Asa

by Jay Crownover

  “Are you okay?”

  He jerked like I had electrocuted him, and when he looked down at me it was like he was looking at a stranger. I saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down and his hands curled into fists at his sides. His head shook slowly from side to side and he took a step away from me, so that I was no longer touching him. I was baffled by his sudden change in demeanor, so I gave a forced little laugh and asked him, “Did seeing me with braces and knobby knees really scare you that much?”

  I was happy in almost every single picture on that wall. It was my life before him laid out in snapshot after snapshot, and I wondered if the reality of coming with me to meet my mom, the seriousness of letting him into every single part of my life, was finally sinking in. He looked like he was struggling for words when I heard shuffling as my mom came around the corner, undoubtedly wondering what was taking us so long. She had a glass of wine in her hand and a welcoming smile on her face as she chirped, “Did you get lost?” I saw her eyes get big and her mouth drop open in a little O of surprise when her gaze locked on Asa. I thought she was probably just stunned by how ridiculously good-looking he was until the wineglass slipped from her fingers and sent red liquid splattering all over her fancy Berber carpet. My mom could be flaky but she typically was as graceful as an old Hollywood starlet.

  “Mom!” I yelled at her, and took a step forward as she fluttered a hand in front of her face and jerked her gaze away from Asa to the mess she had just made. She laughed a bit hysterically then turned to run to the kitchen, only to return a moment later with a towel and a bottle of floor cleaner. There was a high flush on her face and I noticed she wouldn’t look up at me, which was totally out of character for her.

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She got on her hands and knees and I frowned at her and then back at Asa, who looked like he had been carved out of stone. I had never seen him look so hard and so remote. Not even the night I arrested him for something he didn’t do.

  “Mom, this is Asa Cross. Asa, this is my mom, Roslyn Hastings.” My mom looked up from her position and then immediately looked back down to the floor.

  “Um … It’s nice to meet you, Asa.” She sounded cold and not at all welcoming.

  Asa opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. He lifted a hand to his face and rubbed it across his jaw like he was trying really hard to think of something to say. I scowled at him and crossed my arms over my chest. I was two seconds away from stamping my foot in irritation in a full-on fit.

  “What is wrong with you?” I mean I knew my mom was dramatic and that she hadn’t made the best first impression, but the stone-man impression seemed a little extreme, especially when he had just assured me he could handle her with very little effort.

  Then it was like a switch flipped. Suddenly his stony and hard expression fell away and the harmless good ol’ boy underneath was revealed. An easy grin pulled at his mouth and he dipped his chin in a polite nod.

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” I had never heard his drawl so thick or so purposeful. It made goose bumps rise up on my skin and chills race along my spine. He had slipped into a role. Asa was playing a character all of a sudden and it made my stomach hurt to watch the change happen so seamlessly right in front of my eyes. Especially since he was doing it to someone that was so important to me. Something was seriously wrong and I had no idea what it was.

  I helped my mom to her feet and was puzzled as to why she was shaking. She gave me a hug and hastily ushered me off to the kitchen with Asa trailing behind us. She started rattling off a hundred questions at me about work, Dom, everything under the sun besides me and Asa, which I thought was superweird. Even if she had enough tact not to openly ogle him in front of me, there was no way she wouldn’t at least give him an appreciative once-over. All women did. It was part of the magnetism he exuded so effortlessly. If you were born with a vagina, you were going to check Asa out when you got the opportunity. It was just a fact.

  I kept looking back and forth between the two of them, but he was staring at me like he was trying to work out something important to say, and that made me really nervous. I don’t know what had happened when we walked in that front door, but I felt like I had entered an alternate dimension.

  My mom had us help take dinner to the table, and when we sat down it didn’t escape my notice that Asa sat at the very end of the table, as far away from both me and my mother as he could get. It also didn’t skip my attention that he didn’t touch anything on his plate as my mom chattered on and on about nothing and everything at an alarming speed. She was acting more erratic than I could ever remember seeing her. I set my fork down with a clatter on my plate and narrowed my eyes at her.

  “Mom.” She closed her mouth with a snap and blinked at me like an owl. “This is the first guy I’ve brought home to meet you in years and you’ve spent the last twenty minutes talking about your dry cleaners and a stain in your blouse. Don’t you want to know how we met or anything about Asa? You’re being very rude.”

  She balked at me and turned wide eyes to Asa and then looked back at me with a bright red stain on her cheeks.

  “Oh … I’m so sorry. I promise, I usually have better manners than this.” Asa grunted as I reached out a foot to kick him under the table. A smile instantly flashed across his face and he shrugged.

  “Don’t worry about it, ma’am. I appreciate you making dinner for us.”

  My mom gave a high-pitched laugh and raised a hand to fiddle with her necklace. “So obviously you’re from the South. Where would that be?”

  “Kentucky.” He kept the smile on his face but there was no pleasantness in his voice at all.

