Chapter 44
Ash
I read the book for Karla’s book club. I showed up to Second Chance on the last Tuesday of the month for the discussion with her friends.
I didn’t know why, but it felt important for me to step into Karla’s new life and see the person she’d become over the past few years.
It was clear that her healing journey looked a lot different than my own.
I faked my happiness; Karla found hers.
As I walked into the bookshop, I saw Karla laughing with a guy who was making drinks at the bar. In another corner were three individuals who were setting up a snack table.
Karla turned toward me with a bright smile. “Ash! You made it.” She walked over and hugged me.
I wondered if she could tell how my body reacted whenever she touched me. It was like sparks of life shot through my whole system, but whenever she’d let go, she’d take the sparks with her. She’d almost jumpstarted my heart again simply with her touches, and she had no fucking clue.
“I’m so happy you’re here. Let me introduce you to everyone,” she said, grabbing my hand in hers as she pulled me toward her friends. There they were again, those damn sparks.
“Hey, y’all, this is my old friend Ash who I mentioned might be joining our book club,” Karla said. She gestured toward the two women. “Becca and Grace, this is Ash.”
“You left out the fact that he was handsome,” Grace said as she smiled my way and extended her hand for me to shake. I shook her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Grace. Karla’s very single friend,” she flirted.
“Don’t let her hold on too tight. She bites,” another person said. I looked over to him, and he smirked and held his hand in my direction. “I’m Eric. Nice to meet you.” Eric was a little shorter than me and had a buzz cut. He dressed in graphic T-shirts and sweatpants and looked beyond comfortable.
“I don’t bite,” Grace chimed in. Then she sweetly looked my way. “Unless you’re into that.”
“Geez, someone get that woman a muzzle,” the guy at the bar said as he walked over with a tray of drinks. He set the tray on the table with the display of wings, then looked my way.
I swore he eyed me up and down before deciding to introduce himself.
“Hey, I’m Daniel. I work the coffee shop and bar here. I’m good friends with Karla.”
The way he said “good friends” made me wonder if the two of them might’ve been a little bit more than just friends. That bothered me.
It had no right to bother me. Karla was allowed to be with whoever she wanted to be with. But were they . . . Did she have feelings for Daniel? Had she been with anyone?
Fuck.
Get a grip, Ash. Shape up.
I shook Daniel’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you all. I’ll admit, I was a bit concerned coming in to join the book club, because Karla and I already had a Hot Ones night together, and I hardly survived it.”
“You two did a Hot Ones challenge?” Daniel asked, shooting a glance toward Karla. “I thought that was just for our book club.” He seemed almost offended by the fact that I’d shared wings with his “good friend.”
Karla waved him off. “I figured I could test Ash’s strength level. It turns out he couldn’t hang with the big dogs.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Becca said as she grabbed a plate to pick up some wings. “No one is quite as big of a masochist as our girl Karla,” she joked.
I smiled. “I almost died that night.”
“I bet your body suffered a lot after eating them, too,” Grace said.
She lowered her brows. “How’s your body Ash?
Does it still hurt? I heard massages could help after that kind of situation.
And it just turns out that I’m a massage therapist. If you need, I can help you release some tension in your ass—”
“Grace!” all her friends shouted.
She tossed her hands up in surrender. “Too much?”
“Way too much,” Karla mentioned with a head shake, giving me an apologetic smile.
I loved when her lips did that. Curved up into a grin. Damn, I missed those smiles more than I realized.
“I apologize about our dear friend here. She’s ovulating,” Becca sarcastically said.
“Too much girl talk, not enough alcohol. Everyone take your drinks and let’s stop talking about how hot Ash and his asshole are,” Daniel mentioned as he passed me a drink.
We then all grabbed food—I stuck with the mild wings—and began to discuss the thriller novel.
I didn’t add much to the conversation, because I was overtaken by watching Karla in full bloom.
She was so different from what I remembered.
Her light was so bright, her eyes filled with so much life.
Watching her laugh and joke around with her friends healed something inside of me.
She was living her dream life.
That made me damn happy.
I watched as Daniel agreed with anything and everything that Karla said.
When she was low on her cocktail, I offered to grab her another one.
Daniel stood before I could and started to the bar area.
“No need, Ash. No offense, but nobody can make a better cocktail than me. Plus, you’re a guest. As the one who formed the book club with Karla, let me get you a drink,” Daniel said.
I allowed it. I wasn’t going to argue with the guy.
We all went back to talking after Daniel refreshed everyone’s drinks. He added a few garnishes to Karla’s. Pink straw and all.
“OK, everyone,” Karla clapped her hands. “I think it’s time to talk about how Troy was a terrible character throughout the whole story.”
“Exactly,” Daniel said, right as I stated, “Bullshit.”
Karla arched an eyebrow as she stared at me. “Bullshit? Oh, come on, Ash. Don’t tell me you believe Troy had any redeeming qualities.”
“I am here to state exactly that.”
She tossed her hands up in shock. “You have got to be kidding me. He kidnapped Marcy at the beginning of the book.”
“To save her from an abusive family,” I countered.
“But he still kept her locked in a house.”
“Because he knew they were trying to track her and kill her.”
She leaned in my direction with an arched brow. “He admitted he loved her after killing her brother!”
I leaned forward with a smirk and arched my brow right back at her. “Because he felt that if he waited another second, he’d lose the chance to ever say it.”
She clasped her hands together. “Then he told her he’d never be with her and disappeared out of nowhere.”
