Mid Life Love (Mid Life Love #1)(123)

“The fact that she’s even able to date someone else that quickly is—”

“It’s been three months, Jonathan...”

That’s all? I felt like it’d been at least a year.

She wrapped her arms around me and sighed. “You really love her, huh?”

I didn’t answer. I just shut my eyes and tried to ignore the horrible pangs that were assaulting my chest. I didn’t understand how it’d gotten to this point—still couldn’t wrap my mind around why she didn’t tell me about my mother, why she thought us being apart was the solution for that.

It didn’t make any sense because she loved me—I knew she did. I could see it in her eyes whenever we made love, whenever I showed up to her house and spent time with her and her family, whenever we spent all night exchanging sarcastic comebacks.

Or maybe she didn’t...Maybe it was just me...

Just as I was about to surrender to my heavy eyelids, I heard my phone ringing in the parlor room.

It wasn’t the special ringtone I had for Greg, Claire, or anyone else important, so I let it ring. But then it kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing.

I rolled off the couch and walked into the other room, looking at the number. It was a San Fran number, but it didn’t look familiar. I was tempted to silence it, but this person had already ruined my chance at sleep.

“This better be f**king important.” I growled.

“Jonathan?” It was a young girl’s voice. “Is this Jonathan?”

“Who is this?”

“Ashley...” She started crying.

Claire’s Ashley?

“What’s going on?” I softened my tone. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to—”

“I...I need your help, please...”

“What happened?” I grabbed my jacket and slipped into my shoes.

“I can’t....I really need your help...”

“Where are you?” I rushed to my garage.

“I’m on...on Tim Street...At Haven Foods...And I’m—”

“Are you hurt?”

“No... But I...” She said something in between sobs. “Can you come get me?”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” I revved up my car. “Stay right there.”

“Please don’t call my mom,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

“Please...”

“I won’t.” I wouldn’t know what to say anyway.

I sped over to the grocery store—racing into parking lot, slowing down once I saw what the problem was.

Jesus...

I stepped out and looked at the mangled metal mess that was once Claire’s Audi Q7: The front of the car was wrapped around a pole and the windshield was shattered. The front right tire had been flung across the lot and the driver’s door was smashed in so deep that it looked like the car had run into the guard rail before crashing into the pole.

From the way it looked, it was a miracle that Ashley had made it out alive. I looked over at her and noticed that she was trembling.

I took off my jacket and put it over her shoulders. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay.”

She sniffled. “Are you going to tell my mom about this?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s going to find out somehow...”

“I know you two aren’t together anymore, and I’m sorry for calling so late, but I didn’t know who else to call...My mom isn’t the best option, if you know what I mean...”

“Tell me what happened...”

She wiped her face on her sleeve. “Me and Caroline wanted to go out tonight, but she wanted to hang out with that guy—Jake, remember? He finally asked her out after texting her every day.” She shrugged. “It’s her weekend to take our car, but I wanted to go on another date with Chris...I didn’t want to have to rely on him for a ride because the last time we went out, he drove and I barely made curfew so...”

“Calm down.” I motioned for her to sit on the hood of my car.

“We met at the movies and everything was going fine, but then he said he wanted to spend some alone time with me. He told me to follow him somewhere and...It was an um, a hotel...”

Please give me the G-rated version...

“He had the room set up really special, and he’d rented some movies, and he told me to ‘just relax’...We drank like four beers each and I thought we were just going to mess around. Honestly, I swear! I didn’t think he was going to try and sleep with me! This was only our third time going out!”

“Okay...” I braced myself for the rest.

“We were kissing and touching and stuff but then he started getting really rough and tried to take my pants off...I told him no, but he kept trying so I threatened to scream...Then he got really angry and started cursing at me, calling me a tease...He told me he didn’t really like me anyway. He’d just heard that I was....I was easy! But that’s not true! I’ve never been with anyone!” She cried. “So I ran out of the room, but when I got downstairs all his teammates were in the lobby laughing at me and calling me all these names...They said he only invited me there so he could—so he could prove how easy I was...I rushed out to the parking lot and drove off as fast as I could...I was fine at first, but then I couldn’t really see where I was going and the road started to get blurry and...Well...” She waved her hand toward the wreck.