At First Hate by K.A. Linde

Savannah

Present — Derek

Ash answered the door already holding a beer. His brow furrowed. “What are you doing here?”

I hefted a bottle of whiskey. “Care for something harder?”

His eyes held mine. Ash and I had been friends for a long time. Our parents had thrown us together as kids. Despite me being two years older, we hung out all the way through college. Only drifting apart when I was gone at Harvard and then hanging out more when I returned without Marley, a brokenhearted idiot. He’d been the best man at my wedding. He knew when something was up.

“Always,” Ash said, throwing the door wide.

That was the best part about our friendship. Neither of us ever had to fucking talk about it. He’d eventually heard what had gone down with Marley. I obviously knew all the nuances of his relationship with the infamous Delilah Greer. But we never made the other talk before he was ready.

And tonight, if I was honest, I’d prefer to get drunk and forget that conversation with Mars entirely. She hadn’t been wrong. It had been impossible to argue. Though I’d fucking tried. I wanted her. I’d always wanted her. One kiss in my parents’ house at a Halloween party had sealed that long ago. But that didn’t change how fucked up our relationship was time and time again.

Was I an idiot for pursuing her while working against her? A hundred percent.

Would I do it all over again? Every. Single. Time.

I opened the bottle of Four Roses and poured us each a glass. I downed mine before Ash even picked his up and then poured another. Ash took the drink, swirling it around and sipping on it. It wasn’t actually for shooting. I just needed something to burn on the way down.

“What are you watching?” I asked instead of answering the look from my best friend. I could hear a game on in the background.

“The end of the Ole Miss-Auburn game.”

I took another sip. “Who’s winning?”

“Auburn has been leading the whole game. Ole Miss is trying to make a comeback.”

“Good,” I said, not really caring either way.

Ash took his drink back to the couch, and we sat in silence for the final five minutes of the game. Auburn clinched their win. Neither of us had been raised on SEC football, but it was hard to grow up in Georgia and not hate both teams. Either of them losing felt like a victory.

Ash polished off his drink and set it down. “I know I’m not exactly one to talk,” he began. “You let me drink the last couple months and never complained.”

“You had a good reason.”

He tipped his head at me. “True. I came out of it on the other side though because you never disappeared or pushed or tried to make me feel bad about slowly turning into an alcoholic.”

“Are you on the other side of it?” I asked honestly. Glad to not be talking about my own fucking problem.

Ash’s eyes went distant for a moment. A pain crossed his face. “I’m better. I don’t know if I’ll ever be fully over it, but I don’t want to drink myself to death anymore. My work is suffering. My life is…” He trailed off. As if admitting everything that had been his last several months of existence would make it worse. “Look, it fucking sucks. I just want to be on the other side of it.”

“I’m glad.”

“I don’t want you there either.”

I breathed out heavily and downed the last of my whiskey. “Yeah.”

“So, what happened?”

“You’re actually asking?”

“I’ve known you a long-ass time, man. We’ve been through the wringer. And as much as I hated to see it, you and Marley were happy. Today on the sailboat, you were a different man. Even Amelia has been saying how happy she is for you. And she hated Kasey.”

“She didn’t hate her.” I didn’t know why I was defending Kasey when I currently despised my ex-wife.

Ash laughed. “Yeah, she did. She’s just good at hiding it. She has Ballentine-level emotional control.”

Huh. I knew that Mia hated Kasey now, but I hadn’t realized it was the whole time. Maybe she was a better judge of character than I was.

“Marley went back to Atlanta,” I finally confessed.

“Why?”

“Why do you think? I’m representing her mom in a case to take all the money and the only home she’s ever known.”

“Then drop the case.”

I blew out a harsh breath. “It’s a test from my father. This is how I get partner. It’s what I’ve been working a hundred hours a week to get. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted. And she said it wasn’t fair to ask me to quit and that it also wasn’t fair for us to be together with it between us. We’ve had fifteen years to get this together, and it’s not working. I asked her to stay, but she left.”

“I don’t know how to say this gently,” Ash said with narrowed eyes, “but fuck you.”

I laughed. “What the fuck?”

“Let me get this straight. She left because you care more about this case than her?”

“No.”

He continued as if he hadn’t heard me, “And have you considered that working a hundred hours a week is why you lost your last wife?”

I glared at him. “She was crazy.”

“She was. But you were never home, and she found other ways to entertain herself. Not the right ways, obviously, but it can’t be easy to never see the person you’re married to.”

I sat stock-still under Ash’s imperious gaze. He wasn’t wrong about Kasey, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear.

“Well, I plan to work less once I hit partner. It’ll be a moment to breathe.”

Ash raised his hand. “Just shut up for a second. Stop trying to rationalize this bullshit.” His face went suddenly deathly serious. “I would have given up anything to be with Lila. Anything. It didn’t work, and it wasn’t enough. Are you telling me that you can tell your dad to fuck off and drop this case and you won’t do it?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Yes or no, motherfucker?” Ash asked, getting heated. “Is your job more important than Marley?”

“No,” I ground out.

“Would you be fired for dropping this case?”

“No, but—”

“No,” he spat. “No, you fucking wouldn’t. And even if you were, you’re a goddamn Ballentine. So, who the fuck cares? You’d have another job tomorrow.”

“That’s not—”

“Do you love her?” Ash asked.

I gritted my teeth and then nodded. “Yeah, I fucking love her.”

“That’s what I thought. You’ve been happier in the last couple months than I’ve seen you in years. Kasey never made you happy like this. Not ever.”

I looked back at the last couple years of my life. Had I really not been happy with Kasey? I tried to remember what it had been like when we first met. With all the bullshit clouding our past, it was hard to think about it. But even then, even in the beginning, it had always been that we made sense. Not that I felt young and in love and carefree. I hadn’t. I’d just wanted someone to make me forget Marley.

I’d told myself that I was as happy as I had been with Mars, but it wasn’t true. It was always hard. It was always a problem. I just ignored the issues. It had been easier that way.

Now, I had exactly what I wanted. Was I just going to let her go? Could I live with myself if I did?

I looked at Ash and saw a shell of the person he’d been when he was with Lila. He was just coming out of it and willing to see that he could be someone else without her. I didn’t want to go through that. I didn’t want a life without Marley.

“Fuck,” I spat.

Ash smiled then. “Glad you finally got there.”

“I have to go after her.”

“Yeah, you idiot,” Ash said with a laugh.

I shook my best friend’s hand. He looked happy for me and just a touch sad. Sad that it wouldn’t be that easy for him. But still, he wanted this for me, and I appreciated him saying the things I hadn’t wanted to hear.

“Thanks for everything,” I told him.

His smile widened. “Glad to help.”

“You’re a dick though.”

He laughed. “Yeah. And you’re an asshole.”

“True. We’re quite a pair.”

Ash pushed me toward the door. “Go the fuck after her.”

“I will,” I told him with confidence. “But I have to do one thing first.”