CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN MOLLY
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
MOLLY
Ashton wanted to take me on a trip, but I hadn’t expected a helicopter ride.
I gaped at him when we drove up to the helipad. “Are you serious?”
He smiled before nodding. He’d also asked for me to dress up, so I was wearing a dress.
V neck. The material was the softest fabric.
Sequined. It looked light pink, but in the right light, it could sparkle and give off undertones of lilac as well.
And it was wrapped around me like a robe.
I tied it in front. Ashton was wearing a black suit and an off-white shirt under. He looked dashing.
“What’s the occasion?”
He squeezed my hand, nodding to the helicopter. “Just get on. You’ll see.”
A guy approached us, wearing a bright-orange vest. We were given these helmet/visor things with radio pieces for our ears. It helped silence the sound, but we could still talk to each other. After we got in and seat belted, the helicopter lifted off.
I’d never imagined this was something I would do in my life.
Never, ever. Not being the daughter of Shorty Easter, and as I was starting to learn, the daughter of Gen D’amperia.
I was learning all the ways she was like me, how she wasn’t like me, and I kept remembering new things.
Memories that my dad used to tell me didn’t exist, but they did.
And I had a newfound obsession with the stars. The ceiling in Easter Lanes was getting a whole new upgrade. Actually, the whole place was. The entire interior was getting one giant mural painted over of the night sky, complete with galaxies and stars.
Obsessed. Me.
I was expecting for us to go north of the city, but forty minutes later, we were landing in the Hamptons.
It was a private landing spot, behind a giant house.
Cobblestone driveway. Grand arches. It looked like three giant villas from Tuscany, but they were transplanted into the Hamptons.
A giant pool. A lavish garden. Tennis court.
And there were four other barnlike structures.
“What is this place, Ashton?” I asked once the helicopter took off and I could hear my own voice.
He squeezed my hand, tugging me forward. “Come on.”
I followed.
He took me inside the home, into the kitchen, and Avery was there. He gave us a small wave, but he was busy cooking. “Welcome, Molly.”
“Hi, Avery.” But I was so confused.
Ashton kept tugging me forward, taking me through the entire house.
It was all modern, mostly cream-colored palette except for the library, which was filled from the floor to a second floor with books. There were beds built in among the bookshelves, or a few. A reader’s dream reading escape.
Then to the primary bedroom, which was its own floor. Its own library.
Through a secret doorway, into a secret room, then to a secret slide.
“What?” I laughed, taking the slide first and ending up in another whole section of the house.
Ashton landed behind me and began leading me again. We were in a glass-enclosed patio area, and then through another secret door, and we were outside. We were on the other side of the house, by the pool, which had its own pool house, and another whole Zen maze and garden.
“I don’t under ...” And then I stopped trying because there was a table set up, just beyond, at the pinnacle of a hill. Pialto and Sophie were there. Elijah too. My breath caught in my throat. “What’s this?”
Pialto clutched a bouquet of pink roses. Sophie held a champagne bottle, a giant-size one that was in danger of being dropped.
Elijah had a towel over his arm, like he was a waiter.
“One last stop.” Ashton led me over to the table.
Sophie was crying and beaming as she pulled out my chair.
Ashton helped me into it.
She went and pulled his out next.
Pialto moved in. “These are for you, but I know you’re going to worry about a vase right away, so I’ll take them to the kitchen and handle it. You”—his eyes jerked to Ashton—“stay here and enjoy .”
He left, and Elijah took the champagne bottle from Sophie. Opening it, he tipped it enough to fill both our drinks. After that, as Sophie was blushing, and giggling, and mouthing, “OMG!” to me, he nudged her to go with them. Both went inside.
Avery came out, coming from a door not far from us, with the first course of food.
“What is going on?” I couldn’t get over this, any of this.
We had the first course, then the second. Dessert came last, and I was stuffed. A sweet leaf salad. Potato gratin. Seasonal vegetables. Vegetable cavatappi. Salmon. Torta Rogel, and I was dying. I was so full, and then all the champagne.
I was a full giggling mess by the last course. It was also long past sundown. By the time dessert came out, the stars were up.
I was in heaven.
“Ashton, you’ve still not told me what’s going on.”
He stared at me for a moment, his eyes somber, a faint smile lingering.
Everyone had come out to say their goodbyes. We were officially alone in this new place, big enough to be called a compound.
A flash of fear crossed his face before it was gone again. “You asked me a long time ago about what happened at the compound.”
I sat up straight. “Jess and Trace’s wedding.”
