“Honestly, I thought you were seeing someone. Dev maybe.”
“Nope. I was hopelessly devoted to you, even when you weren’t to me,” I said lightly.
“Ouch, I deserved that.”
“I wanted to tell you something,” I said looking at him.
“What?”
“The reason my family sent me away.”
“What happened?”
“It was a while ago. At the time, I was with someone. My boyfriend, Ben. We’d been together for years, and we were both getting our master’s degrees together. He got sick—pancreatic cancer. He’d known about it for a while before he told me, and in the end, they weren’t so much treating him than just managing his pain. I moved in with him to take care of him, but he ended up succumbing in about two months. I felt like I had died with him.” I paused, allowing him to comment if he felt he wanted to. He was quiet.
“I’d go to school and work, then crumble when I got home. Everything was dark, and all I did was cry. I stopped going to class and leaving the house. Every day I’d wake up feeling that was the day I’d be done mourning, but it wouldn’t be.” His hand ran up and down my back. He was the only non-psychological or medical professional I had ever told any of this. I’d told it so many times it didn’t really make me sad anymore, but being vulnerable with Asher was making me nervous. His comforting touch on my back spurred me on.
“Nothing mattered. I didn’t want anything anymore. I felt like I had nothing to live for. For the first time, I was scared of being alone. I was scared of what I might do to myself. Like Ben was so peaceful after he’d passed and I wanted that too. I told my stepmom, and she and my dad moved me back home. After about two weeks they checked me into Bermuda.” One confession at a time.
“I’m so sorry you went through that,” he said quietly. I said it was okay and listened to the steady sound of his breathing. I felt like this was what acceptance sounded like. It wasn’t a sound at all; I could feel it. I could share this ugly thing from my past, and he could see it for what it was. Just a thing. One thing and not the whole thing. I was bigger than that one thing, and it didn’t matter to him because he knew that too.
“Are your parents still together?” he asked. He noticed I’d mentioned my stepmother. I told him, and then he told me. We talked till the beating in his chest started lulling me to sleep. Back in the house, I made my way as I did every night to the couch, picking my blanket up off the floor.
“What are you doing?” he asked from the hallway.
“I’m going to sleep.”
“Sleep with me,” he said.
“Sure, just give me a second,” I said. I had left my phone in the house when we’d gone up because I hadn’t wanted any distractions. Someone had been trying to reach me. Callie had tried to call me then had resorted to sending a text. I read the word police about seven times before I could read the whole thing. That word had been preceded by ‘visit from.’ The cops had been to her house. They had been asking about me. She hadn’t said anything, but my parents had filed a missing person’s report. They knew, and they were looking.
I wanted to throw up. That wasn’t real, this was. This was my life now. I didn’t want to be found. I wanted to say something to Asher but stopped myself because they weren’t touching this. This was mine, and they couldn’t take it from me. I’d do something, but not tonight.
He had opened up to me and me to him. I didn’t know how long I had left. I was making this count.
I woke up the next morning in his arms.
When he asked me what was wrong, I said nothing.
17
Asher
Having no drapes meant the light came right into the room when the sun came up, which would wake me up depending on how much damage I had done the night before. The sun was up, and the light was streaming right into the room, making me think it was at least nine o’clock if not later. I usually didn’t like sharing my bed, but Jenny was my pick if I was going to let someone bother me all night. She slept surprisingly well; all her arms and legs to herself. She was awake before I was, but that wasn’t what woke me. It was the noise. My eyes were shut, but I could hear her rummaging through her bag on the floor.
Her version of moving into my room had been moving her duffel from the floor by the couch, to the floor by the closet. She still had to dig around in there on the ground when she wanted something like she was now.
I got it. I did it too when I stayed at hotels, but this wasn’t a hotel. The point of asking her to move to my room was because I wasn’t going to make her sleep on the couch again after we’d had sex. The bed was a lot more comfortable for that.
Besides that, living out of her bag like a fucking drifter reminded me that she would probably be gone soon. Not probably, she said she was leaving, but she hadn’t yet, and if I could get her to stay, I would.
I didn’t want to think of her leaving. A lot of stupid things were running through my head like: asking her to stay, things I could tell her that would make her want to stay, things I could do to show her I wanted her to stay.
Moving her into my room was the first thing. I opened my eyes and watched her as she went to the bathroom, came back out then started getting changed. Her back was to me so I couldn’t see her tits, but it was hot watching her pull her pants up over her ass. I heard the rattle of what I guessed was her pill bottle and realized she hadn’t mentioned that at all when we had talked a couple of nights before.
She went back to the bathroom again then came back before she noticed I was awake, watching her.
“Did I wake you?” she asked.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting on the bed next to me and putting her hand on my chest.
“Why’s all your stuff still in your bag?”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“Usually, people put clothes in the closet.”
“Your closet?” she asked. Was there another in the house I didn’t know about? Of course my closet.
“You live here, don’t you?” I asked. She smiled and said she would. We didn’t talk about her leaving anymore even though we both knew the truth. “Are you going to work right now?”
