Chapter Twenty-Seven
Matthew
Tuesday
I felt a lot better after the fishing trip; it helped me to put things in perspective, so the first thing I did when I got back was to get onto the computer and to delete all those damn emails. I didn’t need any of that negativity in my life, not when I was so focused on moving forward.
Willy was right: this would blow over soon enough. I just needed to wait out the storm and not get swept away with the tide. When I thought about it like that, it was simple. I just needed an outside perspective to help me see that.
I spent the rest of the day getting my apartment all organized and working out how I wanted to spend the rest of my finances, clearing a whole bunch of room in my head. I felt so much better at the end of it, and I knew for a fact that tomorrow would be a much better day. I would be able to tackle anything now: I was sure of it.
Knock, knock.
At first the sound came so lightly that I assumed it was the wind. I paid it no attention, simply glancing out the window at the shitty weather.
Knock, knock.
Who the hell was at my home at this hour in this horrendous weather? It had to be Willy; I couldn't imagine anyone else coming to see me right then.
I swung the door open, expecting to rib the guy outside, but the person I found was a soaking wet, shivering, yet somehow stunning: Ashlee. Her dark hair was sticking to her face, her clothes were molded against her skin, her makeup was running down her cheeks, and she was still able to stop my heart. I simply stood there for a while, staring at her, wondering how it was possible for every other damn person on the planet to look like a bedraggled rat, yet Ashlee looked incredible.
Then I noticed her chattering teeth, and I snapped back into action.
“Ashlee, are you okay? What are you doing here?” Then, finally, I stepped to one side. “Come in.”
I walked her into the front room before handing her a towel. She still hadn’t said anything yet, and my mind was desperately running with curiosity. It seemed like something important had happened to drag her over here like that.
She quickly rubbed her hair dry a little, before handing me the item in her hand, which was something that I hadn’t realized she was holding before now. It was the photograph that I had in my work desk drawer, the one that I cut out from the high school yearbook as soon as I got my practice. I realized I didn’t give a shit about anyone I went to school with, I only cared about her, so I framed it and kept it as a reminder of what could have been.
“You kept it,” she practically whispered, staring up at me with the sparkly eyes. “You kept this picture of us.”
“Of course I did,” I told her, grinning as I looked down at it. “How could I not? Look at us. We were so happy, so carefree, so in love back then. Everything seemed so simple back then. It just seemed obvious that we were meant to be.”
I glanced up at her, not even caring that I was spilling my guts to her. It just felt so right. “I guess I love it so much because it was before. It reminds me of how different things could have been.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” she admitted, stepping a little closer to me. “I keep thinking I shouldn’t have thrown in the towel in on us so quickly. I overreacted to something so silly, and I allowed that to destroy us. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I’d just stuck around and tried. Where would we be today?”
My heart fluttered at her words. That wasn't the statement of someone was only interested in me for the money. I couldn't believe that I’d ever thought that about her. Ashlee had always loved me, and vice versa. It was just the situation that had pushed us apart. We were too young and too grief stricken to know what to do.
“Maybe it’s time to stop worrying about what might have been different,” I told her with a smile playing on my lips. “Maybe it’s time to worry about what we could be now.”
At the astonished, but happy look that filled her expression, I knew that I’d finally said the right thing, so I closed the gap between us and pressed my lips up against hers. It was only for a moment, and it was far sweeter than it was passionate, but it got all my emotions stirred up all the same.
Ashlee felt right, she always had, and I couldn't help but think that if she felt right, she had to be. No one had ever managed to make me feel as good as her; there couldn't be anyone else.
“Would you like to stay for dinner?” I asked her casually, internally praying she would say yes. When she nodded happily, I led her into the kitchen where I’d already started to make myself a chicken stew. Luckily, I’d put on too much, so there would be plenty to go around.
I started chopping up some vegetables to go into the meal, handing Ashlee some carrots, making a joke about her making herself useful along the way. We stood side by side, preparing a meal in as much harmony as an old married couple, and that felt amazing. I found that commitment wasn't scary at all when it came to Ashlee, and that I could quite happily be with her forever.
