by Kira Blakely
Ashton nodded his head in agreement. “That about sums it up. I kept trying to be the perfect kid for every family I landed in until I was about nine or ten. Then, I figured it out. They had their own kids. I was just the kid they had to tolerate to get the money they were going to use to better their real kids’ lives.”
“The real kid. I get it. For me, it was like I knew they’d trade my life if they thought it would get him back. I really worried for a long time that they wanted me dead. I still do. I honestly think they would have much rather I died than him, and then I worried that after they figured out I was worthless, they’d just leave me one day. They did, too, even if they were right there.”
Ashton sighed. Their hands met again. Their fingers squeezed. They sat there, two people who got each other more than anyone else in the world. Laura finally asked, “You met Dawson in foster, didn’t you?”
“I did. I think we talked about that already.”
“We did. You two seem really tight, and I’m guessing it’s because you had to deal with a lot of bad stuff together.” Talking about his life made hers fade a bit, and she hoped he would not stop now. He shrugged. “Some places were worse than others.”
“How so? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t mind. I’ll tell you how Dawson and I met, too. Our social worker handled both our cases, and she found a couple that was interested in taking in more than one kid, so Dawson and I went together. It was the first time we’d ever seen each other.
“The couple had four girls. Dawson and I were younger than the girls; we were ten, and they were teenagers. But every single fucking night the parents would lock us up in the bedroom in case we decided to go full on rapist or something. I remember once, one of their daughters was having a party, and there were all these kids there. We were locked into our room of course; they had this great big lock on the door, and our room was up on the third floor, not quite a dark and creepy attic but real close.
“Anyway, we’d done something that day. I don’t recall now what it was, but it got us sent to our room without food for the sin. That happened a lot. You see, those girls were – two were twins – all in high school. The oldest was a senior. The twins were juniors. They were all headed off to college, and they had a lot of expenses so...ta da! Foster kids to foot the bills. We were in that room starving to death because it was a weekend…”
“Wait, why were you starving because it was the weekend?” She hoped the question was not too pushy.
It seemed it wasn’t, because Ashton said, “We only got dinner there. If we ate breakfast and lunch, we ate it at school. On weekends, we got dinner because there was no school, but we’d had nothing that whole day. The party was down on the first floor, but they were cooking out for it, and the backyard patio was right below the little window in our room. Dawson got the bright idea of sneaking down the drain and grabbing some food. So, we did. We grabbed a bunch of stuff, whatever they’d left out there, and hauled ass for the drain, but we couldn’t get back up it. So, we ate all that we could standing in the side yard and then we marched right into the house into the middle of the party and announced we were being held prisoner and had escaped by crawling out the window.”
Laura was torn between amusement and despair. “What happened?”
“A parent of one of the younger kids who was there got pissed off and charged upstairs, then came back down screaming that it was true, that we’d been locked in like captives. There was a big hubbub and Dawson and I got hauled out of there and that couple had to handle being called slavers and shit. But in the end, nothing really changed because we, Dawson and I, got the reputation of being difficult to handle because of that. We had to mostly stay in group homes.”
“Shit.”
“It was what it was. We got through it. You’ll get through this. Sometimes you have to get pissed off and say how you feel about all of it to get over it and move on. I’m guessing you never said anything like it that before.”
“You’d be right.” Damn, he was perceptive. She was more grateful than ever that he had come over, even if she had not invited him to come.
Come. The word hovered in her mind. Now that her grief had dimmed, the desire was rushing back, making her painfully aware of just how much she wanted him.
“You need to get some sleep.”
The words jolted her. That desire plucked at her body, making her nipples hard and her panties wet. She wanted him to stay more than anything. She protested, “If you want to stay, I will be fine with that.”
He leaned toward her. Her lips parted as she anticipated the kiss. But he just left a gentle kiss on her forehead and not her lips. He said, “I would never do anything to make you regret anything you did with me. I’m afraid you’d wonder why you slept with me tonight if I stayed.”
“I would never regret it.” The words were soft and yet forceful.
Ashton gave her a lopsided smile. “I’d rather not test that theory. How about a date tomorrow night?”
A date? She asked, “You mean a real date?”
He looked a little self-conscious. “Sure, why not? I’d like to see you again, and I would love to talk to you about that idea you had at the party.”
“What idea?” her brow crimped as she tried to recall what he meant.
“The dating app thing.”
“Oh.” Well why not? It would be a good reason to see him again, and maybe, just maybe he was just using that as a reason to see her, too. After all, it wasn’t like he was used to really dating. “Okay. I’d love to go out with you tomorrow.”
“I’ll pick you up. Say, seven thirty? Or is that too early or late for you?”
“No, that’s perfect.” That time would enable her to get home, shower, and change into something slinky below whatever she wore on their date. “That sounds great in fact.”
Now that she knew he was leaving, she felt a small sense of loss. She still wanted him, but that desire had been tempered by a giant sense of anticipation that tingled along her nerve endings and made a pleasurable little pool well higher deep down in her crotch.
