by K. A. Tucker
Mentioning the legendary fat ass is motivation enough. Sticking her tongue out at him and shooting me a pointed look, she takes off down the street at an even faster speed than before. Leaving me alone with Ashton.
“Sorry about the sweat, Irish. You caught me in the middle of a long run,” he murmurs, brown eyes darting to me before shifting back to the road.
“That’s okay. I don’t mind,” I say, my voice cracking. And I don’t, I realize, even though his body is drenched head to toe. I’m not sure if it’s from rain or sweat. His hair is plastered to his head and face, but it still manages to wisp out at the ends in that sexy way. I see a droplet of water running down his cheek and I feel the urge to reach up and wipe it away but I’m not sure if that’s too intimate, so I don’t. But my heart still starts pounding harder than it ever was while I was running.
“Stop staring, Irish.”
“I wasn’t.” I turn to look down the street, my cheeks burning, embarrassed to be caught. Yet again.
He jostles my shoulders slightly as he adjusts his grip.
“Do you need to put me down?”
He smirks. “Eight years of rowing makes carrying you pretty easy, Irish.”
“I guess.” Eight years. That definitely explains his ridiculously fit upper body. “You must really enjoy it.”
With a sigh, he murmurs, “Yeah, it’s relaxing, being out on the water, focused on an end goal. It’s easy to shut everything else out.”
Ashton’s head jerks to the side. I see another raindrop running along his cheek and realize that he’s trying to shake if off since he can’t brush it away.
“Here,” I murmur, reaching up to help him. Dark eyes flash to me with a scowl and my hand instantly recoils. I must have misread that. I shouldn’t have . . . But he’s not scowling at me, I soon recognize. He’s scowling at the nasty red scrape across my palm that I earned with my fall. Distracted by my ankle and by Ashton, I had forgotten about it.
“You should really think about never running again, Irish,” he mutters.
“And you should think about wearing more clothes while you run,” I snap back, my anger flaring without warning, followed quickly by heat crawling up to my hairline.
“And why is that, Irish?”
Running my tongue over my teeth to buy myself time, I decide to ignore his question. “I could have waited for Grant.”
“And died from pneumonia,” he retorts in exasperation, adjusting his grip once again. The movement shakes my leg, which shakes my foot, which shoots a pain up my leg. But I fight the urge to wince because I don’t want to make him feel bad.
Ashton settles into a quiet, fast-paced walk with his eyes straight ahead, and so I assume all conversation is over.
“I’m sorry about your parents.” It’s so quiet I almost miss it.
I peek at him from the corner of my eye to see him staring straight ahead, his face a mask.
I’m sorry about your mom, too.
It’s on the tip of my tongue but I bite it back. Reagan was eavesdropping, after all. She’s not supposed to know. I’m not supposed to know. Not unless he tells me.
So I don’t say anything. I simply nod and wait in silence for him to make the next move. He doesn’t, though. There’s another extremely long, awkward pause, where neither of us talks. Where Ashton stares straight ahead as he walks, and my eyes shift back and forth between his face and the turning colors of the trees. Where I soak up his body heat, acutely aware that I’m covered in his sweat. Where I feel his heartbeat and try to synchronize my own heartbeat against it. And then acknowledge that that is utterly ridiculous.
I can’t handle this silence.
“I can’t believe Reagan’s dad knew them,” I say casually, adding, “and that he recognized my mother in me. I didn’t know that we looked that much alike.”
Ashton’s brow furrows deeply. “You remember what she looks like, don’t you?”
“Yeah. But my parents lost all of their childhood and college pictures in a flood one year, so I never got to see her at the age I am now.”
I sense my fingertips rubbing across warm skin and realize that at some point in my reverie, my hand staged a mutiny against my common sense and slid under the collar of Ashton’s shirt. I watch my fingers still drawing little circles as if of their own free will. And, seeing as I’m feeling all kinds of brave today and seeing as it’s a fairly innocuous question that a person who didn’t know the answer would ask, I decide to ask it, keeping my voice casual and light. “What about your parents?”