“Thank you,” she eventually muttered quietly, causing me to spin around to look at her. “For the roofer, I mean. I do appreciate it. Mom does, too.”
I smiled thinly at that, not wanting to tell her what had really gone down when it came to that. I had originally wanted to pay for the roof, and for some treatment for Peggy, but when I contacted her about it and pleaded with her, she told me it was too late. I insisted I was going to do it anyway, but she reasoned with me it was pointless trying to help someone who was beyond help. She said she would rather me help someone that needed it, and who could benefit from it. Peggy finished off by insisting she didn’t want to end her life with tubes in every orifice, and that I knew as well as she did that it wasn't going to work.
Logically, I knew she was right, but emotionally, I didn’t want to accept it.
I knew for a fact that I couldn't tell Ashlee any of that, not if I wanted her to not only enjoy our evening, but also to not stress her out for the remainder of her mother’s life. I didn’t want her to panic and to push Peggy into things, either, that wasn't fair on either of them.
Which reminded me...
“I’ll be back in a moment,” I smiled warmly at her. “Just...going to the bathroom.”
With that, I snuck into the other room and I hid the photograph of me and her father on the fishing boat. I didn’t want to have to tackle any difficult subjects that night, not when we had just got things back to a good position. We would deal with that later, after we were in a more solid place.
As we sat and ate dinner with a glass of nice wine, things slipped into a very comfortable place. We didn’t discuss anything difficult; instead, we talked about our happier times, as if we were inspired by the photograph taken from our high school yearbook. We talked about our past relationship, our old friends, and Ashlee even admitted to me that her date had been with Harry. If only she’d asked me, I could have told her that he’d become a total douche bag!
“Oh my God, do you remember the day we skipped school, just before the end of the year?” Ashlee laughed, sparking that memory inside of me. She never wanted to do anything bad, neither of us did, but that day just before we broke up forever, we decided to join some of the other kids on the peripherals of our friendship group by being bad.
“It was so not worth it,” I replied, chuckling, too. “We didn’t even do anything. We just hung out, growing increasingly bored as the day passed us by.”
That was true, but now I could see that it was worth it, just for us to have that memory. There was such a rich, ingrained history between me and Ashlee, one that had built us up to where we were today, and I wouldn’t have changed any of it. Not even the bad stuff.
Sure, it sucked that we’d lost so many years, but maybe that was what we needed to make it work. Maybe if we’d stuck together then, we would have found a way to make it implode somehow.
“Was that nice?” I asked as I slipped the plates away once we’d both finished eating the nicest meal that I’d consumed in a very long time, although that could have been the company more than the food.
“Delicious,” she grinned. “You’re an amazing cook. Who would have known it?”
“You must be drunker than you look,” I teased, before taking the dishes into the kitchen for a quick scrub down. Now that things were tidy and organized, I wanted to keep them that way.
As I shoved the plates into hot water to soak, I suddenly noticed a presence behind me. At first, I sensed her, then I felt her breath on my neck. After only a few seconds, her arms snaked around my waist, causing a big grin to spread across my mouth – one that only got wider as those hands of her started to wander all over my body.
I gripped onto the side tightly as she began to massage me through my trousers, sending a crazy amount of desire tearing through my body. She was so fucking sexy, so amazing, and now she was coming on to me... I couldn't have resisted, even if I wanted to.
As I spun around to grab hold of her, before running kisses all over her face, I decided that this time we would be slower – we would take the time to really explore one another’s bodies. We’d only had sex twice before, once when we were too young to really appreciate it, and another when we were too desperate and needy for each other to wait. This time I would resist. I would be patient, and I would make this amazing.
I lifted Ashlee up onto the counter in front of me where I could stand between her legs and run my hands all over her. I cupped her cheeks in my hands, ran my fingers through her hair, enjoying every second of having her mouth on mine. I loved this woman from the bottom of my heart, and I couldn't believe how lucky I was to be getting a third shot with her. Did I even deserve it? I hoped that I did because if she gave it to me, I had no intention of screwing up again.
I wanted to tell Ashlee that I loved her, I wanted those words to spill past my lips, but there was still something holding me back, and I wasn't quite sure what it was just yet.