I felt her apprehension when she kissed me. Though it lessened with each second our lips were together, it was still there, and that’s how I knew continuing it behind closed doors wasn’t the best idea. If I could murder the people responsible for making her that way, I would. It saddened me that even though she knew I understood what happened to her and would never do anything to ever hurt her like that, she still couldn’t relax with me completely. Not yet, anyway.
With every step I took away from her, I found myself being pulled back. She was like a fucking magnetic field that I couldn’t help but be drawn to.
CHAPTER 26 – LILA STEPHENS
I was destined to resume my evening alone with my dog doing a whole lot of nothing after our impromptu picnic. The day had turned out to be so much more than I expected and just as fast went right back to boring.
I grabbed my Kindle and curled up on the couch for a night of reading in an effort to keep my mind from running away with all things Ash. A knock on the door caught me by surprise a few minutes later. Opening the door, my heart thudded against my chest when I saw him standing there. He couldn’t have even made it to the end of the block before coming back.
“Did you forget something?”
“Fuck the shit I have to do tomorrow. I’ll get my shit together later. May I come back in?”
I opened the door wider in a silent invitation. Looking down at the floor, I stepped aside. Taking my hand, it twitched just a little as his fingers wrapped around mine. He walked back through the doorway with me following close behind.
“No funny business, though. This visit will be strictly platonic.”
“Alright,” I said, smiling up at him.
Following him to the couch, I sat on the end opposite of him, putting plenty of room between us. He turned toward me as I sat down.
“I want to tell you something, Lila… Our time in the park today and the fact that you confided in me something you’d never told anyone else shows me that there is trust between us.”
“That’s true, though I’m not sure how it happened.” I laughed.
He smirked at me and said, “I’m trying to be serious here. Will you let me, please?”
“Of course…”
“I want to tell you something about me that I don’t generally tell people because I try to keep most of my life off of the stage private.”
“You mean except for public make out sessions in the park?” I asked with a hint of smartass coating my words. “Okay… I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
“Ash London isn’t really my name. Well, ‘London’ isn’t. Ash sort of is...”
“I assumed as much when your dad’s last name didn’t match yours.”
“My dad was actually my stepdad, and Ferguson is not my name either though when people have stumbled across some of my family’s information, they assume it is. My biological dad died when I was two and my mother never changed my name after she married Dan out of respect for my grandparents.”
“Oh, wow. I’m really sorry to hear about your biological dad.”
“Do you want to know my real name?”
“Um, yeah.” I felt like I was about to hear the secret of the century. I’d known there were rumors for quite some time that he used a stage name. Once I noticed his dad’s last name wasn’t London, I’d thought I’d solved that mystery for sure. It wasn’t all that uncommon for entertainers to use a fake name, but for him to confide in me felt like a big deal.
“It’s Mikhail Ashton Volkov. I’m named after my two grandfathers. I never met Ashton. He died before I was born. Grandpa Mikhail and Grandma Arina lived a few houses down from us, but they were always at our place or we were at theirs, even after my dad died. Everyone started calling me Ash to differentiate between my grandfather and me.”
“Russian! That’s it!”
“What?”
“Your accent… You have a bit of a Brooklyn accent, but every once in a while, there’s a hint of something else. Just now when you said your grandparents’ names, it was thicker than normal. It’s been driving me crazy trying to figure out what it was.”
“At least I’m not the only one being driven crazy in this relationship.”
I cocked my eyebrow and leaned back. “Relationship, huh?”
“Or whatever the hell it is we’ve got going on,” he said, nonchalantly waving his hand. “We’re in some sort of limbo here. You say no. I say yes, but then I get what I want, so… Anyway, I know my real name is nowhere near the same level as what you told me, but it was the biggest thing I could think of to share. I don’t really have any secrets. I’m just a typical dude for the most part.”
“You’re anything but typical.”
“So I’ve been told, but I don’t think people realize that what I want most in the world is to just be normal,” he said, moving his gaze away from me. After seemingly pondering his comment for a few seconds, he looked back at me. “How are you still single?”
“I don’t know, how are you still single?”
“I asked you first.”
“Well, in addition to my obvious hang ups, I took care of Edie for the last few years, and dating wasn’t a priority for me.”
“You called your grandmother by her first name?”
“Yes.”
“That’s kind of strange to me. Grandma Arina would’ve straight up punched me if I had just called her by her first name when she was alive,” he said with a straight look on his face.
I began to laugh. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t laugh about someone hitting you. It just caught me off guard.”
“She never actually did hit me, but she threatened it all the time. I could be a little shithead when I was a kid.”
Regaining my composure, I explained, “Edie never wanted to be called any of those ‘pet’ names as she called them. She always said grandmas were old, and she wasn’t old.”
“Sounds like someone I would’ve liked. Is that her,” he asked, pointing to a picture on the wall of Edie and me sitting at a picnic table.