  “Oh, I bet it’s pretty there.”

  “Not the part I’m from.”

  I jumped in before it could get any more awkward. “Asa bartends at the bar I told you I was hanging out at.”

  “A bartender. That sounds like a fun job,” she said a little too brightly.

  “It has its moments.” Asa’s deadpan response was the last straw. The tension was as thick as a blanket and so heavy I felt like I couldn’t breathe through it anymore.

  I pushed away from the table and rose to my feet with my hands on the edge. I swung my head back and forth between the two of them and asked, “What on earth is going on here?” I needed answers as to why he was acting so strange, needed them, like, yesterday.

  Asa pushed his chair back.

  I turned pleading eyes in his direction as he climbed to his feet. “Asa?” His name came out on a whisper as he made his way over to me. “What exactly am I missing here?”

  He put his hand beneath the heavy fall of my hair on the back of my neck and bent down so that he could kiss me on the forehead. It felt like a good-bye, and when I looked up into his face I could see that the affable mask he had been wearing for dinner was gone and the granite stranger was back. All the questions I had about his odd behavior suddenly disappeared under sharp waves of pain as I saw what he was about to do laid out clearly in the depths of his dulled gaze.

  “I can’t do this, Royal.” He brushed his lips along the ridge of my cheek and I saw the light go from dim to completely extinguished in his eyes. “No games, no lying, no more. I told you this was going to self-destruct even if I didn’t want it to.”

  “What are you talking about?” I was so lost, so confused, and I could tell if he walked away from me right now he was doing it for good. “Can’t do what anymore?” I didn’t know if pressing him to meet my mom had been too much. Maybe it was too far in the realm of serious relationship for him to handle, but I was willing to grab his hand and run out of the town house with him if it would stop him from doing what he was about to do.

  I went to grab his arm but he shook me off and headed out of the room toward the front door. I chased after him, angry and baffled beyond belief.

  “Asa, what are you doing? Where are you going?” I mean we were in Littleton and I was the one that had driven.

  He stopp
ed at the front door and turned around to look at me. If heartbreak had an expression it would be the one that was dancing across his features at that very moment. “I never really thought I’d be able to sacrifice something for the good of someone else ever in my entire life. I guess I really have changed.”

  I felt like I was going to cry. “I don’t understand. Is this because I asked you to meet my mom?” Maybe I had pushed him too far into the territory of what a real relationship looked like and this was his way of pushing back.

  “I know you don’t understand and I hope you never do. You deserve better, Royal. You always did.”

  He didn’t answer me about my mom, but I saw something hot spark in his eyes. I put a hand to my chest, where I felt like my heart was trying to fly out of my rib cage. I deserved better than what? Him? There was no such thing as far as I was concerned. “I’m in love with you.” My voice broke because he still pulled the door open and looked at me over his shoulder as he did it.

  “I know you are. That’s why I’m walking out this door.” With that, he vanished out the front door and left me standing there stunned and dumbfounded.

  I stared silently at the door for a solid ten minutes before my mom came to find me. When she did, I was rooted to the spot, shaking, and had fat, hot tears sliding silently down my face.

  “Royal?” She put a hand on my shoulder and I jolted. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself because right then I needed a hug like I needed my next breath. When I looked at her, I swore guilt and relief were warring with each other on her face.

  “Asa just left.” She nodded a little, understanding that I meant he left more than just this disastrous dinner.

  “Didn’t he ride here with you?”

  I turned to look at her, words stuck in my throat as emotion swirled and twisted inside of me so turbulent I felt like it was going to pull me apart. “He left me, Mom.” My voice cracked as I said it and she made a noise of sympathy and reached out to put a hand lightly on my shoulder.

  “Well, we both know men do that, honey. They leave. Especially men that look like him that have the devil and temptation in their eyes.”

  I frowned hard at her. I knew “perusing” Asa had a big probability of heartache attached to it, but for some unknown reason I was really starting to think we were going to beat the odds.

  I cut my gaze toward my mother and asked her in a voice that was threatening to crack with sadness, “Why were you acting so weird around him tonight?” Everything inside of me was screaming at me to chase after him, to call him, to beg him to explain to me what in the hell was going on.

  She harrumphed and patted me awkwardly where her hand rested. “I didn’t like the looks of him for you. Something about that face just screams more trouble than he’s worth. I’ve made enough mistakes in the men department for both of us, Royal. Trust me when I say you’re better off without a man like that holding on to your heartstrings.”

  “That’s ridiculous and judgmental. You don’t even know him.” He was so much more than a pretty face. The complexities that lived under his artful façade were anything but attractive and that’s what I liked the most about him. His ugliness made him even more beautiful.

  “I know men like him and have been victimized by a pretty face more than once in my times, Royal. Your father didn’t win me over with sweet words and grand gestures. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen and that blinded me to the fact he was married and everything else that was wrong with our relationship. You can do so much better for yourself. I wouldn’t tell you that if I didn’t think it was true, honey. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy.”

