CHAPTER TWELVE
Beau
Beau watches Ashton, but I don’t think he knows it. Ashton watches Beau even more. It’s weird. ~ Love, Kenny
Every time I glanced Ash’s way during the game, his eyes were firmly glued on me or the players. He wasn’t like other people in the stands, who looked at their phones or seemed distracted. Hell, he’d hardly sat down the whole time, energy radiating off him in a way that was nearly visible in his movement, his pacing, in the way he fidgeted.
I hadn’t expected him to be as into it as he was. Hell, I also never would have thought he would want to go to the game or that I’d walk into Mom’s shop and see him there again, sitting with my brother.
When we’d won, he’d whooped so loud, a few people looked at him, and he’d lowered the hat on his head again.
My eyes kept finding him as we thanked the other team and celebrated with friends and family. Ash stayed back, this enigma I couldn’t figure out anymore, and I wondered if I’d ever really known who Ashton Carmichael was. I wondered if he had the answer to that question himself.
It wasn’t until the building emptied of everyone other than Kenny and me that Ash came out. “Dude, that was such an incredible game! That catch at the end, Kenny? Felt like I was watching Beau out there.”
Kenny’s smile lit up the damn building, and I felt my defenses softening even more toward Ash.
Kenny began speaking so fast, some of the words got tangled together. That was one thing the speech therapy hadn’t helped as much with. Sometimes he just got so excited, it was hard for his mouth to keep up. Still, he made me proud every day.
“Slow down, Kenny,” I reminded him.
He took a few deep breaths, then asked, “Do I really remind you of Beau?”
My heart clenched at that. He always placed me on a pedestal I was damn sure I didn’t deserve to be on.
“You do,” Ash told him. “Maybe even better.”
When he threw me a grin, I found myself saying, “We’re having pizza at Mickey’s. It’s a bit of a tradition. I’m sure you’re busy, but if you’re not, you’re welcome to join us.”
“Well, you are my ride and all,” Ash replied. “I guess I kind of have to go.”
“Guess you do,” I added.
“But, Beau, Ashton doesn’t have to go. I want him to, but if he can’t, we can always drop him off at his car.” He cocked his head as though he was working through why we would think Ash had no choice but to go with us.
“You trying to get rid of me?” Ash teased, putting an arm around Kenny’s shoulders.
“No,” Kenny answered simply, but I was caught by how easily they took to each other. Ash treated him the way he would anyone, didn’t talk to him as though he were a child, and didn’t ignore him as though he didn’t matter. Many people did both, but not Ash.
My memory flitted back to that day when Ash had helped me teach Kenny how to play in the park…and then to that night, before the kiss, when he’d asked about my brother. Even back then he’d treated Kenny with more respect than most people, hadn’t he? I’d never given him enough credit for that. I’d always just seen the things I didn’t like about Ash when I looked at him…well, that and the fact that I was pretty sure that even before I realized I was gay, part of me knew I’d wanted Ashton Carmichael. “Come on, you two knuckleheads, let’s get out of here.”
“Knuckleheads? Knuckleheads? Did you hear what he called us, Kenny?” Ash feigned offense. “That’s why I call him Cranky Campbell.”
“Cranky Campbell?” Kenny replied, chuckling sweetly.
“Oh, no. Don’t tell me the two of you are going to start ganging up on me with that name.”
“Guess you better be extra nice to me, huh, CC?” Ash teased.
“I’m not talking to you.”
“But you just did,” Kenny replied, and the three of us laughed again.
“I’m leaving without you guys.” I went for the door, Kenny and Ash behind me. We tossed the equipment into the back of my truck and then made our way to Mickey’s.
Kenny and Ash talked about the game, and most of the time I simply listened. It was different for me, hearing Kenny talk to someone other than me about things like that. He had his friends, of course, some of the people he met at the center he went to, and people from his college classes, but it was different coming from someone I knew. It wasn’t that my friends weren’t great with Kenny, because they were, Linc especially, but…well, hell, they weren’t Ashton Carmichael. If I were honest with myself, I’d admit that had always been a thing for me. Maybe I held Ash to higher standards in some ways, and didn’t expect as much of him in others.
Once we were at Mickey’s, the three of us got out together. Luckily, the place wasn’t too busy as we went to the counter to order.
“I hope you like pepperoni and double sausage. That’s all we order. I love sausage.” The moment the words fell out of my mouth, Ash cocked a brow at me, and I realized how it sounded.
“Big sausage fan, are you?” he teased in a way I’d never been teased by any of my straight male friends before. What the fuck was up with him? I couldn’t figure Ash out.
“Quite interested in my preferences, aren’t you?” His eyes darted away, and guilt immediately drowned me. Shit. For as hard a time as I always gave Ash, I was the one who was fucking up lately. “I’m giving you shit. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“What could you mean by it?” Kenny asked.
“I can take the next customer in line,” the man at the counter said, saving my ass from my dickheaded statement to Ash and explaining it to Kenny.