He left and she stood there, her back against the door and a smile on her face. It had been a day of mountainous highs and cavernous lows. She felt slightly better about what she had said to her mother. She had been wrong for being so cruel, but if she had ever been allowed to express her hurt and misery as a child she might never have needed to say those things as harshly as she had.
She headed into the bedroom but stopped again. The flowers sat on the table, and she picked them up and went to the kitchen. She rummaged around until she found a tall glass which she filled with water and sugar, then she took the flowers from the wrapper and arranged them in the vase. She scooped up the flowers and a smashed cupcake, using one finger to swipe a hunk of frosting off the lid of the box then headed for her bedroom.
She hummed as she stepped into her dark and quiet bedroom, licking the chocolate frosting off her finger before disrobing and putting on a thin t-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts.
The anticipation mounted as she lay there, sure that she would never get any sleep at all. Despite both that anticipation and her worry that she wouldn’t, she began to drift away.
Ashton was amazing.
And amazingly wrong for her, too.
ASHTON
ASHTON COULDN’T BELIEVE how terrible Laura’s childhood had been. He seethed in an anger born out of a sense of helplessness as he drove home. Just when he thought his life was the worst one anyone could have had, he found someone who’d had an even worse childhood.
The pain she was in was obvious. He could see it, and that pain had been the only thing that kept him from bedding her. There weren’t many times in his life he engaged in chivalry, but just then he had wanted to be the good guy.
Thinking of sleeping with her while she was hurting, afraid, and dealing with the fact that her parents did not love her was stupid anyway. She needed an ear and a shoulder, not a dick in h
er bed.
But man, walking away like that had been so damn hard!
He didn’t regret it. In fact, it felt good to do the right thing. The sight of her eyes, drowned in tears and rimmed in red, had made his heart ache for her.
He would see her tomorrow. A funny little throb hit his heart, and his belly made a weird flip. He had never been so excited by the prospect of seeing a woman again, and his smile got wider as he turned down his street, heading home.
He had still not moved past the old neighborhood. He should and he knew it, but part of him was so sure that he was going to go broke and end up right back there anyway that he just stuck around.
He parked and stared at the façade of the place. It was the nicest apartment building in the neighborhood, true enough, but it was a far cry from what he could have easily afforded. Jackson had wasted no time in getting the hell out of the neighborhood, and Ashton knew he should, too. He was a multimillionaire even if his neighbors didn’t know it, and if they found out he was likely to be a target for them.
The fancy sports car got too much attention as it was, and even though the building had a secure garage below, it was probably just a matter of time before the damn thing got jacked. He sighed and opened the door, stepping out into the dimness of the garage before locking the car and heading for the creaking elevator on the right.
He was too busy thinking about Laura to pay attention to his surroundings.
That was his first mistake. He didn’t see Gerald come up behind him until he caught a glimpse of a wavering reflection in the polished steel of the elevator doors. He dismissed that, and it was his second mistake.
“Hey, you little shit.”
The voice sent him spinning around, fists already coming up, but it was too late.
The steel bar Gerald held met Ashton’s ribs. He heard them crunch and he gasped, blood rushing to his head and his mind going blank.
He fought back of course, but it was he and his busted ribs against a much larger guy with a steel pipe. In the end, Ashton wound up on the floor of the garage, broken and bleeding and unconscious.
***
“Hey, mister.” A hand shook him awake.
Pain lanced through his body, and Ashton grunted out, “No, God. Leave me alone.”
“Easy, buddy. I called the cops already.”
Ashton opened one eye. The other one was stuck fast. His lips ached and cracked as he asked, “Why?”
“Because someone worked you over, and I don’t care to have you die here on the floor. The union would have my ass.”
The security guard the building paid for. Ashton tried to focus his one open eye, but everything looked dim and unfocused. He tried to speak. The guard added, “He didn’t have time to rob you. I got here and saw him whipping up on you and scared him off but…anyway, I was too busy trying to get an ambulance and the cops here to chase him. Sorry.”
“No worries.” Was he dying? He sure felt like it. There was not one inch of his body that did not hurt.
An ambulance came crashing in, its flashing lights splashing and flashing across the concrete walls of the parking garage. The noise and the lights made Asheton’s head feel like it was about to explode. He wanted to vomit. There was a stabbing and burning feeling in his side.
He passed out again as the paramedics leaned over him, their voices coming from a long distance away.
LAURA
Ashton stood her up.
Upset and angry, Laura paced the apartment, her feet carrying her back and forth across the floor. Her nerves were on the ragged edge, and she kept glancing at her watch and phone. Eight-thirty came and she sighed, knowing that there was no other explanation other than he was not coming.
He had changed his mind. Maybe he had decided that a woman who had such a huge amount of baggage was not one he wanted to be with, or maybe he had found a woman who he liked more.
What did it matter? Either way, he was not there.
The doorknob rattled. Laura dashed toward the door but it swung open to reveal Lexie. Laura’s heart sank as the hope that had come died again.
