CHAPTER FOUR

 

 

ASH

I’m surrounded by a bubble of Sam. Floating in duck down and his scent. It clings to the pillows, and I bury my nose in them while I breathe deeply. Couldn’t quite remember how good he smells, couldn’t quite forget the rich masculine fragrance that I equate with home. Maybe I’ve always smelled him, not in a creepy, obsessed stalker type way, but I like to believe it’s possible that I knew his scent while my mother carried me those seven and a half months. Like maybe I knew I would need him before I ever knew him. Maybe he comforted me even then. I squeeze one of the downy pillows around its middle and smile to myself. Sam always makes everything better. It doesn’t matter how badly I mess up, he always makes me feel better.  

Crap, I told him that, didn’t I? I tried to get him to have sex with me, and he said no. The last forty-eight hours rush me. Everything from my drunken behavior to the abrupt influx of messages from guys. Dick pics and proposals that left me baffled until I found out about the video. Watching it the first time was an out of body experience. Seeing myself in that position. Watching what everyone else was seeing, as though I was a stranger. My smile slips, and I drag open one eye. The meeting with the HR officer. Crap. I’m jobless. Homeless. Shit.

I groan and roll onto my back. Crack open the other eye. Blah, sun. I slap my arm over my eyes to block out the light streaming in through the high arched windows. My skin itches and burns as I drag myself up and stumble out of his bed to the bathroom. I consider turning on the shower and curling up in the bottom with my mouth open to catch the drops, but opt for the sink instead. My mouth is dry and furry and gross. Faucet on, I stick my head under it and gulp down as much water as I can manage before I turn and rest my butt against the vanity, then slide down it and onto the cold floor.

Sam’s never put his foot down like he did last night. He’s always just fixed everything. Fixed my car, and fixed my fines. Fixed my body, and a myriad of other things. But I should have expected he wouldn’t be the same old Sam. My Sam. Not this time. After all, he told me I couldn’t come to him again the last time we ended things. It’s just I had to see him. I couldn’t destroy my life and not see the reason why. I couldn’t handle the world seeing my vagina without him in my corner.

I’ve really messed up this time. Sam’s done with me. And I have nowhere else to turn. I’ve lost everything. My job. My reputation. The one man I can depend on having my back.

***

“What are you doing down there?”

His voice startles me. I must have dozed off on the bathroom floor. The aroma of strong coffee hits me right across the bridge of my nose, waking me up like the magical elixir it is. He crouches in front of me, soft blue eyes taking in my state, before his lips twitch to one side—not in a snide manner, but the kind of gentle expression that he used to give me when he thought I was only a kid. Before I grew up and made that look change into something far hungrier.

He holds out the mug, the almost square handle in my direction. “Here.”

“Thanks,” I croak. The ceramic is hot in my hands, the liquid scalding as it touches my lips. Resting my eyes, I cradle the cup and lay my head against the cupboard. I don’t know how to face him when he still looks at me like he cares, despite telling me we aren’t those people anymore. Why did I behave like nothing had changed when everything has?

“Hey.” He puts his hand on my knee. “There’s a perfectly good bed in the other room. Why don’t you get off this cold floor and go back to sleep for a while?”

“I’m sorry about last night,” I burst out. “I’m sorry I asked you to fuck me.”

“Look at me,” he says.

Can’t bring myself to, can’t stop myself from screwing my eyes tighter shut. Wish I understood how I could make these mistakes. I thought Luca cared. I thought being with Sam would be like every other time.

He touches my chin with his fingertips, and I can’t bear the sensation. How can he be so nice to me when I’m such a total screw up?

“Open your eyes, Ash. Look at me.”

I don’t. Can’t. Because he’ll be kind and look at me like I’m better than I am. He’s a dependency I haven’t been able to kick. One look and I’ll be hungry for any affection he’ll throw my way.

“Fine,” he mutters under heavy breath. There’s a rustling as he finally moves to stand up.

Good. I need to be on my own. Need to work out how to extricate myself from this mess I’m in without his help.

The coffee cup gets taken from my hands, and then he lifts me into his arms. “If you want to behave like a child, I’ll treat you like a child.”

Honestly, it doesn’t even help that he’s mad at me. He can’t be angrier than I am at myself. The position I’m in is because of my own stupidity.

His gait as he crosses between rooms lulls me, his warm chest and strong arms are my safe harbor. Maybe I am being childish, but part of me wants to stay in his arms forever. Just like this.

