by Kira Blakely
Ashton’s eyes went back around the room. Still no Laura. “Man, I can’t believe we got out of there and did so great.”
“Me neither. But we did.” Dawson nodded toward a lean blonde in a very expensive cream-colored sheath. “Some advice. Stay away from that one.”
“Oh yeah? Why?” Hell, if Laura wasn’t showing up he might as well try to find some fun.
Dawson said, “She’s looking for a husband, and a rich one.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Ashton chuckled. “No way am I interested in getting married. Not to a woman who doesn’t want me for my money and really not to one who wants me for that and nothing else.”
Speaking of women…Laura strolled into the room, wearing a stunning red dress that accented her amazing figure and dark hair. Ashton’s dick stiffened, and he grinned.
Dawson asked, “What’s so funny?”
“Oh nothing. Just thinking about what all those assholes who said we’d never amount to anything would say if they saw us now.”
That was true. That had been exactly what he had been thinking right before Laura walked in, and he lost all ability to think about anything but her and that dress, and ways to get it off her.
She spotted him and smiled. Lexie and Laura were deep in conversation; that was easy to see. No way was he going over there and interrupting her. His eyes scanned the room as he considered ways to get her into a corner so they could talk privately.
Dawson turned away to talk to someone else, and Lexie crossed the room, leaving Laura standing alone. Ashton strolled across the room and asked, “What brings you to a party like this?”
She gestured with the glass she held in her slim fingers. “The same thing that brought you, I’d say. It’s hard to say no to friends.”
He sipped from the heavy tumbler filled with a single ice cube and scotch. “Yeah.” He’d been hoping she’d say that she’d come in the hope of seeing him again. His grin drooped a little at the corners of his mouth. Damn. The first woman he’d had a one-night stand with that made him want more, and she wanted nothing else.
Someone up there hated him.
Laura sipped from her glass. “Did I miss anything?”
“I’d be lying if I said yes.”
Her low, throaty laughter stroked along his senses. He shifted a little and asked, “Why so late?”
She pulled a face. “Work. They’ve got it out for me. I swear to God, I need a better job.”
“Then why don’t you get one?’
Laura sighed. “I was just so happy to have any job here in the city I took the first one that would get me out of that shitty small town – hindsight, as they say. It’s tough in my field. The whole city’s crawling with accounting and IT companies, both of which are my only specialties.”
He nearly spewed his drink out of his nose. “You’re an accountant?”
Her eyes danced. “I am. So? I would love an IT job, but if I don’t get one soon I’m afraid I am going to be left behind. Tech changes so fast and what I have in the way of education might be obsolete tomorrow if I’m not careful.”
“Believe it or not, the local community college has great classes, and they’re cheap if you only sign up for the continuing education and not the full program. That’s how I stay afloat in the tech world. That, and I read every book I can find on the subject. But having the cred on paper is helpful.”
“Wow. I never would have thought you were so serious. Or so up on tech.”
A grin tugged at his lips. “What did you think I do for a living?”
She surveyed him over the rim of her glass, then lowered it. Her tongue snaked out and licked along her lower lip, whisking away a few drops of the wine she was drinking. “I don’t know. I guess I never thought to ask.”
He shrugged, “I do a little tech stuff.”
They were interrupted by a friend of Dawson’s, who obviously had the intention of hitting on Laura. The man, older and carrying himself like he had every right to everything in the world – that rich, trust fund kid arrogance blatantly emanating from him – horned right in.
“Well, hello,” he said to Laura, ignoring Ashton completely.
“Hello.” She frosted him right out, giving him an icy smile and making her words chilly enough to freeze the air between the two of them. Ashton fought back a sudden spate of jealousy and sipped at his drink again, interested in seeing what would happen next.
Obviously, the new admirer was not used to women who didn’t just fall right at his feet. He shot her a smile that was a little less assured than his original one. “I’m Richard Davenport.”