“Not right away. I’m going to see Mal for breakfast first. You’re going to the gym?”
“Mhm. Come with me,” I said. She frowned.
“I haven’t done anything physical in like, a year. I’d just embarrass myself.”
“Half of it is enthusiasm, and you have plenty of that,” I said. She blushed.
“Go ahead; I’m leaving too.”
“Sex burns as many calories as a twenty-minute run,” I told her.
“No it doesn’t,” she said suspiciously.
“I’d rather fuck you than go hang out in a room with a bunch of sweaty guys.”
“I’d love to watch, but I’m not canceling on Mal so I can ogle you in a room full of sweaty men.” I thought about it. Yeah, the guys would probably be all over her trying to get her number. The gym was a bad idea.
She moved her hand down over my stomach. Part of me felt like I should flex when she did, I mean, it was for her. I never really had girls hang out in my life as long as she had, but all the ones in the rotation seemed to like it. She did, and that was all that mattered.
“You two are getting pretty close, huh,” I said.
“She’s the only other girl at the shop. There are things I can talk about with her that I can’t with you guys.”
“I’m jealous.”
“Don’t be. There are things I can talk to her about that I can’t with you guys, but there are things you can do to me that she can’t.”
I was pitching a tent under the covers. Her hand was right below my navel, just a few more inches and she would be touching my cock. I hoped she wasn’t just teasing me because if she was going to do that to me then just leave, both of us were about to be late.
“I don’t like sharing.”
“Neither do I.” Her h
and wandered further south, pulling the comforter off of me. I was standing at attention.
She used her finger to get the drop of precum running down my shaft and licked it. She tossed her hair over one shoulder and looked at me before lowering her mouth to my cock, running her tongue from my balls to the tip before sucking on the head. I wanted to close my eyes and just let her do it but watching her was so fucking hot. She cupped my balls squeezing as she swallowed deeper and deeper.
“Fuck, Jenny,” I said. I groaned when I hit the back of her throat. I watched her almost get the whole thing in her mouth, just about before she nearly gagged. She put a hand at the base to help her while she paid attention to the crown.
She sucked my cock down her throat again, this time peering up at me as she did. She knew exactly what she did to me. She kept her rhythm steady, bobbing up and down until I was seconds away from busting. I started to meet her mouth thrusting my hips up, faster until I finally came. I felt the warmth and relief spread through my whole body. What the hell had I done before that pretty little mouth?
I watched her swallow my cum, sucking the tip so she got it all. How the hell was I supposed to go to the gym after that? She looked at me sweetly, licking her lips. I pulled her onto the bed, kissing her. The fact that she tasted like me was a huge turn on.
“I have to go, Asher,” she said, wriggling on top of me. Did she really? All I needed was a few more minutes, and I’d be ready to go again. I kissed her, just enjoying the feel of her lips and tongue because we couldn’t do anything else just then. Her hair was silky in my hand. It was a little while before she finally left.
I got up and went to the kitchen. I had somewhere to go too. I wondered whether she ever would come with me to the gym. Maybe I could convince her. She didn’t look very athletic, but she might surprise me. If she didn’t want to go, I at least hoped she’d help me with my cardio. We didn’t have to leave the bed for that.
I preferred drinking coffee to pre-workout. Jenny was already gone by the time I’d was getting ready to leave. I took the cup back into my room, filling my own bag. A neat pile of her folded t-shirts sat next to mine in the closet. She didn’t have that much stuff; would she go shopping for more?
She’d have to if she was staying longer. She’d have to because she was staying longer. We hadn’t discussed anything, and because she hadn’t hinted at the desire to leave, I didn’t want to give her the idea by bringing it up. I didn’t want her to leave. I knew this was temporary for her, but couldn’t things change?
Couldn’t they stop being temporary and become more permanent? We’d have to talk about it. I was pretty sure we were roommates because live-in girlfriend sounded like it might scare her a little.
She had left her empty duffel bag on the floor right where it had been when it was still full of her stuff. Since it was empty, it could fit in there too. I picked the empty bag up and heard something clatter to the floor. I looked down and saw two orange pill bottles—her medication.
Shit. Leave them there, I thought. No, put them back in and leave the bag where it was. No, pick them up and find out what she’s taking.
She had told me what was wrong; it wasn’t that hard to make a guess that it was some sort of antidepressant. I dropped the bag and picked the bottles up.
She’d tell me if I asked her, wouldn’t she? Yeah. So, I’d just ask her. I closed my hand around the small orange bottles and took a deep breath. There were two. What if I just looked at one of them?
I opened one palm and looked at the label on the bottle. Take one tablet by mouth every day, I read. This one was something called Zoloft. One hundred milligrams. May cause headaches. I read the name on the label.
Friedman, Felicity.
What? I blinked reading it again. Friedman, Felicity. Felicity Friedman? Who was that? Felicity? What was… how did… why was Jenny taking someone else’s medication?
