Page 12 of All That Glitters
I laughed, but there was no humor in it. I would hide away from him and this topic as much as I would hide away from showing or telling Ashton anything about my feelings for him.
“What do you think about a couple of pizzas tonight and a movie marathon?”
One eye opened and fixed itself on him. “What kind of pizza?”
“Taco? Barbeque? Buffalo chicken?”
“One of each. And you’re buying.”
“Then you’re picking the movies.”
Ugh. I sucked at picking things to watch, but if it would keep Ashton Glitterati off our minds for several hours, I would give movie choices my complete and total attention. “Fine.”
3
Ashton
For ten minutes, I’d been sitting in the car outside the Troye’s house. Did they know? Hale, and his twin sister, Helen. Did they know I was there? Were they staring out from behind the curtains while I sat frozen in the car?
We lived two miles apart and during the ride over, I couldn’t have told anyone what I was feeling if my life depended on it.
“Mr. Glitterati?”
I glanced up to find Jerome watching me in the rearview mirror. He’d been with our family for years. When my grandfather had become too old to drive safely, Jerome was hired. He was in charge of my father’s classic sports car collection from races he’d been in, he also gave tours around the shop every so often when my mother convinced my father it would be a good idea to let people in.
And now, Jerome drove me because I was too terrified to get behind the wheel myself. “Yeah.”
“Do you want me to wait?”
“Please. I won’t be long.”
The next hurdle was to get out of the car. Jerome was kind enough not to stare at me as I worked through my shit. I had a death grip on the door handle and couldn’t seem to get my brain and my fingers to work together.
Jerome came to my rescue by stepping out from behind the wheel and opening my door. Maybe he’d like to go talk to Hale on my behalf, too. I’d be more than okay with that.
“Thank you,” I said.
One foot out.
Scoot. Turn.
Second foot out.
Push up and stand.
It was always this way when I was in a car now. I hated every second of it.
I took several breaths, deep and even, until I felt steady enough to put one foot in front of the other and cross the gravel expanse to the front stoop, schooling my features as I neared the door. There were moments when I didn’t have to think about moving, I just did it. But there were other times that moving, standing, walking took an act of God. It was better than it had been even a month ago, but not as good as I needed it to be.
Ever since I called Hale, I’d been going over what I wanted to say, what I wanted to ask, and which side of his face I wanted to punch first. Now that I was standing there, knocking, waiting for someone to answer, nothing that I’d come up with earlier stayed with me.
When the door opened and Hale stood on the other side of the threshold, I immediately saw red.
Flaming, fire red.
Angry, open wound red.
Jagged, raw, painful red.
