Perfect Match Enemies to lovers romance - Leia Stone Page 0,51

man over at Wayne’s Place bar,” Ashton told the operator on the phone, no emotion in his voice, no indication that this was the man who gave him life. “He crashed through my glass door and cut himself pretty bad. Seems pretty drunk. Can you send an ambulance?”

There was a pause. “Thank you.”

Ashton hung up and a strangled gasp left my throat. “Are you fucking serious? This is your father!”

I understood that being raised by an alcoholic must have been hard, but this was fucked up. Ashton’s eyes narrowed. “Princess gonna judge me now?”

“Itz my fuallt,” Wayne mumbled.

I sighed. “No it’s not. It was an accident,” I told him, eyeing the insane amount of blood coming from his arm. What if he hit a major artery?

Julie. My best friend popped into my head and I texted her. Completely forgetting she was upstairs and an ER nurse!

Me: 911 come down to bar. Ashton’s drunk dad bleeding out.

I was going to ignore Ashton, but he stepped forward, glaring his father down. “Everything’s your fault, old man. Everything.”

“Ashton Knight!” I shouted. What if his father bled out right now? How would he feel if that was the last thing he’d said to him?

“Hiz right.” Wayne nodded, tears rolling down his cheeks. “I killed ‘er. My baby guurl.”

Every hair on my arms stood up then.

No.

The accident Ashton got in with his sister … Wayne wasn’t driving … was he? Was he driving drunk?

I looked up at Ashton and his face fell, confirming my thoughts. “It wasn’t enough that you have to ruin your own life, but you had to ruin mine too.” He chucked the phone and it hit the wall, splitting into two pieces. “I’m done with you, old man!”

Ashton left the bar through the back door just as Julie burst inside and they almost collided. She was carrying kitchen towels and my favorite skinny belt.

“Over here!” I shouted for her, unable to process what I’d just witnessed. Ashton’s dad killed his twin sister. Nearly killed him.

Wayne was the reason Ashton needed Colin’s heart.

Holy fuck.

My head swam with dizziness as I processed that information.

Julie took in the scene before me and went right into ER nurse mode. “Move!” she barked.

I stood and she lifted Wayne’s arm, tying the belt around his upper arm and cinched it tight. Wayne just stared at the ceiling, tears rolling down his cheeks.

This was heavy, heavy shit. I didn’t want to be here right now, dealing with this, seeing the blood. It was starting to remind me of the night Colin died.

Wayne killed Jenna. Ashton almost died. Colin saved Ashton. My mind was racing a mile a minute as I stared at the door Ashton had run through.

What would it be like to live with knowing your own father accidently killed your sister? And yet he still fed him, let him sleep at the bar and not on the street.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I realized Ashton was a kinder soul than I’d given him credit for. I’d judged him all wrong.

Sirens wailed in the distance and I had to shake my head to clear the thoughts.

“Get yourself together, hun,” Julie said, and I realized I was openly sobbing.

Wiping my eyes, I straightened my hair as the EMTs rushed into the bar.

“What happened?” They looked at the glass and then at Wayne.

I swallowed hard. “He fell through. It was an accident. Cut his arm. He’s drunk.”

“He’s got a deep laceration on his inner forearm, might have hit the brachial artery,” Julie told them.

They nodded, strapping him into a gurney. “Cops should be on their way to file a report if you want to press charges,” the EMT with short cropped brown hair told me.

I shook my head. “Not pressing charges.”

Wayne reached out for me with his good hand. “I’m srry, M’llie.”

My throat tightened, heart pinching. “It’s okay, Wayne. You’re going to be okay.”

This man … this poor man and what he had to deal with. I couldn’t handle all this trauma. The weight of Colin’s death was about all I could bear. I couldn’t take this on too, it was too much. How did Ashton deal with it? What if my dad caused the crash that killed Colin, how would I even look at him every day?

“We need to get him to the hospital for surgery, ma’am.” The EMT snapped me from my thoughts and I realized I was still holding onto Wayne.

He still hadn’t let go of my hand, and I didn’t have the heart to