Chapter 24
ASH
In the passenger seat of Julian’s ancient Honda I ride with eyes shut and head tilted back, letting the road noise lull me back to a sense of—well, maybe calm’s not the word.
Equilibrium, I guess. Back to not trying to feel anything at all.
It’s easier because I’m just so drained.
The back of the semi-truck wasn’t all that restful of a sleep.
Well, Mike and Jules know everything now.
I don’t know if that’s better but it’s not bad.
Now they’ll know why I’m even worse off than before.
And, shit, they’re both going to be gone by January.
Everyone’s moving on. And I’m still gonna be here, stuck, spinning my wheels.
Back to the same fucking bullshit as before.
Oh, god. I don’t know if I can do this again but I have to. I don’t have any other choice. Unless some miracle winds up on my doorstep, I’m just fucked.
“You should just dry swallow that aspirin, man,” Julian remarks. “If you’re feeling that bad.”
I nudge the shopping bag full of drug store goods between my feet. It crinkles. “Not that bad. I can wait.”
“Suit yourself.” He whistles suddenly. “Damn,” he says. “That is a nice fucking car. They’re gonna be missing wheels if they don’t move it soon.”
“Huh?” I say, opening my eyes.
“Check it.” He nods as he slips his car into a spot by the tattoo shop’s curb. “Across the street. 1993 Mustang GT. Fuck, that’s like my dream car. It looks so damn good.”
“What?” I twist around in my seat to look out the driver’s side window. And there is an awfully familiar car sitting there, coal black, glittering in the sun like a diamond in the rough. A standout.
No. There’s no way.
I throw open the door and clamber out, rounding the front of Julian’s car.
I’m halfway across the street before I realize what I’m doing.
Still telling myself no, this cannot be the car.
Sam’s Mustang. Can it? It’s got Florida plates.
The windows are tinted just like his, too dark to make out much inside. Except—
For that silly troll doll. Hanging from the rearview mirror.
I turn and bolt up the stairs. The metal shrieks and reverberates as I clang my way up but I can hardly hear it for the sound of my blood beating in my ears.
My hand’s on the doorknob and it’s not locked and it’s opening and—there.
He’s there, in the doorway, beautiful and whole and real as the last time I saw him.
My lips part. My eyes fill with tears. “Sam?”
He reaches for me and I balk, holding him at arm’s length, my hands flat on his chest. “Ash,” he says, but I can’t actually believe it.
That he’s here. That any of this is real, that it’s not some kind of dream.
He must want something from me, something that has nothing to do with us but something bad that I did.
I’m shaking my head, dazed, about to ask what it is that he wants from me.
Except he pulls me into a hug so tight it threatens to crush my spine and then I realize that no, I’m wrong.
It’s me that he wants. I shove my face in his neck and breathe all of him in, like it won’t be real unless I can smell that it is.
And it is. That amazing, masculine scent of his under the leather and cigarette smoke and Old Spice, notes of whatever hotel shampoo he used last, something spicy like cinnamon.
It’s really him.
I rub my face against his jaw; it’s scratchy, he hasn’t shaved, but I don’t care about that either.
I can’t believe it’s him, here, at my house.
How? Why? A million questions that I don’t ask just yet.
I’m too busy reveling in the feel of him, his sheer presence, the enormity of it.
My arms thrown around his neck and my tears on his skin, and he’s holding me like he’s never going to let go. I hope he doesn’t.
He’s here. He came back for me. No one’s ever done that.
Sam’s lips skim the side of my face. “Butterfly,” he whispers in my ear. “Can’t get rid of me that easily.”
I pull back just enough to look into his face. “What are you doing here?” I ask through my tears. “Are you insane?”
“Are you?” he retorts. “I told you to stay put!”
“You left first!”
“I said I was coming back.” He rubs my arms. “Ash, I’m so sorry. For the awful shit I said. I didn’t mean half of it but I’m sorry, anyway. I know it hurt.”
Hell with all that, I hardly care. He came back for me. “How did you even find me?”
“You left Ben’s postcards behind.”
Did I? I blink up at him through the film of tears. “And you just drove all the way up here?”
“Of course I did.” He makes it sound like the most obvious thing in the world. “What else was I gonna do, just let you go? Forget about you? No way.”
“Yeah, but—” My fingers curl in his shirt. “I thought—I thought you—”
His hands frame my face, thumbs wiping my tears. “Whatever you thought was wrong,” he tells me gently. “I made you a promise, Ash.”