The mattress bounces as he tosses me onto it. My head is still groggy and a little bit dizzy with the sudden movement. I open my eyes when he tucks the blanket under my chin.

He crosses his arms, taps a finger against the crook of his elbow while he flicks his gaze to the door and back to me. “I’m going to help you, Ash. I’m going to do what I can to sort this shit out, but I can’t help you if you won’t work with me.”

“What’s there to work out?” I roll onto my side away from him, stare at the naked windows. Three white birds sit on the outside sill, a gray pigeon flutters in to join them.

“We could get the video taken down for a starter.”

“Would it even matter? Everyone’s seen it.” I stick out my bottom lip.

“There are over seven billion people in the world, Ash,” he says, and I can tell by his tone he’s starting to get frustrated. “A handful of people have seen it. A few thousand. Not everyone.”

“It had five thousand views when I saw it. And that was over twenty-four hours ago.”

“So?”

“How am I supposed to face people? You, Summer, my dad?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “But maybe you’ll have better luck when you’ve slept this off.”

“I doubt it,” I retort.

“We’ll see.” He turns and walks out of the room. “When you’re acting more like yourself.”

***

When I wake up again there’s a lot of noise coming from downstairs. From the second floor I can hear everything that’s happening in the restaurant. The murmur of many voices, the clang and clatter of people eating. Underneath that Sam’s voice and another man’s as they bark orders. Someone laughs. And then another.

I lay in the darkness and listen for a while. Everyone else is going about their evening like normal while I lay in Sam’s bed and wallow in self-pity. I stay there until I can’t stand the fact that I’m behaving like this, and didn’t Sam say we might be able to get the video taken down? There has to be some way out of this hole I’ve created, some way I can fix things.

Throwing back the covers, I climb off the soft mattress and head for the shower.

Fifteen minutes later, dressed in a towel, I open my carry-on that Sam must have bought up while I was asleep and find a change of underwear, the minimalist’s essential make up kit, and a silk dress with the thinnest spaghetti straps that I’d packed thinking I would probably wear it for Luca on our layover. That and my ID, passport, and credit cards are all I have with me. All my other clothes are still back at the share apartment. Well, they’ve probably been rifled through by the girls who I shared the space with at this point. Who cares, since I have no plans to return any time soon. Or ever.

My stomach grumbles as I dress and do my hair. Awake now, it tries to take up all my attention. So does Sam. The way I behaved last night can’t happen again. Trying to take us back to that spot where everything is euphoric before it crumbles isn’t going to help me now. How many times have we been here? How many times have I found myself going out of my mind because of us? How long does it take to let go of the only one you’ve loved?

 

“What are you doing?” The door quietly shuts behind him as he stands in the foyer of his apartment. His jaw slackens, his bottom lip falls slightly open. He takes a moment to unknot his tie and slip it from around his neck, then undoes the top two buttons on his white collared shirt. He’s tired. These past weeks have been hard on him. He’s worked longer shifts than I ever recall him doing before. It’s like he’s drowning himself in work in an effort to avoid thinking about his dad.

As he walks toward me his attention is caught by my suitcases. His top lip twists grimly and his jaw clicks as he clenches it. He settles his gaze on me and shakes his head. “Of course you’re leaving.”

“It’s time.” I wring my hands as I meet him in the middle of the room. Probably shouldn’t give away how much I don’t want to go, so I slap them to my thighs instead. If I had of known how much leaving him again was going to hurt, I would never have come. I take a deep breath, catch it between my teeth. Who am I kidding? Like I could stay away. It’s only being here with him brings back all the things I wanted when we were together. It reminds me of what happiness feels like. It’s almost unbearable to warm my hands with the memory of it, knowing that it’s not for me.

I don’t want to be the bitch for leaving him so soon, but being here doesn’t help either of us. It doesn’t help him move on to someone who won’t hurt him the way I can, and it doesn’t help me forget everything we shared, or the dreams we had for our future together. Leaving when he was about to ask me to marry him was hard enough. Leaving now is almost harder, but happiness is fleeting. Love always hurts in the end, and I can’t bear to go through that with Sam. “I was never staying. It’s been weeks since...”

“Since the funeral. You can say it, Ash.” His shoulders cave, and he grimaces. “I’m well aware that I lost my dad.”

At least you had one that truly loved you. I don’t say it, not out loud. It’s a selfishly inappropriate thought to have when he’s struggling with loss, but it’s true. Or at least, it is to me. No one else would dare say that Robert Durum wasn’t a fine man, an upstanding man, a man who cared for his family very much. Those who knew him before might say that he’s only a shadow of the man he once was. Or that he works too hard. Or that the loss of my mother affected him so deeply he doesn’t quite know how to live in the real world. Those people always remember the man that he would have been if she were still alive. A caring man. A family man. I only know the man who has made a point of not being part of my life.

