Four
ASH
Putting the napkin on my lap, I point my fork at her. “You’re a very good judge of character. I’ll give you that, but I wouldn’t say I corrupt people, per se. I like to think that I open doors in people’s imagination—give them options they never considered before.”
Calla makes that strange noise in her throat again. She dips her fork into the salad, and her full lips part to accept the leaves. With images of a partially-naked Calla still traipsing around my mind, I have a hard time looking away from the small drop of dressing left on her lips.
Putting down my fork, I put my elbow on the table and lean my head in my palm staring at the muscles along her jaw line. She does everything she can to pretend she doesn’t notice my attention. It’s cute really.
Giving up the pretense, she sighs. “What?”
“Are you single?”
She coughs and a small splattering of lettuce lands on the white tablecloth in front of her. She brings the napkin back up to her lips and hisses through clenched teeth, “What?”
Jacob never mentioned whether Cal is single or not. I sort of just assumed s/he was since priests are cursed with that celibacy thing. Now that I know she’s as close to a priest as I am to a nun, I start to wonder whether anyone has tried to get the pole out of her ass.
“Single? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Spouse? Vibrator?”
Her face looks like she’s outraged, while her blush suggests otherwise. My mind quickly retreats like a cornered turtle into its shell. “I’m not applying for the job. Just making polite conversation.”
Her pale, fragile looking shoulders tense like I just smacked her. When I replay the words, my guilt is immediate. Shaking my head, I layer my stupidity with a thicker layer of idiocy. “Not that you’re not attractive. You know you’re beautiful. I just mean I don’t tend to go for women who think I’m an asshole. I’m interested in women who share similar opinions and interests, namely a high opinion of me with an interest to see more of me.” I bring the water glass up to my lips and stare at her over the rim. “Preferably naked.”
She coughs into her hand, but I can see the tight smile tipping at the corner of her lips. “Since you have such a high opinion of yourself, I don’t see why you would need anyone to stroke your ego.”
I shrug and wave at the Raven’s quarterback as he passes. “I never officially named him, but if you want to call my cock, Ego, I can live with that.”
And just like that, I finally get the eye contact I hadn’t realized I was pushing for. Her shock is practically palpable, but it’s her eyes that I find the most fascinating. Her eye color has spanned from the lightest whiskey to the darkest cognac and every shade in between. They’ve been defiant and fierce one second then shuttered and troubled the next. While her words may be misleading, her eyes are the most honest thing about her.
Calla breaks eye contact by shaking her head and picking up her fork. She stabs at a small tomato and the pinging sound of the fork against the china echoes across the table. She drops the fork and pushes the plate away like the food offends her.
But it’s the moment that follows that pulls me closer to a girl that I know in my gut I should be pulling away from.
Without her snark or pride protecting her, Calla looks nothing like the confident girl who went toe to toe with me a few seconds ago. Instead, she looks exhausted, like she’s given up trying to be witty and concedes defeat. She bows her head and closes her eyes like she’s trying to block everything out. By the way her lips twist into a deep frown I don’t think she’s able to escape whatever she’s trying to hide from.
Opening her eyes, she tips her chin up and with a steely voice whispers, “I’m not a fucking princess, and you will never be my prince.”
A sudden coldness hits my core, and my head jerks back like it’s absorbing the punch of her words. My mouth falls open as I search the table looking for someone, anyone, to explain what the fuck just happened. Instead of sympathizing with a girl at the end of her rope, I want to take the rope and hogtie her with it.
I remember the first time I saw the name Prince Ash in an article written by some doe-eyed wanna-be journalist. I was leaning against the soda fridge at my favorite deli, skimming through the society pages when I saw it. Everything inside of me froze as my fingers gripped the paper tighter, causing the edges to wrinkle and tear. I remember walking out of the deli without my breakfast sandwich and pitching the newspaper into the trash where it belonged. Then I just stood on the crowded sidewalk and stared at the commuter traffic with unfocused eyes.