I’m fracturing, dissolving, tears spilling down my face as I begin to weep in earnest. He folds me back into his arms and I bury my face in his shoulder. I start sobbing hysterically and I can’t even say what for or why, exactly. I’m just blowing apart completely.
“Oh, shit,” says Jules. I forgot he was even there.
“Here.” That’s Mike. Sam begins walking me into the apartment. I can hardly see; my eyes are already so swollen from crying so hard. “His room’s over here.”
“What happened to his face?” Sam asks. No one answers him.
They both help me onto the bed, which is good, because I’m suddenly boneless.
“Sam,” I say, and he’s right there with me, kicking off his shoes and crawling onto the narrow mattress.
It’s a shitty single bed but he wedges himself on there with me somehow, arms going around me once more as he kisses my tears away. The door clicks shut.
“Privacy,” I hear Mike hiss to Julian through the thin walls. “They need privacy.”
“But—”
“It can wait, Jules.” Their footsteps recede.
I rub my face into Sam’s T-shirt. I’ve already soaked it. His fingers thread through my hair, smoothing it back and peeling all the wet strands away from my cheeks. “Sam,” I say again. Like I really need to affirm it’s him that’s here and not some imposter. Or that I’m not crazy, imagining him up.
“I’m here,” he says.
Yes. He is. “I can’t believe it,” I whisper, raising my face to his, and his lips brush mine. “I can’t—why? Why would you…?”
“Because I love you, Ash.” He rubs his nose against mine.
My heart stumbles to a split-second halt. “What?”
“Yup.” He kisses me again, gently. “Fuck it. I’m in love with you.”
“You can’t.” Arguing even though I’m the same, I love him, I’m in love with him. I’m so fucking in love with him. “You’ve known me for like, a week.”
“What’s your point?” Punctuating the question with another kiss. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone ever. So fuck it, I’m gonna call it love.”
“No,” I say, squirming closer, my leg popping over his hip. “You don’t. It’s hormones. It’s chemicals. It’s fake.”
“Shut up.” His hands slide down my chest, finding my waist. “It’s love, idiot.”
“Infatuation.”
“Nope.”
“Do you think this is the gay retelling of Pretty Woman or something? I’m a whore, remember?”
“You’re mine,” he says, “is what you are.”
This time when he kisses me, I return it.
Ardently, my hands cupping his face to pull him even closer.
I kiss him like I’m going to devour him, like I need him to breathe.
Suck his tongue into my mouth and it’s still not enough; I need him closer.
I need all of him on me. I need to climb inside his skin.
When I push up his shirt he takes it off obligingly.
When I remove mine he pulls me close, hands wandering up my back, between my shoulder blades.
His fingertips graze the scars and it’s okay, it doesn’t take me out of it.
I glory in the feel of his hands on me, all of me.
Every inch he touches feels like he’s claiming it, undoing everything bad that’s ever been done.
Replacing it with himself. It’s absolution.
“I want to make love to you,” he tells me softly as he trails kisses down my throat. “Can I? Are they gonna hear?”
“It’s fine.” My head tilts back with a sigh. “I had to hear Mike fuck his one girlfriend a million times before they finally broke up, ‘cause she lived with her parents. And she was loud.”
“Payback’s a bitch, huh.” Sam lays me back against the bed. I watch him as he kisses down my chest, pausing to swipe his tongue across each nipple in turn. I’m so hard that it would be embarrassing if it was anyone else, jeans tenting, but it’s him. I like him knowing just how much I want him.
So bad with saying the words, anyway. When you say something out loud it’s made real, and being real means it can be destroyed. I don’t want this to be destroyed.
Even though I know I can’t keep it.
I close my eyes, swept away on the current of Sam’s touch. He goes lower still, taking his time with me as he mouths my ribs before pausing altogether. “What happened?” he asks, touching the edge of a bruise.
“Nothing.” My head falls to the side. “Keep going.”
“Ash—”
“Fell,” I lie. I’m not going to ruin the moment with the truth. I want him too badly.
Sam accepts it, at least.
His thumbs trace my hipbones as he kisses just below my navel and a frisson of arousal shivers through me, making me writhe and gasp.
Even the bullet wound in my side, the scab having fallen off at last (replaced with a trail of shiny pink skin), he touches and kisses too.
Claims it for himself. He undoes my jeans and pulls them down, along with my boxers, with agonizing slowness.
Revealing me inch by inch until he’s pulled them all the way off and it’s just me and my cock curving against my belly like a scythe.
“Hermoso,” he says, kissing the inside of my knee, and by now I think I’ve figured out that means beautiful. He wraps a hand around my dick and I gasp. “You have such a pretty cock.”