He said nothing else. Laura just gave the dude a blank expression, obviously discomforting him. Richard shifted on the balls of his high-end loafers. “Of the Davenports, of course.”
Laura’s face stayed blank. “But, of course.” There was a thread of contempt below the words – thin, but there.
Richard looked even more uncomfortable. He looked around, said, “Well…er…”
“Nice to meet you.” Laura’s tone held sheer dismissal.
Richard took the hint. Ashton lifted his mouth in a half-grin. “Wow. I’m glad you didn’t run me off like that. That was harsh. Hell, that was the work of a master.”
Laura’s eyes gleamed, and she grinned right back at him. “Oh well, thank you. I’ve had a lot of experience with douchebags, unfortunately.”
“I bet.” He twisted the glass in his hands. He had no idea where he stood with her, but he was eager to find out. “I’ve had a few experiences with them, too, usually after they find out I right-swiped their girl while she was mad at them.”
Laura giggled, then said, “Now I’m dying to know. Is that what happened? I mean, I wondered why those guys at the bar were so mad, but I wasn’t sure if I should ask, all things considered.”
“Gerald’s had it out for me since I was a kid. We grew up in the same hood, sort of. I was a foster kid and none of the fosters that took me and Dawson in lived in the better places. Gerald’s dad…well, he’s a dope dealer, or was. I heard he got locked up for the rest of his sorry life not so long ago. Gerald was always a bully, and I used to have to fight him every now and then. It would not have shocked me at all to find out he put that chick up to asking me for a drink just so he could try to fight me again. But to answer your question, no, sleeping with her was not why he was mad. I would never have swiped right for her on any app.”
“Yeah you got to be careful with those apps. The worst one has to be Fly by Night.”
That was his app and it had made him rich. Biting back a grin, Ashton asked, “How so?”
“It’s all for the guys, haven’t you noticed? There’s no way to block dick pics, and the guys on there are animals. The women who use it are usually aware of what they’re getting into. Hell, I used it a few times. It’s okay for what it is – no apologies, no strings attached – but women must fill out detailed questions and give photos and then take a picture of themselves holding a sign saying ‘this is me’ just to prove that’s really us and all. But guys get to lie like hell. None of them have to prove how hot they are, and I know a lot of women who got stuck with some knuckle dragging, potbellied jerk as a result. Myself included. Oh, and let me tell you, when I walked out, he came after me yelling at me that I owed him four bucks for the coffee I had ordered.”
Wow. Why hadn’t he and Jackson considered those things?
Because they were guys, and like a lot of guys, they’d been pissed off about a woman who didn’t look anything like their pictures showing up. It had never even occurred to him that some guys were liars, too.
Damn.
Laura said, “You know what would be great? An app that’s somewhere between the hookup and the ‘oh my God, I love you forever’ app.”
His ears perked up. “Come again?”
“Me and my friend, Holly, were just talking about this the other day. I don’t want to get married. It freaks me out just to think about it. Seriously.”
&nb
sp; Well, at least now he knew she was absolutely against marriage. But was she totally against seeing him again? He debated asking and chose not to. Yet. “I get that.”
Laura laughed, “If you’d had to live in the small-town hellhole I grew up in where all anyone ever does is get married and die, you’d really get it.”
“You said before that you grew up in a small town. That bad huh? And about that app, that sounds like an amazing idea.”
He wanted to know more about her and that app. He had the same giddy feeling he’d had the night he and Jackson had created theirs. Besides, it wasn’t a bad idea. Lots of people wanted more than a one night stand but a lot less than marriage. He mulled that over until she spoke again.
“It was just that bad. Maybe not as bad as foster though. That had to suck.”
There was something guarded in her eyes – something troubled and sad. He was good at reading people, and what he read right there on her face was that her childhood had had its own issues. “I guess it depends. Some bio families can be a real nightmare, too.”