I thought about it. There had to be some sort of good reason why she had a pill bottle labeled with someone else’s name. Maybe it was labeled wrong, but it was still hers.
Yeah, that had to be it because there was no way she was abusing prescription drugs. I knew prescription drugs weren’t that hard to get a hold of, but if this was a case where she had them and wasn’t supposed to, why would she use a fake name? I looked at the other bottle, and it said the same name—Felicity Friedman.
If she was using pills she wasn’t supposed to be; why did she choose antidepressants? You couldn’t get high off of those…. right? No, I was almost certain that didn’t happen. People liked the pain stuff. Oxys and percs. My eyes grew wide wondering whether she wasn’t taking antidepressants at all. What if that was what she had in there?
I snapped the cap off one bottle and spilled them onto my palm. Little white tablets, round. Wellbutrin they said—each one was labeled around its circumference. The same name of the drug that was on the outside of the bottle.
There had to be some sort of explanation for this. Maybe this wasn’t even her shit, and she was, I don’t know, holding it for someone else. Did that happen?
What if she… no. No. That one was out. I knew her. She wasn’t lying about who she was.
I realized I was trying to make an excuse for her and felt real smart. I couldn’t talk about her like I knew her because I didn’t. She’d told me some stuff, but obviously not enough since I still had so many questions.
She had told me some things, but she was very secretive with those pills. Surprisingly discreet. The sort of discreet that made you want to ask questions. This felt like the last thing that she had to tell me because we had talked about everything else. If the reason behind this was anything like what she’d already told me, then she had nothing to worry about.
I put the pills back and left the bag where it had been in the first place. I’d just ask her about it later. Later when we were both home because I didn’t want work to be weird and tense. I tried to forget about it on the way there because I didn’t want her to know that I knew something, whatever it was that I thought I knew.
The guys at the shop knew that something was going on between us even though we didn’t really put it out there. She didn’t like the PDA. Tattooing my customers distracted me well enough from the pills, but when I was on break or waiting between appointments, the worst things came to mind—everything I didn’t want to think about her.
Everything was finally good. We were sleeping in the same bed, and talking, and fucking. She didn’t hate my guts and shit, maybe even liked me a little. Maybe even as much as I liked her. I didn’t want to find out something shitty about her and those pills. Keeping my mouth shut, I’d get to keep this. Maybe what she would say wouldn’t be that bad, but was it worth losing all the progress we’d made?
Jenny and Mal left for coffee that afternoon while I waited for my four o’clock. Dev was doing research while Jun was busy on a piece. Traditional Japanese—his specialty. Besides Mal, Dev probably had spent the most time with Jenny. I wondered whether she had told him about her meds. Wouldn’t be the first time he knew something about her that I didn’t.
“Hey, can I talk to you?” I asked him, walking over.
“Sure,” he said, looking up from the laptop. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to ask about Jenny. Her behavior hasn’t been sort of off to you at any point, has it?”
“Off? No. Why?”
“I’m worried about her.”
“What happened?” he asked. I didn’t want to come out and say I thought she was abusing drugs, but I didn’t know how to hint at what I meant.
“You think she’d been acting cagey, weird?”
“Only when the two of you guys were fighting, but not anymore,” he said. Okay. He knew nothing. Fine. We weren’t fighting anymore. I could ask her. I would.
Tonight.
18
Felicity
Asher told me his style of tattooing was something called photorealism. I was sitting in his office, in his chair looking at his portf
olio. Full-color photographs of all his work. He did whatever tattoos his customers asked him to, but the photorealism thing was his favorite. Portraits, things reproduced perfectly from real life, that sort of thing. I had flipped through his portfolio before, but I liked to look at his art. I had seen everyone else’s too and sort of knew what they were talking about when they’d talk about different styles and techniques.
I was allowed to touch things now—as long as I put them back where I found them. I was waiting for him. I’d picked us up a couple of sandwiches from the place across the street where I’d also had coffee before with Mal. He had been finishing up with a client, the last one of the day. It was nearly ten at night, but he didn’t send clients away half done if he could finish it.
He’d been working for at least the last four hours, and everyone else had stopped and left already. Getting the sandwiches, I hadn’t expected he’d still be working this late—maybe I should have gotten something more substantial?
I looked at a photograph of someone’s tattooed shoulder. It was a portrait of a young child’s face. I could see every individual hair on the kid’s head, the creases in the lips, feel the happiness in the smile on their face that they must have felt when the original photo was taken. It was incredible. I had no idea how they did that with needles and ink.
Dev had told me they were having a little friendly competition, to see which one of them would do my first tattoo. I wasn’t really planning on getting one, but the decision I made, if I was making one, would be incredibly biased and not at all based on artistic talent.
I turned the page and shifted the book in my lap as the door finally opened. It was Asher. He was still wearing his glasses which I loved on him, but he only wore them while reading or tattooing. He took them off and put them in the first drawer on his desk.
“All done?” I asked.
“Just sent them off,” he said. He held my nape, leaning down to kiss me.
Asher (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 6) Page 14