A Step from the Edge (Tough, yet Tender Book 2) Read online

  A Step from the Edge

  by

  Loretta Palmer

  © Loretta Palmer 2016, all rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Leah

  Chapter 2: Asher

  Chapter 3: Leah

  Chapter 4: Asher

  Chapter 5: Leah

  Chapter 6: Asher

  Chapter 7: Leah

  Chapter 8: Asher

  Chapter 9: Leah

  Chapter 10: Asher

  Chapter 11: Leah

  Chapter 12: Asher

  Chapter 13: Leah

  Chapter 14: Asher

  Chapter 15: Leah

  Chapter 16: Asher

  Chapter 17: Leah

  Chapter 18: Asher

  Bonus: Chapters 1 & 2 of Tough, yet Tender #1, Cold-Cocked by Love

  More by Loretta Palmer

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Leah

  There’s no such thing as love at first sight. There aren’t many things in life I’m sure about, but that’s one of them. Lust at first sight, infatuation at first sight, sure. But love at first sight? Biggest scam of all time. If you tell yourself otherwise, you’re in for heartbreak down the line.

  How can I, Leah Castro, a 19-year-old who hasn’t even graduated high school, make such a sweeping statement? Well, I spent the first decade and change of my life watching a fairytale romance disintegrate in slow motion. My parents’ fairytale romance, to be exact.

  Back when I was little and the cracks in their “perfect marriage“ façade hadn’t begun to show, there was nothing they enjoyed more than talking about the story of how they met. I’ve heard it so many times that I could recite it by heart—that is, if the phoniness of it all didn’t make me want to puke before I made it to the end.

  I already had lunch today and I don’t relish the thought of losing it, or getting upchuck on my new pair of checked Converse, so I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version.

  My dad’s cover band, the Basement Apes, was playing Arnold’s Charnel House, a little dive bar deep in the suburbs, one evening in late fall of 1990.

  My mom, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the time, was hopelessly lost on her way to present a paper on the kinship structure of Papua New Guinea’s Sambia tribe at Portland State University, so she pulled her cheap rental car into Arnold’s parking lot in hopes of finding someone who could direct her toward her destination, or at the very least back to the freeway.

  Well, this particular watering hole must have been running low on small-town hospitality, because the matronly bartender wouldn’t say word one to her if she wasn’t buying a drink. The clientele didn’t like the looks of her, either. With her short hair and her smart handbag and her expensive teeth, she looked like some uppity broad from out East—which she was, give or take the “uppity” part. When she tried to ask a question, they’d just quietly “harrumph” into their beers and wouldn’t pay her no nevermind.

  So, not knowing what else to do, she headed toward the back room, where the Basement Apes were performing Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” to a packed house of two: an aging, drunk barfly whose idea of dancing was spinning in circles and the other bartender, a fat man more interested in picking his nose than listening to music.

  When she walked in, dad was just about to launch into ‘Reaper’s climactic guitar solo—the one with the crazy tremolo riffs that come out of nowhere—on his knockoff Les Paul. He’d been practicing it for months in anticipation of debuting the song that night. The moment his pick made contact with the high “e” string, his eyes met hers, and it was like a bolt of lightning illuminated the room, blinding them to everything except each other.

  Pwing-pwing-pwing-pwing-pwing-pwing! As if in response to that fairytale coup de foudre, the strings of dad’s Les Paul all snapped, one right after the other. The Basement Apes had no choice but to put their set on hold.

  “We’re so sorry for the inconvenience, but…” Dad said, trailing off once it became clear nobody gave a fuck. The house lights came up and country music started piping through the speakers.

  Replacing all six strings was going to take a hot minute. While Dad was sitting on the edge of the stage, uncoiling the broken high E from its tuning peg, Mom walked up and started talking to him under the pretense of asking for directions.