The crowd swirled around them but they were alone, two people lost in a crowd with only each other to talk to. They were the only two people either of them wanted to talk to just then, too.
His dick stiffened yet again, shifting his mood from thoughtful to urgent. The hard press of his cock was helped along by her sudden movement, one that sent the dress sliding across her curves in a way that made his entire body ache.
Laura said, “I wish I could ask you if you wanted to get out of here.”
His dick gave a tremendous pulse. “Why don’t you?”
She gave him a regretful smile. “Because I’m swamped at work and sure to be passed over the one, measly promotion my tyrannical boss offers a year. Not for each person, but company-wide. I need that promotion, so I need to get some sleep.” She swayed closer. The scent of her perfume washed into his nostrils, making him harder than ever. “I know you’ll keep me awake all night.”
She was trying to murder him. Period. His cock hurt it was so swollen, and now he had to find a way to get past all the people in the room without anyone seeing that he was sporting a boner.
“You should call me.” He gave her an inviting smile. Her smile was equally inviting.
She said, “I don’t have your number.”
Hell, no woman had ever had his number. It was safer that way. He could walk away without having to worry that he’d be drowned by phone calls and cute little texts. By the time he saw those women again, they’d usually moved on or were so pissed off they just wanted to scream at him for a little while, which he solved by just walking away with a shrug and leaving them hollering at the empty air.
He reached for his pocket to take his phone out. His pants were tighter now than they had been when he had shoved that phone into his pocket, and he took the opportunity to give his throbbing rod a quick but deliberate squeeze, a painful one at that. To his relief, it started to subside a little. Just enough that he could think past the rushing desire spreading through his entire body.
They exchanged numbers. The party had begun to wind down a bit, and Laura said, “I’ll see you later. I’ll call you, too. What’s a good day?”
Now. Right now. He stifled that. Jesus, he thought, one night with her and I’m suddenly whipped!
No, not whipped. Captivated. There was a sense of something bigger than even the ardor he felt every time he looked at her. He just didn’t know what that feeling was.
He said, “Any day you’re free.”
She asked, “After six or so good for you?”
“Perfect. You sure you don’t need a ride home?”
She shook her head, that glorious cloud of dark hair swaying and rippling, catching the light. “No, I drove. I also only had the one glass of wine.”
She walked off. Ashton stared after her, his heart thundering in his chest and his dick – still semi-erect – giving off a few residual pulses. The single largest thought in his mind was that Laura was the woman he would have wanted if he had wanted a relationship made to last.
LAURA
God, he was so hot. But it wasn’t just his hotness that drew her to him. It was something else. Laura had had too many relationships back home that had ended with a guy trying to force her into more than she was ready for. Suddenly, she was having fantasies of having a relationship with Ashton.
Oh, not marriage! God no. She still didn’t want, that but she did want to see him again. That last guy she had dated had been such a jerk and the casual dates/hookups had not been meaningful to her. But the weird breakup and his words had somehow dropped her self-esteem a few inches anyway.
Maybe because she had had no idea of how to answer a guy who thought he was breaking off a real relationship, one she had had no idea that she was even in with him.
Was there something wrong with me, she wondered as she got into her slightly battered and older car and cranked the engine. How could she not have seen that her…what was he exactly? Ex-boyfriend? She had not thought of him that way, but it had been clear he had thought of himself that way. It didn’t matter really, she decided as she pulled out of the parking garage and headed down the bustling city streets. She had to have been blind not to see that he felt that way.
Or maybe he was blind not to see she didn’t.
Sighing with impatience, she took the exit that would lead her to the apartment. She would have really liked some company. Holly was working like a fiend lately, and Lexie had all but disappeared from Laura’s life. Sure, she still paid her rent on the apartment, but she was rarely there since she was, for all intents and purposes, living with Dawson.
Letting Ashton be that company had been a tempting thing, but she knew she had to get up early and be clear-headed. That promotion could mean the world of difference when Lexie decided to make her living with Dawson official and pulled out of paying her share of the very expensive rent.