Sam walks around me to empty his pockets into the platter on the hall table. Doesn’t turn back. “So why are you leaving this time?”

“I was never staying,” I repeat. “I came because you needed me, that’s all.”

“And you think I don’t need you now?” He spins around, his gaze sparks and his nostrils flare as he grabs my forearms.

“We’re only temporary. Only ever a good time, Sam. You had to be expecting this.” The longer I stay the more I want from him, but that isn’t who I am. I’m a feel-good fix, a drunk dial, a booty call with no expiration. For him, I’ll be anything he wants except for permanent.

Even if he hasn’t worked that out yet, he will. One day he’ll realize that I’m not the kind of girl one settles down with, and not because I’m young. If that was all it was then I’d have fallen at his feet that afternoon I packed my bags. I would have told him I heard him ask his father for his grandmother’s ring. I would have begged him to wait just a little while before he asked me to marry him. Until he was absolutely certain I was what he wanted.

“I thought... Christ.” He lets me go and spikes his fingers through his hair as he stares at some point behind me. With a headshake, he trudges toward the bedroom. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Nothing. I don’t want anything from you.” I curl my fingers into my palms to keep from reaching for him. Can’t let him see how much I want to belong with him. Or that the entire world seems dim and uninteresting compared to Friday nights in with him, sharing dinner from one plate and talking about our week. “We talked about this last time. I’m still only twenty-one. I’m supposed to be travelling the world, and trying new things, and...” It’s all a bunch of lies that trip off my tongue and leave me queasy. Better to hurt him a little now than bring him a lifetime of pain.

“What if I wanted you to stay?” With his back still turned to me he puts one hand to the wall and bows his head. “What if I asked you to?”

“Would you?” My heart falters, like it’s hovering above a deep precipice and his answer will seal my fate. Would he love me when no one else can? Would he take on that burden? Would he let me break his heart and shatter his soul? Would it be worth it?

It’s ages until he answers me. Or minutes. I can’t tell. When he turns around he’s rubbing the left side of his chest and he appears lost in thought. Then he exhales long and hard as he drops his hand to his side. “No. You’re right. You can’t stay here.”

He breaks my heart a little bit more each time he lets me go. One day soon there’ll probably be nothing left but debris.

“We both have lives that we need to get on with,” he continues. “Lives apart.”

“Yes. That. Exactly,” I say woodenly. Didn’t I say something similar to him the last time I left? That I couldn’t stay grounded when there was a whole life waiting for me outside of the bubble we created. Couldn’t wait around to see if that bubble would implode when the fact he was fucking his much younger sister’s best friend finally hit him. When he realized I was just a burden. After all, he’d suggested as much enough times that he must have had doubts. “Can we go back to how we were before?” Before I grew up and wanted him to be mine. Before he looked at me like I might be his woman. “Friends?”

“Friends?” He runs his gaze over me like he’s looking at me in a whole new light. Arms crossed, he shrugs as if it’s no big deal that we’ve spent the last couple of weeks as lovers. It’s almost as if he doesn’t see me like that anymore. That top lip lifts again, but this time it carries the weight of his indifference. “You think we should be friends?”

“Yes.” I nod overenthusiastically. The relief doesn’t last, it only dulls the horror over lying to him.

For a moment we stand facing each other, completely alone in our own worlds. Then he speaks again. “Actually, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“What?” Is he really saying we can’t even be friends anymore when we’ve been close much longer than we’ve been lovers?

“You swan into my life whenever you feel like it. Change your mind over whether you want to be in my bed or not, whether you want to be with me, or you want to party and travel. It’s too hard for me, Ash. It’s just too much to deal with.”

I want to tell him it’s not that simple, but I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to explain if I tried.

“We can be friends, the kind of friends that catch up when we see each other, but you can’t come to me when you need someone to help you out of a jam. Or you just want to play house for a little while. It’s not good for either of us.”

“Sam.” I almost say, But that’s what we do. That’s who we are. You didn’t seem to care when you needed me to care for you.

“You came to me. You came because you needed me as much as I needed you. But we can’t keep doing this. I don’t know about you, but maybe I want a real future with someone who wants the things that I want. A house. A dog. Kids. A woman my own age who’s ready to settle down.”

That was supposed to be my future. My life…with him. Mine.

