Page 43 of Ashes to Ashes

Tracing the lines of his double arrow tattoo, I asked, “What were you like as a kid? I’m having difficulty imagining it. I feel like you came out of the womb this serious, quiet man.” I chuckled, the image of a toddler with Ash’s beard and piercing eyes so incongruous as to be ridiculous.

His abs flexed and with my ear over his chest, I heard when his heartbeat accelerated and then grew steady again. Between that and his delayed response, I knew I’d struck a nerve. It would be so easy for me to say, “Never mind, forget I asked,” but I didn’t want to. Not thistime.

Back in L.A., he’d said he wanted to be friends. But since we’d landed in Oregon and started having sex, I felt as if that offer had been rescinded, and that didn’t sit well with me. He’d pushed me to do things I hadn’t been comfortable with; the least he could do was return the favor by having a goddamn conversation that didn’t involve him telling me to get on my knees.

I was about to sit up and tell him so when he sighed, and then started talking. “You might not believe it, but I was a pretty carefree kid. We moved around a lot—my dad was in the Army too—but I had your standard, happy childhood. Mom, dad, brother, dog … the whole white picket fence thing, minus the actual white picket fence.”

I pictured Ash riding his bike down a street lined with tidy houses with flower boxes on the windows, mothers standing on the sidewalks talking with each other while their children played around them. And then I imagined his whole, perfect family sitting down to a home-cooked meal that hadn’t come from a can, and my stomach fought against the memory of how many goddamned Spaghetti-O’s I’d consumed as a child. Practically tasting that tinny flavor on my tongue, I pushed the memory to the back of my mind and asked, “What was your dog’sname?”

I’d wanted a dog but my mom couldn’t afford to feed one, or pay for vet appointments so instead, I’d settled for trying to make friends with the stray cats that roamed our neighborhood. Unfortunately, they were more interested in hissing at me than letting me pet them. I had a scar on my ankle from where a particularly vicious one had sunk his fangs into my leg when I’d tried to pick himup.

“Chewbacca.” He chuckled and his hand skated up and down my arm in a light caress.

“Was he a big, hairy beast?

Ash let loose a full, hearty laugh. “No, not at all. He was tiny.” His hand stopped roving, and beneath my ear his heart raced. After a slight pause, he continued, “My brother named him. I can’t remember why he chose that. Probably had something to do with how much he loved StarWars.”

“What’s your brother’sname?”

Ash’s racing heart hitched in his chest and I recognized his brother was another subject he didn’t like talking about. And yet, if he couldn’t tell me the name of his family members, what was I doing here? I sat up and pushed my hair out of my face, waiting for him to answer. For a long time, he wouldn’t look at me, and still I waited, silently praying he’d give me … something. That this paranoia wasn’t all in myhead.

My heart sank when Ash scooted out from under me and stood, facing away. He sucked in a deep lungful of air, his back rising and falling with the steady intake of oxygen. He released it in a long, slow gust, and looked back over his shoulder. “I’m going to go shower. Let’s meet back in the house in two hours and I’ll make us something toeat.”

I sat there numb and mute as Ash stepped into his jeans and tugged his shirt on over his head. The motherfucker was walking out on me, and all he could say was he’d talk to me in a couple of hours? I wanted to lash out, to yell and scream and tell him he was being a dick, but I couldn’t find the words. With anger—or maybe sadness, it was hard to distinguish between the two—I watched him close the door behind him without so much as a backward glance. As sure as he’d shut that door, he’d shut me outtoo.

And that was all I needed to know about what this was between us. I’d craved intimacy, wanted to connect with him on a deeper level, and meanwhile, all he’d wanted was a willing plaything tofuck.

Drawing in a deep breath of my own, I made a decision. I’d gone two years without sex and wasn’t about to go back to falling into bed with someone just because it was convenient. Ash might be the best goddamn lover on the face of the planet—he might make my body sing in a way my voice never could—but I was done having sex with men who only wanted my body. If he couldn’t open up to me, share something of himself beyond his dick, then he sure as hell wasn’t going to get anything else fromme.

When a sob escaped, that’s when I knew. Against all wisdom, I’d fallen in love with a man who could never love me back. A man I didn’t know the first fucking thing about and apparently never would.

---