by Jess Bryant
The flu had been normal, this was not. This was mortifying.
A soft knock came from the door and she groaned without raising her head from her hands, “Go away.”
“Not this time.” The deep male voice on the other side wasn’t laughing at her now but she couldn’t face him. “Open the door, Ashtyn.”
“No. I’m sick.”
“You’re not sick. You’re hungover as fuck, but you haven’t puked in…” He paused and she cringed.
Was he actually checking the time? Had he been timing her? Keeping track of how much and how often she threw her guts up? That was the last straw. She was simply going to lay on this grimy bathroom floor and die of embarrassment.
“Fifteen minutes.” he finished. “I think you’re done with the puking portion of the hangover.”
“I don’t feel done with it.” her voice came out whiny despite her attempt to keep calm.
“Come on, open the door. You can’t stay in there forever.”
She didn’t bother answering him because even though she knew he was right she was in no mood to admit it. She felt immature and childish for wanting to hide in the bathroom but that didn’t change the fact that she was in no way ready to face the bad decisions she’d made last night.
When she’d left that church it had been so that she could make her own decisions but if she was this bad at it, maybe she hadn’t been wrong to let the men in her life steer the car instead of doing it herself.
Yes, she’d wanted to experience all the things that she felt she’d missed out on in the tiny bubble of polite society she’d grown up in, but even she knew that getting drunk in a bar hundreds of miles away from home with complete strangers wasn’t a great idea. Getting drunk for the first time shouldn’t have been something she did alone at all. She should have been with Kelsey, who would have made sure she had just enough to have fun but not enough to dance on a bar for complete strangers. Her friend would have held her hair back for her while she purged the night’s excess and rubbed her back with understanding instead of standing on the other side of the door demanding she get up because it was her own fault that she felt terrible. Sure, she’d checked an item off her bucket list last night but in the cold light of morning she was fairly certain getting drunk never should have been on the list to begin with, which she probably would have known if she hadn’t grown up so sheltered that she’d never even had a sip of wine until her twenty-first birthday.
She groaned. Her head hurt and all of her reasonings were just making it ache more. It was an endless and vicious cycle. In the end, it didn’t even matter. She knew better than most that you couldn’t change the past. All she could do now was put herself back together and move forward.
Tyler knocked on the bathroom door again and sighed, “Does this mean you’re ready to go home now?”
Ashtyn grit her teeth at the question. She knew he wanted her to say yes. He wanted her to feel so horrible about the night before that she gave up on what he deemed a silly try at independence. He didn’t think she could handle the aftereffects of her night of drinking and locking herself in the bathroom and hiding from him only gave his low opinion of her more credence.
Proving him wrong was the only thing that made her move at that point.
She reached over from her spot on the bathroom floor and twisted the knob. The push button lock unclicked and the door swung open a couple of inches. She glared up at the man standing in the doorway, smirking down at her as if she was a pitiful but possibly rabid animal.
“No.”
“No?” He raised a dark eyebrow. “You sure?”
She nodded but the movement made her brain swim inside her head again. Ashtyn groaned and rubbed the heels of her hands against her eye sockets. She just needed the world to stop spinning and then she would get up on her own two feet and prove to him that she was fine.
“Well, if you’re sure, we should hit the road.”
“You’re not serious.” she whined.
“You wanted to road trip, so let’s road trip.” He was grinning that knowing, self-satisfied grin again when she looked up at him.
“I’m pretty sure I’ll throw up on you if you make me get on the back of the bike right now.”
He snorted, “That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
His brows furrowed a bit, as if he was only just realizing that she was actually sick and not just hiding. “If you feel sick all you have to do is tap me on the shoulder and I’ll pull over for you.”
“Can’t we stay here just a little while longer?”
“In the flea bag motel?” he chuckled again, “Damn, you really must feel like shit if you want to stay here even a second longer than absolutely necessary.”
“I feel like death warmed over.” she freely admitted, leaning her head back against the bathroom wall and looking up at him. “Why do people do that?”
“Do what?” His head tilted and he leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “Get drunk?”
“Yeah.” She reached up massaged her temples. “It’s not nearly as much fun as people pretend it is.”
“It can be fun, I guess, but I don’t think that’s why most people end up drunk. I think the ones that drink to excess are trying to get away from reality for a little while, escape their lives or maybe just forget for a bit.”
“I didn’t forget.” She winced as memories of her drunken exploits replayed on a loop in her head. “I remember all of it.”
“Oh yeah?” Tyler was grinning again when she looked up and she felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment all over again.
“Yeah. I uh… I’m sorry for that whole groping you thing.”
“Nah, forget it.” he chuckled, waving off the comment but the truth was she couldn’t forget because everything she remembered saying to him had been true.
He was ridiculously sexy. With his tousled hair, rough stubble and those piercing blue eyes, he was the walking, talking epitome of tall, dark and handsome. Add in the tattoos and the motorcycle and he was the smoking hot bad boy of all her good girl fantasies.