  I’m not going to try to reconstruct their conversation. This story’s already getting long, and anyway it was just an excuse for the two of them to exchange Significant Looks, or pheromones, or whatever happens when idiots think they’re falling in love. Suffice it to say, by the time he was finished, it had been decided that Dad would be accompanying Mom to Portland as a “guide”—despite knowing less than she did about how to get there.

  He didn’t even stick around to finish the gig. He distracted his bandmates with a round of drinks and slipped his guitar in its case. The two of them booked it on out of there, giggling, arm in arm. They hopped in the car and, despite their almost total lack of pertinent geographical knowledge, somehow made it to Portland—but not before, ugh, conceiving me in a Day’s Inn outside Gresham. They didn’t tell me this—not in so many words—but they left the math insultingly easy to figure out.

  A few weeks after the conference, they eloped, moved out here to Ithaca and lived happily ever after.

  Psych!

  As anyone with half a brain could have anticipated, their marriage was miserable, because their lifestyles just weren’t compatible. Mom was an academic, which meant she had to stay in one place for most of the year, whereas Dad was a musician and self-styled rambling man. It just might have worked out if she weren’t so high-maintenance, or he weren’t so selfish, or if either of them made more money.

  They sure stuck it out for a while. Ten years! They did it for me. (Here, picture me rolling my eyes and sticking a finger down my throat.) As a result, I got to watch true love turn to burning hatred over ten years of bickering, bitter recrimination and eventually full-blown fights. My parents never hit each other, thank God, but they got real good at throwing things. My dad would rampage around the house like a bull in a China shop, tossing vases, chairs and framed art prints every which way, whereas my mom used guerrilla tactics, peeking around corners to aim her projectiles directly at his thick noggin. Me, I felt like a Vietnamese rice farmer in 1968, struggling to keep my paddy-hatted head down as U.S. and Viet Cong bullets whizzed past my ears.

  OK, we didn’t cover the Vietnam War till middle school, but you get what I’m saying.

  Watching my mom and dad fight wasn’t easy, but it taught me a valuable lesson: love doesn’t mean shit—not necessarily. When it comes right down to it, I think you’re better off making a cool-headed, rational decision about whom you want to spend the rest of your life with, like my mom has with Clint.

  No, I don’t believe for a second that she felt butterflies in her stomach when she laid eyes on my stepdad, Clint Layton, for the first time. I mean, he’s a balding, 45-year-old accountant; there’s nothing romantic about that. I think when they hit it off OK on their eHarmony date, she said to herself, “I’m not getting any younger. He’s a nice guy, and he makes decent money. If I marry him, maybe I’ll have a chance to retire after all.” And she went for it. Good for her! Clint may be dull as dirt, but he knows how to treat a woman. On balance, I guess I like him well enough.

  I digress. My teachers always tell me, “Leah, you’re a great writer, but you need to learn to get to the point.” This is my book, so you’ll have to deal with a few tangents, but there’s probably something to that criticism.

  So, here’s my point: love
at first sight may be an illusion. Hate as first sight, though, that’s for real. I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on Clint’s son, Asher.

  ***

  I peeked out the window, eager to get my first glimpse of the guy who was going to be my new roommate (so to speak) for the rest of the school year, as well as the summer. We’d been waiting for him for a while. Asher was supposed to have come home early in the afternoon, right after he got out, but he changed his plans at the last moment to go out for an early drink with his friends. The same friends, I gathered from mom and Clint’s hushed conversations, who helped get him into prison in the first place. But I wasn’t supposed to know about that—and I definitely wasn’t supposed to ask any questions.

  He was standing at the end of the driveway, his Harley leaning on its kickstand, laughing raucously with a friend who was straddling a bike of his own. He was wearing relaxed jeans, black boots and a tight leather jacket. He had long, sandy-blonde hair and a five ‘o’ clock shadow. He was clearly going for the “bad boy” look. His companion was wearing a similar outfit, except instead of the jacket he had on a denim vest. A slutty-looking chick with short hair and cutoffs was hanging on his arm, a cigarette dangling from the side of her mouth.