“Yes. It was taken not long before she passed. It was one of the rare good days she had and she wanted to get out of the house. A friend of hers took that picture of us. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Beautiful.”
“She was.”
“Yes, but I was referring to you.”
There went my face getting hot and no doubt turning crimson. “If you say so.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t act like you’re not.”
“You’re just saying that because of what I said at dinner that time. I don’t see it. No matter how many times you call me beautiful, I’m still just the average girl that everyone says is cute,” I said rather sarcastically.
“You’re far from average, and you’re more than just cute. You’re grandmother helped raise a beautiful human being.”
Tears began to form as we spoke of Edie. The wound inflicted when she died was still so raw. “She was the only one who raised me. My parents pretty much abandoned me, and Edie took me in. My mother ran off when I was a baby, always flitting in and out of my life, and my dad overdosed when I was a teenager and died. He got hooked on meth shortly after my mother left. Edie gave me so much in life that I never would’ve had, and was my number one priority when she started getting sick.”
“That’s very admirable. I’ve always been very big on family even when some of them don’t really want anything to do with me. My mom died a few years ago, and of course you know I just lost my dad. I think he finally gave up and died of a broken heart.”
“I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for him.”
“He always said Mom was the love of his life. I asked him once how he knew my mom was the one after everything they’d both gone through with losing their first spouses, and he said he just knew. Couldn’t explain it any better than that.”
“How sweet! I wish men were still like that.”
“Some of them are.”
A comfortable silence fe
ll over us momentarily before Ash began to speak again.
“Well, since we’ve gotten some pretty major things out of the way, why don’t we get to know some more random things about each other? I believe everyone has an obsession of some kind. Music is obviously mine, tell me yours?”
“Shoes.”
“I’m shocked!” he exclaimed as he dramatically placed his hand over his heart and threw his head back. “Coming from you, that isn’t a surprise at all.”
“There’s just something about a new pair of shoes that really boosts my mood. It almost makes me high.”
“Any particular style? Wait, let me guess…”
“Heels,” I said before he had to a chance to say it.
“Nothing sexier than a beautiful woman in heels. Maybe you can model some for me in private sometime,” he said, licking his lips. “Prove you really can do anything in them.”
“I don’t think so.” I was blushing again, dammit. Damn this pale skin of mine. I never wanted him to stop talking to me the way he was, but I had a feeling it was all for show right then since he’d shut all that down not all that long before.
He smirked and said, “We’ll see… Any particular designers you like?”
My heart fluttered at the thought of my favorite shoe designers. “I love, love, love Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik, but I will wear just about any as long as I like how they look. They don’t have to be designer shoes, but it doesn’t hurt.”
“Yeah, those names mean absolutely nothing to me. I don’t know why I even asked,” he said as he waved his hand. “Have you had any serious relationships? Was there anyone before…” his voice trailed off, but I knew what he meant. Before the monster who’d destroyed me.
“Oh, so we’re back on the important topics I see… Yes, but that didn’t end well either, obviously or I wouldn’t be here right now. I’ve had a couple short term relationships, but only one serious one.”
“Why didn’t it end well?”
“He cheated… on multiple occasions with multiple women.”
Ash looked away from me and rubbed his chin.
“We were together for over two years and were even talking about getting married. He tossed me his phone one day while he was busy so I could read him a text that he was waiting on from his brother. Turns out, the text was from a woman instead of his brother, and it described in detail what she planned on doing to him the next time they were together. That led to a confession and it was over... I sometimes wonder if he wanted to get caught so he could take the easy way out by having me end it.”
“You are not lucky in love are you?”
“No. Not at all. Now you.”
“I don’t think you want to hear about any of that. You’ll probably run away from me and never look back.” He shifted his weight, and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I told you my deepest, darkest secret, sir, you can tell me about at least one ex.”
“I’ve not been in too many serious relationships. There were some that I thought had potential, but ended up fizzling out after a few dates. Most of the women I’ve been interested in over the last six or seven years just wanted me because of Ferrum, even before when we were just a local band. They just wanted to say that they had bedded Ash London, especially after our first album came out and we blew up. I tend to see right through them easily. It ends up just being sex and nothing more.”
“Are you a man-whore?” I asked sarcastically as the kissing incident flashed briefly in my mind again.
“Probably by some peoples’ standards, but it doesn’t happen as often as most people would think. I have the opportunity just about any time I want, but I don’t over indulge much anymore, and I haven’t had sex with anyone since before I met you.”
Good to know he seems to be past sleeping around because he can, I thought to myself. Maybe he’s past random make out sessions, too.
“My ex and I were together for about two years before we broke it off.”
“So, what happened?”
“I cheated on her.”
