Chapter 39 #2
“That doesn’t justify their actions,” Ash tells him, just in case Kieran still has doubts or is trying to find excuses.
“No, it doesn’t,” he agrees. “I…um… I guess I developed what was probably an eating disorder? But it got better when I got older and, you know, could take care of myself. Make my own choices. I’m good now.”
He doesn’t say it with the desperation of someone trying to convince not only others, but also himself, so Ash takes it at face value.
“That’s pretty amazing. That you overcame all that.”
Kieran blushes again, but instead of finding it cute, it only makes Ash angry. Why has no one ever told this man how fucking wonderful he is?
“I still have some hang-ups,” Kieran admits. “I don’t have a problem eating out or going to a bar, since the people who serve me don’t know me. But I panic whenever someone I know offers me something. Dawson is the only exception. Or he was.” His eyes fix on Ash. “Until recently.”
Ash fucking forgets to breathe, Kieran’s confession like an arrow hitting the bullseye.
Except in this case, the bullseye is his heart, and the arrow is the very thing he’s ached for his whole life.
Does Kieran know? Does he realize what he’s giving him just by saying that—by trusting him, of all people, even though Ash has hardly done anything to earn that trust?
With a story like Kieran’s, trust isn’t something casual.
It’s something that’s been locked behind years of silence and self-preservation, and now it’s being handed to Ash with bare, trembling honesty.
It’s the biggest gift someone like him could ever ask for, and it threatens to shatter everything into pieces.
To make him reach across the space between them, take Kieran’s hand, and promise he’ll never betray that trust, that he’ll guard it with his whole damn life.
He doesn’t do any of it, because the truth is he can keep none of those promises. Out of all the people in the world, he’s the last person Kieran should hand his trust to. Not when Ash is the one person who has the potential to break his heart—or already has.
So he just sits there, ass glued to the chair, gripping the armrests and praying his resolve will last until Kieran’s finished with his story.
“Understandable. You can never be too cautious. It’s healthy to be a little distrustful.” What a fucking robotic answer. Jesus, he wants to punch himself.
“More than a little, in my case.”
“That’s okay too. You need to protect yourself first.”
Kieran clenches his jaw. Something about that response upset him, but he doesn’t give Ash much time to dissect it.
“I’m tired of doing that.” He wrings his hands together. “It took me a very long time, but I finally admitted something to myself.”
“And what is that?”
Their eyes meet, Kieran’s filled with so much fear and hope it takes Ash’s breath away.
“I want someone else to protect me.”
Fucking hell. Talk about a low blow. The lowest of them all.
“Kieran—”
“I’m tired of having to be strong all the time,” he barrels on, sounding shaky and frustrated.
“Sometimes I want to be weak. Sometimes I just want to…be. To simply exist without having to be on edge constantly.” He runs a hand across his face, then pins Ash with a serious look.
“I think I just need someone in my life who wouldn’t mind taking the reins for a bit.
Who would let me switch off. Someone…who actually has my best interests at heart. ”
There’s nothing funny about it, but Ash almost laughs. Because this? This sounds less like a confession in a therapist’s office, and more like a relationship interview, or a dating profile excerpt, ‘I want you, but if you say yes, this is what you’ll be signing up for’.
And the most ridiculous bit? Ash would sooo love to swipe right. Hell, he’d climb a mountain and scream yes from the top of his lungs. The whole time Kieran was talking, his thoughts were an endless loop of: I can do that. I can be that for you. Let me be that for you.
But he can’t, not in the way Kieran deserves. It’s just wishful thinking. He feels like a fish that has never left the ocean but dreams of living a life on land. No matter how much he wants it, it’s not something he’s capable of.
“My parents got divorced when I was twelve.”
After dropping the bomb that annihilated logical reasoning, the abrupt topic change has Ash grasping at straws for a while.
“That’s not your fault either.” His brain has finally restarted.
“Not what my mum said,” Kieran says, expression pinched. “She lost it a little when my dad remarried—to someone with kids—and said it all happened because Dad couldn’t deal with having a kid like me.”