My mother was the first person to call me Prince Ashton. She used to say I was her sensitive boy, the one she knew would one day save, not only a princess, but save the world. While my father always said I felt too much, my mother always said the opposite. She said I led with my heart while my brother led with his head. I got hurt, but I always forgave, something Cole and my father don’t often do. I used to see my mother as the queen, the kind ruler of our home until the asshole king returned to overthrow every good thing she did for our family. When I’d try to impress my brother or my father by tamping down my feelings, my mother would run the back of her hand down my cheek and whisper, “You are better than this. Don’t ever be afraid to be who you are, my prince.”
But then my queen died and that royal part of me went with her. For weeks, I felt too much. I couldn’t eat, sleep, I could barely breathe. It wasn’t until my father smacked me across the face and told me to “fucking get over it” that I returned to the living.
Eying my plate, I consider throwing a tomato at her but, with the way her mind works, I’m afraid she’ll think my food fight is a way of proposing.
A hush falls over the crowd as the lights lower, and a spotlight powers on. A power wig walks onto the short, wooden stage with Jacob a few steps behind him. The lucky bastard is being escorted by a leggy blonde who seems to have painted on her gown with a Q-tip.
The arrogant presenter welcomes everyone, and then goes on to give the most boring speech in the history of the world. I think they brought out the blonde to offer us eye candy so that none of us fall asleep. Feeling strangely guilty for my thoughts, I glance over at Calla who’s covering a yawn with her long fingers.
I lean over and whisper, “Are we keeping you awake, Sleeping Beauty?”
A small breathless whisper escapes her lips. Even in the dim light I notice a flash of anger paralyze her expression. A strange sense of guilt creeps up my spine and settles in the center of my chest. I tilt back in my chair as if wanting to put distance between me and my words and back track through the conversation, wondering why the hell I feel bad for my corny question.
Her lips curl into a mocking smile, and she gestures for me to lean over. I hesitate but then inch in closer, breathing in her cinnamon and sugar scent. She slowly licks her lips, and I’m mesmerized by the sheen on her lower lip. Her tongue slips out playfully, and she has my full attention when she whispers, “Pretentious people bore me. Pretentious assholes like you repulse me.”
Her words feel like a bucket of ice cold water dumped over my senses as I sit a few seconds longer with my mouth hanging open. Instead of numbness, a horrible realization creeps in and smacks me across the face.
I might actually like this girl.
She’s sarcastic, immune to my charms, and based on her hatred of me, she’s a good judge of character. With a little more finesse, I could probably warm her up to a night of mutual I-loathe-you sex. I would probably have to hide the hammers before inviting her over.
Jacob’s rough, controlled voice steals my attention as I reluctantly pocket the thought for now.
“Thank you, Governor. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jacob, and I’m the co-founder of Helping Hands. I first want to thank all of you for coming this evening to celebrate the lives we’ve helped over the past year and a half.”
He chuckles and shakes his head, looking down at the podium. “The stories I could tell you.” Jacob looks up, and the microphone broadcasts his hard exhale. “Some people hear the words homeless, unemployed, poor and immediately turn their backs. Some feel pity while most feel disgust. We don’t want your pity. All we want is to feel hope again. We need opportunities. We need jobs. But what we need more than anything is for people to have faith in us—to open their doors instead of shutting their hearts.”
Every cell in my body feels charged as I watch Jacob take control of the room. Every single person is turned toward the stage with their hands empty of food and drink. While society’s finest usually use deaf ears to listen to the needs of others, their faces are void of any judgment. If anything, they look curious. They look intrigued, and while I doubt Jacob’s words will take permanent root, I’m amazed that he broke through their hard shells at all.
Warmth creeps up my cheeks and down my neck when I realize Jacob is staring at me. “We need people like Cole and Ash Sanders whose doors don’t only open for us, but whose doors stay propped open. They employ thousands of disadvantaged adults. They use their businesses as a stepping stone to give us the experience that no one will let us work without, but no one gives us the chance to earn.”
Jacob pauses, and I swear the entire room takes in a collective breath. “I look around and I see opportunity—I see jobs. I see people who could make the same choice every day, just like the Sanders. People who should not only open their doors, but open their hearts.”
