by A. P. Moraez
“Yeah, sure. Shoot.”
“Well, I was thinking now that you have wheels and all, could you maybe help us bring some boxes down from Hardcliff tomorrow afternoon? It’s just some t-shirts I’ve got to sign for fans; nothing fancy.”
“Fuck, Ash,” Billy replied, sounding apologetic. “I’ve got a dentist appointment scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Actually, I was about to call you to see if you could cover for me an hour or two tomorrow after five. Lauren isn’t too great at the kitchen stuff yet, since she just does drinks.”
“Oh, of course! No problem.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, see you tomorrow, then,” Ash said, ready to end the call. “Imma try to find someone else help us bring the boxes ove—”
“Hey, actually, I just thought of something.”
“Yeah?”
“Leon is having a free week this week. Maybe he could help you guys out with that.”
“Leon? Your boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’d be great.”
There was a smile in Billy’s voice when he said, “Great, then! I’ll talk to him as soon as he gets back from the grocery store. I’ll let you know what he says.”
“Perfect. Thank you, Billy. Really. Sorry to bother you guys.”
“Shut up,” was all the boy said, with a chuckle, before he hung up.
Grinning, Ash left his phone over the bed and made his way downstairs.
Diana was still typing away at her laptop, so Ash decided not to interrupt her.
The guys were piling up all the boxes right in the middle of the foyer. It was a mess.
“Hey,” Logan greeted when he saw Ash standing there, probably sporting the most imbecile grin ever. “You sorted things out with Billy?”
“Yeah. I mean, kinda.”
Logan lifted an eyebrow, inquisitive.
“He can’t actually help us tomorrow himself, but he’s gonna ask his boyfriend if he can.” Ash wasn’t even ashamed for jumping a little on the balls of his feet. “Isn’t that cool? We can finally meet the mystery guy.”
“Oh,” Logan said, surprised. “Yeah, sure. That’s great. It’s actually weird that we haven’t met him yet, isn’t it?”
Ash shrugged. “Some people are just more… private.”
Logan gave a shrug of his own and made to go outside, probably to collect more boxes.
He whirled around and looked over his shoulder when Ash shot, “The flip side is that I won’t be able to go with you guys tomorrow. Billy asked me to cover for him in the afternoon because he has to go to the dentist.”
“That’s fine,” Logan said, already twisting his neck back and moving to the front door. “It’s actually better that you don’t go. They’re saying the storm is gonna hit tomorrow night. I don’t want you outside in weather like that.”
“YOU KNOW,” DIANA started, and when Ash lifted his eyes from his dinner, she was looking directly at him, “I just don’t get the guy.”
“Who?” Ash asked as he munched down the forkful of salmon and quinoa.
“Leo.” She paused to take a sip of white wine from an expensive bottle Logan had popped open for the special occasion of having his friend visit. At the mention of his name, Ash’s stomach tightened. Logan had explained to her what their situation was when she’d demanded an explanation as to why she couldn’t visit them sooner. Maybe not in as many details as she’d probably have liked, but she knew more than Ash would’ve liked. Leo’s name, for instance. “I mean — and no shade, but — why hasn’t he just killed you already?”
Duke choked on his food right when Ian dropped his fork with a noisy clatter onto the porcelain plate.
“Diana!” Logan chastised, throwing daggers at her.
“What?” she defended herself, all innocence. “It’s an honest question.” To Ash, she continued, “This has been going on for months now, if we count from when he allegedly burned your house down. Why wait for so long? Actually, what is he waiting for?”
The whole kitchen had gone silent, dominated only by the howling wind outside, which was so strong it penetrated the double A frame’s thick walls.
Ash just studied Diana for a long moment. Something had been brewing and clearly about to burst the whole day. She’d been too agreeable all day, bathing him with tight little smiles, all while she’d been tuned to his every move. Body tight, words few. She didn’t seem to be trying to be a bitch, though, even though the way she spoke and her posture screamed arrogance and disdain as much as it reflected real interest. In the end, Ash cleared his throat and threw Logan a calming smile, before he answered, “It’s just the way he’s always been. He likes playing with his targets; likes to make them go crazy with fear before he gets to them. He’s always been like that.”
