Numb

by Lynn Rider

  “What time is dinner?” he asked as he busied himself with opening his ingredients.

  “Around one.”

  He nodded. As Ashton and I worked wordlessly in the kitchen, it felt eerily comfortable. We worked in sync with one another as if we did this every day. Being near him made me want things that I knew we could never have, but I allowed my thoughts to carry me away to another time and place where I had a life with him. A life where he wasn’t part of the hottest rock band in the country. Where one woman would be enough for him. Where I would be enough for him.

  I was hyper-aware of his presence and as much as I tried to keep my distance, I couldn’t. I unconsciously found myself moving closer. So close that I could smell his scent, the same scent that intoxicated me every time he was close.

  “I know you’re happy, Meagan. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you,” he said solemnly, snapping me from my reverie. I looked up at him and saw the earnest expression in his features. I smiled briefly until I realized his eyes were locked on me, but his hands were still slicing potatoes with a very sharp knife.

  “Ashton, pay attention! You’re going to cut yourself,” I shrieked.

  He smiled before settling his face into that same cocky grin he wore so well. “So you do care?”

  “Of course I care, Ashton. I miss you, but I had to do this on my own without distractions,” I said soberly.

  “What about now? Am I distracting you?” he asked, looking back at me while still slicing.

  “Yes, now stop!” We both laughed and just like yesterday at lunch, the tension dissipated.

  “What are you making us?” I asked as I slid onto the stool opposite him to observe his culinary skills.

  “Turnip and sweet potato gratin,” he replied confidently.

  “Wow, I’m impressed.”

  “You should be, but this is nothing, baby girl. I’ve been taking lessons at Stone-Field Culinary Institute.”

  “Oh, I did too!” I nearly jumped from my seat with excitement. “I loved Frank the best.” I waggled my eyebrows. Chef Frank was flirty and gorgeous with mad culinary skills.

  “You know he’s gay, right?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Of course. I never said I wanted to jump in the sack with him. But he is nice to look at,” I said, followed by a flirty grin of my own. When my playfulness subsided, I noticed the stoic expression on Ashton’s face. I glanced behind me to see an empty room. Surely my joking about Frank wouldn’t have upset him.

  His face remained grim as he rinsed the potatoes. “So I wonder how it is that I’ve never seen you there. I took all of his classes. He’s my favorite too,” he admitted sheepishly.

  “Not sure.” I shrugged. “I don’t go anymore. I was taking them with my best friend, but when she got pregnant, she couldn’t handle the smells anymore. It wasn’t as much fun going alone, so when she quit I quit.”

  “Come with me,” he offered eagerly. “Seriously, they’re doing a whole Italian series starting next week. I know how much you like Italian. Come on, baby girl.” He tilted his head. “What do you have to lose? It can be our little secret. You’ll pick up a few new skills in the kitchen and impress that English bloke of yours.”

  “Merry Christmas!” Owen’s rough, sleep-ridden voice interrupted us as he entered the room. He placed a chaste kiss on my head as he walked by toward the coffee pot. “I guess you figured out that we invited Ashton to dinner. Sorry we didn’t tell you. I don’t think any of us expected to be out that late.” He chuckled.

  Ashton’s face was washed of all expression as he looked back at me. I smiled widely, assuring him that he was welcome. He studied me for a minute longer before dropping his gaze and busying himself on his dish.

  “I’m glad you did. Ashton is my friend and is always welcome here,” I reiterated when he didn’t seem convinced by my silent declaration. He didn’t look up, but I noticed the slight turn of the corners of his mouth giving way to a faint smile.

  Douglas entered the kitchen as Ashton finished the vegetables and I was putting the finishing touch on the ham. He said a brief, but polite greeting to Ashton as he cradled my head within his hands and pulled me tight, kissing me passionately. This was so out of character for him to take without asking. If I didn’t know Douglas so well, I would think he was staking his claim.

  “Merry Christmas,” he whispered after breaking our kiss as he pressed his forehead against mine. I smiled, glancing around the empty room for Ashton. “How are you feeling?” he asked, bringing my eyes back to meet his.