“Kieran—”
“I know, I know.” He pats the air placatingly. “Not true. I actually asked him about it a few years ago. Turns out he and mum were having issues long before I started acting out.”
It sounds rehearsed, like something Kieran knows—logically—to be the reason, but emotionally it hasn’t taken root yet.
“Do you believe him, though?”
“It doesn’t matter if I do or not,” he answers evasively.
“It doesn’t change the fact that he left us, left me, moved freaking states, and I got stuck with Mum and only saw him once every few months.
” He huffs. “It’s a theme in my life; people leaving when things get rough.
Mum was the same. After the divorce, she could barely stand to be around me, especially when I had one of my days.
Not that I blame her—I can barely stand being around me sometimes.
But unlike her, I can’t just leave myself behind for days without a word. ”
Ash holds up a hand. “She left you alone?”
Kieran nods. “When it was too much for her, she would pack a bag and take off, usually for three or so days. Wouldn’t pick up her phone, and I had no idea where she went.
I assume she stayed with friends.” He rolls his eyes when he registers Ash’s stormy expression.
“We had food at home and I had pocket money, so it’s not like I was starving, okay? ”
“Is that supposed to make everything sound less concerning?”
That came out angrier than he expected. But Kieran smiles, as if Ash’s indignation makes him feel validated and seen.
“You have a point.” He purses his lips. “It’s interesting; you’d think that I’d grow up to be someone clingy who always has to be around people and can’t handle being alone.
But I somehow managed to swing the pendulum to the opposite extreme.
I rarely ever let anyone in my life, because what’s the point if they leave anyway? ”
It’s not such a mystery. In fact, it’s perfectly logical. Simple, even.
Being alone isn’t what scares him.
Being left alone does.
“Dawson didn’t,” Ash reminds him.
“No,” Kieran agrees, albeit hesitantly. “But he has a bad track record staying with people who hurt him.”
“Have you hurt him?”
“Not…that I know of? But it’s the principle. He’d probably stay even if I did. That’s not what I want either.”
“You don’t want people to leave when things get tough,” Ash recaps. “But you also don’t want them to stay when they don’t want to stay, and might be sticking around out of obligation.”
“That’s pretty on point,” Kieran agrees, then flashes an impressed smile. “You’re not half bad at this therapy thing.”
“I’m incredibly flattered,” Ash deadpans, but his own smile gives him away. He is flattered, that’s the thing. Kieran, rightfully so, despises therapists, yet he’s here, pouring his heart out. Trusting Ash.
“As you can see, I don’t tend to get attached to people.
I keep my distance, keep it lukewarm. I don’t want to get used to something just for it to be ripped away.
” Another of those intense, soul-staring looks.
“So you can bet your ass that when I do find something worth the risk of having my heart broken, I’m gonna fight for it.
And I won’t stop until I have it. Ever.”
Ash gulps. That speech was easily skirting the edge of a threat—could easily lay grounds for a restraining order—but fuck if it didn’t make his heart race. And his dick hard. At least his legs are already crossed.
“I see,” he replies, oh so eloquently. Given how most of his blood has accumulated south of the border, no one can really blame him.
Seemingly satisfied, Kieran slaps his thighs and stands up.
“Well, thank you for your assistance in my trauma processing. I feel much better now, so I’ll be on my way.
” With that, he winks, casually strolling towards the door, as if he didn’t just shake Ash’s barely-preserved control apart with an intensity that registered on the Richter scale.
And now he’s going to leave?
Like, yeah, sure, Ash could use a break from the emotional turmoil, but he could also use answers to some important questions.
Not to mention that, for all intents and purposes, this is a therapy session.
One that Kieran is walking out of in the middle, without having tied all the loose ends together.
He has reopened old wounds without giving Ash a chance to help him close them, and that worries him.
But he doubts Kieran would be interested in continuing the session for the sake of therapy. Still, there is one thing on his mind.
“Kieran?” He waits until Kieran turns around. “Can you give me the names of the therapists you saw as a kid?”
Kieran does a double-take before huffing a laugh. “How am I supposed to remember? Ask my mum.”
“Fine. Give me her number.”
