Ashton

I should have learned by now that waiting for anybody to be good enough would only lead to disappointment in the end. Sometimes I feel like I’ll be waiting for something that’s never going to happen.

“Waiting for someone else to make you happy will only make you sad,” Grandpa said.

And being stupid enough to wait for that person to be Dylan … I was setting myself up for disappoint the whole time. I have nobody to blame but myself.

Walking around my grandparents’ house, my house now I guess, brings back some of the sanity I thought I lost. They left me my childhood home in their will, wanting to ensure I had something sound in my life when they were gone. A safe place to fall when they couldn’t be here to catch me.

When I walk into the living room and see the familiar piano, a painless smile expands on my lips. Crouching down next to the bench, my heart picks up over the familiar carvings in the wood.

I swallow past the lump in my throat, and run my fingers over it. Blinking back tears, I look around the rest of the room, remembering what it was like when the large house was full.

Now it seems so empty. Too empty. Just the ghosts of the past wandering the halls and surrounding me.

I sit down on the bench, pressing my palm flat against the carving. Closing my eyes, I playback the sessions Grandpa and I had, the laughs, the jokes, the lessons.

He was full of good advice.

“I wish you were here,” I whisper to the air.

I want nothing more than to hear him tell me something that will make me happy. To ease the confusion. Make me feel like everything will get better again.

I let out a heavy breath as the doorbell rings, snapping me from my pity party.

When I unlatch the lock and open the door, my eyes widen at the sight of Dylan standing on the front step. His duffle bag hangs from his shoulder, and his hands are stuffed in his loose blue jeans.

He doesn’t look like he usually does. His clothes aren’t tight and showcasing his body—they’re hanging from him in comfort, like he doesn’t care.

But I care.

“What are you doing here, Dylan?”

“You invited me.”

“You bailed on our flight.”

He grips the strap of his bag. “Something happened, and I got distracted. But I’m here now.”

He’s here now.

Like that makes up for it.

“And I should just let you in?” I ask him doubtfully, the door only cracked open to block him from entering.

“You should do what you want,” he answers, which surprises me. I stare at him. “But I think that you should let me in because you know it’s the right thing to do. If not for me, for our labels.”

Did he have to play that card? He knows that I’m willing to do what it takes for our careers.

Sighing, I open the door and let him pass, and there’s no smugness on his face like I expect there to be.

He looks around the small hall, staring into the rooms on either side of us. One arch leads into the living room and dining area, and the other to the kitchen, guest room, and half bath. The stairs are behind us, leading up to three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a small study that Grandpa used to keep his book collection in.

The expression on his face is somber, almost impressed somehow. Compared to the extravagant hotels he stays at this family home is nothing special. Yet, he stares at the pieces of it like there’s something valuable behind everything his eyes sweep over.

“It’s not much,” I offer, closing the door and rubbing my hands against my thighs.

He sets his bag down on the ground. “It’s perfect. Never really pictured you for the flashy décor.”

I nibble my lip, not meeting his gaze. I’m not sure what it says about me that my heart picks up over acknowledging what he knows I like.

It hasn’t been long enough—two weeks—for him to know anything about me worth remembering. Not when this is only temporary … when he’s determined to keep his distance from me.

After showing him his room and telling him where everything is, I let him settle in. Walking back into the living room, I sit down at the piano and open up my old composition folder and pull out Grandpa’s favorites.

It isn’t until halfway through playing Mozart that I see Dylan watching me from the doorway. It causes me to stop; the music cutting off and ceasing the noise that drowns out the silence.

“You should have kept going,” he tells me, walking into the room and looking at the pictures on the wall. I didn’t have the heart to take any of them down, even the embarrassing baby ones.

Each one meant so much to my grandparents. Alternating anything they left behind would be like alternating what they built here—changing their legacy.

He chuckles over the potty training one, causing me to wince. Okay, maybe I could take a few of them down.

“I grew up here,” I explain, standing up and picking up a frame from the mantel next to us. I was fourteen, and it was taken during Grandma’s last birthday with us. We were all smiling around her birthday cake, lights off so just the candles lit up the room.

I set it back down, staring at the others next to it. Dylan seems to be entranced by them, studying each other intently.

“You looked happy,” he states quietly.

Looked. As if I don’t now.

“I still am. Just …” I shrug, turning away from the memories. “Not all the time.”

I sit down on the bench.

He walks around the room, hand brushing against everything it can touch. Looking at every little knickknack like he wants to know their meanings.

