Chapter Twenty
Fanny
“She looks fantastic.” Simone’s golden eyes sparkled with approval. “Great job, Karen.”
“Karen’s a genius,” I said, giving the blonde an affirming nod. Linc’s fiancée and I on the other hand were warming to each other more slowly. Translation. She was great. But I was struggling to get over the fact that she held Ash’s heart, and the impossible to believe fact that she didn’t want it. “All the outfits she picked out for Hollie and me are brilliant.”
“She used to work at Roxy. She does all the buying for the shop. She mixes accessories and different clothing lines together in ways that I see trending in fashion magazines months later.” The pretty brunette smiled at me. “You look good, Fanny. Stop fidgeting with the lapels.”
“If they spread any wider my boobs are gonna poke out of the jacket. I feel ridiculous without a blouse on underneath.”
“You don’t look ridiculous,” Hollie disagreed. My sister was dressed more conservatively in a long sleeve pastel blue shirt and dark skinny jeans. Karen knew her size now, and both pieces fit her well. “Pinstriped charcoal blazer with solid black shorts is a killer combo, Fanny.”
“Can I at least wear my beanie?” I asked.
“No!” Everyone shouted in unison.
“Ok. Alright. Geez.” I set down my half-full glass of red wine and tried to focus on the camaraderie and not on my reflection in the dresser mirror.
“You look beautiful, like Emma Stone in La La Land only your eyes are even more striking than hers,” my sister commented encouragingly while refilling Karen’s empty goblet with more sparkling grape juice. The two clinked their non-alcoholic beverages together. I turned away and started to gather the scattered piles of clothes, jewelry and lingerie strewn all over the bed, but Simone stopped me.
“We’ll get it later.” She glanced at her phone again. It had been blooping nearly nonstop, text messages that made her face light up as brightly as her screen.
“Linc again?”
“Yes.”
“He texts a lot for a guy.” Paragraphs with punctuation. She kept her phone in her hand the entire time she’d been here, and she had shown a few good ones to us.
“Yeah. He’s making up for the time we lost while we were apart.”
“You love him a lot. I can see it in your expression. Your eyes get all soft when you read the messages.”
“He was my first real love. My first real anything. Then life dealt us a shitty hand, and we lost ourselves and lost track of the things that really mattered. If it weren’t for Ash helping Linc get his life back together, helping us get back together again…” She trailed off, but the implication was clear that she and Linc might never have happened.
“I can see Ash doing everything he possibly could. He cares about you a lot,” I stated carefully. Not knowing if he had declared himself to her, I thought it wise to measure my words.
“We’re good friends. We share a common bond. We both love Linc. Ash would turn the world upside down for him. But I’m curious.” She cocked her head at an inquiring angle. “What’s with you and Ash?” She threw her arm to the side. “I mean, your things are all here in his room, and I know he’s helping you out, but is there more? Are you two…”
“Sleeping together? No.” I shook my head. “It’s just me and Hollie in here. Not that I wouldn’t want to, um, go there with him.” I could tell that Hollie and Karen were honing in on the conversation. I thought it best to stick to the truth both because my infatuation was obvious and for the good of the sisterhood. Plus, though Simone might not be an active rival, she was the competition in Ash’s heart and should know upfront that I was an interested party. “He…I… well we met before at the Oscars. I went total fangirl and made a complete fool of myself. Maybe if I had played it more cool.” I shook myself clear of that delusion. “But it doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t see me that way. And anyway I have a boyfriend, or I did before all this mess happened.”
“Whoa. Hold up a minute. Let’s go back a few sentences.” Karen’s blond brows nearly disappeared in the fringe of her bangs. “Do you not notice the way he looks at you?”
“Like he feels sorry for me? Yeah, I see that sure.” I blinked rapidly as my eyes started to stupidly burn. I didn’t want to mess up the smoky liner Simone had skillfully applied.
“Uh, news flash,” Simone chimed in. “I’ve known Ash since we were in high school, and I’ve never seen him look at any girl the way he looks at you.”
“His eyeballs practically came out of their sockets when he saw you naked, Fanny.” My sister volleyed in that bit of jaw dropping information.
“He saw her naked?” Simone stepped closer. “How? When?”
“I slipped coming out of the shower.”
“He broke down the door when she cried out. I was here in the bedroom, but he still beat me to her.”
“I wondered what happened there.” Simone’s eyes went to the door that was propped up against the wall then back to me.
“Damn,” Karen decided. “Those are not the actions of a disinterested man.”
“Have you seen him touch her? He’s so focused, like she’s fragile and precious, and he can’t believe his good fortune that she allows him the privilege to caress her.” Simone fanned her face with her hand. “It’s sexy as all hell.”
“Yeah appreciation and tenderness are the best kind of foreplay.” Karen’s mouth curved, and a dimple peeked out. “Lucky me. Ramon is a master at those skills.”