There’s a pause. “What about them?” He tries to sound bored but by the way his arms constrict around me, the way the muscles in his neck spasm, I know immediately that I’ve hit a nerve.
“I don’t know . . .” Turning to look out on the road, I murmur casually, “Tell me about them.”
“There’s not much to tell.” The bored tone has switched to annoyed. “Why? What has Reagan heard?”
Keeping my focus ahead, I take a deep breath and decide not to lie. “That your mother’s . . . gone?”
I feel Ashton exhale. “That’s right. She’s gone.” It’s very matter-of-fact and doesn’t invite further questions.
I don’t know what makes me push my luck. “What about your father?”
“He’s not . . .unfortunately.” The contempt is unmistakable. “Leave it alone, Irish.”
“Okay, Ashton.”
By the time we reach their house, I’ve asked Ashton at least five more times if he wants to rest his arms and he’s told me at least five more times to shut up about him needing to put me down.
And we’ve said nothing else.
He marches right past Reagan—freshly showered and drowning in a pair of Grant’s sweats—and a curious Grant, and upstairs, past the communal bathroom, to the bathroom within his bedroom. He gently sets me on the counter.
The corresponding groan tells me he should have put me down long ago.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, guilt washing over me.
Reagan and Grant appear in the doorway as Ashton stretches his arms in front of his chest and then over his head with another groan.
“Look at those big, strong muscles,” Grant says with an exaggerated lisp, reaching out to squeeze Ashton’s biceps.
“Fuck off, Cleaver,” he snaps, swatting his hand away. He grabs a towel from the hook and starts patting my hair and face with it.
“What! I was going to go pick you up, but Reagan said you two wanted to—” Reagan’s sharp elbow to Grant’s ribs shuts him up mid-sentence.
“Here. Tea.” Reagan hands me a steaming mug.
One sip tells me it’s not just tea. “You spiked the drink of an injured person,” I state flatly, the alcohol burning in my throat. “Who does that?”
“It’s better than what a lame horse gets,” Reagan answers as she unlaces my shoe and slips off my sock. Air hisses through my gritted teeth. “How bad is it? Should we take you to the hospital?”
I see the purplish bruise around my instep and my swollen ankle. “No, it’s just a sprain, I think.”
“You’re not a doctor yet, Irish,” Ashton murmurs, leaning over to study it, and I see that the back of his shirt is like a second skin. Every ridge, every curve, every part of him is visible. Perfect. Where my body protected the front of him, his back took the brunt of the rain. If he’s cold, though, he doesn’t let on. “Let’s ice it for now but if it gets worse, I’m taking you to the hospital.” I nod, noting how Ashton takes over the situation, as if I have no say in the matter.
“These should help you.” Grant holds up a set of crutches. Seeing my frown, he explains. “They’re Ty’s. He sprains his ankle at least twice a year with a party injury. It’s good that he’s short. They should be about the right height for you.”
“He won’t mind?”
“Nah, he won’t n
eed them until November. Like clockwork,” Grant says, and then peers down at my foot. He smiles.
I’m suddenly self-conscious. “What?”
With a shrug, he says, “You have sexy feet, Irish.” His words are quickly followed by a grunt as Reagan playfully smacks his chest.
“Stop ogling my roommate’s feet!”
“Fine, let me ogle yours.”
“Eww!” she squeals, ducking under his arm to tear out of the room, Grant chasing her.
“Bring some ice up!” Ashton hollers behind them, followed by, “The idiot’s going to get kicked off the team,” in a low mutter.
I watch him as he searches through the vanity cupboard and resurfaces with a first-aid kit in hand. “Not if the coach doesn’t find out. They’re happy together.”
Ashton freezes. It’s a good four seconds before his hands start moving again, pulling out antiseptic and bandages. “Do you want to call Connor to let him know you’re here?”
