Chapter 8

Ash

I could hardly keep my eyes open at work. My back ached and my pussy was still sore, and I just couldn’t get him out of my mind. I had dreamed of Mason last night, of how good it had felt to have his arms wrapped around me, and I’d woken up hugging my pillow.

Sure, I’d gotten my first man-induced orgasm in the back of my beat-up sedan, but there had been something powerful about it. The way his eyes had darkened and the way his hips had rolled into mine. My insecurities had faded away when I was with him.

Stocking the shelves was a blur, and I was sitting more than I was working. Every time I tried to lift my arm to grab something, my shoulder started to tremble. By the time lunch came and went, I’d already had four cups of coffee. I kept having to reapply my eyeliner because I kept yawning and the tears from my bombastic yawns streaked the eyeliner down my cheeks.

“You look like hell,” Luna said.

“Your glasses are too thick,” I threw back.

“Who pissed in your coffee?”

“With the way it tastes, I’m assuming the entire block.”

“Don’t like my coffee?” Luna asked, grinning. “Go get some of your own. You can go after you sort the buttons.”

“I sorted the buttons last week,” I said. “What happened?”

“Someone brought their kids in.”

I sighed and got up from my chair only to step down on a lone crochet hook.

“Holy sh—”

“Language.” Luna smirked. “What’s go you so tired, hun?”

“Just up late,” I said.

“Sounds like a guy to me.”

Tears prickled the backs of my eyes and I decided to just shrug it off. I picked up the plastic bins of buttons and set them down on the table in the back. I started sorting them out, and my mind drifted back to the dream.

We walked through downtown L.A. before we found ourselves at the end of a pier. We had ice cream cones in our hands, and mine was dripping down my fingers. Mason handed me a handkerchief that felt like silk and honey. I wiped my hand off, and he plucked the ice cream cone from my hand. Before I could protest, he started wiping the cone on my chest.

He bent over and began licking it off, and the people from the pier faded away. Our bodies floated over the ocean, and I watched as his eyes darkened to the same color they had in the back of the car that night.

I had to take deep breaths so my hands would stop shaking long enough to sort out those damn buttons.

The truth was, he had fulfilled the ad. I’d taken it down, and men had stopped messaging, but I didn’t understand why that had to be the end. I mean, he had held me for what seemed like hours afterward. Men didn’t have fun doing that, right? Technically, I’d taken the lead. I mean, he’d set up his apartment and everything. At least, I thought it was his apartment. It was kind of odd how that little dog had barked at him if it was his. He had seemed kind of startled by the fact that it was there at all.

Why would he lie about that being his apartment if it wasn’t?

Now I couldn’t get that question out of my mind. Yeah, I really wanted to see him again, but I also wanted to ask him about the apartment. Maybe I was just overthinking things, or maybe he was dog sitting, but he had told me it was his.

Jesus, this man had really gotten under my skin.

I whipped out my phone and opened the app to message him. I mean, it had been my idea to go on the car ride that had led to our ad-fulfilling encounter, so I didn’t think it would be odd if I sent him the first message afterward.

Right?

“I had a really nice time last night,” I sent.

That was a good message, nice and general in case he didn’t want to respond, but a really good opening of a door if he wanted to step through.

And I was ecstatic when he messaged back a few minutes later.

“I could tell,” he wrote.

“How do you know I didn’t fake it? I’ve gotten pretty good at that in my lifetime,” I said.

“Because I saw it in your eyes. You can’t fake the way your face looked.”

“You looked at my face?” I asked.

“Well, most men just look at their dicks going in and out, but I can do that with my hand.”

“How’re those buttons coming along?” Luna asked.

I was only halfway through sorting them out, and I knew she probably needed me out front.

“Twenty more minutes?” I asked.

She looked down her nose at me before she eyed my phone, and I saw the disdain for technology wash over her face.

“I’m gonna make you a mock up one of these days for the website,” I said, smirking.

“Yeah, yeah.”

My phone vibrated, and my heart leapt with excitement.

“If I’m being honest, that was my first time, too,” he said.

