Marilyn, what the fuck did you think you were doing? Only it could not have all been Marilyn. Not with the last few dates on those letters. So, did that mean that someone else had been involved? There was only one person I could think of, Molly.
“The Cabin?”
She’d said that she hated me. Was the still the case, did she still hate me?
“Uber won’t come here” I knew I’d tried it once when I had gotten drunk at that stupid fucking wine bar they opened up on main street and ended up having to walk home. It took me almost four hours, maybe more, but I don’t remember. I had been absolutely fucking wasted.
“I’ll see if Luke will lend me his car.”
Luke god damned Rivers. “Are you fucking him?”
“What?”
“Luke, are you fucking him?”
I could hear her little sigh down the phone, and it made me want to hit something. Him. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Just as I think you’re not a dick, there you go again.”
“Disclaimer Peaches, I am a fucking dick.”
“You didn’t use to be,” that was not true. She had just never seen that side of me, not really.
“Yeah, well, now I am, are you coming or what?”
Silencing I waited for her response, and when I didn’t get anything, I pulled the phone away from my ear. The fucking god damned girl had hung up on me.
Goddammit, Peaches.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
What the fuck was that?
Cracking one of my eyes open, I winced at the sunshine blaring through, blinding me from the window. Fuck.
“Ashby!!”
Ahh, Peaches.
She came. Fuck she was here? No.
Oh god, I’d called her, hadn’t I? Shit.
“Open this door!”
Bang
Bang
Bang
“I swear to god Ashby Bronx, I will kick you in the balls If you made me drive all the way out here to leave me outside.”
Staggering and almost tripping over several empty bottles on the floor, I managed to get to the door, pulling it open only to come face to face with the angel and devil in my life. Just as she was about to hammer her tiny fist on it once more.
“I was asleep.”
“More like passed out,” she mumbled, eyes looking around me into the cabin. I should have been embarrassed, her seeing the state of my home, and yet I didn’t care about anything.
“Can I come in?”
I had wanted her to come, and here she was. Her letters were all over the coffee table and couch. Motioning with my arm for her to enter, I stood to one side. Peaches being, well Peaches stayed exactly where she was standing, unmoving. Just looking at me with those goddammed green eyes.
“Marilyn had them?” Her eyes were locked on the paper strewn across the front room.
“Yep” no good would come from telling her I suspected Marilyn’s sister Molly may have been involved too. There was enough bad blood between the two because I wanted Peaches back then as it was.
“Why?”
“Because who wants to see little old Ashby… happy?”
She did, that was who. My fucking Peaches.
“How’s George?”
“Really, that's what you’re going to ask me?” crossing her arms over her chest, she glared up at me with those big and beautiful green eyes. “How George is?”
"It was in your letter," his acid filled voice spat at me. He was being an ass, and I knew that I needed to change the subject. No good could come from carrying on talking about the man who would have raped me given the opportunity.
"Where did you find them? I thought you didn't know anything about the letters?"
"I found them" clearing his throat, he kicked one of the empty bottles on the ground with his bouncing foot. "With Marilyn's shit."
One last look in my direction, and he turned without saying another word. Leaving me standing in his doorway, watching his retreating form. Slamming the bedroom door behind him. The sound vibrated in my ears and made the beer bottles that littered the floor wobble in reaction.
What the hell?
He was the one who had demanded to see me for me to come here. Of all places and look at what happens as soon as I turn up, he goes sulking off in a huff.
What is wrong with this man?
Realising that he was not going to come back out and seeing the state of the cabin. Empty beer bottles littered the floor along with takeout containers. It was a far cry from what it had been like when I'd last been here. God, how had so much changed since then? How had Ashby become so…broken? This had to be so much more than just me leaving town. It had to be.
Closing the cabin door slowly behind me, I began to clean. What else was I going to do? Picking up all the trash from the floor, wiping down the kitchen, and sweeping all of the floors. Except for his bedroom. It was a good hour or two later, and he still had not come out of his room.
Clutching the letters, I had sent him so long ago. I felt like I was stuck in limbo. How could I hate him when he hadn't ignored those very letters?
Luke had said to me that there was such a fine line between love and hate. I had been telling myself for so long that I hated him. It was a lie. I had and probably always would be in love with this man. In all honesty, I had no idea if I was ever going to get a chance to be with my Ashby again. My Ashby, the one who had made me feel protected. The one who owned my heart. It had only been a few days so many years ago, but those memories of that night. Well, they would be forever in not only my head but also my heart.