  “I feel great,” I replied without hesitation. His smile widened further than I thought possible as he drew me in for another hug. “I hated not being there when you woke up. That will never happen again.”

  “Everything ready in here?” Phillip asked, causing me to jump from Douglas’s embrace. Douglas smiled at Phillip briefly before returning his attention to me.

  “Put me to work, darling. What can I take to the table?”

  Ashton left shortly after dinner, and other than a few lingering glances between the two of us, he was a perfect dinner guest. His strained effort in engaging with Douglas was almost comical at times. Ashton was no dummy, but I could see the struggle he was having in finding common ground with Douglas.

  “Okay, everyone gather around. Let’s open these presents, yes?” Douglas called out from the living room.

  His mother and I finished making the tea and gathered with the guys in the living room. Owen had a mysterious gleam in his eyes that made me wonder if someone had added an extra shot of brandy to his eggnog.

  Phillip bound from his seat, clapping once and rubbing his hands together like a kid in a candy store. “I’m going to be Santa,” he called out as he bent behind the chair and pulled out a Santa hat. Owen shook his head but smiled.

  I opened several gifts from both Douglas and his parents, and was busy watching Evelyn admire a beautiful set of Swarovski Christmas ornaments that Owen and Phillip bought her when Douglas caught my attention. I watched as he moved toward the door of my apartment.

  “Isn’t that lovely, darling?” I heard Evelyn say to Reginald as she admired a handmade throw that Douglas and I had bought her. I turned my curiosity from Douglas to her as she thanked me endlessly.

  Douglas wrapped his arm loosely around my shoulders and sat on the arm of the love seat. I looked up and watched his grin widen as he handed me a red envelope.

  “What is this?” I smiled.

  “Open it and find out.”

  I carefully pulled the flap back and found a postcard of a large mountain with a beach. I looked up to his face for confirmation. He nodded silently.

  “Hawaii?”

  “Yes, in February.” His statement sounded more like a question.

  “Hell, yes!” I exclaimed, leaping into his arms before remembering his mom was sitting right next to me. I looked back at her, apologizing briefly before throwing my arms around him again.

  “I guess I did good?” he laughed, wrapping me tightly in his arms.

  “You did great! I can’t wait.”

  “Okay, Phillip and I have one last gift for you, baby girl,” Owen said with a smile as he handed me a small square box.

  I lifted the lid and recognized the shiny emblem on the large key that sat on a satin pillow. My eyes welled with tears as I looked at Owen and Phillip sitting side by side smiling tenderly at me. “I can’t believe you guys did this. A Mercedes?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief.

  “You need it. I hate that you live in this city with no transportation of your own. At first, when I’d sold your car, I thought it was for the best with the way parking and traffic is, but then it started eating at me that you have no way to go anywhere unless you hail a cab, take a bus or train. It’s not safe when you leave work at night,” Owen insisted.

  “Thank you,” I said, hugging them both with tears in my eyes.

  “Don’t thank us yet. You haven’t seen it. It’s a 1983 E350 diesel,” Phillip teased
.

  I laughed, but didn’t let go of Owen and he didn’t let go of me either. In those brief minutes, so much passed between us. He was my hero. He stood up to my parents, went against the grain and it wasn’t always easy, but through all that turmoil, he’d returned on the other side scathed, but happy, successful and the best man I’d ever know.

  “I love you Owen.”

  “Love you too, baby girl,” he replied, his words catching in his throat. He coughed. “We’ll have to go in the morning to pick it up.”

  “It’s at Ashton’s,” Phillip added with a glint of humor in his eyes. I didn’t let it get to me. Phillip has made it clear he’s not a fan of my relationship with Douglas, but he was the charismatic guy I knew him to be all day and secretly I was a little excited to see Ashton again.

  I DROVE MYSELF TO work for the first time in my brand new Mercedes ML350. My week off had passed quickly. It was already New Year’s Eve; Douglas’s parents had returned to London the day after Christmas and Owen and Phillip would be leaving tomorrow.

