by Lisa De Jong
“It’s almost noon,” I reply, pressing a light kiss to his chest.
“Don’t you have to work today?”
“Well, if I did, I would be in some trouble now, wouldn’t I?” I tease, resting my chin against his chest.
“Yeah, you would. And Kate isn’t one to get herself in trouble, now is she?”
The room goes quiet as I focus on the light stubble that’s starting to show on his chin. I’ve gotten myself into trouble before . . . more than enough trouble. The worst kind of trouble.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know. I just hate that my mind wants to go there all the time,” I say, trying to get my mouth to turn up in the corners. Asher would never intentionally hurt me. Not physically. Not emotionally. I seek peace in that every single day.
“Hey, focus on me. Not all of that,” he whispers, cradling my face in his left hand.
“I’m trying,” I say, leaning into his touch.
“Maybe I can help you with that,” he says, flipping me onto my back. Our bodies are still naked from last night’s activities, and when he rests his hips on mine, desire runs through my veins from the contact. I’ve had a taste of what being with Asher is like, and now I’m addicted. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of him and the way his skin feels against mine.
First, he makes love to me slowly with his hands, running them from ankle to thigh. His fingertips trail my skin, paying special attention to the sensitive area between my legs, not halting until they’ve lapped circles around my belly button. When his lips touch the base of my neck, I wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull his chest against mine. I don’t think he realizes that I’m the lucky one in this situation. I’m the one who was saved by a man who blew into my life like a storm.
He starts to roll off me, but I grab his arm, halting him in place. “Where are you going?”
“I need to grab something out of the drawer,” he smiles, running his thumb over my cheekbone.
“I’m on the pill,” I blurt, keeping hold of his arm.
The smile falls from his face but his eyes never leave mine. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I ease my grip on his arm, and he rests his hands on my hips as he slowly eases into me. This time I focus on the feel of him, the way he fills me so completely. When he kisses down my jawline, I take the opportunity to shut my eyes and let the sensations take over. It’s the most incredible feeling in the world, and, this time my body works toward the edge of that cliff all on its own. My back arches as my body clenches around him.
“Open your eyes. I need to see your eyes,” he says, trailing his fingers between my breasts. When I open them, I see the shaded blue in his eyes staring down at me.
“Asher . . .”
“Kate,” he groans, thrusting into me a little bit harder.
“I love you,” I breathe as he lets himself go inside of me. His body convulses over and over before going completely still. I wonder if I’ve said it too soon but in the moment, being lost in him, that’s exactly what I feel. I’ve felt it for a long time but held it all in, too scared to say it out loud.
“Kate,” he says, opening and closing his mouth a couple times, trying to catch his breath.
I shake my head, nervously looking at the ceiling. “You don’t have to say anything. I just needed you to know.”
“You have a very large piece of my heart. I’ve never felt this way about anyone, so I don’t want you to think that I don’t care about you just because I can’t say it right now.” His fingers stroke my cheeks and I instinctively close my eyes. Asher isn’t the first guy I’ve loved, but I know how confusing those feelings can be. When you open your heart to love, you’re also exposing it to pain. Pain from love is the worst kind of agony. I felt it when I broke Beau’s heart, and I hope I never have to go down that road again.
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to hide the disappointment from my voice. His words mean a lot to me, but they don’t erase the negative feelings that are boiling over the surface.
“I like you a lot. Like a whole lot,” he teases, rubbing his nose against mine.
“I guess I like you a lot too,” I tease back, letting my fingers curl into his hair. His blonde locks are way more out of control than they usually are after a night of sleep and two love sessions between the sheets. It suits his wild, uncontrollable side.
“I need to use the restroom. Don’t go anywhere,” he says, walking his firm naked backside toward the hallway.
I rest my hands behind my head and stare up at the popcorn ceiling that covers the old lake house. It’s nothing like my water stained one back home, but it gives me something new to focus on. Instead of drifting to the usual thoughts, I replay the events of last night and this morning. Everything feels just as good as it can possibly be right now.
New ceiling.
New memories.
New me.
I hear the front door slam, and it jolts me away from my new internal paradise. “Asher, are you here?” a deep male voice yells.
Asher comes flying out of the bathroom and opens one of his dresser drawers, pulling out a pair of grey sweat pants and quickly putting them on. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He walks toward the door turning back to me as soon as his hand covers the knob. “You might want to put some clothes on . . . just in case.”
He doesn’t give me a second to ask him any questions. He just walks out of his bedroom door, quietly shutting it behind him. I nervously pull on my clothes from the night before and tiptoe to the bathroom, combing my fingers through my tousled hair.
When I open the bathroom door, I hear Asher yelling. I know I shouldn’t eavesdrop, but I can’t help it, I hate hearing him so upset.
I close the door until it’s only open a crack and lean my ear against it. “Will you just back off! This is my life! Not yours!” Asher yells. The pain in his voice is palpable. Everything inside is screaming at me to run out there and comfort him, but I know he can take care of things himself. I’ve seen him do it before.