  The other guy—later I learned his name was Adam—spit something brown onto the driveway. Asher, who was gesturing wildly with the hand that wasn’t on the aforementioned girl’s shoulder, spit too, a few seconds later.

  Ugh, I thought, they’re chewing tobacco. I turned away from the window in disgust.

  Even if Ash hadn’t had a mouthful of brown goop, he’d still be everything I hated in a guy. Macho. Unrefined. Trying way too hard to seem cool and tough. And inconsiderate: not just because he was spitting in the driveway of my house—where he was a guest—but because he’d thrown a wrench into mom and Clint’s plans for a “welcome home” dinner by going out for drinks with his scummy-looking friends, and not even called ahead.

  Was I being judgmental? A little bit—but think about it from my perspective. It was bad enough having Clint move in. Even though I liked him, I wasn’t anxious to welcome someone new into the house—someone who would hog the hot water in the mornings, monopolize my mom’s attention and blast lame dad music (think Steely Dan) at all hours of the day and night. Now I also had to deal with his Neanderthal son. And I was losing the music room, which had been converted into a guest bedroom in anticipation of Asher’s arrival.

  But there wasn’t any sense in getting worked up about it all over again. I only had another six months left at home. After that I was off to college, and I wouldn’t have to worry about Asher Layton or his father or anything related to my family for a very long time. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  I went back to the book I’d been reading: Samuel Beckett’s most famous play, Waiting for Godot, which I’d selected to write a 12 page paper on for my class in Modern English Literature. I don’t know why I chose it; I guess I just liked the idea of a story where nothing happens and nothing gets resolved. Don’t get me wrong; I like a happy ending as much as the next girl, but there’s something kind of cool and rebellious about defying people’s expectations and delivering something that’ll make them think, even if it also makes them angry.

  Plus, unresolved endings are just more realistic. In my experience it’s rare that big life problems have simple, pat solutions.

  My cat, Agatha, hopped onto the couch and curled up at my side. I scratched her down her back, just the way she liked it, as I continued to read:

  VLADIMIR: I missed you … and at the same time I was happy. Isn’t that a strange thing?

  ESTRAGON: (shocked). Happy?

  VLADIMIR: Perhaps it’s not quite the right word.

  ESTRAGON: And now?

  VLADIMIR: Now? … (Joyous.) There you are again … (Indifferent.) There we are again… (Gloomy.) There I am again.

  ESTRAGON: You see, you feel worse when I’m with you. I feel better alone too.

  I’d give you some context for those lines, but I don’t think it would help. Most of the play is just like that: dialogue that goes around and around in circles.

  Before I could read any further, I heard the front door open. Asher, apparently finished chewing, spitting and shooting the breeze out in the driveway, entered the house.

  Just walk on by, I thought, maybe hoping I could telepathically force him to leave me alone. I’m not an unfriendly person, I swear, but it was late and I was tired. Plus, I was already annoyed with him simply for being who he was. Any interaction between us was bound to be unpleasant.

  After removing his boots, rather than continuing past the living room and into the kitchen, he turned and plopped down on the couch beside me, causing Agatha to jump and flee in terror. He put his feet up on the antique chest we use as a coffee table. Rude!

  I grit my teeth and kept my face buried in my book, pretending not to notice Asher, though by this point I was way too distracted to do any more reading.

  “Hey, stepsis.” He smelled like cigarette smoke, whiskey and car exhaust.

  I glanced coolly at him out of the corner of my eye, then went back to staring at my book. “The name’s Leah.”

  “And mine’s Asher. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand. I didn’t shake it.

  “Yeah, enchanté.” I said in monotone. I was giving off “go fuck yourself” vibes so strong it was a wonder my eyes didn’t burn holes through the book. But Asher, bless his heart, seemed to be totally clueless

  “What’cha reading?” he asked, in a tone that suggested he knew how annoying he was being.