“So you know him?”
“Logan didn’t tell you?”
The platinum blond threw Logan a side-glance. “No. He didn’t tell me much.”
“Maybe he did that for a reason.”
She narrowed her penetrating brown eyes at him for a moment, then a plastic smile adorned her face. “Sorry. I was just trying to understand what kind of shit you pulled my best friend into.”
“Diana,” Logan barked again, cheeks being covered by those red splotches Ash knew so well. They always came out to play when Logan’s temper flared.
“Oh, come on, Logan.” She rolled her eyes and settled her wine glass down. “You’re having to come and go surrounded by more security than in any Hollywood event we’ve ever been to.”
Ash unclenched his fists. “You’re right,” he said, “I did pull Logan into a dangerous situation. Not only him, but all those close to me.”
She seemed shocked that he’d had the balls to admit that to her and all those around the table. She studied him in silence for a second, before lifting a bite of salmon to her mouth. “How?” she asked after she swallowed it.
“Ash, you don’t have to answer th—”
“The short version is that Leo and I were close in the past.” Ash brought another forkful of the delicious, smoky fish to his mouth and started chewing, eyes determinedly fixated on Diana’s, so she’d get the message. It was rude, but whatever. He was tired of trying to be polite and civil to that woman today. “He was my boss, of sorts. I found out he was sicker in the head than I’d thought after he shot my friend in the head, so I broke his daughter’s neck, burned his multi-million dollar mansion down, and left him for dead in the fire after shooting him two or three times. Now he wants my head, but wants to kill the people I love first to make me pay.” He threw her a sardonic smile, salmon turning his right cheek into a ball. “Satisfied?”
Diana’s jaw was hanging open, and a weird sense of dark satisfaction ran through Ash’s system for having managed to wipe that constant bored, unimpressed, plastic expression off her pretty ice-queen face. He risked a glance around the table. Everyone had their mouths hanging slightly open, plates forgotten. After a few moments, though, Diana’s mouth slowly morphed into a dubious smile and she turned her gaze slightly to Logan, practically without moving her head. “Is it true? What he just said?”
Logan cleared his throat and locked his jaw, then he nodded once.
And then the most unexpected thing happened: Diana’s little smile morphed into a grin and she threw her head back, lost in a fit of laughter so intense it even managed to dishevel her perfectly straight hair for once.
Everybody stared at her in shook through the several seconds it took her to regain her composure.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, coughing a little, such was her estate. Then she grabbed her glass of wine and gulped the remains down, right before she fixed her eyes on Ash again. “I just wasn’t expecting that.” She paused, tilting her head slightly to the side. “Maybe I can find it in me to respect you after all. A little.”
“Diana,” Logan rumbled, “The fuck is wrong with you?”
“What?” she replied. “I told you. He always seemed so fucking vanilla to me.”<
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Then she turned her gaze back to Ash and declared, “I don’t do boring people.”
Ash didn’t know what to say. Either the woman was crazy or she had a death wish to file a situation where her best friend’s boyfriend — who she’d just found out was a criminal — had a psycho breathing down his neck under the okay-because-he’s-not-boring category.
Diana ignored the awkwardness she herself had caused and just smiled at him — and, swear to God, it looked genuine for the very first time —, eyes glinting under the fluorescents, and resumed eating, like nothing at all had happened.
As she dove in into her plate, Ash scanned the room. Ian and Duke were sharing a look that screamed that woman is crazy and Logan was studying Ash with concerned eyes.
Suffice to say, a lot of salmon and quinoa were left untouched that night.
THE NEXT MORNING, the first thing Ash noticed when he opened his eyes was Logan’s absence. His side of the bed was cold, like he’d been gone for a while.