“It’s her life too. You haven’t even told her yet, have you?” his father yells back. I recognize his voice from the couple of times I’ve met him; he is not happy.
“I can’t. I just want to fucking be with her. Telling her would ruin everything,” Asher replies so quietly that I can barely hear him. My lungs feel like they are being crushed inside my chest. This is déjà vu of the first conversation I heard between him and his dad, and this time I don’t think I’m going to be able to just sit back and pretend I’m not hearing this. Asher will probably see the worry on my face the minute he looks at me.
“It’s going to hurt her even more if you wait. Is that what you want, Asher?”
“You didn’t give a shit about me when I was growing up! Now you choose to start caring about what I’m doing with my life?” Asher screams. I hear loud footsteps on the hardwood floors and quickly shut the door, leaning my back against it.
My heart pounds fast against my ribs as my mind races, trying to figure out what to do next. Should I stay in here and pretend I didn’t hear a thing? Should I walk into his room and confront him about whatever this secret is he’s keeping?
When I hear his bedroom door slam, I jump and squeeze my eyes shut. Maybe this isn’t the right time to confront him. Maybe I should wait until tomorrow after he’s had time to cool down.
I haven’t learned everything there is to know about Asher, and when I think about what could be worse than carrying the guilt of Megan’s death around with him every day, I feel sick to my stomach. I slowly open the bathroom door and glance down both sides of the hallway to make sure no one is around before I cross the hall to Asher’s room. As I open the door, I see him sitting on the side of his bed with his elbows resting on his knees and his forehead tucked into his hands. He looks absolutely destroyed.
I close the door waiting for him to look up and acknowledge me, but it doesn’t happen. I’ve al
lowed him to be there for me time and time again, and it bothers me that he won’t let me help him through this when he obviously needs me too.
I sit beside him on the bed and hesitantly massage his back. He turns to me with sad, red eyes and winces before letting his shoulders relax. He doesn’t want me to see him like this, he never does, but I’m not going to leave him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head in sad silence without even looking at me. I sit equally as quiet as I wrestle with the range of emotions that are going through me. I want to be there for him, but I can’t escape the sinking feeling in my stomach that whatever he’s keeping from me could shatter my world into a million pieces. A voice inside of my head is yelling for me to run before he has a chance to tell me . . . maybe it would be better if I just didn’t know. Is it possible that he has someone else in his life that he isn’t telling me about? Is he planning on leaving soon? Everything I come up with in my mind scares me to death, and I need some time to sort it all out in my head.
“I’m going to head home. My mom is probably worried about me,” I announce, standing up in front of him.
I wait, but all I’m given is utter silence; deafening silence that makes my anxiety grows even more. I pinch my eyes shut and turn to move toward the door.
His hand envelopes mine, stopping me in my tracks. “Kate,” he whispers.
“Yeah?” My voice is meek, just a hair above a whisper.
“Thank you for last night. It meant as much to me as it did to you,” he says, smiling sadly as he stands in front of me. He lifts my chin with his finger and presses his lips to mine. Whenever Asher kisses me, I feel warmth and contentment working through my whole body, but this time . . . it simply feels like goodbye. His lips linger on mine like a storm cloud on a rainy day. He pulls away, and then leans toward me one more time, running his nose along my neck to breathe me in. When he lifts his head, I start walking toward the door again, leaving my hand clasped in his until they can no longer touch, then slip out of the room, letting a few tears fall from my eyes. How can one of the best nights of my life end so abruptly like this?
As I move through the house, I spot his dad sitting on the couch in the same position Asher was in on the bed. There are two wounded men in this house, and somehow I’m the cause of it all. The more I think about it, the more it upsets me because I feel like I’ve been dragged into something that has nothing to do with me, but also everything to do with me.
My drive home is quiet with the exception of all of the uncontrollable sobs that roar through my entire body. As I pull into the driveway, the tears blur my vision before pouring down my face. I lost myself. I lost Beau. And now I feel like I’m losing Asher too. The world is always working in the opposite direction from where I am.
If only I could figure out what I’m being punished for.
When I walk through the front door of my house, I know without a shadow of a doubt that my day is not going to get any better. My mom shoots up from her chair at the kitchen table and practically runs toward me, gripping my wrists in her hands. “Dammit, Kate, you can’t do stuff like this to me! Where have you been? I tried to call you. I texted you at least twenty times!” she yells, swinging my arms out to get a better look at me. Her swollen eyes are like a sword to my heart. I don’t want to hurt my mom. She doesn’t deserve my anger because she isn’t the cause of it.
“I was with Asher,” I whisper, focusing on the empty coffee pot that sits on the table in front of her chair. If I look at her somber expression much longer, I’m going to lose it.
“Well, next time you decide to stay out all night, can you at least have the decency to call me and let me know that you’re all right?”
“I don’t think there will ever be a next time,” I mumble as my lower lip starts to tremble.
She places her palm against my cheek, forcing me to look at her. “Did he hurt you?”
“No. It’s been a rough morning, that’s all.” She lets go of me and tucks some loose hair behind my ear. “I’m going to go to my room now. I’m really tired.”