  I hiccuped on a sob that was trying to force its way out and had to blink to see through the tears that were clinging to my lashes. I hated that both of them had suddenly decided that there was something better out there in the world for me than what I wanted … which was him. “I don’t want better. I want him and he does make me happy, mostly because he lets me make him happy.”

  She said my name again, but I was in a daze. There were clues I knew I was missing, a trail of breadcrumbs leading to my broken heart, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than the pain I was feeling to try and follow them. I was shattered, and when I wasn’t I knew I was going to be absolutely furious with myself for taking such a big risk when I knew the outcome was bound to destroy me.

  I opened the door Asa had just exited my life through and walked numbly to my car. I wanted to do this night all over again. I wanted to smack Asa in the face for causing a disastrous end to our union simply because he couldn’t help himself. I wanted someone to hold me and tell me this was all a bad dream.

  I was going to Dom and then I was going to break down in a blubbering mess to try and figure out how things had gone so horribly wrong in the blink of an eye.

  CHAPTER 17

  Asa

  I had told Rowdy months ago, when he was struggling with putting his feelings for Salem in order, that men who sacrificed, who gave of themselves for others, deserved every bit of happiness the world saw fit to set at their feet. I had only had Royal for a minute, a fraction of a second, but it was time that would matter more to me than all the years and decades I had wasted being a selfish and reckless bastard. What she had created within me was far more powerful and enduring than all the things I had destroyed on my own. For once I had done the right thing without thinking, without latching on to the easy way and just riding out the lie. There was no instinct to pretend—there was only the wish to protect the girl I knew I would love forever. She saw me, all of me, and none of the faces I wore scared her. Because of that, I would never let her know that her mother, the only parent she had, the woman that had raised her and loved her, had also propositioned me for sex. I would be the bad guy in this scenario where I had ultimately done nothing wrong and save Royal the heartache that dealing with that particular revelation would undoubtedly cause. I could be a hero for once even if she didn’t know that’s what I was doing.

  It’s funny. It took breaking my own heart and walking away from the one thing I had ever really wanted for me to finally be able to see that I really had moved beyond the guy I had always been before.

  Royal had called me every night since I walked out on her at her mom’s place. She never left a message, never texted me or showed up at the Bar, but every night when she knew I was off of work, she called and I stared at the phone, fighting with myself not to answer. I knew she was hurting, confused, and lost. Nash had been by to rip me a new asshole. Even quiet and shy Saint had swung by the Bar to let me know she thought I was an idiot and a dipshit. I didn’t defend myself, couldn’t explain why I had to walk away from Royal even when I had just realized she was what I wanted forever. So I just took the lashes, letting everyone think what they wanted, even Rome, who felt like it was his job to give me the third degree and tell me what an obviously horrible mistake I was making. I put them all off, told them all it was doomed from the beginning, and that I couldn’t believe anyone was surprised that my relationship with the beautiful cop had crashed and burned. I told them she wanted too much, that meeting her mom and pretending to be a normal guy in a normal relationship situation was too much for me. I wasn’t cut out for it. I maintained to them all that when you had lived a life like mine, good things were not part of the equation, and those words tended to shut everyone up. There were too many questions with answers that I couldn’t give, so eventually I just stopped talking about it altogether and the gang got the hint and left me alone about it.

  I wasn’t at all surprised when I got a visit from a massive fellow in a full leg cast, moving like a ninety-year-old man except he was wearing a glower fierce enough to put the fear of God into any man. I knew he was here for her and I couldn’t blame him for the fact that he looked like he wanted to pull my intestines out through my nose.

  I had met Dominic Voss one other time, while he was arresting me. The look on his face as he limped his way into the Bar to confront me was a hundr
ed times more ferocious than it had been that night. Even on one leg and in an obviously huge amount of pain, Dom didn’t come across as a guy anyone would want to cross. When he propped himself up on the opposite side of the bar from me and stared me down, all I could do was look at him and wait to see what he had to say.

  He ran his hands through his dark hair in an aggravated manner and asked me to pour him a shot of Maker’s Mark on the rocks. I turned to comply and set it down in front of him with a lifted eyebrow.

  “I thought I was going to come in here and threaten to kick your ass … even with one leg. I thought I was going to tell you what an absolute moron you are for letting her go and that I was going to have to tell you that you have no idea what you’re going to miss out on by not letting a girl as wonderful as Royal love you.” He picked up the rocks glass and took a swig and then lifted both his eyebrows so that his expression mirrored my own. “But I can look at you and see that you know all of that. So now I want to ask you why you did it.”

  I hadn’t slept in days. I was drinking my weight in scotch every single night. I hadn’t bothered to shave, so I was scruffy, and I knew that none of the usual polish that I hid behind could be found. I looked like I had just crawled out of that trailer in Kentucky after a month-long bender and I felt about the same.