Ash groaned and jumped from the bed, instantly wincing as the shock of the cold in the room made his whole body quiver. He lost his balance and had to prop his right hand on the bed so he wouldn’t fall; he’d probably gotten up a bit too quickly. He failed on his first attempt to shove his feet onto the slippers, but got it in the second and third ones.
After making his way to the closet and grabbing one of Logan’s thick robes, he wrapped it all around himself and made it out of their bedroom.
It was too early, maybe half past eight.
Voices came from his right.
Logan and Diana.
Were they at the gym? God, it was too freaking early to even think of exercising, but it wasn’t past Logan to do a full set even earlier in the day. Those muscles of his didn’t come for free.
After what seemed like hours on his sluggish feet, Ash got to the glass doors that led to the in-house gym. No one was inside.
The voices were coming from a bit further down the corridor.
Ash followed them and finally captured Logan’s and Diana’s silhouettes filling a doorway of a room that, now that he thought of it, he hadn’t been to yet. He’d tried to open that door a few times over the last few months, but it’d always seemed to be locked. It’d just slipped off his mind.
“’Morning,” Ash grumbled as he got to a few feet from them.
Both Logan and Diana practically jumped into the air and turned to him with alarmed faces.
“Baby,” Logan said, throwing weird looks at the woman, “what you doing up so early? It’s barely eight.”
Ash shrugged. “I woke up and you weren’t in bed.”
Logan threw Diana another weird-ass look. She had a yellow little smile of her own and couldn’t stop her eyes from jumping from Logan to Ash, as if she was nervous.
Logan took a step back and brought Ash to his chest. “I was just showing Diana something.”
“What?”
Logan sighed heavily against the top of his head. “It was gonna be a surprise, but since you’re here…” He turned Ash toward the doorway, and Diana took a step outside so that they could enter.
Logan led him forward, arm wrapped around his waist.
Ash’s heart missed a beat and he gasped.
It was a massive room, practically the size of their bedroom. And Logan had transformed it into a home-studio. A freaking professional recording studio.
Ash entered the place with hesitant steps and let his fingers fly, shivering, over the control panels. Let himself see his reflection on the probably sound-proof glass separating the control room from the recording room.
It was perfect.
He turned to Logan with eyes brimming with tears.
When would the man just stop being the sweetest guy ever? When?
Logan’d been at the door, thick arms folded over his chest, but when Ash turned to face him, he dropped his arms to his sides and asked, “What do you think? I was just showing it to Diana; seeing if she has some input for decorations and stuff. I’m not too good at that stuff.”
Ash couldn’t believe it. He just shook his head and brought both hands to his face, turning around in circles so that he could take everything in again.
“It’s… it’s awesome.” He was facing Logan again. “When’d you do this? I didn’t see anything.”
Logan’s face stretched into a broad grin. “It was hard doing everything behind your back. The guys helped. Ian and Duke and Henry, mostly. We took turns inspecting the people setting everything up the way I wanted when you were away in Denver for your recording sessions.”
Ash shook his head, dumbfounded. “You’re impossible.”
Logan cut the distance separating them and wrapped both arms around him.
“Uh, guys… I think I’m gonna head down to breakfast,” came Diana’s words from back there in the corridor. They both ignored her, lost in each other’s eyes.
“I just thought it’d be cool if you didn’t have to leave for Wicked Wish every time you needed to record something,” Logan said in a half-whisper. “I don’t like having you flying around like that. It makes me anxious.” With every word leaving that stupidly tempting mouth of his, Ash’s heart swelled more and more. At his continued silence, Logan brought his right hand to rest over the column of Ash’s neck; over his beauty mark. “You really liked it?” he asked, sounding all vulnerable and hesitant.
“Logan Bishop,” Ash whispered, lips trembling, “you’re an asshole and an idiot and I love you.”
And then it was good that Diana had fled downstairs to have breakfast, because she surely wouldn’t have liked to see them going at it against the locked door.
