CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jewel is still breathing heavily, but lying here with Ash, she can’t get the last couple days out of her head. The band’s excess wealth, their ability to so easily intimidate the club managers, the creepy patch on Wolfe’s vest and the weird nicknames. It just doesn’t add up, and it’s really starting to bug Jewel.
She lets out a sigh and starts to scheme a way to get information from Ash. She can’t be too obvious, but she has to know what she’s getting herself into.
She doesn’t start questioning him right away. She waits, thinking about the best way to ask and how to go about bringing up the topic. As she lies there with him, she enjoys the feeling of their skin touching and him caressing her gently. She can see herself being his only girl after every show. She would watch him on stage and it would turn her on. After it was over he would come to her, and only her.
Don’t get too excited, Jewel. You’re thinking too much. It’s just sex, she reminds herself. At that thought, she’s truly disappointed. She doesn’t want it to be just sex. Not anymore.
“I noticed that Wolfe has a grim reaper patch on his vest... isn’t that for the Grimms? Like the gang?” she blurts out.
“Yeah...” Ash responds as he rubs her shoulder.
“So… is that like the Big Bad Wolf from the fairytale, then? I know the band was talking about a bunch of names like that earlier… you’re Prince Charming, aren’t you?”
Ash stops rubbing her shoulder as she speaks. He’s starting to see where she’s going with this.
“What’s with all the damn questions?” he asks sharply.
Jewel is taken aback by his response. She fumbles over her words as she begins to speak, to provide him with an answer.
“Uh. I mean…” She fails to string a full sentence together at the change of his demeanor.
“Yeah.” He responds angrily, “Look, I’m a member of the Grimms, all right? What do you want from me?” His voice is no longer raspy and soulful, but instead curt and annoyed.
“I got addicted to drugs, real bad. I blew all my money on them.”
He hesitates.
“At first it was just a little here, a little there each time I got a paycheck, but I needed more and more. What I had was never enough. I couldn’t stay away. I was practically living on the damn streets after a while. I didn’t care if I lived or died.”
As Ash speaks, he doesn’t even look at Jewel. He stops touching her. He rolls out of bed to get dressed, the anger still present in his voice.
“I had nothing. I hit rock fucking bottom. Instead of eating I blew money on drugs. Do you know what that shit does to you? I borrowed money from the Grimms, and other people. People that don’t play around.”
Ash shook his head, fully dressed now, standing near the door.
“That’s when Wolfe came looking for me. I owed him a shit ton of money, and he was collecting the debt. Debt-collecting bikers like him aren’t daisies, as I’m sure you can imagine. I couldn’t pay him, and I thought he was going to kill me. But he gave me a choice… I could face the same fate all the other idiots who borrowed and couldn’t pay up... or I could do this. I could join his band. Seven Ravens. Join and pay off my debts that way.”
The words are practically jump out of Ash’s mouth. He shakes his head as he continues.
“Wolfe introduced me to the other Grimms who could play. I could sing, and I was already kinda famous. I got to sing my own songs. Shit, now they’re my brothers. Life isn’t so bad. I’m not eating shit anymore, and I’m clean. I even have a career now. These guys saved my life.”
After listening to Ash speak, Jewel doesn’t know what to say. His anger for her prying slowly dissipates, but she still feels bad. She didn’t know that about him, but running with a gang is a risky business. She just stays silent, not quite ready to look him in the eye.
There is an uncomfortable silence before Ash speaks.
“I want you there tonight.” he says, flipping her a new hotel key from his pocket. “I’ll come back alone, but only for tonight.”
Ash hesitates.
“If you’re not there, I’ll move on and it’ll be goodbye. I’ll find someone else.”
His words sound sincere, but as he makes his way to the door of the room he looks back at her, “But I hope you’ll be there. Right now, I don’t want anyone else.”
He closes the door. Holding the key in her hand she tightens her grip on it. She doesn’t want to think about him finding anyone else, but she also doesn’t want to give up on her own decision. She doesn’t want to go back on her word and start dating musicians again.
Is there a way to have both?
She sighs, knowing that she has lost the fight. Even if she ended it now, there would still be the what if. There would still be the wonder of where this opportunity would have lead. She’d see his name in the papers, she’d read about him on the internet, and she’d wonder how things would be if she had chosen differently.
She doesn’t want him to disappear. She doesn’t want him to find someone else tonight.