Page 17 of For Better or Hearse

If there’s one thing her ex taught her, it’s that love is a kind of death. Ash wants none of it. The happily-ever-after belief system perpetuated in fairy tales is a farce. Because eventually it all ends.

She glares at her reflection.

All she and Nathaniel have to do is avoid each other. It’s that easy. It’s not like they’ll be paired in water aerobics or shipwrecked together.

She chews at her lower lip as her stomach flips.

“You are not a mess,” she tells herself. “You are very much all the fuck put together.”

“We are fused,” Ash tells Augustus. She keeps her arm linked through his and holds tight. “Do not let go of me.”

A gruff chuckle. “Don’t choke, Keller.”

An inhale. A steeling of her spine.She can do this. She can. She may get knocked down, but she’s like one of those creepy clown punching bags—she pops right back up.

The Whitfords sit at a round table on the oceanfront terrace. Right in time for sunset. The sky is stained lavender and pink. Palm trees sway in the breeze. The air is clammy and warm. The crash of the waves creates a chaotic symphony amid the silence.

It should be a view tooohandaahover. Instead, every person at the table is on their phone. No one’s paying attention. Or talking.

Except for Nathaniel.

He’s lounging in his chair, looking like he’s been personally styled by Hades himself.

His head snaps up, his lip curling at the sight of her. He scans her face, then his eyes dip to her breasts.

She flushes. Damn Tessie for this dress.

“You’re late,” he announces, those pale-blue ice shards piercing straight through Ash.

His annoyance has her bristling. Has her flashing back to those tiny, petty insecurities.

Messy and late and flaky. Everything Jakob said she was.

Never sticks to one thing, never stays in one place.

Once again, truly fuck that man.

“Dad.” The word is barely more than a whisper. A woman who looks like she’s the epitome of green smoothies and Pilates stands from her chair and wraps Augustus in a hug.

Ash hangs back, keeping a respectful distance. When he pulls away, Augustus beckons her forward to make introductions.

“Ash, this is my daughter, Claire.”

Claire is dressed in a long ivory pleated skirt and a silk tank top. Her platinum hair is twisted into a chignon.

Pushing down her nerves, Ash smiles. “Hi, Claire.” She sticks a hand out. Steadies it. “Mrs. Whitford,” she amends.

Claire’s palm is soft and warm in her own. “Ash.” Claire’s confused gaze bounces between Ash and Augustus. “And she’s your—”

“Death doula,” Ash says, intercepting the topic before it grows two heads. It never gets old. Especially in LA. Everyone assumes she’s Augustus’s much younger gold-digging lover. “I am, as they say, a way to bridge the gap between life and death for your father.”

Silence. For entirely too long.

“Christ, Augustus,” comes a resigned sigh from the table. Don, who looks like a reincarnated 1920s oil tycoon in Nike shorts and a tech fleece jacket, finally looks up from his phone. “Morbid, don’t you think?”

A guy in his twenties sporting a modest buzz cut and a bowling shirt—Tater, she supposes—snickers. “Man, that’s creepy.”

Nathaniel gives the man who must be his brother a scathing look. Probably for acting like Don’s parrot.