When Ashes Fall

by Marni Mann

  We figured it out.

  No matter what that looked like.

  Therefore, she knew my answer before I said, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll let the airport know.”

  I put the phone into my jacket and reached into my back pocket for my wallet. I took out three one-hundred-dollar bills, knowing that was more than enough to cover everything we had ordered, and set them on the table. “I have to go.”

  “What? Seriously?”

  I got up from the table and moved around to her chair. I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “Stay. Enjoy yourself. Eat your meal … and mine. If you want. It was nice meeting you …” I stopped and cleared my throat, trying to remember her name. It didn’t come to me, and I had nothing left to say, so I walked away.

  But I didn’t leave the restaurant.

  I went to Alix’s table, stood right at her side, and put my back toward my date. “Excuse me,” I said.

  Rose was already looking at me.

  Not Alix.

  I had to wait for her to slowly turn to me, her gaze gradually lifting until it reached my face. “Hi.”

  “I want to give you something.”

  She smiled out of nervousness. “Okay.”

  “Give me your hand.”

  “She’s not giving you anything until I know what this is about,” Rose said.

  The dynamics of their friendship were defined in that moment.

  So were their personalities.

  I glanced at Rose. “What I’m about to give her isn’t going to hurt her.”

  “I don’t know that.”

  I reached into my back pocket again, took out my wallet, and gave it to her. “You have everything in there—my ID, pilot’s license, credit cards, debit card, and over a thousand in cash. If something happens to her, you can hand it over to the police. Except for the cash; you keep that.”

  She looked up from her palm where it was all resting and eventually said, “Fair enough.”

  My stare returned to Alix. “Please give me your hand.”

  She lifted it off her lap, and as it moved through the air, I caught it and flipped her hand around. As I held her palm face up, I took a pen out of my jacket and pressed it against her skin, running the tip length-wise.

  When I finally released her, she looked at it to see what I had written. “Your phone number?”

  I nodded.

  “You could have typed it into my cell.”

  “That’s too impersonal.”

  “And writing on my hand isn’t?”

  Out of all the questions, she’d asked that one.

  “I got to touch you,” I said, my tongue circling the corner of my lip from the memory of what she had felt like. “And then I got to watch and feel the way you responded to me.”

  She searched my eyes, her cheeks beginning to redden. “I could be married.”

  I didn’t care if she was.

  That was how strongly I felt for this girl after being in her presence for only a minute.

  “Then, don’t call me. Or do. The decision is up to you.”

  When I took a few steps toward Rose, Alix said, “Where are you going?”

  I waited for Rose to put my wallet on top of my hand before I said, “The airport. I have a plane to fly.”

  “You’re a pilot.” She didn’t say it as though she were questioning me. She said it like she was storing the information, cementing it in her brain even though this was the second time I’d told her.

  “I’m many things,” I answered, and then I left the restaurant.

  Thirty-eight minutes later, I was in the air.

  Three

  Alix

  Present Day

  My townhouse was only six blocks from the restaurant—too close to get a car service, just far enough away to fill my body with fresh air. So, after having dinner with Rose, I walked home, taking in the smells and sounds and sights of the city.

  Boston was never quiet.

  I appreciated that.

  Silence was like moisture; it created an environment that allowed things to grow. Fester. Eat into the walls and foundation.

  I didn’t want to give my thoughts that kind of space and freedom inside my brain. I knew they’d never go away, but I wanted them to stay dormant for the rest of my life.

  Therefore, I preferred the loudness, especially when it seeped through the windows of my brownstone and padded the rooms with noise.

  There seemed to be an extra dose of it this evening, which excited me as I continued to head home. When I turned onto my block, my speed increased, and I hurried up the five steps.

  I unlocked the door.

  Keys were placed in a bowl on a table in the entryway, and I set my bag on the closest barstool in the kitchen.

  There was a note from Dylan on the counter.

  I smiled as I read it and grabbed the bottle of red that was next to it. When my eyes landed on the last word, I filled a glass and carried it into the bedroom.

  My jewelry was dumped in a drawer on the right side of the closet, my clothes in the hamper, my shoes wherever they landed on the floor.

  Without stopping in the bathroom to brush my teeth or wash off my makeup, I brought the wine over to the bed, and I climbed in. Once I was settled, I reached toward the tablet on the nightstand, pressing the button that flipped off the lights and another that turned on the TV.

  HGTV.

  That was all I ever watched.

  While I was still sitting up, I took a few sips of wine, my lower body sinking into the mattress, my muscles slowly starting to relax. Once the feeling moved toward my center, I set the glass next to the tablet and slid until my head was nestled into the fluffy down of the pillow.

  I tugged the blanket up to my neck, and the warmth of the wine began to move to my face.

  My eyes closed.