“Wait, that was your first time having sex?”

“No. That was my first time fooling around in the back of a car,” he replied.

“Well, then I one-upped you there, because it wasn’t for me.”

“Sounds like I was in the arms of a pro, then.”

“That makes two of us,” I wrote.

It felt to natural, talking to him this way. I was able to focus long enough to get the rest of the buttons sorted, and I smiled every time I saw a message from him. He asked me how my day was going, and I told him I was ready to pop every single button off my clothing and replace them with zippers, and his response was priceless.

“I’m sure I could help you pop off all those buttons, if you’d like.”

The electricity that coursed through my veins when I read that message could’ve lit up the city block, and when I was finally done sorting those damn decorative buttons, I sent him one last message.

“I suppose that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. After all, you seemed to be pretty adept at getting that zipper of yours down in such a cramped space.”

I took the buttons out and put them back on the shelves and saw the sheer amount of people in the store. Luna was in a corner fuming at me for taking so long with those buttons, so I left my phone behind the counter and walked over to a group of old women looking at yarn. They all had knitting bags with needles poking out, and I chuckled when I realized what they were doing.

The women were debating what type of yarn to use for their projects, and Luna was terrible at suggestions like that.

“Can I help you ladies?” I asked.

“Finally, some help,” one exclaimed.

“Yes, yes. Could you, by any chance, tell us the difference between these two yarns?” The woman was holding up two colors of the same brand of yarn, and the only thing I could do was bury my giggle that was threatening to burst forth.

“Besides the color, nothing. They are both the same weight and both have the same polyester/cotton blend.”

“Ew, polyester. That won’t ever breathe for a blanket, Eunice.”

“What yarns do you have here that breathe?”

“You must be Miss Eunice?” I asked.

The woman had a cockatoo hairstyle of gray and white hair that sat on top of a broad forehead. Her glasses hung down on her nose, and her fingers were curled and deformed with what I could only assume was arthritis. I was so entranced with trying to help these ladies find what they wanted that I didn’t hear my phone buzz underneath the desk.

I talked the women through the difference in weighted yarns as well as the different types of materials our yarns were blended and woven with. I let them know that the best yarns for blankets that breathed were either one hundred percent cotton or blends that were eighty percent cotton and twenty percent silk.

I knew they wouldn’t enjoy the price of the silk-blended cotton, so they settled on the full cotton yarns and began dumping skeins of it onto the counter. Luna was watching from the corner with a slight smirk on her face, and I assumed it was just because she had gotten out of helping these ladies with something she absolutely detested.

She privately called them “yarn snobs.”

“Do you ladies want to split this, or is this all on Miss Eunice’s tab?” I smiled.

“It better not be,” she said. “I’m eighty-nine today!”

“Well, happy birthday, Miss Eunice! Ladies, it sounds like you better help her out with this bill.”

“How much is it?” the shorter one asked.

“All in all, $87.62. I can split it however you wish.”

“We can split it three ways,” the taller woman said.

“You mean I’m paying for my own yarn on my birthday!?” Eunice exclaimed.

“You had breakfast and you’re getting dinner, so calm down,” the shorter woman said.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at them while I took their cards and rang them up. I could tell they’d been friends for quite some time. When we finally got all the yarn bagged up, Luna offered to help them all to their car.

“You have a very lovely store,” I heard Miss Eunice say. “We tried looking you up online, and we couldn’t find you. We thought you’d shut down.”

At that comment, I laughed out loud, and Luna shot me a look before the door closed behind her.

I looked at the clock and realized how long I’d been talking to those women. I scrambled for my phone to see if Mason had messaged me back. Sure enough, I had a notification for my messages, and his response made me smirk.

“You should see me with the snaps of a bra. Lightning speed, I tell you.”

His message had been sent over an hour ago, and I wanted to continue the bantering. I enjoyed the outside stimulation, and the man behind the messages wasn’t half bad himself. But I sort of felt like the mood might have passed, and I didn’t want to bother him too much. Then, as if someone in my life had a sixth sense about things going well, my phone rang, Frank’s name popping up.

