Chapter 20

Ash didn’t know what had brought him here. He never came to the cemetery, because God knew he had never missed his parents. As a child, he’d missed his mother, but as he’d grown, he’d realized he’d missed the woman she could’ve been—not the woman she had been. His father, for all he cared, could rot.

But come to the cemetery he had on a cloudy May afternoon a month after he’d last seen Violet. Bitterness welled up inside him just thinking of her. He’d told himself that love was bullshit, but had he listened to his own advice? No, and look where he was now. A pathetic lovesick loser who no one wanted to be around because he was so surly.

Trent had finally told him to get his act together or he could work from home until he did. In a rage, Ash had told his brother to go fuck himself and stalked out of the Fainting Goat. He’d been close to quitting completely. That was until Trent had texted him later to say, I’m worried about you. Can we talk?

No, he did not want to talk to his brothe