She nods, lowering her hands to her side as I walk by. I’m halfway down the hall when she yells behind me, “By the way, don’t forget it’s Beau’s birthday. Maybe if you give him a call, he can make you feel better.”
I keep walking, not because I don’t care, but because I’m close to completely falling apart. I want to disappear behind my closed door for days. I want to lie on my back and stare at the familiar stains on my ceiling and replay how Asher made me feel last night and this morning.
Ever since Asher walked into my life, he’s been living in the forever space in my head. I’ve known since that day in the rain that I always want him in my life. I want him to walk with me through all the bad days because no one can hold my hand like he can. I don’t want to live another day without hearing the sound of his voice.
It feels like he’s letting me go, but maybe if I don’t allow him to walk out of my life, I’ll be able to hold onto him that much longer. Maybe the negative voices in my head are simply filling it with lies and misunderstanding. Could it really be that simple?
And Beau . . . I completely spaced out that today was his birthday.
I don’t know who I’ve become.
Some days I like the girl staring back at me in the mirror, but today I want to start all over again.
Without even thinking about it, I pull out my phone and attempt to call Beau for the first time in two months. He asked for space, and I gave it to him, but today I just need to hear his voice.
“Hello,” he says, in a whispered tone.
“Beau?” The sound of his voice only reminds me how much I’ve missed him. A thousand I miss you’s couldn’t even express how much I’ve missed having him in my life.
“What do you need Kate?”
“I called to wish you happy birthday,” I reply, trying to control the tremor in my voice. I had this delusion in my head that he might be at least a little happy to hear from me, but he sounds anything but.
“Thanks,” he sighs, letting his voice trail off.
“What have you been up to?” I ask, trying to pull him back to a place that used to be normal for us.
“Just a minute.” I wait, listening to his footsteps on the other end of the line. “I have to take this call. I’ll be out in just a few minutes, Jess.” His voice is muffled, but I can still make out every word.
“Who are you talking to?” I ask before I realize the words have even come out of my mouth.
I hear him let out a deep breath through the phone. “Jessica.”
“Is she a friend?” I don’t know why it matters to me. It shouldn’t matter to me.
“Something like that,” he says quietly, like he’s scared for me to hear it. A part of me wants to know more, but the other part of me would rather live in oblivion. Beau is free to do whatever he wants. I have Asher now.
At least I hope I still do.
“How is everything going at U of I?” I ask, desperate to change the subject.
“It’s fine,” he says, sounding like he’d rather be anywhere than on the phone with me.
I wait for him to add something else, but he never does. “Is this how things are going to be between us now? I miss you.”
“I—”
“Beau, are you about ready to go? We have reservations at seven.” A sweet, cheery female voice yells, sounding closer with every word. This is definitely one of the worst days of my life. Why does it feel like everything is falling apart?
“I’ll let you go. It was nice hearing your voice,” I say, trying to control my emotions.
“Kate, wait—”
“That’s the one and only Kate? Tell her Jessica says hi,” the sugary sweet voice breathes as she begins making a kissing sound into the receiver.
I hang up. I can’t listen to any more. I deserve it . . . I knew Beau loved me and I made him feel like he wasn’t good enough. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to have him in m
y life again, but it doesn’t sound like he’s ready to move forward with our friendship.
After revisiting the events of the day over and over in my head, I’m able to calm myself down. Asher just needed space this morning, and I guess Beau needs it too. That’s all it is. I start the shower and grab a towel from the hallway closet before stepping in and letting the warm water spray over my body.
All I can do is wait and see what tomorrow brings.
Chapter 19
I didn’t hear anything from Asher last night, but I hadn’t tried to reach him either. It’s the first evening we’ve spent apart for weeks and I hated every minute of it, especially after spending the whole night before wrapped in his arms.
I thought about calling in sick and running to his house to talk to him, but something held me back. I’m going to try to be patient and see how well it pays off.
I clock in, noticing my mom standing near the door to the dining room eyeing me with a concerned expression on her face. Maybe I should have called in sick and spent the day wrapped under the quilt in my all-too-familiar room. I don’t want any pity today.
“Are you feeling better this morning?” she asks, walking in my direction.
“I’m fine. I think I just needed some sleep,” I reply, tying my apron around my waist.
She narrows her eyes at me. “If you need to talk about anything, I’m always here for you,” she says, squeezing my shoulder.
I nod. “Thanks, Mom.”
She gives my shoulder one more squeeze before disappearing into the dining room. I wonder if she ever sees me as a disappointment; her daughter with so much potential who held herself back in this small town to waitress instead of going to college. Knowing her, she’s probably resigned to letting me find my own way. One day, I might wake up with a dream that’s bigger than this.
I serve table after table, feeling like that girl who used to work here before she was swept off her feet by Asher Hunt. It’s stupid really, and I realize that when a certain blonde haired, blue-eyed guy walks in with a sexy, knowing smirk on his face. His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his faded blue jeans. The second our eyes lock, he starts moving in my direction, the smile falling off his face.