Page 24 of Keeping Mr. Sweet

CHAPTER NINE

SAM

I head upstairs to take a shower while Ash asks Ru what she should do next. Running turned out to be a bad idea. My nuts felt like a pair of megaton wrecking balls swinging at each other. I probably should have expected that pounding pavement wasn’t going to ease the frustration that Ash causes, but neither would anything else.

Twisting on the tap, I strip out of my sweaty running gear and step under the spray. The shower beads pummel my shoulders and neck, and warm my couch-sore muscles. She’s still here. She’s out of my bed and she’s trying to be a human being.

I rock my jaw as I admit to myself that the last half of my run went faster because I needed to get back to see whether she’d left. Finding her in the pantry started my heart beating again.

Running had given me time to think about what happened in my office this morning. There have been so many times when I’ve had to bail Ash out of trouble, but mostly that was when she was a teenager, back before we became anything more than friends. She partied and went on benders and raised hell. She dated jackasses and gave the world the finger in the hopes of getting any attention from her dad. But she was different with me.

We weren’t a train wreck. At least not until she left, throwing my own reasons we shouldn’t have been together back at me. The same excuses she gave me when she took off again after my dad died. But the last two days have been the worst I’ve seen her behave since before she came home from college after the car accident. She’d struggled for months after she called me for help that time. Couldn’t eat, or sleep. She’d cry out Talon’s name in the middle of the night if she did doze off. Scream it like a banshee. It was the only time she’d even acknowledged the guy existed. She refused to recognize that she’d loved him. She barely managed to get out of bed. And when I finally coaxed her out of hiding, it had only been to the couch.

Even now my chest hurts at how destroyed Ash was. Heartbroken. Her body shrinking along with her soul. Witnessing it day after day killed me. I can still recall the first day she managed to get dressed after the funeral. It’d been almost five months, and she’d come out of the bedroom wearing one of my shirts and a pair of skinny jeans that hung baggily from her hips. I’d almost cried for fucking joy when she tucked her bunny slipper clad feet under her on the couch, picked up the TV remote, and started skipping channels.

The water’s cold so I turn it off and snatch up a towel to scrub the wetness off me as I march through to the bedroom. I pull fresh clothes from the closet and toss them on the newly made bed. The one Ash has decided to give back to me because she wants to prove she’s not behaving like a damn teenager all over again.

I’m not completely sure we weren’t just happy when she was with me. For a while it seemed like we were. We’d spend our weekends when I wasn’t working ensconced on the couch or in bed. I used to tell her she should be out having fun, and she’d tell me that she’d already done the things girls her age were doing and that they held no joy for her. She wanted a quieter life, one with me, and maybe we could get a cat. I’d tell her I wasn’t sure we were ready for that, and she’d smile and tell me she knew exactly where she belonged. I only had to realize that. I’d humor her with questions about the future she saw for us and inevitably we’d end up talking about houses and babies and rocking chairs on the back porch of what she called our future love nest. I wanted it so badly too. But she was so young. I felt like I was stealing her future when I wasn’t sure of my own.

I was jaded by my own mortality, and dad’s health. His heart attacks wore me down for a while. Made me think too much about how Ash would fare if she saddled herself with me. There were too many years between us. I was tired and the whole world was waiting for her.

When she turned around and told me I was right, I believed her. Of course she wanted to travel and have fun. Now I’m not so sure her reasons weren’t just my own bullshit thrown back at me.

Even when she came back I never expected her to stay, though I wanted her to. Truth is I couldn’t have handled her staying after dad passed. I was struggling to make it through each day, telling myself holding onto her wasn’t in her best interest.

And her staying now? Is it just because of the sex tape? Or is it more? Does she maybe still think about that future we used to want? Perhaps it’s both. When she mentioned Mandy, she couldn’t hide her jealousy at the idea of me with someone else. Or did I imagine that? And if I didn’t…I have no fucking idea what to do with it.

Pulling on my slacks, I drag a cotton T-shirt over my head as I exit the room to head downstairs. She says I was right, but what if I was wrong?

***

“Hi.” Ash leans in the door of my office and glances around the room, from the couch she slept on last night to the painting that used to hang in my dad’s office, to the desk I’m currently sitting behind while I try to make the take from this evening balance.

Honestly, I can barely concentrate on the books when she’s everywhere I turn. Why is she still here? Why is she trying so damn hard? Why now? “Hey.”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

She sits down on the couch, lifting her legs out in front of her and examining her toes quietly while she waits for me to finish. I take my time on the count, wanting to make sure I get it to balance this time and giving myself a little longer to decide what I want to say to her. Closing the ledger, I pack everything away in the safe behind me before joining her on the couch.

I can’t help but think of those bunny slippers she used to own as she tucks her feet up under her. She used to wear those damn ratty things all the time. Any time we would relax on the couch and watch movies she’d rest her legs over my lap, those bunny slippers dangling from her toes. Every important conversation we had about how I thought she was too young and inexperienced to know what she wanted, they were there. Every time she argued and told me she’d always known she wanted to be with me, they were there. Every time her face lit up as though she could barely contain her hopefulness when she told me she wanted to wake up with me, to wear my shirts while she traipsed barefoot around my kitchen, and have a family with me, those damn long eared, pink nosed slippers were there. “What happened to Flopsy and Mopsy?”

Her eyes widen as though she doesn’t believe I could remember. “They fell apart.”

“You wore them to death no doubt.” I settle back into the soft leather cushions and clasp my hands together behind my head. Otherwise I’ll touch her. I won’t be able to help myself. It’ll be unintentional. A brush of my knuckles against her bicep, or my fingers encircling hers, or her feet in my lap. But nothing between us is ever harmless, and an innocent, accidental touch could still wreak havoc. “Is Ru still here? Have you eaten?”

“Ru gave me a plate before he left.” She shrugs and I catch her wince. This couch is probably the worst place for anyone to sleep. “He said there might have been a parcel delivered for me?”

“There was. It’s upstairs.”

“Upstairs? Why?” she asks with uncertainty.

I keep asking myself the same thing. What possessed me to put her things back in my room after just one night? Seven years ago, I watched her pull apart my world, using my own reasons to tell me why we shouldn’t have been together. She was too young. There was too much for her to see and experience. She couldn’t settle in one place with one man. With me.

Five years ago, she reminded me of every single reason I’d fed her the first time we were together. But what if I was wrong to believe her when she spat out my own words? What if she only told me what she knew I would accept?

What if all the bullshit reasons were just that? Bullshit.

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