  Tonight they had plans to go to Times Square with all the other party crazy people and watch the ball drop. Owen and Phillip had never seen it in person and neither had I. This was my second New Year’s Eve here and I had yet to see it other than on TV. Last year I’d made it home just in time to see it drop on the television screen before I fell asleep on the couch.

  Leah greeted me with a warm smile before hugging me tight. “I missed you, Meagan.”

  “That bad, huh?” I asked dryly. Leah had flown to the Caribbean to spend Christmas soaking up the sun with Cliff’s family.

  “Dreadful!” she moaned.

  I laughed in response and listened attentively to every horrible detail about drunk relatives, an overbearing fatherin-law and spoiled rotten sisters.

  “Sounds pretty horrible, Leah,” I said apologetically.

  “Tell me yours was better.”

  “It was great.” I smiled wide. A knock on the door interrupted as I was filling Leah in on my week. I glanced down at my watch, certain we still had time before we needed to be seated before curtain call.

  “Wow, look at those.”

  Leah’s hopeful tone caused me to turn around to see a huge bouquet of roses walking toward us. Suzette put them on the table and smiled at me.

  “For me?” I asked, surprised.

  “I’ll take them if you don’t want them,” she teased before walking away. I snatched the card from the stick.

  My heart rate accelerated. He’s here. I was instantly damp with a sheen of sweat that covered my body.

  “Douglas?” Leah asked in a tone that told me she already knew they weren’t from him. I handed her the card and watched her eyes widen a bit before her smile grew as she took in the short message.

  “Looks like you have a new fan.” She smiled, handing the card back to me. I didn’t know what to say, I hadn’t seen him since Christmas day. When Owen and I went to pick up my new car from his garage, we didn’t have any reason to go up to his apartment.

  “Yeah, we’re friends. We kind of called a truce on Christmas,” I said dismissively. She smiled but didn’t look convinced.

  I saw the tall frame leaning against the hood of my car. My pulse quickened and my stomach churned, but not because I was afraid. This frame was familiar, forever etched in my brain.

  Ashton.

  He looked up, watching my approach with a crooked grin. “Great show!” he called out as I reached my car.

  “Thank you. And thank you for the flowers.”

  His grin took a boyish quality. “I didn’t know what was appropriate or customary. Symphonies weren’t really my thing before tonight.”

  “So are they your thing now?”

  “Yep, totally my thing,” he said confidently as he pushed away from the car and closed the distance that I’d purposely left between us, his cocky grin set in place. “Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked nervously.

  “Times Square.”

  “What? I can’t go out like this,” I said matter-of-fact, pointing to my drab suit.

  “If I can go out in this monkey suit, you can go in that.” He pointed down at his own body.

  My breath hitched as I took in the sight of him. I was so captivated by his handsome face that I hadn’t realized what he was wearing. He stood there with hands extended displaying his perfect physique clad in a black tuxedo and crisp white shirt with his tie hanging loosely around his neck. He looked edible and once again robbed me of my breath.

  “Eyes up here, baby girl.” He laughed, two fingers pointing at his eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were just checking me out,” he teased playfully.

  I shook my head, trying to deny his claim and ward off the blush I felt creep up my neck. “Just surprised. You’re usually not so dressed up. This makes two times in a week.”

  Ashton held my gaze for a moment before looking toward the street, throwing his hand up and hailing a passing cab. The brake lights illuminated, showing his smile in the night before he took hold of my hand and pulled me toward the vehicle.

  He opened the back door of the cab and with an expectant grin waited for me to get in. “You can’t be serious?” I snorted but obeyed, climbing onto the seat when he tilted his head.

  “Times square,” Ashton called out to the driver.

  The driver grunted. “I’m not going to get you anywhere close, pal,” he said as he raced into traffic.

  “Get as close as you can,” Ashton demanded. Ashton kept glancing at his watch.

  “We’re never going to make it,” I said quietly.

  He looked at me and sighed. “Have you ever seen it?”