“Happiness doesn’t have to be a constant thing,” he finally replies, taking a seat on the couch and hugging one of Grandma’s homemade pillows against his chest. “Some people think that being happy all the time means everything is perfect, but that’s not true. Nobody’s life is, so how can anyone be happy all the time? Plus, my mom used to tell my siblings and I growing up that you don’t find happiness, you make it. If more people listened to that, they’d stop searching and start experiencing.”

The Dylan sitting on an old plaid hand-me-down couch hugging a pillow with a rooster on it to his chest is not the same Dylan I met at the club two weeks ago. It’s definitely not the same Dylan I spent the last week with, constantly battling the urge to either strangle or kiss him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He wipes his hand on his face like he might have something there.

I shake my head. “No reason,” I lie. “So you have siblings?”

He nods. “I’m the oldest. Got a brother and sister—Levi and Roxie. They’re both good kids.” He laughs, smiling to himself. “Well, they’re not kids. Levi is almost seventeen, and Roxie just turned thirteen.”

I draw my knees to my chest, resting the heels of my feet on the edge of the bench. “They sound amazing. Are you close?”

His lips twitch. “Not anymore. I’m gone too much nowadays, plus the age difference is a big part of it. Shit, I was ten when Roxie was born. I asked Mom for a puppy. Got her instead.” He chuckles over that. “But they’re close with each other, which makes me happy. Knowing that they have each other is important.”

The softer side of Dylan pops out, and I don’t know if he even knows it. I have a feeling that when he does he’ll retract again, masking himself.

“I see them when I can, send them money,” he adds without me asking. “Hopefully when the time comes they’ll get out of there and explore life. See what it has to offer.”

He seems lost in the thought, which gives me time to study him. His usual hardness is gone, and it makes me drawn to him despite the warnings going off inside of me.

I’m becoming attached again, and I know it won’t end well. Yet, whatever feeling is buzzing inside of me urges the connection to deepen.

“You’re from a small town, right? One-horse feel, farms, people who know everyone and everything. It can’t be that bad, can it? Not like a city where there’s danger at every corner.”

His eyes meet mine, but his are a million miles away. “There’s bad no matter where you go, Ashton.”

I press my lips together. I guess he’s right, but it seems like there’s more to the story than what he’s telling me. But I know the glaze over his eyes, because they match mine. So I don’t press him for the details.

“We’ve got two more weeks to finish the song,” I say to change the subject. “I think we should work on the instrumental to get the music down and then we can work on the rest of the lyrics.”

He nods. “If that’s what you want.”

“Uh … it is.” I look at him suspiciously, wondering what game he’s playing. Agreeing to everything I say doesn’t seem to fit his MO, yet once more, I don’t question it.

He puts the pillow back down and stands, walking over to me and putting his hand out, palm up.

I stare at his hand suspiciously. “I don’t bite, Boots.” I meet his eyes, seeing his crooked grin as he adds, “Not too hard anyway.”

The way he winks brings him back to his old self, and somehow that’s all the motivation I need to put my palm in his. Pulling me up from where I sat, he smiles at me playfully.

“You said there’s a studio?” he asks.

I smile back at him, gesturing toward the back door. “It’s in the backyard. Grandpa was going to build a workshop, but at the time I was so consumed in my music he thought it’d be a better space for me. It’s been upgraded since he uh …”

My heart lurches in my chest just thinking about him, but I brush it off.

“Since he passed,” he finishes for me.

I just nod.

He trails his hands down my arms before taking my hands in his, squeezing them. “It’s okay to be upset. I won’t fault you for it.”

I sniff back tears before they fall. “I’ve been through a lot over the years. I cried when my parents died after a car accident, and again when my grandparents died. Crying over loss has become so … normal to me.”

Dylan’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t let himself frown like I can see he wants to. No, instead, he sees the impending ‘but’ in my eyes, like he gets my clouded hues.

“But?” he presses.

I blink. “I never cried over Rhys.”

He moves one of his hands up to my cheek, cupping it. “There’s a lot you can get from that, you know.”

“How can you be sure, Dylan?”

His thumb brushes my cheekbone, my heart picking up over the soft caress. “Because we only let ourselves cry over the people who are worth our tears.”

I have no idea what to say to that, so I just stare at him. In amazement. Solidarity. Wondering why he’s so insightful, yet pretending he’s got nothing in him worth showing to the world.

He draws back, putting his hands in his pockets. “So how about that studio?”