Away by B. A. Wolfe Page A

left. A small two-seat sofa was to the right with a television on a stand facing it. There was nothing resembling the house upstairs in his room. It was all his own. Two racks to the right of his bed held six cowboy hats, each a different color. I turned my gaze back to Jase who was lying on his bed wearing a sexy grin as he kept his focus on me. His arms tucked behind his head full of perfectly messy hair left his toned chest fully exposed to my appreciative eyes. I definitely wanted to walk into his room in the mornings more often.
    “Not what I expected Jason,” I said. Steering my eyes away from him, I continued my tour of his room. The walls were a light brown that went perfect with his red comforter that was covering up half of his body.
    “Yeah I like it down here. It’s like my own little retreat from the world,” he said.
    I walked over to the left side of his room, focusing on a framed picture that was standing on his dresser. The picture was of three young boys; one looked older than the rest, and all appeared very similar in their little cowboy hats and cowboy boots sitting on a haystack with straw hanging out of their mouths as they smiled. It was adorable. “Is this you?” I asked him.
    I shifted my gaze over to him as he moved his arm out from underneath his head and rubbed his eyes before sitting up in his bed.
    “Yeah it is. I was only about seven in that picture,” he replied as he started pushing the rest of the covers off of him.
    “Easy there, I didn’t come down here to see Jase junior,” I told him.
    He shook his head and finished pulling the covers off the rest of the way until he was out of the bed completely only wearing a pair of boxer shorts. I must have been staring at his bare chest again. It was by all means more captivating than the picture I was so interested in earlier. It had just enough definition that made me want to whimper, until Jase cleared his throat, bringing me back to the picture.
    “Um, so the picture.” I tried to recover my embarrassment.
    He took another look at me, letting a quiet chuckle escape before standing right next to me.
    “We were so young,” he said, as though he was picturing the day in his mind. “It was at our friends’ farm. They had horses, we went riding that day, and it was our first time. Our moms had us sit down on the hay to take a picture, but before we did I put a piece of hay in my mouth so I could be like my dad,” he said, still staring at the picture. “And then the others followed suit.”
    “You were an adorable child, just look at the wild curly hair peeking out of that hat,” I said, picking up the picture to look at it closer. “Looks like a fun day for you three.”
    “It was,” he said, smiling over my shoulder at the picture in my hands.
    “So who are the other two kids with you?” I asked him.
    “My brother and a friend,” he answered quietly.
    “You said you didn’t have any siblings.” I questioned him, confused by what I thought I knew.
    “No. I said it was just me in the house.” He let out a long, deep breath. “Cassie… we just don’t talk about him much, that’s all.”
    “Why is it such a big secret?” I asked, concerned there was something deeper going on.
    “It’s not a big secret.” He shrugged. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him though; I would need a better answer than that.
    “Listen, families have problems. It seems normal nowadays. There are just some things better left unsaid, okay?” he asked gently.
    “Yeah, I guess.” I didn’t think I would be getting any other answers than the one he just gave me. Not to mention, I completely and whole-heartedly understood about families having problems because I was used to them too.
    “Thank you,” he said.
    I took my focus from the picture to the other side of the dresser. Another picture showed an older version of him standing with his mom, smiling at the camera, and giving a big thumbs-up. His mom wore scrubs, and it looked like