Connor. “Oh, yeah.” I hadn’t even thought about calling him. I kind of forgot about him . . . Not kind of. Completely. “He’s working on that paper at the library, right? I don’t want to disturb him.”
Cradling my injured hand in his, he looks up to ask me quietly, “Are you sure?”
And I get the feeling that he’s asking me something entirely different. Am I sure about Connor, perhaps.
The atmosphere in the room feels thicker suddenly, as my lungs work hard to drag air in and push it out, those dark eyes of his searching mine for an answer. “I think so,” is all I can manage.
He shudders, and I remember again that he’s sopping wet. “You need to change. You’re going to get sick,” I murmur, my eyes pointedly on his shirt.
Setting my injured hand down, he reaches back over his shoulders and pulls his shirt forward and over his head. Tossing it to a corner, he turns back to take my hand. And I’m facing the chest that I’ve not been able to dislodge from my brain for weeks. The one that instantly makes my breath hitch. The one that I’ve never had a chance to stare at so blatantly while sober. And I do stare now. Like a deer caught in headlights, I can’t seem to turn away as I take in all the ridges and curves.
“What does that mean?” I ask, jutting my chin toward the inked symbol over his heart.
Ashton doesn’t answer. He avoids the question completely by sliding his thumb across my bottom lip. “You have a bit of drool there,” he murmurs before turning his focus back to the scrape across my palm, allowing my face to burn without scrutiny.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I hear myself mutter as he shifts my palm over the sink. The leather band around his wrist catches my eye, the one he doesn’t seem to take off. Ever. Reaching over to tap it with my free hand, I ask, “What’s this for?”
“A lot of questions today, Irish.” By the way his jaw clenches, I know it’s another answer hidden in his vault.
Reagan was right. He doesn’t talk about anything personal. With a sigh, I watch him unscrew the cap off the antiseptic and hold my hand out. “It doesn’t even—” The word “hurt ” was supposed to come out of my mouth. Instead, a string of obscenities to make a lifelong sailor proud shoot out. “What the fuck are you doing? Shit! You don’t pour it on like that, you fucking jackhole! Fuck!” I’m seething in pain, the sting agonizing.
Ashton isn’t paying any heed, turning my hand this way and that to examine it closer. “Looks clean.”
“Yeah, because you just bleached the shit out of it!”
“Relax. It’ll stop stinging soon. Distract yourself by staring at me while we wait for this to settle down. That’s how you got yourself into this mess to begin with . . .” Amused eyes flash to mine for a second before dropping back to my hand. “Nice combination there, by the way. ‘Fucking jackhole’? Really?”
“I meant it in the nicest possible way,” I mutter, but it isn’t long before I’m fighting my lips from curling into a smile. I guess it is kind of funny. Or it will be when I can walk again . . . Determined not to give in to temptation, I let my eyes roam the small bathroom, taking in the tiles in the glass shower stall, the soothing off-white walls, the white fluffy towels . . .
And then I’m back to Ashton’s body because, let’s face it, it’s so much more appealing than tile and towels. Or anything else, for that matter. I study the black Native American–style bird on his inner forearm. It’s big—a good five inches long, its details intricate. Almost intricate enough to hide the ridge beneath it.
The scar.
My mouth opens to ask but then firmly shuts. Peering up at the sizeable Chinese script on his shoulder, I can see another ridge skillfully covered. Another hidden scar.
I swallow the nausea rising in my throat as I think about the day my sister came home with a giant tattoo of five black ravens on her thigh. It covers one of the more unpleasant scars from that night. Five birds—one for each person who died in that car that night. Including one for her. I didn’t know what it meant at the time. She didn’t tell me until two years ago.
With a heavy sigh, my eyes shift to the symbol on his chest once again to study it more closely.
And see another ridge so expertly concealed.
“What’s wrong?” Ashton asks as he unwraps a bandage. “You’re pale.”
“What—” I catch myself before I ask what happened, because I won’t get an answer. I avert my gaze to my scraped hand to think. Maybe it’s nothing. It’s probably nothing. People get tattoos to cover scars all the time . . .