  I saved the page with my finger and showed him the cover.

  “’Waiting for God-ott, huh?” He pronounced it with a hard “t.” I’d made the same mistake the first time, before I heard my teacher say the title out loud, but I still cringed when Asher did it. “Never heard of it—what’s it about?”

  “God-oh,” I corrected him. “It’s French. It’s a play about these two tramps who are waiting around for this guy called Godot to come meet them. They have a bunch of pointless conversations with each other. Then a rich man and his servant show up, and they have more pointless conversations. Then they’re alone again, and Godot still hasn’t arrived. The curtain falls, the end.”

  Asher raised an eyebrow, “That’s all? And they never meet him? Sounds pretty goddamn boring.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, it’s totally boring. You wouldn’t like it.” I paused for a few seconds, pretending to be reading again, and added, “Would you mind getting your feet off that chest? It was my great grandmother’s.”

  “Sure thing.” He took his feet off the trunk and sat up.

  “Asher? Is that you?” Clint’s voice rang out from the kitchen.

  “Indeed! Coming.” He got up from the couch and headed toward the kitchen to greet his father. “Fuck you, too,” he said under his breath while walking away.

  Finally, I was free. I wasn’t even sure why he decided to stop and talk to me rather than finding Clint first. After two years behind bars, wasn’t he anxious to see his dad? Maybe Asher didn’t have any reasons for what he did. Maybe he just enjoyed bothering girls who clearly wanted to be left alone.

  I glanced at where he was sitting. He’d left an ugly black splotch of engine grease on the cream-colored couch cushion. Nasty.

  Putting his feet on my great-grandma’s antique chest, calling Beckett boring, and getting dirt on the furniture. Three strikes—he’s out! I resolved not to give him another second’s thought.

  Chapter 2

  Asher

  Damn, it feels good to be free!

  At 8:45 or so in the morning, after one of the longest insomniac nights in my life, I made my prison cot for the last time. Drew, a guard I’d come to know well over the course of my bid, led me out of my cell and down the corridor. I tried not to pay attention to the faces—some jealous, some angry, others just sad—peering out at me on either side. After picking up my clothes and person
al effects; $20 pocket money; and my certificate of release at the office, I stepped out into the crisp March air.

  It was the first time I’d been outside unsupervised in three years. At first, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Part of me wanted to run around like a little kid. Another part of me wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. Another part wanted to call my dad up and share the moment with him—but my ancient flip phone’s batteries were long dead and, even if they weren’t, I hadn’t paid the bill in forever. Anyway, I guessed it would be better to celebrate with him in person.

  Fortunately, before my mixed emotions got the better of me, my ride showed up. It was Adam, one of my oldest friends. Someone who’d stuck by me through all kinds of trouble. If he could’ve, he probably would’ve served my time right alongside me.

  “Yo, Asher! Long time no see.”

  “You’re damn right it’s been a long time. Get off your bike and give me a fucking hug, god damnit.”

  “I see prison hasn’t cleaned up your language, young man,” he said, with a chuckle, as he climbed down from his bike and leaned it on the kickstand.

  “Nah. Matterfact I’ve learned a few new curses I could share.” We embraced heartily, forgetting for a moment our role as ruggedly heterosexual American males and acting like the good friends we were.

  “Plenty of time for that later. Let’s go pick up your bike.”

  “Sounds like a plan. By the way, where’s your car? And Carly?”

  “Car broke down, and Carly, I left her home so you could hop on, too.”

  “Well, let’s get there quick so no one sees me on the back of your bike and thinks we’re lovers.”

  I was razzing him, but it was a real worry. If another biker caught a glimpse of me in that position, I’d never hear the end of it. Lucky for me, I’d left the bike in a storage unit just a few miles away. My other stuff, of course, could wait.