Lexie asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah, just…restless.” She wanted to tell Lexie that she had seen Ashton and had a date with him but that he had stood her up, but she didn’t. Dawson was still a friend of Ashton’s, and she didn’t want to get between them. She knew Lexie would be angry and say something and that might cause not just a problem between Dawson and Ashton, but a problem between Lexie and Dawson. She added, “What are you doing home? Did you miss me too much to stay away?”
Lexie sighed. “Oh, Laura, I have been a bad friend, haven’t I? I really haven’t been around much at all, and I am so sorry.”
“Oh, it’s okay. You got a great guy. Of course, you want to be with him as much as possible.” She understood; she really did.
Lexie said, “He is great, but you were always a great friend, too, and I have really been a terrible friend by not being here for you more often. I’m sorry.”
“No worries. So, what brings you home tonight?”
Lexie set her bag down and sighed, her fingers running through her hair. “Oh, it’s awful. Ashton’s in the hospital and Dawson’s with him. They’re only letting in family right now, and Dawson told them that he’s Ashton’s brother, so…”
No! She had to have misunderstood. Her voice was strained. “Did you say Ashton is in the hospital?”
“Yeah. I forgot you knew him. I saw you talking to him at the party last night, didn’t I?”
“Yeah.” Her lips were numb. “What happened to him?” Visions of a bloody car crash filled her mind, and she had to blink that away to keep from screaming aloud in horror. “Is he okay? I mean, is he…is he…?’
Lexie’s brow furrowed. “Laura, you okay?”
“Yeah. No.” Damn it, now she had to tell her. “Lexie, look. Ashton and I were supposed to go out tonight. We, uh, well we hooked up after I helped him out during a bar fight, and we hadn’t seen each other since, but we met up again last night at the party. I came home alone, but he dropped by with some flowers and cupcakes, and he found me freaking out because my mom called me because it was Mathew’s birthday and…”
“I wasn’t here. Oh, Laura, I am so sorry!” Lexie rushed up and hugged her, hard. “I know how much that hurts the hell out of you every year. I should have remembered. Now I feel like a really awful friend!”
“Don’t,” Laura said sternly. “I was okay after…well, I actually don’t know if I am okay. But what I really want to know is if he’s okay?”
The expression on Lexie’s face made Laura’s heart nearly stop. Lexie said, “He got robbed or something. Whomever did it worked him over really bad. He’s got some broken ribs and a massive concussion. He’s also got a lot of bruises all over his body. The doctors say whoever did it must have been trying to kill him.”
Laura’s fingers clenched together. “Oh, no. But…but will he be okay?”
Lexie said, “I don’t know. I mean, he’s alive and all. That’s the big thing. He’s just really hurt. They’re keeping him overnight because of the concussion and some blood on his brain.”
“I have to get to the hospital.”
Lexie’s brows elevated. “Wow. What kind of hookup did you two have anyway?”
Laura rubbed her hands over her face. “It was not just that. There’s…we have a lot in common. He got it, why I was so upset last night.” She paused. Lexie had never really known what it was like for Laura at home, because every time she was around, Laura’s parents managed to connect to reality if not be affectionate toward her. From the outside, it must have looked like she had such a happy home life, although one colored by tragedy beyond imagining. Lexie didn’t even know that she’d just been born to save a brother who had been beyond saving.
Lexie picked up her bag. “Okay, if that’s what you want, I will drive, but I don’t know if they’ll let us in. If they don’t, we can always go down to the cafeteria and get updates from Daw
son.”
Laura’s eyes blurred from the tears forming. “See? You’re a great friend.”
***
They weren’t able to get in to see Ashton. Dawson had been shut out, too, as the doctors were busy doing something to make sure his head injury wouldn’t cause any permanent damage. If Dawson thought Laura’s being there was odd, he didn’t say anything.
Instead, he directed the two of them to a cafeteria while he took up post in the waiting room, promising to call Lexie’s phone if anything changed.
Now, Laura and Lexie sat in the nearly empty cafeteria, a tray of chicken strips and fries in front of them. Despite not having had dinner, neither of them were particularly hungry.
Lexie said, “I knew they had it rough. I mean, I heard the story of how they met, too. I didn’t know it was that bad at home for you though. I am so sorry. I wish I had had the guts to leave that town long before I did. I feel like you just didn’t leave because you were too worried about me.”
Laura snorted. “Don’t even. I love you, you are my best friend, but I didn’t leave because I didn’t have the guts. It had nothing to do with you. Sometimes you pick the devil you know over the one you don’t.”
Lexie sighed and pushed a fry around the tray before picking it up and popping it into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed. “You do know he’s the first guy I have ever seen you care about?’
Defensiveness set in. “What do you mean?’
Lexie dusted off her hands. “I mean, you dated a few guys back home, but when things got serious you always broke it off. Heck that one guy – the one that had the motorcycle –”
“Jim.”
“Right. Jim. He caught the flu and had to break a date with you, and you broke up with him.”