Then Came You

by Iris Morland

  I felt the same. It was like there was no one else but you since. She wished she had the courage to say the words aloud, but for now, she kept them inside and close to her heart.

  Ash pounded into her as he picked up his pace. Violet groaned and cried out, not caring that the people next door could surely hear them. The headboard knocked against the wall and the bed squeaked under her. If she hadn’t been so caught up in the moment, she would’ve laughed at all the noise they were making.

  Ash began rubbing her clit, the movement of his thumb in tandem with his thrusts like before. Violet bit her lip, tasting blood, as her belly tensed. Her orgasm built. When she fell off the precipice a second time, she was fairly certain she wouldn’t survive it. She gasped in a strangled breath, her entire body quaking.

  Ash shouted his release. He gripped her hips to keep her still as he filled her, and the scent of salt and sex in the air was like a heady, intoxicating perfume. Violet felt dizzy. She was glad she was already lying on her stomach, or she would’ve collapsed, her limbs completely useless.

  I’m dead; he’s killed me. And what a way to go.

  Violet heard water running. Ash murmured something and then a blanket covered her. Ash then got in bed and spooned behind her, and the warmth of his body and sound of his beating heart lulled her into a dreamless sleep.

  13

  Violet licked her fingers and sighed happily. “That was the best continental breakfast I’ve ever eaten,” she declared. “The Fruit Loops were a particular delight.”

  Ash smiled wryly. “Don’t try the coffee, then. You might be disappointed.” He grimaced as he drank his own cup of coffee before setting it aside. “I need real coffee. Do you want some? I’m dying.”

  Violet kissed him, letting the sheet she’d wrapped around herself fall to her lap. They’d woken at dawn to make love a second time before falling back asleep. A few hours later, starving and caffeine-deprived, they’d snagged a few bagels, mini boxes of cereal, and milk cartons from the continental breakfast just minutes before it had ended.

  “I don’t want you to go anywhere,” she said. “Coffee isn’t that important.”

  “It’s pretty important, but with breasts like yours...” Ash kissed her neck as he fondled her breasts, making her shiver. “You’d make a man forget his own name with tits this pretty.”

  She pinched him. “Don’t be vulgar.” She said it with a giggle, then a sigh, as he licked her neck before sucking on the skin of her collarbone. “Thank you for bringing me here. I needed to get away.”

  He wrapped an arm around her; she snuggled against him.

  “You’re welcome. I didn’t plan on staying the night, if you’re curious,” he said.

  “Oh really? You had planned to just look at a bunch of flowers and then drive me home while keeping your hands to yourself?”

  He laughed. “Okay, fine. I’d hoped. But I didn’t expect it.”

  “I expected it,” she said, making him laugh again.

  She listened to his heart thump with her ear on his chest. Rain started to fall, pattering against the window. Violet felt like they were in their own little cocoon, safe from the world outside. She never wanted to leave this bed or this room. She didn’t even care that the bed squeaked terribly or that the coffee apparently tasted like dishwater. It was the best hotel room she’d ever stayed in because she was here with Ash.

  It’d been so long since Violet had felt protected. Cherished. Wanted. After William’s death, her life had been one disaster after another, and although she’d hoped that moving in with Martha would help get her life back on track, things had only snowballed instead. Yet Ash had shown up and had somehow been the one thing—the one person—she’d been searching for.

  Ash made it extremely difficult not to love him. Underneath his devil-may-care exterior and playboy habits, he was caring and thoughtful. She had a feeling that he’d been searching for something, too, and hadn’t found it in the arms of the many women he’d slept with. That thought nipped at her, jealousy blooming inside her. It was silly, being jealous of women who had known him before Violet had met him, but there it was. Sometimes emotions were irrational like that.

  “You’re very quiet,” said Ash, breaking Violet’s train of thought. “Anything wrong?”

  She smiled. How did he know her moods so easily? He was definitely one in a million. William had never been all that interested in talking about his feelings or his worries, and he hadn’t usually noticed when something had been eating at Violet.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just thinking,” she replied.

  “About what?” He brushed her hair from her forehead with gentle fingers.

  “Tell me something about you that no one else knows.”

  “Oh, that’s what you’re thinking about? You want to know all my dirty secrets?”

  She grinned. “I’d already assumed they were dirty.”

  He laughed. “Okay, ask away.”

  Violet thought for a long moment. “What’s your middle name?” At his groan, she knew she’d landed on something good. “Now you’re definitely going to have to tell me. Come on, spill.”

  Disgruntled, he said, “My real name isn’t Ash. It’s a nickname.”

  “Go on.”

  “My mom had terrible taste in names. All of my siblings have stupid names.”

  “That’s great, but I want to know yours.”

  Ash groaned, pinched his nose, and then finally said, “Ashley Nigel Stuart Younger. There. That’s my full name. Happy?”

  Violet’s lips twitched. Ash’s real name was Ashley? At that, Violet burst out laughing, more so at his obvious discomfiture than because it was a truly terrible name.

  “Yeah, yeah, laugh away. And if you tell anybody, you’ll regret it.”