Folding the letters up and placing them on the shelf next to his stereo, I found myself pacing.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Over and over again, when suddenly, something glistening behind the old stereo system made me freeze.
Was that…. no.
Stepping closer and grabbing a hold of it, my heart skipped a beat. My snow globe. Unable to stop the smile on my lips, I clutched it against my chest. He had kept it? My most precious possession, and he had kept it, even if he didn't know the history behind it. It was here, with him.
Gently placing it back down in its hiding place, my eyes began to water. He had kept that, knowing that it was mine? I could not stop myself from moving and cracking open his bedroom door. He was passed out, headfirst on the bed. His back was rising and falling with deep breaths.
I wanted to go further into the room, but I couldn't. My eyes darted back to the snow globe hiding back in his lounge. A small smile tugged on my lips before I looked at Ashby's sleeping form once more.
Maybe I should just go back to town?
What use was It being here while he was out cold like this?
Even though he had asked, begged for me to come here, he was going to be passed out for possibly hours. Especially from the looks of just how much beer he had drunk from the empty bottles I had picked up.
Scribbling out a note and leaving it on the counter, I opened the front door, throwing one last glance backward, I left the cabin. With every intention of getting into Luke's red car and driving back home. Home. God, I don't know that last time anywhere had felt like it was home to me, but that is what it felt like living with Claire and Luke. The two may not have been related to me by blood, but they were more like family than my own. There were still things that Claire was hiding from me, and I knew that I had to get her to talk about it but now was not the time. My heart couldn't take much more, even if she suddenly decided she was ready to say those words she was keeping inside.
A small outhouse next to the cabin caught my attention as I pulled the car door open. I had not spotted it when I arrived just a couple of hours ago. I didn't remember it being here last time either. Maybe it had been. We had arrived after the sun had gone down and left after it had set once again the following day.
Looking back at the cabin, I stepped away from the open
car door and walked towards the outhouse. What was in there?
Surprised to find it unlocked after pulling on the door, I was shocked to see boxes and boxes inside of it. What caught my attention the most, though, was his bike. A dust sheet covering it, but without a doubt, that is what was underneath. Why wasn't he riding it anymore? I had so many questions, and he refused to give me anything before. Just like Claire. God.
Pulling the dust sheet off, I just stood there, staring at the matte black Harley Davidson. Memories of driving around with him filled my mind. That was, without a doubt, the only time I could remember being genuinely happy, happy to my very core. Well, and terrified that we were going to crash. He had been the one who had lifted that haze that had been suffocating me, even if it was for the briefest moment in my life.
His helmet was hanging off the handlebar, the one he had placed on my head the first time I had been on his bike. When my mom had been in the school parking lot, belittling me in the only way she could.
Wait, what was that?
It looked like there was a second one was on the other side, hanging from the handlebar. Walking around the bike, my jaw dropped open, and my knees started to almost shake. There indeed hung a second helmet, the same black material, slightly smaller than his. However, this one had cursive writing across the lip on the front 'Peaches,' in the exact color of the word it was spelling.
What the hell?
Lifting it off of the handlebar, I didn't know what to think as I held it in my hands. When did he do this? My eyes just kept reading the one word, every letter over and over again. Peaches.
A scuffle sound made me jump backward, and upon looking at what had caused the noise I was faced with Ashby, just standing there. Blocking the doorway that I had come in through. Fury covered his face when he looked at what I was holding, and as he stormed over to me, I shrank backward.
One, two, three steps.
Until my back was against the wall. There was nowhere else to go. This was the first time I had truly been scared in his presence.
"Is this what you do now? Just walk in anywhere that you please?" Grabbing the helmet out of my hands, he threw it on top of the boxes behind, not taking his blackened eyes off of mine. His breaths were coming harder, angrier by the second, as they fanned my face.
"Stop acting like you don't care, Ashby" The snow globe and the helmet proved that he still cared. There is no way that he would have kept those things if he didn't, right?
"I'm not acting, I do not give a shit what happens, not to me, not anymore."
"Why?" What had happened to him, to the entire biker club after I had left town?
Why would no one tell me a damned thing?
In fact, the only thing I knew that had happened was Claire and Luke's dad dying. And I had only gotten half of that story as it was.
"Ashby?"
"I don't want to talk about it" I was getting frustrated. That seemed to be all anyone had to say to me these days, and it was getting really old.
"No, tell me."
"Daryl…."
"Daryl?"
"Why did you come in here?" he was trying to change the subject.
The fact that I had not heard or seen his uncle since my return, I knew in my gut that he was no longer on this world. Daryl Bronx was dead. What about Marilyn, had she suffered the same fate?