“Or maybe I’m just too damn tired to keep up with you anymore,” he says as I walk past him to collect my bags.

Picking them up, I carry them to the door. I’m not sure which is worse. That he wants all those things we used to talk about, or that he’s finally figured out I’m not worth the effort. “I guess I’ll see you around. I’ll still have to come visit Summer.”

“I’m sure we’ll manage,” he mumbles. 

I drop a case long enough to open the door.

“Do me a favor, Ash?”

Grasping onto the million little strings that it takes to keep myself together, I hesitate. “Yes, Sam.”

“Stay out of trouble.”

***

I pause on the steps into the kitchen. From here they don’t notice me, but I can watch Sam as he runs his team. He might still be single, but he certainly did move on in other ways. It looks good on him, this running his own kitchen gambit. His white chef’s coat hugs his torso just right, his hair is slightly damp with sweat from the heat in the kitchen and the efficacy of his movements. I take a seat, draw my knees up to my chest and just watch while his team does their job, joking and cussing and behaving like a family. I rest my head on my knees, staying there until I get caught.

“Hey, Sam.” The chef, he’s wearing the same white coat as Sam’s, puts his hands on his knees as he bends to look me in the face. His brow wrinkles into deep grooves over dark eyes. “Did you know you have a woman on your steps?”

“What?” Sam yells without taking his eyes off the pan in his hand.

“There’s a chick.” The man straightens up and glances in Sam’s direction. “Some little girl on your steps.”

“A little girl? How little?”

Sam turns his attention to us as I say, “I’m not little.”

The man puts both hands out in front of his chest and shrugs one shoulder in a semi-apologetic way, even as he smiles like he’s entertained by my appearance. “Didn’t mean to offend.”

“That’s Ash. Ru, you remember Summer’s friend?”

“Ru?” I jump up from the stairs, quickly brushing my hands over my dress. “Rupert Foster? Seriously?”

His brown eyes twinkle, his smile growing all the way up to the mop of dark curls atop his head as he throws open his arms. “Mischief maker, come here. I haven’t seen you since...” I slam into his chest as he wraps me in his arms. “Well, you were a little girl, actually, weren’t you?”

“I was fifteen.”

“And such a pain in the ass.” His scruffy jaw scratches at my scalp. “You and Summer together, following poor Sam around everywhere.”

Not that my best friend had wanted to spend that summer stalking her brother, no, that had been entirely up to my ability to be persuasive. “We didn’t. You were always hogging the pool.” “That’s true, but we were staying in the guest house. The deck opened onto the water.” He laughs and his chest shakes. “It’s good to see you again. I barely recognized you, although there was something familiar...”

“Ru, you need to get back on this order, now.” Sam growls, and there’s a warning in his voice where he’s only been jovial the entire time I’ve been watching them.

It sets me on alert, while Ru stiffens and jerkily lets me go.

“Right.” He can’t seem to look at me anymore, his gaze settles somewhere near my left ear while he rubs the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. We’ll catch up later, yeah?”

“Of course,” I say as the reason Sam growled clicks into place. Ru saw the video too. Sam knows it. Perhaps they…oh God…did they watch it together? Is this what it’s going to be like now? Everywhere I turn will be someone I know who’s seen the tape? Will strangers come up to me in the street because they think they know me now? Is how far I can spread my legs all anybody is going to be able to equate me with?

Backing out of the kitchen, I can’t take my gaze off Ru as he goes back to his station. My elbow hits plaster and jolts my focus as I stop against the wall. Sam’s watching me, his blue eyes soft and filled with concern like always. He must think I am the biggest fool.

Spinning away from his gaze, I sprint upstairs. There are piles of boxes stacked up neatly against the walls of the storage room that I have to walk through before I can hide away again. In Sam’s room. In his bed. Under the covers. Right now, I want to be six years old again, hiding with Summer under her blankets with a flashlight and a book of cupcake recipes. I would give anything to make this all go away. But what does one give to take back years?

I slip inside his room and shut the door, my pulse racing. What on earth am I going to do?

On the bedside table the little light that indicates a text flashes on my phone. It’s probably Summer, or…reporters who have gotten wind of a story? The airline? Some random guy who managed to get hold of my phone number and now wants me to move to Nigeria and be his sex slave princess? What if it’s my father?

It won’t be. In the twenty or so years that texting has been around he has never once texted me. Or called me. He barely answers my calls. But what if it is? What if he thinks I should come home and hide at Durum house until this all blows over? What if he just wants to make sure I’m okay?