  “No, not in person. Have you?”

  “I did last year. As odd as it sounds, I’d never felt more alone than I did standing there in that crowd. I knew that night I would change my ways.”

  “So how’d you do?” I asked meekly, fearing the answer but wanting to hear it at the same time.

  He wrapped my much smaller hand with his and looked me straight in the eyes. “I’m getting there.” I looked away, trying to hide the intense reaction that I had to that simple gesture and those words. This was wrong. It felt too intimate.

  “This is as far as we’re going to get, buddy,” The driver called out over his shoulder. Ashton threw money over the front seat, opened the door and pulled me from the cab with him.

  “Hope you’re in good shape. We don’t have long,” he said as he led the way through the chaos of people at almost breakneck speed. We were still several blocks away when we heard the loud chant of the countdown. We were both panting when Ashton came to a stop and wilted in defeat. I looked around and pointed at a store front that had a TV on. He grabbed my hand and led me toward it. We managed to snake our way to the front when the shouting started.

  “Happy New Year!”

  Auld Lang Syne blasted through the powerful speaker system.

  Ashton turned, facing me so that we were only inches from one another. Despite the shouting and laughing crowds of people shuffling all around us, I only saw him, and with each rise and fall of my chest I could only hear my own breathing reverberating through my body. He took a step closer.

  “Happy New Year, baby girl,” he said as he tucked an errant strand of hair around my ear then lifted my chin. Our eyes locked, holding each other captive for several silent beats before he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Happy New Year, Ashton,” I said breathlessly as he pulled away and smiled solemnly. I could see the disappointment I was feeling reflected at me in his eyes.

  “Let’s find Phillip and Owen!” he called out over the chaos. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and sent a text, then took my hand in his again as we weaved through the crowd.

  I heard Phillip’s laughter through the cracked doorway when I woke late the next morning. I crawled from bed at a sloth’s rate.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead!” Owen said as we met in the ha
llway. He paused for a second, giving me a kiss on the cheek before mumbling something about taking a shower. “Phillip, make our girl some breakfast,” he called out before he closed the bedroom door.

  I sat on the barstool as Phillip slid a cup of coffee across the counter in my direction. “It looks like I should have been drinking last night. You and Owen look a hell of a lot better than I feel.” I laughed.

  “I think you’re hungover for a different reason.” He winked as he cracked eggs in a bowl. I looked at him doubtfully. “Don’t try to deny it. Those feelings you two have for one another are as strong as they were the day he left Nashville,” he said incredulously.

  “We’re friends, Phillip. I have a boyfriend,” I reminded him sarcastically, hoping to close this conversation.

  “Yeah, I think I’ve met him.” His sarcasm matching mine as his eyes flickered to the ceiling, feigning thought. “He won’t last,” he said confidently as he whipped the eggs and turned to the stove.

  I scoffed. What did he know? “He’s everything I need.”

  He didn’t respond, but I saw his subtle laugh as his shoulders shook briefly. He scooped the eggs onto a plate and slid them across the bar.

  “But is he everything you want?” he asked with narrowed eyes before turning and strolling from the room.

  TONIGHT WAS DATE NIGHT and we were meeting Leah and Cliff for dinner at Salvi’s, a small restaurant with amazing food. Leah and Cliff were still waiting to be seated when we walked in.

  “Oh good, you’re here. I need to go potty,” Leah said as I hugged her and patted her belly.

  “Potty?” I questioned, raising a single brow at my friend.

  Cliff chuckled. “She’s trying out new family-friendly words.”

  “Don’t knock it. It took me twenty-five years to build this potty mouth, and I’ve only been given forty weeks to clean it up.” She snickered. “You could learn a thing or two from me, Mr. Potty Mouth.”

  “Potty, there’s that word again,” he said sardonically but followed it with a kiss to her cheek.

  Leah grabbed my hand and led me toward the restrooms. “Men!” she huffed as we entered the bathroom. An older woman at the mirror laughed quietly before sliding gloss over her lips and walking out.