“Yes?” I said.

“Oh, my god. You’ve gotta pick up dinner when you come home. I went grocery shopping and picked up all this awesome stuff, and then I fucking dropped it coming into your apartment!”

“Calm down,” I said. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I took all this fucking shit up the stairs before I remembered you were on the first floor.”

“You’ve been on my couch for a few days and you’ve constantly busted in for years now. Why the hell did you suddenly think I was upstairs?”

“I don’t know. You just gotta pick up some dinner, all right? The milk dropped on my toe, and I think I broke it, and it just hurts so much.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m about to leave in a bit, and I’ll swing by somewhere and get something.”

“Could it be that Indian place?” she asked. “I’m craving some curry in a bad way.”

“Anything else, princess?” I mocked.

“Do you have any medical tape? It might be dislocated.”

“Good-bye, Frank.”

I laughed at Luna one last time when she came back in, and then I excused myself for the rest of the day. I checked my bank account and realized I didn’t have enough to swing by that Indian place, so I ended up at the store, walking up and down the aisles. Of course I had to tell Frank I’d pick her up some food. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a car or money or the ability to function as a human, yet I always got put out on my ass because I didn’t know how to say “no.”

I guess I just wanted the people around me to be happy.

But when was I ever going to be happy?

I ended up settling on some curry sauce, discounted chicken, and jasmine rice in a premixed flavor package. I decided I was going to take this time with Frank to tell her she needed to find another place, and soon. I loved her to death, but I needed my apartment back.

I needed my own space where I could retreat and be myself, and her busting in on Mason and me that night and not taking the hint to leave meant I wouldn’t have any time that was “me time” until she was gone. She’d probably take it as some sort of insult and storm out and be pissed for weeks, but I was sure I’d find a way to do just fine without someone sleeping on my couch, eating my food, and not helping much with bills.

Hell, she sounded just like one of my fucking exes.

I went through my entire speech in my head as I went home. I walked through the door, and she frowned when she saw the grocery bags, but I stopped her before she could get anything out of her mouth.

“Didn’t have the money,” I murmured.

“We need to talk,” Frank said seriously

“Actually, yes, we do,” I said, slamming the bags down. “We need to talk about you finding another place to live.”

“None of that right now. I have to tell you something about Jason.”

Was she fucking kidding me? Jason was my blond-tipped, lazy ass, mooching ex-boyfriend. She wanted to talk about him now?

“Frank, I don’t—”

“Apparently he’s gunning for some reality television show position, and he wants to talk about your relationship on the air.”

“Oh,” I said. “He wants to broadcast to the world how he slept on my couch and how I had to fake my orgasms in bed with him?”

“I don’t know, but he wants you to sign some sort of release so he can talk about it on camera. The TV station needs your permission or some shit.”

“And when did all this go down?” I asked.

I started slamming things around and bent down to look for a pot, but when Frank opened her mouth, I froze.

“He came by earlier and I let him in.”

I rose and banged my head on the counter, and when tears rose to the back of my eyes, I had had enough.

“You fucking what, Frank?” I hissed.

“I let him in. I don’t know. I figured you guys had rekindled or some shit.”

“Why the hell would you think that?” I yelled.

“Because things didn’t pan out with Mason,” she said.

“Because you barged in on us!” I exclaimed.

“Wasn’t my fault you opened the door!” she shouted.

“Damn it, Frank!”

God, if it wasn’t one thing, it was another. I didn’t have enough money to feed myself beyond tonight because I couldn’t say no to my fucking “friend” who was couch surfing and racking up my bills, and now my toxic ex wanted me to sign some stupid sheet of paper so he could probably talk about how shit I was in bed and all this crap on national television for the world to see.

“Can you make dinner tonight?” I asked.

“Sure,” Frank said.

I dragged myself into my room and let my tears fall. My mind was in overdrive, and I couldn’t think straight. I had no idea how I was going to approach Jason. It made me sick that he’d even come here, much less stepped foot back into this apartment, and I knew then and there that Frank had to go.

But first, I had to figure out whether or not I was going to sign that release.