Page 32 of Ashes to Ashes

“Look at you, Mr. Feminist,” he ridiculed. “How precious. But can you honestly sit there and tell me you’re okay knowing that Rae tried to kill herself after a night spent snorting coke and fucking two guys at the sametime?”

My stomach clenched with barely suppressed violence. The honest-to-god truth, much as it pained me to admit, was that I wouldn’t have been okay with it—if that’s what had really happened. But I knew differently; Rae had told me so herself. Still, during the course of that conversation, I’d been more focused on absorbing details that pertained to her supposed suicide attempt than the fact that they’d found her in a room with a pair of male escorts. I’d pretty much glossed over that whole part of the story, and hadn’t really thought about it since.

But Gage’s taunt had me doing sonow.

When I let myself examine how I really felt about Rae’s history, I couldn’t ignore the part of me that hated that she’d slept around. Hell, she hadn’t just slept around—she’d fucked her way across America. Literally. Then again, hadn’t I done the same thing? Twice, in fact, if we were keeping count.

But like Gage said, that was different. Wasn’tit?

I hated that the idea of Rae being with any man she wanted made me furious because I didn’t think women had the same right to fuck whoever and whenever, but if the pulsing vein in my neck and my clenched fists were any indication, I had a huge problem withit.

And yet I couldn’t imagine not being with her either. I wasn’t as comfortable with her past as I’d tried to convince myself, but I also wasn’t so uncomfortable as to put a stop to what was happening betweenus.

I didn’t want to examine too closely what that said aboutme.

“I’ll take your silence as a no,” Gage answered. “Look, keep fucking her if you want. I’m not going to tell you not to. Just make sure you wrap your dick up and don’t get too close.”

“I don’t get close to anyone,” came my clipped response. “You knowthat.”

“Yeah, I do,” my cousin replied. “But you’re acting different with this one. You’ve been off since you walked out of that conference room and into my office. You’re not yourself, Ash. Just …” he paused, and I could practically see him running his hand over his closely shorn scalp. “Just don’t get invested.”

I laughed cynically. “When have you ever known me to become invested?” Before he could answer, I rushed to put a stop to what I knew would be the next words out of his mouth. “And don’t you dare fucking say Sonia. I was twenty-one. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

“Okay, fine. I won’t bring her up,” Gage conceded. “But I’ve told you this before, so don’t expect me to pull my punches now. You’ve got a soft spot, Ash. I know you like to think you don’t—that you want everyone else to think you’re cold as ice—but the reality is, you love the broken ones. You’ve always wanted to fixthem.”

“Fuckyou!”

Blanche’s head popped up at my outburst, the perfect example of exactly how often I tried to fix the broken ones. Blanche and Dorothy had been the runts of a litter of pups that were supposed to become police dogs but they’d been small and sickly and their mother had abandoned them. When my buddy Roz told me about them, I’d taken them off her hands, spending more time and money than I’d thought possible on nursing them back to health. Today you couldn’t tell they’d ever been close to death.

“I guess it’s good though, that you’re not as broken as you think you are,” my cousin continued. “It means there’s still hope for you. Me? I’m a lost cause, but you still have some softness left inside. At least one of us should make it through life without turning into a misanthrope.”

“You’re not a misanthrope,” I argued jokingly. “You’re just a self-centered asshole.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that’s probably true. Not that it’s hurt my game; you know the ladies love that shit. They all think they can fix me. Which brings me back around to my earlier point. You can’t fix her, Ash. She might be sober now, but that’s more baggage than you want to carry around forher.”

“Dude,” I cautioned. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. You act like I’ve declared my undying love for her. That’s not what thisis.”

“What is itthen?”

That was the million-dollar question, wasn’tit?

“I’m not sure,” I admitted, scratching at my beard. It was getting longer than I liked and in desperate need of a trim. “Right now, it’s just fucking with maybe a side of friendship. I like how I feel when I’m withher.”

“Like I said,” Gage interjected, “you like fixing people. She’s like catnip for you. Hot as fuck and you get to be the big bad alpha wolf protecting his pack. You can deny it all you want, but I know youAsh.”

“And like I said, that’s not what thisis.”

“You keep telling yourselfthat.”

Our conversation halted when Gage covered the mic and took time to deal with something. “Sorry about that,” he apologized when he came back. “This place has the best barbecue in the city, but the old lady running the cash register is close to a hundred years old it’s always like a game of charades when I want to place an order.”

“No worries,” I answered, looking at the clock. I didn’t have anywhere important to be, but I didn’t know how much longer I could stand Gage’s commentary either. Mostly because I didn’t want to think he might be right. “I should probably get going though. I can’t sit around talking to your sorry ass allday.”

“Ha! It’s the best part of your day and you knowit.”

“Fuck off,” I answered, this time with far less rancor.

“Sure, I’ll do that. But answer one thing before you hang up. Have you told heryet?”

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