LOGAN AND DIANA had been locked in Logan’s office for close to two hours now. She’d shown Logan about five scripts yesterday and he’d gone through them with an open mind, like Ash had asked. Maybe something about getting a late-night thorough blowjob had gone nicely to open his mind a little. Whoever struck gold by having Logan accept being part of their movie in the next few weeks would certainly have Ash’s awesome blowjob skills to thank for — partially, at least.
Ash snorted to himself as he closed his eyes and let his fingers roam the neck of the guitar. He was feeling like practicing and the guys were excited to get to see him play, especially Henry, who’d been a recent addition to the close-knit group that spent more time around him. All of them had spent most of the morning signing shirts and organizing them by size back into the boxes. And by that Ash meant that he’d worn out his wrist from signing his name so much, while the other guys — Logan included — relaxed in front of the TV watching a game, and Diana steered clear of all of them, typing stuff away in her laptop. They’d managed to finish up thirteen of the two dozen boxes, and Ash was feeling good about accomplishing so much in just a few hours, even if had been tedious work. Now he let his fingers roam through the strings as he started to sing the lyrics that had turned familiar through the last few months. It was risky. It was a surprise. Nobody knew that the lulling melody that gradually turned into more of a rock song was gonna be the album title. No one knew it was special, because it was about his and Logan’s journey; everything he’d gone through to get the love of his life back. The strength he’d needed to listen and accept and heal. Ash kept his eyes close as his fingers strummed through the strings and he sang from the bottom of his heart; about lies and hurt and pain. About running away and hitting walls. About nightmares and flashes of blue that mocked and comforted and how he was left with scars. At some point, both his forearms did their familiar warming-freezing all over thing, and Ash ended up missing a note in the guitar, such was his surprise. It was weird how the markings seemed to choose the most random moments to make themselves noticed. He chose to ignore them, though, and kept singing, pouring his whole being into his performance, even if it were just for a close group of friends sitting in his living room.
When he opened his eyes, in addition to Duke, Ian, and Henry, Logan and Diana were silently watching him from the lef
t, at the bottom of the stairs that faced the sectional. They’d probably finished their meeting and came down to find him like this.
All of them started applauding and sheering, and Logan was looking at him with the very sapphires he’d mentioned in that song. And now he knew what the metaphor meant. He knew what the lyrics meant. The intensity in his eyes was too much for Ash to keep looking at, so he bowed to his minuscule audience and laughed with them, never missing how Diana tried her best to wipe her eyes without letting anyone notice. And Ash patted himself on the back mentally, because if he’d gotten the mighty icy-queen to feel enough to cry with that song, it just had to be good.
“Alright, people,” Ash said as he rose from the fluffy rug and put his guitar away, back on its case. “I’m craving something sweet.” He turned to the men. Diana and Logan were still there at the bottom of the stairs, looking at him as if he were some sort of alien. “I was thinking about making some cupcakes. What d’you guys think?”
“Fuck yeah!” Henry got to his feet immediately, and Ash laughed. He’d learned through the last few weeks the guy had a bit of a sweet tooth. “I wanna help.”
“I wanna help too,” Logan declared as he finally jolted out of inertia and came to stand at Ash’s side.
“Right, then. Let’s get to it.” Ash turned and led the way to the kitchen.
Ash sauntered to the pantry, at the back of the ample kitchen, and deliberately pulled the box of strawberry cupcake mix out of hiding.
He turned around and walked back to the counter, leaving the box in plain sight as the others arranged themselves around the island, ready to help. He didn’t know what surprised him more: that Duke and Ian had decided to come too, or that Diana had. His eyes settled on Logan and Ash had to chew the inside of his cheek to keep his expression under control. Logan was glaring at the box of cupcake mix as if it had killed his puppy.
Saddened sapphires locked with Ash’s eyes and Logan was pouting and it was the most adorable thing. “We only have strawberry left?”
Ash nodded, doing his best to keep his expression serious. It lasted about five seconds; then he burst out laughing and went back to the pantry and collected one of the lemon mix ones he’d bought just for Logan.