The humor vanishes from Kieran’s face. “The fuck you wanna know the names for?”
“Personal reasons.” And professional ones too, because people like that should not be allowed to practice.
“What, are you gonna rock up on their doorstep with a bat?”
“I was thinking crowbar.”
Kieran stills, realizing it isn’t a joke. He’s not the only one with stalking skills…
“Fuck, you’re so…” He closes his eyes, clenching and unclenching his hands, breathing through some internal battle. Whether he wins or loses is unclear—and Ash never learns what ‘he’s so’ either.
He does, however, pray for his life when Kieran’s eyelids snap open, and he marches towards Ash like a man about to ruin him.
And ruin him, he does.
“Kie—” The rest dissolves into Kieran’s mouth as he drops into Ash’s lap and kisses him like a man possessed. Or maybe like a man who’s finally run out of patience.
It’s fierce and unguarded, a surge of everything that’s been kept at bay.
It’s two stars colliding.
Kieran kisses him like he’s angry; perhaps angry about wanting him, about having to wait for so long. He tastes of heat and defiance, but there’s something unbearably sweet too, and his hands are bracketing Ash’s jaw like he’s something fragile. The contrast is startling, addictive.
It’s all the things Ash loves wrapped in one.
His own hands come up, perhaps with the intention of putting a stop to this.
But the second his fingers brush Kieran’s back, every last drop of sense evaporates.
He drags him closer instead, clinging onto everything he’s been trying to fight.
The world narrows to the sound of their heartbeats, and the impossible feeling of being wanted this much.
How did he ever think there might be a universe where he could win against Kieran?
In an act of surrender, he kisses him back.
Kieran’s breath catches, his fingers twitch, and then the kiss shifts.
It turns into something slower, deeper, unbearably tender.
Ash feels him tremble, just faintly, and that honest, vulnerable reaction shatters him more than the heat ever could.
It’s everything Kieran’s been so careful about not saying out loud.
When Kieran whispers his name, this quiet, wrecked sound, Ash feels it settle in the place where all his careful restraint used to live. That place, together with everything else, now belongs to Kieran.
By the time they part, Ash’s hands are clenched tight in Kieran’s shirt, their foreheads pressed together. Kieran’s thumb brushes along his jaw in a touch so soft it almost hurts.
“Don’t you get it?” he murmurs, voice hoarse and shaky.
“It’s you. It’s always been you, even before I knew it.
” He presses a lethally tender kiss to the corner of Ash’s mouth.
“No one gets me like you do. No one else can give me what I need. So how can you say you’re not good enough for me? If it’s not you, then who else?”
He’s doing it again. That thing where he reaches all the way inside Ash’s soul and offers him all the things he’s only ever dreamed of having. Things he can’t have because of who he is.
“I’m not a good person.” Manipulative, controlling, obsessive, possessive—that’s the kind of person he is. And people might like it in small doses, even crave it, but he’s not meant for the long run. He’s been in this business for far too long not to recognize how dangerous he could turn out to be.
“Who gives a shit?” Kieran growls, grabbing him by the collar and giving it a yank. “You’re my person. You’re mine.” He glares at him for a long moment, before the heat sizzles out of his eyes. He sighs, leaning in to brush their lips together. “We could be so good together, Ash. You have no idea.”
Ash swallows through an avalanche of emotions. “I have some idea.” Way too many, in fact.
Kieran’s mouth twitches, but he hides it quickly. Gathering his feet under him in a very ungraceful, dorky manner, he makes a show of straightening his clothes, staring Ash down.
“You know where I live,” he says. “And since I booked this very eye-opening session online, you have my number too. Hit me up when you get your shit together, yeah?”
He doesn’t dawdle this time, leaving Ash’s office in a rush.
Ash doesn’t move for a very long time, asking himself over and over if all of this really happened. But his heart is still beating a hundred times a minute, his lips still tingling from Kieran’s kisses, and the places he touched burn hotter than the rest. Yeah, this happened alright.
It’s what happens next that he has no idea about. For the first time in his life, he wishes that instead of his ability, he could see the future instead.