Chapter 4 #2
That was another one of my gifts and talents: adopting problems that didn't belong to me.
It sat alongside quippy comments and creating order from the most irrational patterns.
In the right situations, it made me indispensable.
I could be the Girl Friday of whatever the fuck you needed.
In the wrong situations, it grew toxic relationships like mushrooms in a shady patch of grass.
Some of those mushrooms were innocuous but a few would kill you dead if you ate enough.
Some could even kill you with the barest of touches.
I was a hot, messy mess with more problems than solutions. I didn't know where I was going or how I'd get there but a messy life was better than one hundred tidy deaths from that same old patch of toxic mushrooms back in Denver.
"I'm going to assist the shit out of you," I announced. "I hope you're ready for the full force of me and my sanctimonious assisting."
He gave his watch another baleful stare before glancing over at me. "I'm not sure how I could possibly prepare for something like that."
I nodded. "Fair point."
After I announced to Ash that I would be his assistant—carpe that fucking diem, right?—things in row five went from weird to strange.
First, when I asked if he wanted me to start tomorrow, he replied, "Yes."
Just "yes." He didn't even try to dismiss the question. Didn't revisit his original argument that I wasn't qualified to reload the toner in his copy machine or whichever tiny tasks he allowed others to complete.
After that bizarre response, I asked if he was placating me. He shook his head and said, "No."
Then, when the flight attendant stopped at our row with breakfast offerings—served on real plates, no less—he accepted the assortment of fruit, bread, and yogurt, and asked, "Do you have any cookies?"
Cookies. The last thing I'd expected from Fancy-Man Shoes was cookies for breakfast.
Of course, the flight attendant accommodated him. I wasn't sure anyone could look at him with his Please Touch Me hair and I'm Never Satisfied pout and deny him anything. It was second nature to argue with him but denying him cookies was another matter.
I only half liked the guy and I already knew I'd give him the cookies. Every damn time.
The final bridge to strange materialized while Ash housed two saucer-sized chocolate chip cookies in the time it took me to unfold my napkin. He wolfed them down like they were the last cookies he'd ever see and we were there, firmly in the land of strange.
"Okay, so," I started, wagging my spoon in his direction, "let's talk about something.
Anything. What's going on with you right now?
What do you have on deck for projects or clients or enemy targets?
" When he responded with a shrug I could only interpret as irritated indifference, I continued.
"Am I interrupting your private cookie time? "
"A little bit, yeah." He tipped his head toward my breakfast tray but didn't meet my eyes. "Better than pocket eggs?"
"Hardly," I answered. "I like finely sliced melon as much as the next upper-crusty lady but there is something profoundly American about the breakfast sandwich."
That did the trick. He shifted, blinked over at me. Ogled me as if he expected me to shape-shift into a Fourth of July firecracker. And…I wanted that. I wanted his attention and I didn't care if I had to dig in my usual bag of crazy to get it. My me-ishness came in handy once in a while.
"You derive nationalist pride from a sandwich? One I believe you had encased in an English muffin?"
"Hell no. But you have to agree that breakfast sandwiches are a homegrown construct," I argued.
"Mindless consumption with the purpose of checking off a box and getting another one of the day's tasks done is an American right.
In our gilded, antiquated view of people in other parts of the world, breakfast still exists as a seated, plated experience with someone's little old grandmother toiling over a pot of porridge at the hearth. "
Ash snatched a strawberry from my plate, popped it in his mouth while he stared at me. Then another.
Strange, population: the two of us.
He blinked and I was forced to admire his long, thick eyelashes. This prickly, discontented man had all the best things. Then he said, "She probably chops her own wood too. Right?"
"No, she does not," I cried. "She's the little old grandmother. She's not chopping wood. Her ass-kicking granddaughter does it or maybe the nice widower from down the road. He always has fresh wood for Grandma."
Ash's eyes widened and then—then he burst out laughing. It wasn't a ha ha, that was funny moment. It was one of those I might die laughing moments. And I couldn't help it, I started laughing too. We laughed and snorted and cried in the most raucous ways.
I didn't have to look around to know we'd attracted a significant amount of attention from our fellow passengers. I knew how it felt for others to stare but I had no interest in staring back at them. Not when I could stare at Ash while he seemed light and happy for the first time.
"That wasn't what I meant, you know." I brushed the tears from my lashes. "You were the one who heard it that way."
Ash rubbed the back of his neck. "There was only one way to hear it, Zelda." A quiet laugh moved through him as he spared me a quick glance. He was frowning but it was still a smile. I kind of loved that smile from him. "I can't believe you said that. My god. 'Fresh wood for Grandma.'"
"We were talking about breakfast," I said, my tone tart.
"Yeah, that widower down the road eats well at breakfast," Ash replied.
With a gasp, I slapped a hand over my mouth. "Ash Santillian, you filthy bird."
"That wasn't what I meant. You heard it that way," he replied, feeding my words back to me.
I stole the chocolate croissant off his tray since we were now in the business of sharing snacks and innuendos. "I heard it exactly the way you meant it."
I tore the croissant in half and something about that action snapped Ash out of the iridescent bubble of strange we'd wandered into because he scrambled to shake out his napkin and drop it on my lap. "Fuck, Zelda. You have crumbs all over you."
Not breaking my gaze on him, I brushed a hand down my t-shirt to dislodge the crumbs threatening his sanity. "All better."
I took a bite and knew from the flare of his eyes that a new wave of croissant confetti littered my shirt.
"Actually, it's not," he murmured, shaking his head. "Let me."
He reached over but stopped with his fingers poised a breath away from my breasts. His lips parted and I heard a pained noise rattling in the back of his throat. It hadn't occurred to him until right now that he was going to feel me up in the pursuit of crumb control.
"Mmhmm," I murmured, tipping my head to catch his gaze. "Let you do…what, exactly?"
"I—um. Hmm." He snapped back, folding his arms over his chest and staring straight ahead. "Sorry."
"About giving me the well, actually treatment over a flaky croissant or nearly fondling me?"
He didn't look at me when he asked, "Which would you prefer?"
I…I didn't know.
And I didn't like that at all.