Chapter 14
ASH
I’m not in love.
No, love is too strong of a word for a guy I’ve known for all of—how long has it been, actually?
I’m losing track somehow when it’s only been a handful of days.
There was the night in New Haven, and then North Carolina, and then last night.
Sixty-ish hours, I guess. Somehow it feels like a thousand years, though.
Although I’ve never been in love, so I guess I wouldn’t know what it feels like.
But I don’t think it’s possible to be in love in just a few days so I’m not going to say that I am.
And it would be stupid, anyway. To fall in love with a person that I’ve not only known for, say, sixty hours, but the first person who I’ve had sex with in years that wasn’t transactional in some way.
At least, I don’t think it’s transactional.
It’s hormones, I guess. Love drugs, chemical reactions. Whatever shit dopes you up after a few effortless orgasms from a hung bisexual guy. It happens to the best of us.
Okay. So what if it’s hard to keep myself from looking at him?
So what if I’m irritated by the notion of having to dress and pack my meager belongings and check out of the hotel and then go out on a beautiful riverboat cruise when I’m enjoying myself just fine in the room?
So what if I want to stay here with him all day and pay him back in kind? It’s perfectly natural.
Him and his goddamn need to sightsee and be adventurous.
But I go with good enough cheer. Because once I finally shift myself out of this horny paradigm Sam’s put me in and pull myself together, I’m excited to be doing this with him. Even if it’s almost kind of romantic. Which, again, is stupid.
I have to resist the urge to hold his hand as we walk the quaint and cobbled streets, busy even as early as 8 a.m. on a Sunday.
The markets are open, and there are bells ringing somewhere—from one church or several—and the weather is already scorching and damp both, steaming off the pavement.
We’ve got our sunblock and our ball caps on, though, and we’re prepared to face the day.
Yeah, I want to reach out and thread my fingers through his, gaze over at him, but I don’t. Of course I don’t.
I let myself walk very close to him, though, so that we do keep touching. My bare arm brushing against his, our fingers catching now and then. And he smiles over at me, squinting against the sun, and I think it’s with affection.
I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know what I’m doing.
We score tickets at the first tour boat agency we see, and lucky for us there’s a cruise going within the hour.
We get breakfast at a nearby cafe in the meantime and even that feels fraught, both of us stealing glances at each other as if we’ve lost all capacity to behave even remotely normal. Or I have, at least.
Over chicken and waffles Sam asks me, “What are you gonna do in Miami?”
“Get a cheap hotel,” I say with my mouth full. “Look for an even cheaper apartment in the meantime. And a job, obviously.”
“Not that. I mean, like—I’m realizing I have no idea what kind of shit you do for a living.” He sets his chin on one hand with a smile. “Where your vast wealth comes from.”
I stop chewing, then gulp the wad of food in my mouth hard. Thinking furiously—and I should’ve figured out a plausible excuse a million years ago considering how goddamn invasive Sam is—I grab my glass of orange juice and take a long sip just to buy myself more time.
“Is this another thing that’s off-limits?” he asks me wryly. “Because—”
“I sold pot,” I declare, setting my glass down loudly. Throwing up a silent apology to Jules for stealing his part-time livelihood.
He blinks. “Really?”
“Yep.”
“Oh.” He scratches the back of his neck. “So, like…do you have any?”
“I don’t smoke my own supply, Sam.”
He squints at me. “So you do have some? To sell?”
“No. I’m not trying to cross state lines with that shit.
” Just tens of thousands of dollars I stole from a dead man.
“I offloaded everything before I left.” Should it scare me how easy it is to lie about this?
The worst part is how guilty I’m starting to feel.
I didn’t before, in the beginning. All sixty-odd hours ago.
“I suppose that explains it.” Sam’s chasing the syrup puddled on his plate with the last bit of waffle he’s got left while eyeing the food I haven’t eaten yet. “Is that what you’re gonna do in Florida?”
I snort. “No. I’ll just work some crappy minimum wage whatever or two until I get back on my feet again, figure things out.”
“Okay, but if you could do anything—” He points his fork at me. “Like a dream job. You know, like you were asking me last night. What would it be?”
“Oh, um. I guess, if I could…” I pick the skin off my chicken. “Something to do with books. Maybe write, I dunno.”
His eyebrows climb his forehead. “Write?”
“Yeah.” My cheeks warm. “Why? Do you think that’s weird?”