  I rolled onto my stomach, the coolness of the top sheet now resting over my bare ass.

  Just as I was hugging a pillow against my side, I heard him.

  I smiled again.

  And then I exhaled a long, deep sigh. “I’ve missed you, Dylan,” I whispered.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  He was here.

  With me.

  That was the only thing I wanted.

  “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he added.

  That made me shiver.

  Even harder.

  I felt movement, and the blanket shifted. Then, suddenly, he was on top of me.

  His smell.

  His touch.

  His presence.

  I loved all of it.

  While I stayed on my stomach, his mouth traveled down my back, peppering my spine with kisses. It forced my lips to spread almost as wide as my legs.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful, Alix.”

  Oh God.

  My arm shot out from under the pillow, and it feathered down the front of me until two of my fingertips were pressed against my clit. “I want you,” I moaned.

  My hips shifted higher to give him more access, his tip easily finding my wetness.

  He growled in my ear, and then I heard, “You’re going to get all of me.”

  I swallowed.

  And then I gasped as his long thickness thrust deep inside me.

  It was perfection.

  So was the sensation that consumed my entire body, the tingles that spread to each of my limbs.

  Emotion burned my chest.

  And, with each stroke, my pussy pulsed even more.

  “I love you,” I breathed.

  It was true.

  I loved him more than anything in this entire world.

  He knew that.

  I constantly told him.

  “I love you, too, Alix.”

  He always made his feelings extremely clear, and they were as strong as mine.

  The prickling in my navel moved higher, the pulsing in my clit began to really throb.

  My hair was pulled, and my face came ou
t of the pillow; warm air surrounded it, and I felt his kisses on my neck and along my shoulder and all the way up my cheek.

  It wasn’t just the intimacy I craved.

  It was the affection, too.

  And the build.

  I was there.

  So close.

  I tilted my hips up, rocking them back and forth as the orgasm began to burst through me. “Dylan!” I shouted.

  “Come for me.”

  His demand was so incredibly sexy.

  And it was what I needed to take me over that final edge.

  While I moaned his name, his strokes turned even deeper and harder than before, and then he switched to short plunges until everything inside me and around me went completely still.

  “Your pussy will always be mine,” I heard him say before he slid out.

  My hair was released, my face slowly pressed into the pillow.

  “Yours,” I uttered so softly.

  His warmth moved across my back once again before the blanket was tucked over me, and I heard, “Good night, Alix,” spoken in his low, growly voice.

  I felt his hand surround mine.

  My eyes remained shut.

  I took a breath.

  And I whispered, “I’m so happy you came home tonight,” before I fell asleep.

  Light from the open blinds trickled into the bedroom, shining directly on my face, waking me from the deepest of sleep. As my eyes opened, the sun burned my lids, so I quickly shielded them with the back of my hand.

  I was still on my stomach.

  I’d slept all night in the same position.

  Rotating to my back, I gradually let in more of the light until I could keep both eyes open.

  The first thing I saw was the empty spot beside me on the bed.

  A coldness slipped inside my body.

  I lifted the blanket, pulled it over my head, and tucked myself in a ball.

  I hugged two pillows against my chest.

  I squeezed them with all my strength.

  My face dropped into the top of one.

  My mouth opened.

  I filled my lungs.

  My jaw widened as far as it would go.

  My eyes squinted shut.

  And then I screamed.

  This one didn’t have any sound.

  This one was silent.

  Still, my body shook as it all came out of me.

  And it continued until there wasn’t any air left.

  That was when I stilled.

  When I shut my mouth.

  When I waited for something to happen.

  When I waited to feel different.

  But nothing happened.

  Nothing felt different.

  So, I peeked out of the comforter to reach the tablet, hitting the button that would close the blinds. Once they were drawn, I wrapped the blanket over the top of my head.

  I was in complete darkness.

  That was where I belonged.

  And that was where I stayed.

  Four

  Alix

  Present Day

  Unknown: Hey, it’s Peter. I work with Rose. Hopefully, she told you I’d be reaching out.

  Me: Hi, Peter. Yes, she told me.

  Peter: Are you free this weekend? Maybe we could do dinner or something?

  Me: Yeah, that works.

  Peter: How about Madison’s? Saturday at 8:00?

  Me: I’ll see you there.

  Five

  Dylan

  Three Years and One Month Ago

  She’d called.

  It had taken her three weeks and two days, but at last, she’d finally reached out.

  It’d happened just as I was stepping out of a meeting with a company that was trying to sell me leather. It would be used to reupholster the seats and couches for my entire fleet of planes.

  All forty-three of them.

  I was a few paces past the conference room on the way to my office when my cell rang. The screen showed a number that began with Maine’s only area code.

