Chapter Nine #2
I exit the room and am met with the smell of bacon acting as a siren’s call, luring me into the kitchen to find Ashton standing in a red apron that matches the kitchen walls and reads, “Kiss the Cook. Tastes Better Than the Food.”
He turns as I approach, and I raise my eyebrows at him.
Shrugging, he pops a piece of scrambled egg into his mouth and says, “It’s my brother’s. He’s the real cook between the two of us, but I try.”
“Hm.” I join him in the kitchen and steal bacon off the paper-towel-lined plate the strips rest upon to drain off grease. I crunch on the crumbly, burnt piece of heaven, sighing. “Breakfast for dinner. I love it.”
“It’s about all I can cook,” Ashton admits sheepishly with a boyish shrug.
His hair is more untamed than usual, and I have a feeling he resembles Noah more than usual right now.
It makes my heart do a little dance. “I need my brother back simply so that I don’t have to eat leftovers from Branda or attempt to cook for myself. ”
“I can cook,” I offer. “Let me make you breakfast in the morning as a thank you for everything you’ve done and will do for me.”
“Will do?” He hitches a brow, holding the spatula up.
“Taking me to Bora Bora, housing me, dealing with my emotional breakdowns as I process everything.” My shoulders lift and fall as I crunch on my piece of bacon. “You know, the usual stuff one would do for near strangers.”
Ashton laughs, shaking his head. The oven timer goes off, and he silences it before pulling a hot tray of biscuits from the shiny black appliance. “Don’t worry. They came from a package,” he says, as if he’s used to people questioning his skills in the kitchen.
“I’d eat grass right about now.” I glance at the clock, noticing it’s a little past eight. “It’s not as late as I thought.”
“I figured you’d be hungry once you woke up from your nap. Thought I’d leave it out in case you woke up after I went to bed.”
A warmth spreads in my chest at his kindness and thoughtfulness. “Thanks, Ashton. Truly.”
“Oh,” he says, pointing the spatula in his hand toward the living room. “Your luggage is in there. Dinner’s almost ready, but you have time to put it away if you want.”
I nod, steal another piece of bacon, then go collect my things and drag them into Noah’s room.
That scent of his hits me like a bag of bricks before it settles, and I grow accustomed to it as I organize my bags, fish out my bathroom things, and hunt for my sleep clothes.
Once I’m done, I make my way back to the kitchen.
Ashton has already set the table, so I join him.
We settle into an awkward silence punctuated with the sound of chewing and clanging of utensils on the ceramic plates. Finally, after I’ve consumed an entire bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, I speak up. “So, I’m meeting your family tomorrow. Will you tell me what to expect? Do they hate me?”
Ashton laughs, then takes a sip of his water. “I already told you that they don’t hate you. They’re thrilled to meet you, actually. They are,” he hums, looking away from me and off in the distance, “hopeful.”
“Hopeful?”
Still not looking me in the eye, he replies. “Hopeful that you will bring Noah back home. Hopeful that the two of you will reconnect.”
“But they don’t even know me. Why would they hope that I would reconnect with him?
” Uneasiness settles in my chest. Will they question me as if I’m Noah’s girlfriend?
Or worse, his fiancée? I’m not ready for that.
Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to meet the family while we were here waiting for our departure date.
I’m acting like Esme from the novel—spontaneous and a bit flighty.
That’s not me, even if I wish it were. Noah was supposed to be fiction, and now, he’s real.
It’s unnerving, this echoing clash of fantasy and reality.
Leveling me with an intense stare, Ashton slowly says, “You changed my brother. When he woke up in Bora Bora, you were all he was concerned about. The version of Noah who left for Bora Bora, while a good man, was noncommittal and not the dating type. Imagine our surprise when he texted us and told us he had found the woman he was going to marry.” Ashton chuckles at that, lightening up.
So Noah’s not perfect like in my book. He’s kind of a rogue it seems, which is great in fiction but doesn’t translate to reality in a healthy manner.
I’m silent, so he continues. “He has spent every waking moment since then trying to find a way to get you back without warranting that restraining order your father threatened him with if he so much as showed up in Whitney.”
Ire swirls in ribbons of dark maroon at the mention of what my father did.
I can’t even begin to imagine the pain Noah must have been in.
If I loved someone enough to marry him—which I still don’t know if that’s true—I would be out of my mind if someone told me I couldn’t be with him.
Love is potent like that. It’s the kind of love I’ve always wanted, but I must’ve settled for less with Bryan.
From what I can remember up to the blank space in my memory, I was the type of woman who settled.
Especially after Lane. One good thing came from losing time…
I do a much better job at going after what I desire.
Or at the very least, staying away from men since my expectations are too high.
You had that soul-rewiring love, something inside of me—not Noah—whispers. You had it with Noah. I used him to change you.
But I don’t remember it. At least, I don’t feel it anymore, I argue back with that still, small voice. The scraping of a chair across the floor elicits my attention. Ashton stands, heading for the kitchen. “Do you want tea?”
I shake my head, not much of a tea person. “If Noah was noncommittal before me, then who is to say he’s still not that way? He did run off, after all. Maybe he found someone new and is shacking up. Maybe I was simply a game to him.”
Ashton physically chokes in the kitchen.
I stand to check on him, but he’s got his head bowed over the sink as water drips from his lips.
“Not a chance,” he says firmly. “One, my brother doesn’t ‘shack up.’ Two, and I don’t say this to pressure you, Esme, but I’m positive if you don’t end up with Noah, he will be the guy version of a spinster for the rest of his life.
He ran off because he kept sitting in his truck every single day fighting the urge to earn a restraining order. ”
“Isn’t that a little toxic?”
“Probably.” Ashton straightens and drags the back of his hands across his mouth before turning toward me.
“Love is like that sometimes. It sweeps in with raging passion before robbing someone of life.” Something in his voice is reminiscent, and I wonder who hurt him.
But I don’t ask because the pain etched onto his face clearly indicates he’s not ready to talk about it.
After a beat of silence, he offers me a soft smile.
“But that doesn’t have to be the case. I think for some people…
” He pauses, looking off in the distance once more.
“I think for some people, it inherently changes them. Passionate, reckless love withstands the test of time. Their love never fizzles. Some people are so innately full of love that they breathe life into the dead instead of siphoning it from the living.”
But it stole mine, I think to myself. Three years, in fact.
Will this so-called passionate love steal Noah, too? Has it already?
“Okay,” I say in a high-pitched voice, ready to change the conversation as we sit back down at the table to finish our dinner. “Tell me about your family, please. I don’t want to be caught off-guard.”