“No, not at all. I guess I’m just surprised.” He tilts his head cutely. “I didn’t know you were into books.”
“I love to read,” I confess. “My mom—”
“Oh, shit.” His eyes widen. “You have a mom? All the secrets are coming out today! If I’d known all I had to do was eat your ass to get them, I would’ve done it sooner.”
“Holy fuck, shut up.” I nudge him with my knee, and he grins. “My mom’s the whole reason for it. She was a librarian. And, well, she always said that no one could teach you as much as a book could. Reading was her greatest love, and some of that rubbed off on me.”
“Huh.” He steals a piece of chicken from my plate. “Ash Harper, the next great American author.”
I smile a little. “Hardly. I’m not qualified or anything.
I’ve just read a lot. Read all kinds of stuff since I was a kid, since that was all the entertainment we ever had in our house.
Like, I started War and Peace when I was nine or something.
I didn’t understand 90% of what I read in that book and I still don’t really, but I loved it anyway.
The act of reading. And…I’d like to do that, I guess.
Write things that matter and move people. ”
Sam nearly chokes on his food. “You read Tolstoy when you were nine?”
“You’ve read Tolstoy?”
“I tried like, two years ago. Adriana tried to get me into that literary shit, ‘cause she thought I needed to better myself and expand my mental horizons or whatever. I didn’t make it through the first five pages.” He scratches his cheek. “Jesus, I’m dumber than a nine-year-old.”
“Like I said, I didn’t actually get it.”
He waves his hand. “I keep telling you, Ash. You’re smart. I can tell just by talking to you. And fuck college, anyway. You don’t have to go to college to write cool shit and move people.”
“Maybe.”
“So…what’s your mom think?”
“About what? Me writing?”
“About you leaving. Moving away.”
“Oh.” I look down at my plate, gnawing on the inside of my cheek. Wondering if I can be honest about this much, at least, if there’s any danger in that. “She’s, um. She’s not…”
“What?” Sam frowns. “Do you guys not talk or something? Is it ‘cause you’re—”
“No. I mean, that’s not why.” I shove my plate towards him. “Do you want the rest of this?”
He shakes his head. His steady gaze is, unfortunately, fixated on me. “So?” he prompts. “What’s the deal?”
I avert my gaze. There’s a carriage clopping up the cobbled walk, drawn by a matching pair of gray horses in blinkers. One has a pink nose slathered in chalky white cream that looks very much like sunblock. I didn’t even know horses could get sunburn.
“She’s…got a lot of problems,” I say vaguely. “We didn’t really get along. Growing up. It got worse the older I got.”
“Oh,” he says softly. His hand finds my knee beneath the table and of course it’s always the tender gestures that make me want to cry when I can’t even remember the last time I did.
Was it when Ben died? Did I cry then? Surely.
It’s not a point of pride thing—my emotions just feel so remote and inaccessible to me that when I start to feel them it’s startling. “Do you not see her anymore?”
“No.” It’s here my voice becomes stilted and fragile, like glass cracking, and I hate it.
“She started drinking a lot. And her and the guys she was always bringing home, they were always mean drunks. They’d pick on me.
” It’s an inadequate way to describe what they really did—it’s all too much, too raw.
Reopening wounds that never really healed right.
“The scars, you know. You’ve seen them.”
“They did that to you?” His nostrils flare.
“When I was younger, yeah. She had these really long nails she’d file to a point and when she was mad she’d kinda…grab me. And dig in.”
“By your neck?” He’s horrified. “She choked you?”
I sort of gloss past that. He gets the picture, anyway. “And she dated this one guy who like, put his cigarettes out on me and shit. He didn’t last too long, but long enough to do some damage.”
“Oh, Ash.”
I want to tell him to stop. That he doesn’t need to pity me for this, that it simply is what it is.
I reach for my orange juice again and sip, and it’s enough to compose myself again.
“Kinda came to a head one night when her boyfriend of the month made a pass at me. I’d just turned seventeen.
She didn’t believe me when I told her he tried something, then blamed me for enticing him.
So I packed my shit and left. Never looked back. ”
“Holy shit. You haven’t spoken to her since? I mean—she never reached out?”
“Nope,” I say. “I haven’t seen her since I left. Haven’t heard from her, either. I mean, she could be dead for all I know. Sometimes I think about calling her up, but I know it’s pointless.” I shove my thumbnail under the table’s peeling paint. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t care anymore.”