But it wasn’t just his looks.
He’d also come to her rescue twice now. Once outside that church and then again last night. She hadn’t given a single thought to her own safety when she’d marched across that road to a rowdy biker bar alone but he had. He was always thinking of her safety it seemed. He’d lectured her about it the first time she’d climbed on the back of his motorcycle without asking who he was or knowing if he was an ax murderer.
He’d taken care of her and he just kept doing it.
She wasn’t sure why. He didn’t really know her, and she didn’t really know him. But he’d agreed to help her when she needed help. He’d agreed to her crazy, spur-of-the-moment road trip. He was driving her halfway across the country on the back of his motorcycle just because she’d asked him to and even if he’d spent the entire day before trying to make her miserable so she’d ask him to take her home instead, he hadn’t simply refused to keep going.
He was a good guy, a good man. She knew that much and she liked that about him. She liked him, at least when he wasn’t being a total ass. She might not know why he’d agreed to help her or what he was getting out of this trip, but she appreciated that he’d taken a chance on her.
“Can I ask you something?” She chewed her lip thoughtfully.
“Sure.”
“Are we… friends?”
Tyler looked confused by the question. His dark brows pinched together thoughtfully and his mouth turned down at the corners. He was silent for so long that she felt her stomach drop out and thought she might be sick all over again. Just when she was about to tell him to forget the question, that it had been stupid, he sighed and nodded.
“Yeah. Sure… I mean, I guess so.” He gave a strangely uncomfortable looking shrug but nodded again. “Yeah, we’re friends, Ashtyn. Just two friends on a road trip to Vegas.”
“Good.” She smiled softly, “I’m glad.�
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“Me too.” He smiled in return and her stomach gave another little twist.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him smile like that. All of his other smiles since the moment she met him had been knowing, smug, even condescending at times, but this smile was different. It was gentle and genuine and it made his words seem all the more real too.
They were friends.
“Since we’re friends…” She smiled hopefully, “Will you cut me some slack and let me get over the worst of my first hangover before you make me get back on the motorcycle?”
He chuckled and shook his head, “I should’ve known that wasn’t an innocent question.”
“Me? Innocent?” She teased. “Always.”
“Uh huh.” He pushed back up from the doorframe to his full height, “You mentioned last night that you’d never been drunk before. You were serious about that?”
“Yeah.”
“Explains the hangover.” he sighed. “I still don’t understand how it’s possible you got to the ripe old age of twenty-three and had never gotten drunk before last night.”
“There’s so many things I haven’t done.” She looked away, rubbing her thumb over the empty space on her left ring finger where her engagement ring had sat for months. She’d taken it off and stored it safely in her bag for now, until she could figure out what to do with it. “That’s why I couldn’t marry Aaron. I have too much I still want to do with my life. I’ve missed out on so much already and I don’t want to get to forty, or thirty, or even twenty-five only to realize that I haven’t really been living. I’ve been on the other side of that and it sucks for everyone. It’s better I do this now.”
Tyler was looking at her curiously when she glanced back up and she sighed, “Ignore me. I’m just rambling.”
“No.” He frowned. “I think you’ve been ignored long enough, Ashtyn. That wasn’t rambling. That was… important, I think.”
She knew she’d said too much but the way he was looking at her made it hard to keep the words locked away. He was really listening to her. He wanted to hear what she had to say. And he was right. She’d spent her whole life being ignored by the men in her life. It felt good to have one of them willing to listen for once.
“My mom.” she admitted, leaning back against the wall and crossing her ankles over each other. “She’s the reason I have to do this now.”
Tyler stepped further into the room, leaning against the vanity across from her, “Do what? This trip?”
“All of it, the trip, the bucket list, and the whole living my life while I’m still young and free enough to live it.” Ashtyn explained. “My mom didn’t do that. She followed all the rules. She did exactly what everyone expected her to do. She married my dad and had me and played the perfect politician’s wife role to perfection.”
“And the problem with that was?” Tyler prompted.
“The problem was, it was all an act. On the inside, it was killing her. Killing her soul. That’s why she tried to commit suicide. To get out of an untenable situation. It was the only way she could think of to escape.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t have to.” Ashtyn shook her head wryly. “She and Dad got divorced. She left and she’s happier on her own than she ever was when she was home with us. She needed to be free to find herself and be who she wanted to be and I realized when I was standing in the back of that church that if I married Aaron, I’d be making the same choice she did. I’d be giving up on my own dreams without even trying to reach for them and I don’t want to end up like her. Not like the her that she was when I was a kid, not the kind of mom that was so unhappy with herself that she tried to end it all knowing full well her daughter would have to be the one to find her body.”
Ashtyn shivered, a cold chill going down her spine at the memory of finding her mother laying there nearly lifeless on the floor. She’d had nightmares for years after that day. She’d never been able to shake the voice in the back of her head that wondered what would have happened if she’d stayed at school late that day, if she hadn’t gotten home when she did.