My heart sank. He was right. I wanted to run. I knew he wasn’t perfect, but deep down I hoped maybe he was when he was in a relationship with someone. I’d been there before, and I didn’t want to be in that space again. How could I ever fully trust him when he admitted that he was unfaithful in the past? I already knew he had a tendency to drink heavily, and I obviously still couldn’t forget his little indiscretion. How could I ever really know if he was capable of committing to me without being with him every time he toured? I couldn’t be with him 24/7 like that. I was my own person, and I couldn’t just drop everything to be with him on tour constantly. My face gave away my true feelings on the subject.
“Say something, please?”
“It’s just… I… I was hoping you’d say anything else.”
“We had an open relationship in the beginning because I was young and obsessed with sex, but when we both realized it was getting serious, I stopped that. I never meant to hurt her. I thought I would be with her forever, but as time went on I realized that we were growing apart. She used to come with me when I would go on tour and she stopped. Our interests grew apart, and I stopped missing her so badly when she wasn’t with me. I had a moment where I knew it was pretty much over between us and had sex with a girl in Orlando. I should’ve broken it off with her before anything happened, but that was the only time I wasn’t faithful.”
“How did she find out?”
“I told her. I didn’t want to lie about it. We both knew it was over, and I’m pretty sure she cheated on me, too, but she never admitted to it.”
“I should probably go to bed soon. I’ve got some work to do in the morning. Didn’t you need to get some stuff done before tomorrow?”
“See, I knew you didn’t want to hear it. I knew you’d be pissed,” he said as he looked away from me.
“I’m fine. I’m not pissed off. I just need to get caught up on my work, and I’ll be too tired to do it tomorrow if I don’t get some sleep. Thank you for the picnic this evening.”
“Can I at least call you later and we can talk more about this. I don’t want you to be upset.” His eyes pleaded with me to let him.
“I’m fine, really.” I kissed him on the forehead before he could stand and then walked him to the door. “I won’t be awake anyway.”
Once he was gone, I poured myself a glass of wine and settled into the big comfy chair in my room and began to think. I really hadn’t had much luck with men at all, and I’d be stupid to ignore that big red flag.
But, I contemplated, was it fair to hold him accountable for my ex’s actions? Granted both of them committed the same crime, but my ex did it numerous times with numerous people, and I could’ve ended up married to him and dealing with that. That was a far less forgivable crime than a one night stand that had absolutely nothing to do with me.
How would I know if Ash was being completely truthful, though? It wasn’t like I could call his ex-girlfriend up and ask her, and even if I could, I wouldn’t have believed her either. He’s the only one who should’ve known how many people he’d been with and when, that is if he remembered them all. This, I told myself, was why rock stars weren’t good boyfriend material and why I hadn’t been able to just say fuck it and be with him before. I might not have been able to rationalize it beyond it just not feeling one hundred percent right, but there it was.
I had never been as attracted to anyone else as I was Ash, but physical attraction was not enough in my book. If I couldn’t trust him to be with me and only me, it wasn’t worth it. It’s funny how things can change so quickly. I’d gone from confiding in him things I had never uttered to another person—not even Paige or Tori—yet here I was questioning whether or not I could trust him.
What the hell was I going to do?
* * *
Almost a week had passed since I spoke to Ash. He had called every day up until the day before and stopped by my house a couple of times. I refuse
d to answer or respond to him because I was unsure of what, if anything, I wanted from him. The time had come to make a decision. It wasn’t fair to avoid him when he clearly still wanted to be in my life.
He was still the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on, but we needed more than physical attraction to have a successful life together. Maybe it was best to let him go now, before he had the opportunity to cheat on me.
I picked up the phone and dialed his number. I was on the fence as to whether or not I wanted him to actually answer.
“I’m so glad you called, beautiful. I thought I’d lost you.”
“We need to talk.”
“Hmm. I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I just don’t think I can do this.” My voice squeaked once as I tried to stay strong. “I have too many issues and after what you told me, I don’t know that I could ever really trust you. I’m sorry, but I can’t see you anymore. I don’t even know if we can stay friends. It’s all too much.”
His silence was deafening. I wanted him to say something, anything.
He sighed and began to speak. “I don’t really understand why you’ve come to this conclusion, but I have to respect your decision. You know how to reach me if you change your mind.”
Click. He hung up on me. That went about as well as I’d expected.
CHAPTER 27 – ASH LONDON
I stood dumbfounded in the middle of my bedroom. What the fuck just happened? One minute, I was so fucking happy to see her calling and the next, I was hanging up on her. My cell phone glided through the air and crashed against the adjacent wall as I launched it from my hand. Sitting down on the bed, I put my head in my hands as I rehashed the conversation we’d just had.
I didn’t understand what happened. How was it that I’d told her the truth but was being punished anyway? I wished then that I hadn’t told her, but it would’ve been worse had she found out later on. The decision was made right then that I wouldn’t tell her anything else damning about my past because I didn’t want to be, well, damned.
Take Me On (Take Me Series Book 1) Page 17