"I don't know," I finally answered after my revelation, and honestly, I didn't know why I had come in here. I just felt like I needed to, it was as if it had been calling me to do just that. Begged me to come inside of it.
"When did you get it?" Pointing at the helmet he had discarded. He couldn't see the personalisation, but I still could. It was shining at me like a beacon. Peaches.
Sucking his teeth, he looked away, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. Finally, breaking our eye contact and giving me a second to catch my breath.
"You need to talk to me, Ashby" my hand moved to touch him but froze mid-air, unsure at his reaction to my physical touch right now. "I'm here, right now, and you might not care about what happens to you, but guess what, I do!"
"Just go back."
Back?
Back where?
To England? That thought alone was enough to make me shrink back for a whole other reason. He needed to know everything. The things that had happened after I stopped writing to him. I had been too scared to write them down. To have those words stare back at me. Or did he mean back to White Church Creek, back to the bar?
"Stop doing that, stop trying to push me away!" Pushing my hands against his hard-taught chest. It was the first time that I had touched him physically since I had come back. Butterflies in my stomach were making it twist and jolt with the electrical current running between our bodies. "You were the one who asked me to come here, today."
"Losing you, losing you, caused me to lose everything, Nala!"
This again?
He meant Daryl, right? He was practically his only family, apart from Harley. I wanted to ask him, but I was worried that if I said his name aloud, he would get angry, more so that it would cause him pain, though. I did not want to be the source of any more pain in this man's life. He didn't deserve that.
Our eyes bored into one another's. Neither willing to give in until the other did. Blue on green eyes so intense, it felt like they were magnetically moving towards one another.
Suddenly he lunged, not in anger but in passion. Our lips crashed together, teeth clinking as he pressed my body flush against his into the wall behind me.
Wrapping a large hand around my throat, his eyes almost looked like they had flames in them as he held himself back. Unlike when this had happened before, he was not gentle with his grip. The pressure against my windpipe caused me to shudder as I tried to take in a full breath. This was not going to be gentle. This was going to be hard and raw and just fucking everything.
"You're like god damned crack, Peaches" his warm breath on my cheek sent shivers erupting over my entire body, "and fuck it if I don't want to be an addict."
Unable to stop the breathless moan as his fingers tightened further around my neck, "Ashby."
"What do you want, Peaches?"
"You"
Smirking down, he didn't say a word. Instead he moved his hand off of my throat, lifting me off the ground in a sudden swoop and pressing me into the wall behind us.
Now at eye level, we just stared at one another, as we both struggled to control our breaths. Part due to the sexual tension and part from the anticipation of being so close together.
"I'm sorry," his voice was almost so quiet of a whisper that I would have missed those words if we hadn't been so close. If it hadn't just been the two of us, here, alone.
"Ashby?"
"Yeah?" Brushing his nose against mine I could almost hear a small smile in his tone.
"Shut up and kiss me."
Lifting one side of his lips he stayed silent, just pressing his hips into mine. Causing a loud moan to escape my own lips at the feeling of his hardness right where I needed it. Where I craved it.
"Now, Ashby"
This time I was the one to kiss him when he took too long to move. It was as though he was savoring the moment, but it was just too damn slow.
Lifting us away from the wall, he groaned as I pressed my body against his, as hard as I could, linking my hands around the back of his neck. Feeling his hardness harden even further only made me groan more into the kiss.
"You're wearing too many clothes," winching slightly as his words mirrored our first time together, here in this very cabin, I found myself thrusting, craving some friction.
"Ashby?"
"Yeah?"
"Bike"
"Bike?"
"On the bike."
Cocking an eyebrow as he broke away from me, he smirked, "Dirty little Peaches, huh?"
"Now, Ashby"
No more words were spoken as he moved us to his matte black Harley Davidson motorcycle that looked like it had not seen the light of d
ay in a very long time. Ashby didn't do what I had expected though, instead of moving to the bike seat, he dropped my ass onto the front wheel. The coolness made an involuntary shriek leave my mouth.
"Now, now," he laughed as he stepped backwards by one step, my hands still on his shoulders to keep balance. "Beautiful," dropping my hands downwards on his chest, I stopped when I reached the hem of his t-shirt. Were we really about to do this? After five years, I was about to have sex with the only man I would ever truly love. My Ashby Bronx. That was who he was right now in this moment. My Ashby was here, and I couldn't stop the few tears that fell.
Peaches: MC Romance (The Unholy Confessions Book 1) Page 18