“Hey.” A big hand landed on her knee and she glanced up to find that Tyler was squatting down next to her, a worried look on his handsome face. “Hey, you’re okay. You’re not your mom. You’re not her, Ashtyn.”
She didn’t know what he must have seen on her face to have him looking so worried but she swallowed past the lump in her throat and nodded, “I’m trying not to be.”
“I know.” he sighed, his hand moving to push her hair back off her face, “I get it now.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” His blue eyes met and held hers for a long moment and something she didn’t understand passed between them before he spoke again. “That’s why we’re going to tick off as many items on that bucket list of yours as we can before we get to Vegas.”
Tears she hadn’t realized were pooling in her eyes made her vision blurry, “Really?”
“Really.” He swiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb and when she could see him clearly again he gave her a pointed look. “But not the one-night stand, okay?”
She barked out a surprised laugh and he chuckled as the tension in the room broke. She’d almost forgotten amid everything else that she had told him about that particular part of her bucket list. She laughed even though it made her headache worsen.
“Deal.”
“Good.” He pushed back up to his feet, “Now, since we’re friends, I have to tell you that you stink like sweat and alcohol is wafting from your pores.”
“Hey!” she protested hotly, but he only chuckled as he wiped his hands on his pants and backed away.
“Take a shower and get cleaned up. I’m going to find us somewhere nearby to grab some breakfast before we hit the road. I have a hangover cure that might help you feel better if the shower doesn’t take care of it.”
He started to turn and leave the room but Ashtyn reached up and caught his hand, “Tyler?”
“Yeah?” He turned back slightly, looking from their clasped hands to her face.
“Thank you.”
She wasn’t sure what response she expected from him but he surprised her when he didn’t say a word. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and then let go as he stepped out of the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Ashtyn sat on the floor for a couple of minutes longer, trying to figure out what had just happened.
Something between them had shifted. She’d spilled her guts, in more ways than one, and she felt better for it. Tyler hadn’t told her she was being childish or immature. He hadn’t said she was overreacting to what she’d experienced as a child or tried to tell her that she was crazy for thinking she would end up like her mother if she’d married Aaron. He’d just listened and then reassured her that it would be okay.
He’d taken her side, agreed to help her with her bucket list, and basically become MVP of Team Ashtyn all at the same time.
She smiled as she pushed herself up from the floor. She’d never had any of the men in her life take her side on anything. She thought she was really going to enjoy being friends with Tyler St. James.
10
After their strangely heartfelt talk in the small motel bathroom, Tyler felt like a grade-A shithead. He’d only agreed to this trip because Ashtyn was a job to him. He’d told himself they’d both be better off if he could convince her she was making a mistake and get her back home as soon as possible, but after what she’d told him he knew that wasn’t the case.
He was supposed to be looking out for her. That was what her mother was paying him to do. Instead he’d taken every opportunity to make her miserable, let her slip away into the night unguarded, get drunk alone with strangers who could have easily taken advantage of her, and then tried to give her hell for having a hangover.
He’d been an asshole and yet, she wanted them to be friends.
Somehow, it was that above everything else, that had gotten stuck somewhere in his chest and made h
im ache with something he couldn’t name. It didn’t sound like Ashtyn Echols had ever had many friends, at least not many that got to see past the façade she presented to the world at large. But she’d let him see her, the real her, since the moment they met, only he hadn’t realized it.
Hell, he hadn’t even bothered to ask her why she was doing all of this now.
He’d taken one look at her and seen nothing but the spoiled, privileged daughter of a Senator who had always gotten whatever she wanted and expected him to fall in line like everyone else in her life did. He’d made assumptions and jumped to conclusions without ever really giving her a chance.
After talking to her, really talking to her for the first time in that bathroom he had realized there was so much more to the girl than the image she presented to the world. She was more than just a politician’s daughter. She was a woman with doubts and fears and a past that haunted her, but she was trying to be strong. She was trying to hold it all together and be who everyone expected her to be without losing herself in the process. She was trying to take control of her life for the very first time and instead of helping her he’d been just like every other man in her life, her father, her ex-fiancé, all of them trying to tell her what was best for her instead of letting her decide for herself.
Well, no more.
He wouldn’t be like those other men who had stood in her way. They didn’t understand Ashtyn but he did. Now that he’d listened to her story, watched her cry with frustration, seen her pull herself back together and tip her chin back up and ready herself for another fight if that was what it took to get what she wanted, he knew that they were more alike than he’d have ever believed.
He knew what it was like to have the people you loved look down on you, to think they knew better, to tell you what they thought you should be doing with your life. He knew Vaughn and Hunter meant well, just like he was sure that Ashtyn’s father did, somewhere deep down. But the thing they all had in common was that they wanted Tyler and Ashtyn to be people they weren’t.
He had forged his own way and become his own man and he couldn’t, more like wouldn’t stand in Ashtyn’s way as she fought to forge her own path.