Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
ASHER
I wasn’t hiding. It wasn’t my fault that my job could be done from my apartment ninety-nine percent of the time. Honestly, I sometimes thought of getting a different job. Did Lukas hire me because he needed me or because my brother died and he needed to make sure I was okay?
Had I chosen this path for myself, or did Leo’s death determine where I’d ended up? My head was nothing but unanswered questions. Was everything I did just a way to make me feel closer to Leo? Was I trying to fill his shoes?
Lukas and Leo were friends, and maybe if I hadn’t been around, there might have been more between them. But I’d become Leo’s focus. He’d given up so much just to make sure I was okay, and then he went and fucking died and it was very obvious to anyone who knew me, that I wasn’t okay.
Therapy was a step I wasn’t sure I was ready for, but I had downloaded some books on grief.
Not that I had read much of them. I read the introduction to one and the first chapter of another.
I hated that one book sounded like they knew nothing about my situation or how I felt, and the other read like they knew me better than I knew myself.
If I’d been reading a paperback, I’d have thrown it across the room.
And now I was standing in front of my closet, my hands trembling at my sides.
Empty boxes were scattered around, waiting to be filled.
Ever since Leo died, I’d been a mess and for a while I thought it would get better on its own, but it was clear to me that I had to actually put the work in unless I wanted to burn every bridge in my life.
At first, I’d been unable to stomach the idea of moving anything of Leo’s.
Like maybe if I left everything alone, he’d come back.
And then I hadn’t been able to look at it, so I’d gotten rid of the big items like his furniture, and all his personal things had been shoved haphazardly into my closet.
That was over a year ago, and I hadn’t opened it since.
Lukas would have been the first one to tell me that I didn’t have to do this alone, and I knew he was just a phone call away.
But my obsession with Lukas had spun out of control.
I did love Lukas, but the kiss should have woken me up to the fact that I wasn’t in love with him.
But if I wasn’t in love with him, then what did I feel for him?
The answer was as clear as it was painful. I loved Lukas like I’d loved Leo. Lukas was like a big brother to me. He looked out for me. He did all the things Leo said he’d do but then couldn’t. Because he fucking died. It felt like I’d replaced Leo with Lukas, and I hated myself for it.
The closet door opened with a squeak as the bifold doors protested their first movement in months. Some of Leo’s things tumbled out at my feet like they were begging for mercy.
I didn’t know what I wanted to keep, but I knew I couldn’t keep it all.
Not hoarded away in my closet, covered up like an angry wound.
I went through his clothes first. I’d at least had the sense to hang them and not leave them in a heap on the floor.
Leo had been bigger than me in all ways.
Taller, broader, and thicker, there was no way I’d be able to fit his clothes.
Not only that, but Leo had terrible taste in shirts.
He practically lived at the thrift store, and I think he looked for the ugliest shirts on purpose like it was a challenge.
There were some shirts that I couldn’t get rid of, though.
I kept a couple of the ugliest ones, graphic tees with harsh colors and ridiculous designs.
They were the ones that reminded me of Leo the most. In total, I kept half a dozen and tossed them into my laundry hamper to be washed.
They didn’t even smell like him anymore.
Leo had always smelled like spicy citrus, but everything in the closet smelled of dust and neglect.
Some of his wardrobe was a little wilder.
I hadn’t watched Leo’s scenes, because eww, but he had some leather gear that must have been used in a scene.
It wasn’t anything too racy, just a harness, a leather jock, and leather chaps.
Nothing that I’d want on or near my body.
He also had a cowboy hat and boots. A tool belt.
He even had a chef’s jacket. Nothing that I wanted to keep, that was for sure.
Pulling Leo’s costumes out of the closet, I laid them on my bed and took a picture to send to Lukas.
I hadn’t talked to him much since the other day when I’d gone and verbally abused his boyfriend.
Even though we’d made up, shame kept me from reaching out.
That was another reason I knew that I wasn’t actually in love with Lukas because how I felt now was similar to how I felt when I’d spilled some bleach and ruined one of Leo’s ugly shirts.
Lukas, for better or for worse, was now like a brother to me.
Not a potential love interest. Not a crush.
He wasn’t the brother I’d lost, but he cared about me and looked out for me and did all the things Leo hadn’t been able to do.