“Stop it, all of you.” My hands fluttered in front of me and the long silver necklace with tasseled metal ends swished against my skin. “Please. I’m happy for you, Karen. Ramon sounds great. But no more about Ash. I have a crush on the guy. One I’ve had since he was just a one-dimensional dream taped to my bedroom wall. Now he’s a living, breathing, temptation strutting around the penthouse with all that devastating hotness 24-7.” Karen and Simone nodded at each other as if my words were confirmation of something. “You guys need to help me get over my crush not foster it. Ash isn’t leading me on. He made it clear that we’re just friends.”
“Friends can grow to be more.” Karen captured my hands. “But I’ll leave you alone about it. I understand the way you feel right now. Totally I do.” Her light sandy brown eyes brimmed with empathy as they searched mine. “One day when you have some time I’ll tell you all about Ramon and me and how we got where we are today. But for now, I just want you to know. Simone and I just want you both to know,” she stretched one of her arms wide offering her free hand for Hollie to take, “how happy we are to have you in our circle. Whatever the reason, Fanny,” she refocused on me, “you’ve gotten Ash, a confirmed recluse, out of his solitary confinement. And for that miracle, even if Simone and I didn’t already like you, which we do, we will be forever grateful.”
~ ~ ~
Ashland
“City of stars…”
The guys and I glanced toward the stairs as the singing continued.
“Is that who I think it is?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Ramon nodded. “The girls are doing some kind of Pitch Perfect thing to the theme song from La La Land. And my surfer girl’s taking the lead apparently.” He cringed as Karen hit another off-key note.
“At least it’s a joyful noise,” I assessed generously.
“That’s one way of looking at it.” Ramon moved to intercept his woman as she emerged, and Linc slipped in front of me to snag his as well. When the couples stepped aside, I saw Fanny. My first glimpse in hours, and it was telling how long and empty those hours had felt.
Pretty?
Yeah, Fanny was always that. The tomorrow today girl exuded beauty. And though adversity might have dimmed the spellbinding fire within her what remained continued to outshine them all.
I stalked closer. Surrounded by my friends, she wasn’t in any danger. Yet my first instinct was protect, and my second was to take her somewhere private where only my eyes could gaze at her looking like that.
“Hey, little rose.” She stiffened for a moment before she turned my way as if the memory associated with that endearment had sharp thorns.
“Ash,” she acknowledged. Her breathy voice spilling from those glossed up ruby lips kindled my imagination. And when her eyes hit mine, she sparked the rest. The bigger fire. The heat of it nearly knocked me backward.
Her body was a sexy lure, no doubt. But the source of who she was, her soul, the irresistible part to me, could be seen in her gaze. And for a brief moment she poured it all out, her goodness, pure and unadulterated. And it confirmed what I had already realized with Linc earlier. Fanny could do it. She could make me forget him. Fill the empty spaces. Light up the darkness in my own soul with her flame. Burn away the marks on my psyche if I dared to expose them to her. That irrepressible hope of hers was the pretty red ribbon that tied all that she was together like a gift. A priceless gift. One that I had to refuse because of what she didn’t know about me. But damn it, how could I with her looking so fucking gorgeous? The conflict rippling through the center of me rumbled out of my voice.
“Don’t you think you should go back downstairs and put some fuckin’ clothes on, darlin’?”
Someone muttered something.
Someone else cursed me under their breath.
But I only registered her.
Her gasp. The immediate flash of wet in her eyes. The hurt that snuffed out her flame before she whirled around and ran to the stairs.
Way to go, asshole. You can’t have what you want, so you lash out like a spoiled child.
I started after her to apologize, wincing with each step, as if the ground were littered with sharp shards, broken pieces of expectations, hers and mine.
“Ash.” Linc grabbed my arm. “What the fuck?” I glanced at his fingers on my skin and lifted my gaze.
“Let go, Linc,” I growled. “Stay out of it. This has nothing to do with you.” He released me and took a step back, his eyes wide. Later I would reexamine the validity of that last part and how it revealed how utterly Fanny Bay had altered the course I had plotted for my life.
But at the moment I just needed to get to her.
~ ~ ~
Fanny
I ripped off the velvet jacket. Threw it on the ground stumbling over the bags of clothes in my haste to find something to throw on. I knew it. I had absolutely known not to go up to see him all made up like that. I had practically thrown myself at him. With predictable results.
“Fanny.”
“Shit!” I whirled around, the black shirt I had selected clutched in front of my breasts. “Go away, Ashland! Please, please just go away.” Adding insult to injury, the tears I had so far managed to hide spilled humiliatingly onto my cheeks.
“I can’t.” He took a step closer, and I couldn’t help but notice things I hadn’t had a chance to on the roof. How fine he looked with his platinum hair tied like a sailor at his nape. No not an ordinary seaman. He was too well dressed. More like a captain in a navy Tom Ford button down shirt with mitered barrel cuffs and light beige straight fit jeans. A dashing rogue, the garments flowed with his movements accentuating his muscular frame. Yeah, I remembered how handsome the drummer of the Dogs looked dressed up and how nice he looked in those GQ spreads. Like it mattered to him what I thought.