“Do you want something else?” I asked, and Ash shook his head.
“Nah. I’m good with…that.”
Great. Now I’d ruined it so we couldn’t even say the word sausage. Go Beau. I was killing it.
We ordered our pizza and a pitcher of soda, then sat in a booth close to the arcade, Kenny and me on one side, Ash on the other. We talked more about the game, Mom’s éclairs, things like that. I couldn’t help but notice Ash wasn’t making eye contact with me like he had been before. Not that I could blame him.
It didn’t take long for our food to come. We basically annihilated the pizza, and then Kenny made his way to the arcade. They had an old Pac-Man machine, which was his favorite. He didn’t do any other games, wasn’t into shooting or racing cars, but he could play for hours that old-school game that was even before my time.
“Listen…I’m sorry about the joke earlier. It was inappropriate—”
“It was a joke,” Ash cut me off. “It’s fine.”
But it didn’t feel like a joke with him. It felt like more. Maybe it was the kiss all those years ago or a fantasy I had about Ashton and me that I’d never allowed myself to truly voice. Maybe I was trying to see something that wasn’t there because Ashton had always been better than me at everything, more secure than me, but in this, in being a proud gay man, I was more comfortable in my skin than he was. Or maybe he wasn’t gay or bisexual at all, and I was projecting my own shit onto him…but yeah, it just felt like more, it felt important, and I didn’t know any better way to explain it than that. “But it’s not okay if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“It didn’t make me uncomfortable,” Ash replied.
“Okay.”
“Seriously, Campbell. I’m good. I can take a joke. I’m funny as shit, in case you don’t remember.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. Ash was good at that. “Well, you don’t lack for confidence, that’s for sure.” But when his eyes darted away, my stomach dropped, and I suddenly felt like I’d done something wrong again. Or hell, maybe I saw that Ash wasn’t quite as confident as I’d always thought he was. “It’s true, ya know?”
He turned my way again. “What’s true?”
“I watched all your stupid games. If I worked or was in school, I recorded them. I was proud of you, Ash…I still am. That isn’t easy for me to say. I wanted what you had so badly, that at first I watched trying to tell myself it was a mistake, that I was better than you.”
“You could have had what I had. You put your family first, is all.”
“No.” I shook my head, being honest with myself for the first time in years. “I was good. I could have played college ball, but I wasn’t good enough to be professional. Even if I’d gone on to play, I wouldn’t have accomplished what you did.”
“Christ, Campbell. You’re about to make me cry.” He swiped at tears that weren’t there.
“If I were you, I would take advantage of this. Within a few minutes, I’m likely to start hating you again,” I teased, even though I wouldn’t, and never truly had.
“There’s the Cranky Campbell I know and love. Stop making me think you like me. It’s weird.”
We both laughed, took a drink of our sodas, distracted ourselves. At least that was what I was doing.
“Since we’re playing nice, maybe now’s the time to tell you you’re amazing with him—your brother.”
I shrugged. “You don’t have to say that. He’s family. I love him. There’s nothing that makes what I do amazing. I’m just a big brother to my favorite person. The last thing I deserve is praise for that.”
Ash was quiet, watching me, staring at me with those shadowy eyes of his that I thought held more secrets than I’d ever given him credit for…that had more depth to them than I’d ever let myself see. Finally, after what felt like an eternity stretched between us, he said, “I think you deserve a whole lot of things you don’t see, Beau Campbell.”
My breath caught, a mass forming in my throat. It took me a moment to be able to speak around it. “That’s my thing.”
“What?” he asked.
“Calling you by your first and last name.”
Ash chuckled. “My bad.”
“Thank you.”
Ash shrugged. “Nothin’ to thank me for. And he’s amazing too.” He nodded toward the arcade.
“He is. I’m so damn proud of him. He takes classes at the college, works with Mom. He’s smart, kind, happy, fun as hell, and passionate about the world around him. It’s impossible not to be in awe of him.”
Ash’s eyes darkened, his brows pulling together as two small wrinkles formed above them. His stare held mine with an intensity I couldn’t explain or deny, and if I hadn’t felt it, I’d probably laugh if someone else said they experienced it.
“You’re looking at each other weird.” The sound of Kenny’s confused voice snapped me out of my Ash-trance. I’d seen many people fall into it before and never return. Despite our truce, or the fact that I was going to be an adult where he was concerned, that wasn’t a place I could allow myself to get lost.
“That’s because Ash is weird,” I told Kenny.
“No, he’s not,” he replied.
“Yeah, no, I’m not!” He raised his voice, feigning offense. He was so theatrical and always had been.
“And the Oscar goes to…”
“Do you really think I’m that good?” Ash asked, and I laughed again. Damn it. He’d gotten me. The same way every person who’d ever crossed his path became enamored with him, I was officially a member of the Ashton Carmichael fan club.
Which basically meant I was fucked.