Chapter 4 Ash
Ash
I last about forty minutes before I realize I’m not getting back to sleep. Twenty minutes ago, I shot a text to Marcus that he won’t get until he’s released.
I think we should break up.
Five minutes later, I sent another one.
I think I’ll be gone for a little while.
I have no idea where I’m going to go but I’m not staying in that apartment right now. He doesn’t treat me right and it took six hours on the side of the road to figure that out. Trying to settle back under the covers, sleep still doesn’t come.
It’s not the quiet that gets me. I’m used to quiet. Marcus’ apartment was quiet. This quiet is different, textured and alive, crickets through the window and a horse shifting in the pasture and the house settling into itself with groans and ticks that sound almost content.
That’s worse, actually, because the comfort that comes with this quiet makes me think about staying, and staying makes me think about the man across the hall, and the man across the hall makes me think about his hand on the back of my neck in the truck and the sound I made when his thumb moved.
Stop thinking about it, I tell myself.
I climb off the bed and pad down the hallway in the dark, navigating by memory, bathroom door on the left, linen closet, the turn into the kitchen.
I’m thinking about water, maybe air, maybe just standing on the porch for a few minutes until the night cools me down enough to function like a person who has his life under control, which I don’t, but the performance has gotten me this far.
Boone is already out there, sitting on the porch steps with his forearms on his knees and a glass of something amber beside him on the wood.
He’s changed into a white t-shirt and the same jeans, looking out at the dark with the patience of a man who has nowhere to be and all the time in the world to not be there.
He doesn’t turn when the screen door creaks behind me, but he says “Couldn’t sleep either” without a question mark, like he expected me, like he’s been sitting here waiting for my forty minutes of ceiling-staring to run their course.
“No,” I say.
“Sit down.”
I sit on the step above his, off to the side, enough distance between us to feel responsible about.
The wood is smooth and cold through the borrowed sweats and the porch light throws a yellow circle that ends about three feet past the bottom step.
Beyond that it’s all dark land and far ridge and a sky the storm has washed clean on its way somewhere else.
“You want some?” He lifts the glass.
"What is it?"
"Bourbon."
My nose crinkles in disgust. "I don't really drink bourbon."
"Tonight you do."
I take the glass, our fingers overlapping on it for a second.
The bourbon burns going down but the good kind, settling in my chest. I hand it back and look at the dark because looking at the dark is easier than looking at him.
Some part of me feels like Boone knows how this evening ends, my heart beating just a little faster at the implication.
“Thank you,” I say. “For tonight. For all of it. I’ll figure out a plan in the morning and get out of your hair, I just—”
“Why did you stop coming over?”
The question short circuits my brain. I knew that question was coming.
I just hadn’t prepared an answer. Looking down at my lap, I start picking at my fingers, searching for the right words.
“What do you mean?” My voice wobbles a bit as he twists around, the sudden shift drawing my eyes to him. Fuck.
“You know what I mean.”
“I got busy. Work was really—”
“Ash.”
“Things just got complicated with Marcus and I—”
“You came to every dinner for a year and a half. Thanksgiving, Easter, every random Tuesday I fired up the grill. You drove forty minutes each way and brought food you’d been cooking all afternoon and you learned my horses’ names and you sat on this porch with me after everyone went to bed.
And then one day you just stopped. No explanation. No goodbye.”
“Marcus and I were going through a rough patch—”
“I’m not asking about Marcus.” His voice ends on a growl, the deepened tone shooting straight to my cock. It twitches in my pants in response to Boone’s unwavering stare.
This is wrong.
But reminding myself doesn’t help and the longer I sit here, the more I wonder what happens if I just don’t go back to Marcus, like ever.
I drop my gaze back to my lap, studying my hands again with the kind of focus I should’ve given my last relationship, the knuckles, the bitten cuticles, the faint scar on my left thumb from a can opener that slipped two Christmases ago in this very kitchen while Boone stood beside me saying let me see that, hold still, let me see.