I clasped my hands together. “Because he loved her enough to let her go.”
Her long eyelashes fluttered. “Bullshit.”
I leaned back in my chair and gave her a gentle grin. “He knew if she stayed with him, she’d get killed, too. He let her go because he loved her. He’d rather her live her life fully than have her life in danger. Love sometimes means saying goodbye.”
“Goodbyes suck.”
I agreed. “Yeah, they do.”
Her blue eyes grew somber as a flash of pain rushed through them. “Especially the one-sided ones where the other person doesn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”
That was a personal strike, and I felt it right against my rib cage. I parted my lips to respond, but no words came out. What could I even say in response to her? She was right.
“Ohhh,” Grace sang, bringing me back to the fact that Karla and I were still in the book club meeting. “I get it. He’s off limits. Sorry, Karla. I didn’t know you and Ash had a thing.”
“Wait, what?” Daniel’s eyebrows lowered as he frowned. He gestured toward Karla and me. “You two? A thing?” he asked, with a hint of shock in his voice. Yeah, that man had the hots for Karla. No doubt about it.
“No, we aren’t, I mean, we are not . . .
a thing. We don’t have, I mean, I . . .” Karla started to fumble her words as her cheeks grew pink.
She glanced at her phone. “Gosh, it’s a bit late, you guys.
Is it OK if we wrap up the meeting? I have so much inventory to sort through tomorrow, so I want to tackle it early on. ”
What was that? Why did she get so flustered?
Eric yawned. “Yeah, I’m a bit beat, anyway. I got work at six in the morning.”
We all exchanged our good-nights, and after Eric, Becca, and Grace left, I debated if I should leave too. But a part of me wanted to keep hanging out with Karla. I wanted to ask her why she grew so flustered when Grace thought she and I were a thing.
A thing.
What an odd way to describe what she and I shared.
We were so far from just a thing. Without a doubt we were many, many things in all the good and bad ways.
We were pain, we were joy, we were laughter, we were tears.
We were everything and then we were nothing, and now .
. . well, I didn’t exactly know what we were currently. But I wanted to find out.
I offered to help Karla clean up everything at the same time Daniel offered, too.
“It’s not a big deal, I got it. I know where everything goes in here, anyway,” Daniel told me.
Karla smiled toward her friend. “No, it’s fine, Daniel. You already work enough at this shop. Ash and I can clean this place up tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Daniel hesitated for a moment, then agreed. He held his hand toward me. “Ash, great to meet you.”
“You too, Daniel.” I gave him my hand. He shook it a little too hard, but I matched his energy.
Game on, Daniel.
After he left, I grabbed one of Karla’s mother’s records and put it on the record player. Then I began to help her clean up. Even though I shouldn’t have cared, I couldn’t help myself from asking her.
“So did you and Daniel have a thing in the past?” I blurted out, using Grace’s term of endearment.
Karla paused her footsteps as she held a bowl of the leftover wings. “What?”
“You and Daniel . . . did you two date before? Or are you dating?”
She laughed, as if the question was completely out of left field. “What? No. Of course not. What a weird question.”
My brows lowered. “Why are you acting like it’s such an odd question? It’s clear he likes you.”
“I like him, too. He’s a good friend.”
“Yeah, but he likes you likes you. Like you’re his good friend.”
Karla’s brows knit together. “What? No. Daniel doesn’t see me that way.”
“Why do you say that?”
She shrugged. “Because no one sees me that way. I’m not really the type of girl that gathers guys’ attention.”
“You caught all my attention when we were young,” I said.
Perhaps I was too direct, because Karla’s whole persona shifted. Her lips parted as her blue eyes fluttered open and shut for a millisecond. She seemed thrown off by my words, but it was important for her to know that.
She was beautiful.
She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
I had a feeling Daniel felt the same exact way.
She shook her head. “Well, Daniel and I are just friends. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t have feelings for him.”
“Oh, OK.” I paused. “Do you currently have feelings for, uh, anyone?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant about it.
Karla chuckled. “Are you asking me if there is a man in my life?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard, partly not wanting to know the answer.
“Well, no. There isn’t. I’ve been single my whole life. People aren’t really interested in me in that way.”
“Karla—”
“What about you?” she cut in, shifting the conversation from her dating life to mine. It was clear she didn’t want to talk about her love life. “Anyone special?”
“Just my old boy, Rolls,” I joked about my cat. “I’ve casually dated over the years, but nothing serious.”
“Not one to settle down, huh?”
“Why settle down when you can keep moving fast?”
“I don’t know . . . I’ve learned to love the slow moments. I used to hate them. I felt like my whole life was moving so slowly. But now . . . I crave the small steps. I find peace in the quiet and slow, mundane moments. Like tonight’s book club. It was nice to slow down with friends.”
I smiled at her. I found myself doing that more often than not. The same way I caught Daniel smiling in her direction when she wasn’t looking.
“I’m glad you have them,” I told her. “I’m glad you’re happy, Karla.”
“I’m glad you are, too,” she replied.
I didn’t correct her and tell her that I couldn’t remember the last time I felt true happiness. Outside of the sparks of life she’d fed me over the past few weeks.
Karla’s hips swayed a little to the music as she carried the wings over to the bar. I watched her hips sway with each step that she took. After we finished cleaning up the space, I said good night.
She pulled me into a hug, and instead of moving at my normal fast pace, I slowed down.
I let her hug linger.