He nodded, his face closing off.
“Trace said something happened to you that day, that you were shaking.”
His eyes flickered before whatever emotion that surged forward was blanketed again. “I told you that I hated my mother, but I never told you why.”
I let out a slow breath of air, knowing, just knowing, we were going down a delicate path.
“You know my mother was an addict, but you don’t know the extent of it.
Or what else happened the night before our mothers died.
” He stared off into the distance. “My grandfather refused to give her money. She’d been trying all day to get it.
She went to him. He said no. She went to my uncles.
They all said no. She went to me. Her son.
I said no. The last person she went to was my grandmother.
She was strong, fierce, but she had a heart of gold.
We were at the compound that day.” He turned, looking at me now.
There was pain there, but also grief and relief.
His shoulders smoothed down. “My grandmother’s health had already started getting bad, but my mom, she .
.. beat my grandmother. I think she asked her for money, for the drugs. ”
“Ashton.”
He shook his head. “I’m the only one who knew the truth what happened that night.
We were at the compound, so the normal amount of security wasn’t there.
They were outside. We thought it was safe.
I was there with my abuela. Grandfather got called away for a meeting, which was normal, but my mom came.
She wasn’t supposed to be there. I thought she’d been in the city, but she drove up.
She was looking for money. I heard the screams and ran in, but my abuela was already on the ground.
Bleeding. My mom was standing over her, holding a knife and my grandmother’s purse.
She didn’t hear me come in. She thought I was in one of the other sections of the place.
We have a family safe there, and my mom was demanding the code.
My abuela wouldn’t give it.” His words were so bitter, clipping out, “She wasn’t happy with the money Abuela had in her purse. ”
I reached for his hand.
“I grabbed a gun. I knew where there was one, and I pulled it on her. Threatened her. Told her to get the fuck out of there before I pulled the trigger. She left. She made one of the guards drive her to the city. I didn’t care where she went.
I just wanted her the fuck out of there, but Abuela.
She didn’t want anyone to know what happened, and she was so weak.
She made me lift her body so it’d look like she fell down the stairs.
That’s the story she gave. We didn’t have security cameras inside the house back then, and I never said a word.
I promised Abuela I wouldn’t tell, but I also wouldn’t actively lie for her either.
But Abuela, she still loved my mother, even though she’d been hurt so bad that she needed to be airlifted to the hospital in the city.
We got word what happened to my mom, and my grandfather called me to the office to tell me.
My mom didn’t just kill your mom that night.
The beating, it was the straw that broke my abuela.
She died three weeks later. I’ve always blamed my mother.
“In my abuela’s culture, we revere the elderly.
My grandmother never wanted that secret told, so I’ll never tell.
I never did, but I can tell you. I’ve held that for so long.
It made me hate my mother. I know addiction is a sickness.
Christ, what I do, I’m fully aware of the hypocrisy, but I can’t unloathe my mother. It’s just not in me.”
“I’m so sorry, Ashton.” I laced our fingers together.
“That day I saw you, I have never stopped thinking about you since that day. Maybe it linked us? Maybe I started loving you that day, knowing what my mom took away from you, knowing what she did to Abuela.”
My eyes were swimming.
I was flashing back to that same day as well. “Your grandmother loved you?”
“Fiercely.” He blinked, some wetness showing. “My grandfather too. I think they didn’t know how to help my mom. They didn’t believe in therapy, or they would’ve sent my mother to one. They didn’t know. It’s different now.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
He cleared his throat. “I’ve been reading more of the group role dynamics you mentioned. That’s therapy based, right?”
I nodded. “I’ve been interested. I think because of my own dad, but also from Easter Lanes. People talk a lot to a bartender that’ll listen.”
His smile was so soft. “I get that.” He looked around. “That’s why we’re here. A new place. A new compound.”
I sat back. “What?”
“I bought this place. Not just for us. The familia too. My aunts. Cousins. Nieces. Nephews. And for ... our kids if we ever have them.”
Children.
My heart was pumping.
I wanted to hug him, hold him, cry with him, but now I wanted to kiss him and so many other things. “Kids?”
“If you want.” He was back to looking at me, watching me steadily, loving me right back. “I know I’d want, someday.”
“I want. I very much want. Children?” I felt full all over again. Full of love, life, and happiness. “I love you.”
Those eyes of his, looking back at me with such tenderness. “I love you too.”
“Wait. Did you sell the other compound?”
“No.” He picked up his fork, taking a last bite of his Rogel cake. “I burned it. It felt cathartic to see it in ashes.”