"I noticed," he says. "I want you to know that. I noticed the day you stopped and I've noticed every day since. Teague asked about you after Easter and I told him to ask his brother, because the real answer wasn't something I could say at my own breakfast table."
"What was the real answer?" I ask, even though I already know. I have the same one living in my chest like a second heartbeat, and I've spent eight months feeding it silence and distance and it hasn't gotten any quieter.
"You first."
"That's not fair."
"I know it's not."
"Boone, I can't do this."
"Yeah, you can,” he purrs.
"I can't, because if I say it out loud then it's real, and I've spent eight months convincing myself it isn't."
"How's that working out for you?"
My laugh catches in my throat, turning into a shaky breath that hangs between us in the night air.
He lifts the bourbon to his lips and drinks without breaking eye contact.
My skin prickles with awareness of his patience.
Marcus would have filled this space already, bulldozing through my hesitation with questions that felt like accusations.
Before him, David talked over my pauses, interpreting my thoughts before I'd formed them.
Even gentle Sam tapped his fingers against tables while I gathered myself, his body betraying his impatience while his words promised understanding.
But Boone remains perfectly still on his porch steps, bourbon glass balanced in his hand.
"I couldn't be around you," I say to my hands, my voice wobbling further.
"I couldn't sit at your table and laugh at your jokes and hand you a beer and pretend I didn't want you.
Every time you touched my shoulder. Every time you said my name.
Every time you stood too close in that kitchen and I could feel the heat coming off you.
I wanted you so badly I couldn't sit at your table without my hands shaking, and I stopped coming because I was terrified that one night I wouldn't leave, that I'd follow you down that hallway and ruin everything.
And you're his father, and I know how that sounds—"
"Ash."
"I know I'm a mess, I know this is—"
"Stop." He moves into my space, closing the distance between us inch by careful inch until I can feel the heat off his chest. His face fills my vision and the air between us shifts.
His hand comes up as his thumb catches a tear on my cheekbone with a gentleness that makes me flinch, because I don't know what to do with gentle.
Gentle confuses my whole system. It makes me feel like I'm made of something that might not hold.
"Tell me I read this wrong," he murmurs, close enough that I feel the words against my mouth. "Tell me I've been imagining this for two years and I'll say goodnight and we never talk about it again."
I huff out a breath, unable to find the words.
“Tell me this thing with Marcus is still going to continue after tonight and that you’re going back to that apartment after he discarded you on the side of the road. Tell me and I will let you go.” His eyes search my face, my expression breaking down with every second beneath his gaze.
Tears gather in my eyes at how exposed I am, words spilling out before I can stop them. "You didn't read it wrong."
"I need to hear you say it clearly, Ash. No room for either of us to doubt it later."
I tilt my head up a little further, my hands reaching to rest against his chest. This feels like breaking every rule in the book but it also feels like the first time I’m ever taking something I wanted. "You didn't read it wrong. I've wanted you since… for a long time."
He closes the distance, his lips pressed to mine.
His hands frame my face, tilting me exactly where he wants me, as his mouth dominates the embrace.
The bourbon lingers on his tongue as he presses against me.
When I open for him, something breaks loose inside me, a sound vibrating between us.
His fingers tighten against my jaw while his breathing shifts, yet he maintains that same measured pace.
My fingers curl into his shirt, pulling him closer. His arm wraps around my waist, gathering me against the solid plane of his chest as one hand slides into my hair, small desperate sounds escaping me.
When he pulls back to look at me, his eyes have darkened to midnight. His breathing has deepened, like something powerful straining against restraints that won't hold much longer.
"Inside, Ash. If you want to stop at any point, you tell me."
"I don't want to stop."
"At any point, Ash."
"I won't want to stop."
His arm hooks under my knees as he lifts me from the porch step with a fluid strength that steals my breath. My body responds with a rush of heat that floods my cock, the embarrassing tent in my pants drawing his attention.
His eyes darken impossibly further as he carries me down the hall before entering his room.
The sheets whisper against my skin when he lays me down, cool for only a moment before his weight presses me into the mattress.
His hips settle between my thighs while his mouth finds the vulnerable curve where my neck meets shoulder.