  She forced herself to stop laughing, but when she thought of his middle names, the laughter bubbled over again. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, “it’s not even that funny. It’s just the look on your face.”

  Growling, he started to tickle her. She had to beg for mercy for him to stop.

  “Your turn,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “What’s your middle name?”

  “Ann. Sorry. It’s a pretty standard middle name.”

  “Then tell me something no one else knows about you.” Ash crossed his arms, waiting.

  Violet had to wrack her brain for a moment to find a secret to tell. She was, sadly, not one of those people with a colorful past. “I hate hamsters. One bit me when I was in first grade, and to this day I can’t look at one without getting freaked out.”

  “Hamsters? Really?”

  “Yes, really.” She threw a pillow at his amused face, and he grunted. “They’re creepy. They’re only awake at night, too, and they eat their young! No hamsters.” She shuddered.

  “I promise I won’t get you one, then. Although I’ve been thinking I should get you a fish. You know, so if you need to use that excuse again, you don’t have to lie.”

  After that, they wrestled and tickled each other, forcing each other to tell random secrets about each other. Ash hated tuna fish; Violet could eat an entire jar of pickles in one sitting. Ash had been stung by a jellyfish as a kid and Trent had peed on his leg (it hadn’t helped); Violet had shaved her sister Vera’s eyebrow in her sleep and had been grounded for a month as a result. Ash liked to watch the cooking channel; Violet did too, especially the one where the contestants had to put together dishes with random, terrible ingredients.

  They fell silent, simply enjoying each other’s company. Eventually, Ash pushed Violet’s hair from her forehead and asked, “Penny for your thoughts?”

  “Oh, everything, nothing. I was thinking about how a month ago I had just moved to a new town and was running away from everything, and now I’m here, with you. How two years ago I was burying my husband.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  Violet sighed. “I do miss him. Every day. But each day it gets easier.”

  “I’m sorry.”

 
; “But I think what’s worse, in a way, is that I don’t think about him as much as I used to. I’ll always miss him, but more and more I feel like there’s room for something else. Someone else.”

  Ash’s gaze darkened. “I’m glad.”

  The words floated on her tongue, but she didn’t have the courage right then to say them. Soon. I just need more time. It’s too quick, right? How can I have fallen in love with someone after only knowing him a month?

  “The last time I saw William, we fought.” When Ash didn’t say anything, she kept talking. Maybe she couldn’t say the words I love you, but she could talk about this. She needed to talk about it for some reason she didn’t understand.

  “He was angry about my business. The money wasn’t coming in and things were a mess. He was pissed because I had focused on the business so much that I’d neglected our marriage. If I wasn’t up all night making jewelry, I was working on inventory and my website and emails during the day. William had to fend for himself.”

  “Where did he work?”

  “He was an engineer. He liked his job, but it was stressful. When I’d started my business, his job kept changing. His company kept laying people off, and the only way William kept his job was to be downgraded or moved. It was stressful, to say the least. Then coming home to me stressing about my business only made things worse. I thought that I could help make us more money to ease his burden.

  “The day he died, we got into a huge fight.” Violet took in a shaky breath. “I was angry with him because he’d never supported my dream. Not really. He’d made me agree to let him do the books because he knew I was bad with money. But apparently it didn’t make a difference, did it?”

  Ash stroked her hair. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Don’t be sorry. It was my own fault. I was selfish. I was so focused on being successful that I didn’t care about my marriage or William. I even told him that I wanted to end things. He left…and never came home.”

  Guilt choked her then—guilt, grief, misery. She missed William, but most of all, she missed the William she’d married and fallen in love with. If she hadn’t been so selfish, William wouldn’t have gotten angry and gotten into his car. He wouldn’t have driven out into the pouring rain, he wouldn’t have been at the stoplight when that driver had decided texting was more important than paying attention. He wouldn’t have slammed into William’s car.

  “I should’ve stopped him,” she whispered. “I should’ve told him that he mattered more than some stupid business. I cared more about my pride than I did about him, and he paid for it with his life.”

  Ash shifted against her. “Jesus, Violet, you can’t blame yourself. It was an accident that could’ve happened to anyone. If you should blame anyone, blame the driver who hit him. Was he drunk?”

  “No, just texting. So stupid, right? One second he wasn’t paying attention. The next, he’d slammed into the driver’s side of William’s car so hard that he was killed on impact. The driver survived.”

  “Don’t they always,” said Ash, his voice grim.

  “I know it doesn’t make sense. I know that others were at fault. But if I had known, I could’ve prevented it from happening. And I hate that our last words were ones of anger. I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

  Ash held her close, and she let herself be comforted by his presence and his arms around her. She hadn’t let herself feel protected in far too long.

  “When I was a kid,” Ash said quietly after a while, “I watched my brother Trent blame himself for our mom. He was the oldest, and I think he took on a parental role with all of us as a result. When our mom died, he took it hard. Probably harder than I did.” He laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “I was weirdly glad that she wasn’t suffering anymore, or dragging us all down with it.”

  “What happened to your mom?” asked Violet.

  “She killed herself.”

