in her tone.

“You got the notebook back from Rhys,” I say, as if that’ll solve my problem. Conner can still go to the press, which means that my reputation is still at risk, but at least he doesn’t have the song.

“I haven’t spoken to Rhys yet,” she replies slowly. “That notebook was left on the piano. Found it when I was cleaning up.”

I remain silent, trying to figure out how she could deliver something that I saw Rhys take. There’s no way he would have put it back after being that determined to steal it in the first place.

“Oh. Uh …” I shake it off. “Well thank you for bringing it here. I have to go.”

“One more thing,” she says right before I hang up. “You might want to be careful about what you do, kid. Cameras are everywhere.”

Brows drawing in, I say, “Okay?”

She chuckles. “When Jimmy called and said he got some interesting footage on the cameras outside my studio, I didn’t quite expect what I saw.”

My stomach bottoms out. “Oh God!”

She laughs. “Now relax. I made him erase it. The last thing you need is a sex tape out for the world to see. And you know Jimmy won’t say a word, he signed a nondisclosure agreement for a reason.”

My whole body is beat red, my free hand covering my face. “Stella, I am so, so sorry. I wasn’t thinking—”

“It’s a good thing you weren’t,” she cuts me off. “The best decisions are made when your mind is turned off. And you’re barking up the wrong tree if you think I blushed from that show. Not with a piece of meat like the one you were clung to. Nope, I have plenty of stories from when I was your age that looked a lot like that myself.”

Cringing at the thought, I shake my head. Words aren’t forming like they should, my mind not able to come up with a proper response.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful. I barely have high-tech security at my place, but I still managed to catch a glimpse. I’m glad you’re having fun, but be aware.”

I murmur an understanding response and then sink into the tub so half my face is under. Blowing out a frustrated breath, I sit back up and grab a towel that I draped across the side.

“Want to tell me what that was about?” Teagan asks, eyeing me.

Biting my lips, I reply, “Which part? The fact that Rhys stole my music book or the part where Stella got video footage of Dylan and I having sex against the building next to hers?”

She chokes on her wine. “Wow. Your life is way more interesting than I thought. And as much as I want to discuss this sex tape thing, I’m going to need you to back up and explain what Rhys is doing with your music.”

Not wanting to keep anything from her anymore, I tell her everything, just like I told Stella. By the end, she looks like she wants to murder him.

Wrapping myself in a towel and standing up, I’m careful to step out of the bathtub. Teagan stands, grabbing our drinks and moving the plate of chocolate over to the countertop.

“But I don’t think he actually had my notebook,” I explain, needing to see what Stella dropped off.

“So what did he take?”

I shrug, tying the towel tight to me. “Where did she put it?”

She gestures for me to follow her, my damp hair leaving behind tiny water droplets as we walk into the media room.

There, resting on the coffee table, is my notebook. The little chip off the cover is all I need to know. Quickly, I open up to the song he wanted, and it’s still there. Not ripped out, changed, but still exactly as I left it.

Shaking my head, we stare at each other. “He didn’t take my notebook, which means he stole somebody else’s.”

My mind tries going back to what I saw there when I first arrived. There were music sheets everywhere—some filled out, some blank. I brought my notebook as usual, always keeping it close to me ready to add another song to it. But I don’t remember another black one around.

I set the notebook on the coffee table. “Rhys is going to be pissed once he finds out it’s not the notebook he wanted.”

She scoffs. “Who cares? As far as I’m concerned, you should go to the press and call out Conner before he has the balls to destroy you.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I sigh. “It won’t matter who calls who out. Either way, it’ll end with both of us brought to question. Nobody will know the truth.”

“So what now?”

I don’t know.

“We find a way to sweep it under the rug,” I say weakly, not wanting to be that type of person. But if my reputation takes another blunder like Rhys predicts it will with this, then I won’t recover as easily as I can now.

“We’ll figure it out, Ash,” she promises.

“I just hope we can before it’s too late,” I murmur, backing out of the room to change into something warm.

My eyes go to my phone, debating on calling Rhys. He must not know that he took the wrong notebook or else he would have reached out to me by now. Wouldn’t he?

Instead of pondering it, I change into my pajamas, and try enjoying my last night with my best friend before I go back to Nashville with Dylan.

Dylan. Something tells me that flight won’t be very fun after today. Will he even still agree to come with me? The anxiety of the unknown cripples me, but I refuse to let it destroy me completely.

Zipping up my bags to be ready for the airport tomorrow, I walk out with my phone off in my room, and curl up next to Teagan.

“I’m going to miss you, Ash,” she says quietly, passing me another full glass of wine.

Clinking our glasses together, I lean into her and answer, “You’ll stop missing me when the A-listers come crawling to your door for a piece of Teagan Kent.”

She nudges me. “Nobody can stop missing their best friend, bitch. Don’t try getting rid of me that fast.”

I laugh, and for once, I mean it. “I hope you got out a second bottle of wine.”

She giggles. “I got out three.”