“I tried that nearly two years ago. It didn’t take.” His gaze melded to mine, he continued to plow straight through the clothing debris field. I wanted to retreat from him. Protect myself from further harm. But there was a madness in me when it came to him that didn’t care about the damage he could do.
“I didn’t notice any trying.” I lifted my chin. “The way I remember it sitting in that coffeehouse and texting you, I don’t know, at least a half dozen times, you had absolutely no trouble at all staying away.” I fostered my rising indignation, better to unfurl it than surrender to some foolish fantasy. “You were being more direct and honest on the roof moments ago than you’re being right now with your revisionist history.” I pasted on what I hoped was an amalgam of haughtiness and indifference. “I get it. There’s nothing I have that you want to see. Right? So go on back to the party. I’m doing what you want. I’m putting some clothes on.”
“I don’t know what got into me up there. I spoke without thinking. I know that I hurt you. That wasn’t my intention.” He plowed right over my protests and got to the heart of the matter as effortlessly as he had plowed through the clothes. Stopping in front of me, his gaze dipped, a moment of regard that made me note that he was very much a man, and I was very much a woman, a half-naked one. I drew in a breath, and I held it. My breasts swelled, my nipples tightened and my heart hammered inside my chest. My body, every part of it, ached for more than just his regard, a familiar hollow feeling when it came to him. How reckless was I to continue to expect him to return my affection?
“But when it comes to you, Fanny I can’t seem to act in a rational manner. Logic doesn’t seem to factor in.” Ocean blue eyes clouded by regret lifted to hold my showery grey ones captive. “It didn’t when we first met. It barely dictates what I do in the present. It certainly did jack shit to filter what came out of my mouth a couple of minutes ago.” He lifted his hands, a silver linked TAG Heuer sports watch glinting as he framed my face. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did.” His tone softened. “I did because you looked so incredibly sexy, and I didn’t want anyone but me to see you. You’re sexy right now attempting to hide those perfect tits behind that shirt you’re holding. You are sexy to me no matter what you wear or aren’t wearing.”
“Ash,” I exhaled. “I don’t understand if you think I am why…”
“Shhh,” he soothed, his gaze delving deep, so deeply into mine. “Give me this one moment before I have to let you go.” Slowly he smoothed his palms through the wetness on my cheeks and spread his fingers wide at the base of my skull. My head now cradled, he gently tipped my face into a position where he could see all of it. Peering down at me, his gaze searching mine, his moment stretched meaningfully longer before he shattered it. “I’m sorry. Sorry I hurt you back then. Sorry I hurt you the other day. Sorry I keep hurting you.” There was a plea, a request for sympathy now within his gaze. “I have so many regrets, so many things I would change if I could. But there’s no changing the past no matter how much I wish it could be so. I’ve been selfish to let things go so long like this. I just wanted something normal. Wanted you to know my friends. To be a part of my inner circle. I thought that while you were here maybe I could enjoy having you close as a friend without having to tell you the truth. But that was a lie in itself. A self-serving one. And you sweet, sexy, beautiful Fanny deserve the truth.” He inhaled a breath and exhaled words I could never have imagined. “The truth is that I’m HIV positive.”
“What?” My gaze widened, registering the shock first. “No,” I whispered, feeling like the ground trembled beneath me, but realizing it was only me shaking.
“I had testing done right before the Oscars.” His hands slipped away from my skin. Cool nothingness replacing them. The warmth in his eyes turned cold, just like they had when I had revealed my identity to him.
“The crossroads you mentioned.”
Why? Why him? Why us? Was the beginning I always wanted us to have already at an end?
“Yeah. I had started feeling run down. I kept catching colds one after another and recovering slower each time. I hoped for the best but suspected the worst. I knew I was at risk. Sharing needles. Having unprotected sex. Lots of unprotected sex.”
I felt the blood rush from my head.
“You followed the band. I think you were well aware of my reputation.”
I nodded numbly. I did on one level, but at a distance. Back then at least. Back then he was a picture on my wall. A symbol of rebelliousness. I don’t know if the consequences of that lifestyle ever crossed my mind. I wondered if that’s how it had been with him, too.
“Other people I knew had similar stories. I knew I needed to get checked out. I got the bad news a couple of days before I was supposed to meet you.”
“Do your friends know?” I whispered, guessing the answer before he gave it. Too many things they had said now made sense.
“Of course,” he confirmed. “Yes they do. All of them now know…including you.” Right before my eyes, I watched him transform. The tender openly affectionate man retreated into himself, becoming a one-man island, hiding behind his diagnosis like I had been concealing my identity beneath my disguise. We had more in common than I had realized. We were each afraid to reveal to the other what would make us the most vulnerable.