  He said the words tonelessly, and he felt Violet flinch against him. He didn’t feel anything, saying those words. He hadn’t felt anything about his mother—or his father—for a long, long time.

  She touched his cheek. “Oh, Ash, I’m so sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really, but then again, I did bring it up.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, inhaling the scent of her hair. “I didn’t bring it up to make you sad, so much as to tell you that you can’t blame yourself for other people’s choices. Trent thought he could save our mom, and when he didn’t, it tore him apart. He almost lost Lizzie and his daughter because of it. Seeing that convinced me that I wouldn’t let myself be dragged down by other people.”

  He realized how harsh that sounded, but it was true. His parents’ marriage had been turbulent and messy; they’d loved each other in a way that had brought out the worst in them both. His father, Edward, had been a proud man who had seen his own dreams fall apart, and with his wife, Beatrice, suffering from severe mental illness that had only worsened, it had been a whirlpool of abuse and rage that Ash and his siblings had all been caught up in.

  Ash knew that his parents hadn’t always been so screwed up. He vaguely remembered happier times, when there had been laughter in their house. But as his father’s anger had increased, his mother had started to disintegrate. She had begun to take pills to numb the pain.

  Ash remembered one instance when he’d been seven years old. He’d arrived home from a friend’s house to find Phin and Lucy outside, even though it was already dark and cold. Phin was only five, and Lucy was three. There was no one around to watch them, not even Trent or Thea. Ash was young, but old enough to know his siblings shouldn’t be outside.

  “We need to go inside,” said Ash. He took Lucy’s hand, but she refused to budge.

  “Dad said we had to stay out here.” Phin pushed his glasses up his nose, the frames way too big for him. Small and pale, Phin hadn’t made any friends in kindergarten and preferred to sit and read a book on the playground. It didn’t help that he was already reading at a fourth-grade level when the rest of his class was still working on the alphabet.

  Ash frowned. “It’s dark out. Come on, you must’ve heard wrong. Let’s go.”

  Lucy started crying when Ash hauled her up. “I want to play! I want to play!” she cried as she wriggled away from her brother. “You’re not my mom!”

  Ash heard a yell from the house. Going to the living room window, he peeked through the small opening between the curtains to see his parents standing in the middle of the room. His dad’s face was red; his mom was crying. Ash watched in confusion, wondering what was happening, when his dad took his mom’s arm and shook her like a dog with a rat.

  Ash cried out, but he slapped a hand over his mouth and ducked down when his dad swiveled toward the window. Ash heard another sound, something like a slap, before he crawled back to his siblings.

  Phin was shivering, but Lucy was still intent on playing with her dolls. Ash picked up Lucy and one of her dolls, covering her mouth to keep her quiet.

  “Come on,” he hissed at Phin. “We need to go.”

  Hours later, Trent found them in the woods a house away. Even though he was only eleven, Trent acted like a kid much older. When Trent found them, Ash would never forget the look of relief on his brother’s face.

  Ash had known, even at seven, that something had changed between his parents and that things would never be the same again.

  He’d been right.

  “My mom overdosed on purpose when I was eleven,” said Ash to Violet. “I came home to find her dead. Trent was a zombie, Thea was crying, and there I was, relieved. Phin and Lucy were too young to really understand, although I think Phin understood more than he let on.”

  The memories haunted him to this day, and sometimes they came upon him at the oddest times. Right then, he pushed the memories away before they pulled him under again.

  “And your dad?” Violet asked.

  “He turned into a mean asshole, and nobody was sad when he died. Depressing,
right?” He set his chin on top of Violet’s head. “I guess I should’ve warned you that I come from a fucked-up family.”

  She patted his forearm. “Not one person in the universe doesn’t have baggage. Not unless they’re a newborn, and even then, they probably have at least an issue or two.” She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Although I can’t say that my parents were terrible. They were actually pretty great.”

  “Good, somebody should have nice parents. Where are they now?”

  “Traveling around the country in their RV. My dad retired from the military, and a month later they sold their house, bought an RV, and started their new adventure. I think they’re in Arizona right now, if I remember correctly. My dad thinks the Pacific Northwest is too cold in the winter, so they usually stay down south during the rainy months.”

  “I can’t blame them there. Every year I dread the rain and think I should move, and every year I stay put and suck it up.”

  “Sounds like a true Pacific Northwesterner.”

  Ash had never talked to anyone as truthfully as he had to Violet. That spark that had begun when he’d first met her only grew. Seeing her amongst the tulips yesterday had shown him how much he wanted her. Now, their conversation had only cemented that fact. He’d never felt as comfortable or safe with someone else as he had with her. He’d never admit it, though. A man had his pride.

  “I know we’re both fucked up,” he began. He laughed a little at that intro. “But what I said last night was true: I never stopped thinking about you. You make me want things I never thought I’d want.”

  “Really?” Her eyes were wide.

  “Yes. I want to try, Violet. I want to see if we can make this real.” He squeezed her hand. “How about it? It doesn’t have to be forever. But just for now.”

  When she didn’t reply for a long moment, he wondered if he’d overstepped. Terrified that she was about to reject him, he said, “You don’t have to answer now—”