Imagines 2.0

City Girl 2 ~ A Irwin*

tw: a few curse words, fireworks, fluffy smut // wc: 4361

plot: halfway through the summer, y/n and Ashton sorta...confirm, their feelings for each other on fourth of July

pairing: farmer/cowboy!Ashton x city girl!y/n

a/n: pls leave feedback!!! okay ty!!!! enjoy!!

The Middle of Summer

July fourth weekend has always been Mara's holiday. It was the one day where she could have an excuse of staying up all night, popping firecrackers outside the city limits, eat all of the popcorn and drink all of the soda she wanted.

By now, she had gotten used to the routine she had while living in the middle of nowhere with Ashton, his mother and her own mother. Though, getting up at the crack of dawn when the rooster crows was hard- she eventually got used to it.

She ran down the stairs, running her fingers through her wet hair from the shower she had just gotten out of. "Morning Mara! Happy fourth of july!" anne greeted, scrambling some eggs in a pan. "Happy fourth!"

Mara took her place at the table, this time instead of facing the window like she normally does, she decided to sit against it. Next to ashton's spot. And once ashton made his way down the stairs he looked at Mara, and gave her a surprising look. He surely didn't expect her to sit in that spot, next to him. Especially after a few weeks of non stop flirting, one staring at the other while they have their attention focused on something else, and especially not after a few innocent hand touches. 

"Hey Mara, i'm going up into town to pick up some stuff for the barbecue tonight, wanna come?" ashton asked, pouring a cup of coffee. "Sure, when are we going?" he brought the bowl of scrambled eggs to the table, his mom the stack of pancakes. "Probably after i feed everybody." he said, everybody meaning the animals.

Ashton sat next to y/n, and her mother came down the stairs, yawning a bit. "You okay mom?" she asked, and lottie nodded. "Yeah, just tossed and turned last night." Mara nodded, knowing full well that her mother hated fourth of July. She hated the holiday.

Mostly because on fourth of july, the summer down at Lake Texoma is when she found out that her husband of ten years at the time was cheating on her. And had been for years, but the only reason she found out was because she heard them talking on the phone. She blamed herself, infact. Blamed herself for not being more observant of how he took weekends off because he was going on a golfing trip with his buddies when actually he was getting some with the lady who works in his office.

And poor Mara, she didn't know what was going on. She didn't know why her daddy just up and left one day, she didn't know why he couldn't come give her good night kisses anymore. She, for a little while, started to think it was her fault.

But nobody has had it worse than ashton, he used to say. His dad- an alcoholic who drank himself to death, died when he was around eight. And it was that summer, when he met Mara too. He was a daddy's boy through and through. They were always playing with each other, riding horses, swimming in the lake.

After that summer he was never the same. He longed for the friend that he had made that single week. And usually, they just forget. Like Mara did, but ashton never did. Even at theage of eight years old, his frontal lobe not developing at all yet, he never forgot how she made him feel. Happy.

And the winter before ashton was to go to college, both of his little siblings were killed in a car crash. That put both him and his mother in a spiraling depression. Ashton didn't even want to go to college, but if it weren't for his mother he would have done something regrettable.