The applause is ear-shattering as my hand gravitates to my chest. I tap my heart as if trying to calm it down and smile up at Jacob with something clogging up my throat. I swallow and look around the room, waving like a prince performing for his royal subjects.
Arrogant prick? Check.
But then it happens. People all around the room push out of their seats and stand. My dim-shitted brother stands and walks through the tables, all the while keeping his eyes on me. He throws his arm down and gestures to the stage. I shake him off with an exuberant, “No, no, you go”, while killing him softly with my own visual daggers.
Walking through the tables, I can now say I know what it must feel like for a man going to the guillotine. At least that man knew it would be over soon. By the way my unrehearsed speeches go, we’ll be lucky if anyone’s home by two a.m.
The blonde moves forward to escort both me and Cole across the stage. I keep my eyes on Jacob the entire time and he smiles, hinting that he knows my juvenile thoughts. In time, Jacob is the only thing standing between me and the guillotine. He holds out his hand, and I shake it before pulling him in for a hug.
“Want me to get the blonde’s number?”
He pats me hard on my back and chuckles in my ear. “Come on. You know I already got it.”
I tilt my head back and laugh, guiding him over to the blonde, and offer Cole the spotlight. My brother shakes his head and steps so far away that I’m pretty sure no one can see him behind the stage curtain.
An image of my father’s sagging features pops into my mind unwelcome. He mentally screams at me to stand up straight, brush the hair out of my “god-damned eyes”, and stop acting like such a pussy. Squaring my shoulders with the audience, I swallow and flash a smile so wide, even my old man would have to be proud.
“Shoot. Not sure how to follow that.” I run my fingers along the edges of the podium as if searching the wood grain for a speech written in Braille. “I, uh, started volunteering with organizations like Helping Hands about eight years ago. Probably around the time Jacob here was in diapers.”
The audience laughs, but Jacob rolls his eyes. “Ha. Ha.”
“Volunteering sounds noble, but the truth is I was a superficial prick who just wanted to make his mother proud.” I shudder and lick the seams of my lips. “First day I was playing Monopoly with this kid named Riley. Now for those of you who don’t know me, I take Monopoly very seriously, but I figured I should let the kid win because, well, that’s what you do when you feel pity. You become a self-sacrificing dipshit. So I figured I’d start off slow and then just screw up later on so that he wouldn’t realize I was going easy on him. Figure a kid like that didn’t have the brains to beat someone like me.”
The silence in the room is so thick that I clear my throat just to hear a sound. Images of my mother flash through my mind, and I tighten my grip on the sides of the podium. Her beautiful face. The softness of her hands. The forgiveness. Always the forgiveness no matter how stupid and how immature I acted. How she always invited Riley to dinner. When she got so sick she couldn’t even stomach Sunday dinners, Riley tweaked every recipe she loved to find ingredients she could tolerate.
I shake my head, trying to fight back the images before they consume me. “Not only did Riley have the brains to kick my ass, but he also had the brains to knock me off my high horse with a solid kick to my ego. A few years later, he’s now the top chef at one of my restaurants and continues to knock me off of my horse every chance he can.”
Clenching my jaw, I watch the fading images go as I lift my head and face the quiet audience in front of me. I don’t have the courage to look at their faces, to see their pity or their judgment—something they hand out freely. Instead I stare at the red exit sign illuminating the back wall.
“We talk about charities and fundraisers like they’re social engagements where we can eat a thousand dollars worth of food and go home feeling good about ourselves. We then fall asleep in our five thousand count sheets and wait for the next invitation to come along to feel good about ourselves again. I’m not blaming anyone for the luxuries we have, but I am challenging you.” I don’t pause for effect. I pause because my anger, my disgust for so many people in this room, is suffocating.
Swallowing down the lump churning in my throat, I shake my head and find the courage to sharpen my gaze. “I challenge each and every one of you, whether you’re a superficial prick who thinks volunteer work will look good on your life review, or whether you genuinely want to help. I challenge you to step up for these families—these men and women. Don’t just offer them the green in your wallets. Offer them jobs. Offer them a chance to be more than a statistic—more than the life they were born into. I promise at the end of every day, they won’t just surprise you, they might just inspire you.”