But everything in my gut tells me that it’s not nothing.
I watch him affix the bandage over the scrape. It’s no longer stinging, but I’m not sure whether that’s due to time or the fact that my mind is working on overdrive, twisting and turning the puzzle pieces to see how they fit together. But I’m missing too many. Simple things like that leather band . . .
The leather band.
The leather band.
It’s not a leather band, I realize, peering closely at it.
I grab Ashton’s hand and hold it up to inspect the thin dark-brown strap—the stitching around the edges, the way the two ends meet with little snaps—to see that it likely was a belt at one time.
A belt.
A small gasp escapes my lips as my eyes fly from his arm to his shoulder and finally land on his chest, at the long scars hidden beneath the ink.
And I suddenly understand.
Dr. Stayner says that I see and feel others’ pain more acutely than the average person because of what I went through with Kacey. That I react to it more intensely. Maybe he’s right. Maybe that’s why my heart drops and nausea stirs in my stomach and tears trickle silently down my cheek.
Ashton’s low whisper pulls my attention to his face, to see the sad smile. “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that, Irish?” I catch his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. I’m still holding his wrist, but he doesn’t pull away from my grasp. He doesn’t pull away from my stare. And when my free hand reaches up to settle on his chest, over the symbol, over his heart, he doesn’t flinch.
I want to ask so many questions. How old were you? How many times? Why do you still wear it around your wrist? But I don’t. I can’t, because the image of a little boy flinching against the belt beneath my fingertips brings the tears on faster. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right, Ashton? I won’t tell anyone,” I hear myself whisper in a shaky voice.
He leans in to kiss away one tear on my cheek and then another, and another, shifting toward my mouth. I don’t know if it’s the intensity of this moment—with my heart aching for him and my body responding and my brain completely checking out—but when his lips settle at the edge of mine and he whispers, “You’re staring at me again, Irish,” I automatically turn to meet them.
He responds immediately, wasting no time closing his mouth over mine, forcing it open. I taste t
he salt from my tears as his tongue slides in and curls against mine. One hand comes around to grip the back of my neck as he intensifies the kiss, pushing my head back to get closer, deeper. And I let him because I want to be close to him, to help him forget. I don’t worry about how I’m doing, whether I’m doing it right. It has to be right if it feels like this.
My hand never moves from his chest, from the heart that races beneath my fingers, as this single kiss seems to go on forever, until my tears are dry and my lips are sore and I’ve memorized the heavenly taste of Ashton’s mouth.
And then he suddenly breaks free, leaving me panting for air. ”You’re shivering.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” I whisper. And I hadn’t. I still don’t.
All I notice is this pounding heart beneath my fingers and the beautiful face in front of me and the fact that I’m struggling to breathe.
Scooping me into his arms, he carries me out to his room, setting me down on his bed. With purpose, he marches over to his dresser, pushing his door shut as he passes. I don’t say anything. I don’t even look around the room. I simply stare at the definition of his back, my mind blank.
He walks over to drop a simple gray shirt and pair of sweatpants beside me. “These might fit you.”
“Thank you,” I mumble absently, my fingers running over the soft material, my mind reeling.
I can’t explain the next few moments. Maybe it’s because of what happened a month ago and what just happened in the bathroom, but when Ashton demands, “Arms up, Irish,” my body obeys like a well-trained soldier moving in slow motion. I gasp as I feel his fingertips curl under the bottom of my shirt and lift the damp material up, up . . . until it’s sliding over my head, leaving me in my pink sports bra. He doesn’t gawk at me or make some remark to make me nervous. He quietly unfolds the gray shirt next to me and pulls the collar over my head and then slides it down over my shoulders. My arms aren’t in it yet when Ashton kneels in front of me. Swallowing, I watch his face as his hands glide under the shirt to the back of my bra, deftly unhooking the clips, all while his eyes are on mine. Pulling it out to toss on the floor, he waits for me to ease into the sleeves.