Laura’s spirits flattened. She felt alone and lonely so much of the time lately. Everything seemed to have lost its luster. Everything she had come to the city for she had gotten, but she was restless and bored and emptied out.
After she’d parked and unlocked the door to her apartment, her cell rang. Hoping it might be Ashton, Laura answered without looking at the screen, and immediately wished she hadn’t as her mother’s disembodied voice came across the line.
“Hello, Laura.”
Laura’s shoulders tensed. That was the last thing she needed! “Hi, mom. How are you?” She managed to keep her voice pleasant, but her belly dropped as she took a seat on the sofa and stared at the wall with unseeing eyes. All it took was a few words to drop her right back into the past and all its grief.
“We’re fine. I just wanted to check in on you. It’s Matthew’s birthday, you know. I just wanted to make sure you remembered him.”
Laura wanted to weep. Her thoughts jumbled and tangled, and all the old resentments came flooding back in. Her birthday was nearly always forgotten. She could remember exactly four birthdays that she had been remembered and celebrated, if buying her a cake from a bakery and tying a few balloons to the kitchen chair she sat at could be called being celebrated.
Matthew’s birthday was never forgotten, however. Her mother spent hours in the kitchen, whipping up a cake and all the foods he had loved most. She cleaned his room for hours, too, lovingly caressing all his clothes, which she washed and refolded and hung again then as well. They’d have that dinner and eat that cake, and there would be a present added to the growing pile of unopened gifts in his bedroom.
“How could I forget?” Laura couldn’t keep the anger from her voice. “You know, I don’t care. I really don’t care that today was his birthday. You can care if you want to, but I don’t, and I don’t ever want you to call me again to remind me. Tell dad not to call me to remind me that it’s the anniversary of his death either. In fact, don’t bother ever calling me ever again – either of you – until you decide that you actually want to know w
hat is going on in my life.”
A long gasp whooshed through the line. Panic and pain and a sense of freedom all hit at once, leaving Laura dizzy as her mother choked out, “How dare you?”
“How dare I what?” What are you doing? Laura’s brain went into hyper-drive, trying to quell her runaway tongue, but her mouth was having none of it and just kept moving. “How dare I what, mom? Demand that you finally stop seeing me as the kid who should have died in his place? Demand that you see me as more than a collection of body parts and organs that were supposed to go to him so he could live? Tell me, when you came up with the grand scheme to have me, did it ever, even once, occur to you that I’d be a real person? Have you ever even noticed that I’m a real person and not some walking donor for your precious son?”
Her mother cried out, “I can’t believe you’re saying this to me!”
“I can’t believe I didn’t say it sooner.” Laura’s eyes closed. Tears streaked down her face. “I really can’t believe I didn’t. Here’s something else I should have said a long time ago. You are a shitty mother. Dad was a shitty dad. To me. You might have been great to Mathew, but you were horrible parents to me. In fact, you weren’t parents at all, you were just bitter people who hated me for ever having been born and not having the right stuff to give to a dying kid you actually loved.”
“You’re going too far.”
Or not far enough. All the years of hurt and loss and being ignored and disregarded bubbled out of Laura just then. “I’m alive, and you don’t give three fucks for that fact. Mathew’s dead and has been for a long time. You might not want it to be that way, either of you, but that is how it is, and I’m alive. But you’re dead to me. Dead, do you hear me? I was never alive to you, and I know that. So, stop using me as a gap between your loss. Stop trying to force me to celebrate a boy who’s been dead for all these years because all it does is make sure I know just how little you ever cared for me.”
She hung up. Her hands shook. There was a large, trembling panic closing in, threatening to sweep her away. Her body folded in on itself and she let it. Doubled over, unable to stem or stop the tide of anguish, Laura wept. Ugly sobs tore themselves from her throat and wrenched her chest wide open.