  I shut my door, held the phone to my ear, and said, “Dylan Cole.”

  “So, that’s your name.”

  I smiled as I walked to my desk.

  I received over fifty calls a day.

  But, before I’d answered, something had told me it was her—a woman whose name I still didn’t know.

  “Now that you know mine, what’s yours?”

  “Alix Rayne.”

  Alix.

  I liked the sound of that.

  I also liked how sexy her voice was on the phone.

  “You don’t do anything on a whim, do you, Alix?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  I waved off my assistant as she popped her head in, and I swiveled the chair around to face the wall of windows. “Most people send a text the next day, two days max. Or they scrub off the ink with no intention of ever calling. But they don’t usually keep the number and wait three weeks to use it.”

  “I was moving. That’s why I didn’t phone you sooner.”

  I grabbed a stress ball off my desk. I threw it into the air, caught it, and tossed it right back up. “My best friend owns a moving company. I could have had you relocated and unpacked within a few hours.”

  “I wouldn’t have accepted your offer, Dylan. My roommates and I are more than capable of handling it.”

  I shifted in my seat as the ball went wide to the left, and I threw it high. “It sounds like you have more than one.”

  “I have three.”

  “Three?” I said, laughing.

  I hadn’t lived with that many people since college, and that was ten years ago.

  I wasn’t sure how old Alix was. I guessed mid-twenties, which meant she should be well past the sorority stage of her life.

  “Two of the guys at the station were looking for roommates. Rose and I were, too, so we moved in with them.”

  “Rose is?”

  “The girl I was eating dinner with the night I met you.”

  Now, I was just intrigued.

  “And what station are you referring to?”

  “Engine thirty-three, ladder fifteen—the firehouse on Boylston Street.”

  Since I hadn’t known her name until a few seconds ago, I hadn’t been able to look Alix up, so I didn’t know anything about her.

  Now that I was getting a taste, I wanted more.

  “Do you work there?”

  “Yes, I’m a paramedic.”

  A marketing executive, a real estate agent, the owner of an art gallery, I could picture. But Alix dressed in a uniform, straddling someone on a gurney while performing CPR, I could not.

  That didn’t mean I hated the image in my mind.

  I liked it.

  A hell of a lot.

  She was a first responder, and there wasn’t anything more honorable than that.

  Especially in a city as challenging as Boston.

  “I’m impressed,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Tell me something, Alix. Why would a woman like yourself have three roommates?”

  “Like myself?”

  I rolled the ball over the armrest of the chair. “Strong, independent. Fearless.”

  She stayed quiet for a few seconds before she said, “My parents feel more comfortable when I live in a building that has a doorman. They’ve spent their whole lives in innocent ole Maine. The thought of me being in this big city terrifies them. And that’s where my place has to be located because it’s one of my job requirements. With those two expensive necessities, I’d be rent poor if I didn’t have roommates.”

  I knew what city employees made.

  My mother was one.

  So, I understood Alix’s situation.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “You mean, right this second?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m walking out of the firehouse, heading home.”

  I’d lived in Boston my entire life, so I knew the general area of where that firehous
e was located. I just didn’t know the cross street. “How far are you from Back Bay Station?”

  “Maybe seven blocks or so.”

  “When you get there, take the orange line to Downtown Crossing. I’ll be there when you walk outside.”

  “Wait. You want me to get on the train to meet you? Now?”

  I looked at my computer, clicking on the calendar to bring up my schedule. It showed I had four more meetings today, one that started in fifteen minutes. Two of them were conference calls with the West Coast office, and in an hour, one was with the pilot who had received a one-month suspension for showing up drunk to the airport.

  “Do it on a whim, Alix.”

  Several seconds passed before she said, “Okay, I’ll see you there.”

  Six

  Alix

  Present Day

  Madison’s, the restaurant where I was meeting Peter, was only a few blocks from my townhouse, making it easy to walk there. As I put on my jacket, I wondered what Rose had told him about me and if he’d chosen to eat there because of how close it was to my place.

  I had to ask her.

  We were overdue for a chat anyway. I was supposed to call her when I got home from work today, but I had been too busy, getting ready.

  So, once I shut the front door behind me, carefully walking down the steps, I took out my cell and pressed her name in my Contacts.

  She answered after the first ring and said, “Girl, I was giving you five more minutes before I called you and chewed your ass out. You’re going on a date tonight. How can we not talk first?”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re forgiven.”

  I laughed. “I need to clarify something really quick. This is not a date.”

  “What is it then?”

  I thought about her question, trying to come up with the answer that had caused me to put on several different outfits before I settled on this one and spent a little extra time doing my makeup.

  The truth was, “I honestly don’t know.”

  “It doesn’t need a label. You’re going out; let’s leave it at that. Tell me what you’re wearing.”