And he’d forgiven me like a brother when I’d fucked up.
Yet my hands still shook when I held my phone.
Now that I knew about the dyslexia, I opted to send a voice memo instead of a text to make it easier on him. See what happened when you were honest with people, Lukas? They did shit to make your life easier.
I sent the picture first, and then followed it up with a shaky voice note.
“Hey, Lukas, uh… I’m going through some of Leo’s things and I found his costume collection.
If you want it for the studio, I can bring it by the next time I’m over.
Let me know. Otherwise it’s going to a thrift store. Okay, that’s all. Thanks.”
I dropped my phone on the bed and went back to sorting through Leo’s things. Most of his clothes were going to be donated. Leo had also loved collecting CDs and DVDs, lecturing me on how important it was to have physical media and not rely on digital copies because those could be taken away easier.
His collection wasn’t small, but we had vastly different taste in music.
I kept mostly to rock, but Leo would listen to everything.
Rock. Country. Blues. Jazz. His taste in music was as tolerable as his taste in shirts.
I went through the DVDs next, and I kept a lot of those.
Leo and I both had a love of disaster movies and we weren’t picky.
They didn’t even have to be good; they just had to destroy shit and we were happy.
At the bottom of the closet, underneath a pile of Leo’s blankets, sat his childhood stuffed animal, Mister Bear, who was in fact a teddy bear with dark brown fur.
I picked him up and held him to my chest. When I chucked him in here, I’d been raging, grieving, ugly-crying.
And until this point, I thought that I hadn’t made much progress in the grieving process at all.
Sometimes it felt like I was still stuck in the same bad place right after it happened.
But looking back on how I’d been when I put all his stuff away and how I was now, it was like night and day.
Yes, I was still sad and kind of angry. I’d probably always be a little of those things. But there was a lot of comfort now in remembering his ugly shirts and our disaster movie nights. If I hadn’t known about his porn career, I might have had more questions about the costumes in his closet.
My phone buzzed on the bed and I took the opportunity to take a break. Grabbing it, I shoved the tool belt aside and sat on the edge of the bed, Mister Bear still tucked under my arm. He’d be staying with me.
“Hey, Lukas,” I answered the call.
“Hey, Asher. I got your message and thought I’d give you a call.” He had his careful, concerned older brother slash dad voice and as much as it comforted me, it also gave me a lump in my throat.
I’d lost so much when I lost Leo, but I gained too. I’d always miss Leo but knowing I had Lukas and all the other guys… well, it didn’t make it okay, but it made it bearable.
“Are you okay?”
I cleared my throat, but still it was tight with emotion when I spoke. “I’m fine. I know I don’t sound it, but I am. I’m going through Leo’s things. It’s… overdue. I saw the costumes and thought that the other guys at the studio might like to use them.”
“If you’re okay with it, I’m sure the guys would love to have them.”
“Okay. Great. Next time I’m over, I’ll make sure to bring them.”
“And when is that going to be? You’ve been a little absent lately. Lara and I miss having you around.”
“I miss being around. But… what about Sawyer? Will he want me there? After I was such a jackass to him?”
“Sawyer knows you’ve been through a lot. He and I talked, and I promise he’s good. He understands, Asher.”
“At least someone does.” I let out a sigh and flopped onto my back. I put Lukas on speaker and dropped the phone on my chest.
“Do you want to talk about it? I’m all ears, you know.”
“I fucked up. With Jax and Blue. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Jax and Blue are both reasonable people. I’m sure if you talked to them, you could sort it out.”
Fucking Lukas with his logic.
“What if talking was what got me in trouble in the first place?”
“Then you talk more.”
Even though he couldn’t see me, I scrunched my face. “You’re really shit at this, you know.”
“Hey, I never said I’d be able to give you good advice. But if words made a mess, then it stands to reason that you need different ones to make it right.”
“Ugh. And here I was hoping that I could wave my magic penis and make my problems disappear.”
Lukas barked out a laugh. “That only works in porn.”
“Goddammit,” I said, surprised to find myself smiling. Whether it had been the clearing out of the closet or knowing that Lukas and I were still solid, or a combination of both, I felt good. Almost hopeful.
But now I had to figure out what to say to Jax and Blue to repair the damage that I caused and pray that they’d be able to forgive me.