by JA Huss
“No, not really,” she replies absently.
I check a website for what’s playing in Vegas right now. “Shows?”
“You said sushi.”
“We can do sushi. But that’s like an hour of time. What else?”
“I’m not sure I want to leave Kate with a sitter, she—”
“Ashleigh.”
“No, listen. I have to feed her every few hours so I can’t be gone long anyway. It’s stupid to get a sitter when I have to pop in every four hours.”
“Give her a bottle.” I get an angry sneer at that comment. It almost shuts me down, that’s how snide it is. “What?”
“She breastfeeds. I’m not giving her a bottle so I can have sex with you tonight.”
“So you’re mad about my Tony rule.”
“What’s that got to do with breastfeeding?”
“You were dying to have sex with me a couple hours ago. And now you’re mad because I told you to stop moping.”
“No, you told me to stop thinking about Tony. Like I can just turn it off and forget. I think it’s incredibly insensitive for you to make that rule. He’s all I think about. Ever.”
“It’s insensitive to me that you’re distracted.”
“We’re not even dating, Ford. We’re—we’re—”
“We’re what?”
She just shakes her head.
“We’re what, Ashleigh?”
“We’re temporary. I like you—you’re handsome and rich and actually a nice catch for someone else. But not for me. OK?”
“It’s just fun.”
“Yeah, it’s just fun. I appreciate all the help you’ve given me, but I’m a mess, Ford. I have no room right now for most of life. Existing is difficult. I need to make things slow and simple and you are the definition of complicated. You have rules and expectations, and you play these mind games with me. You don’t know anything about me or my life. Or Tony. You don’t know anything about him, so when you make a rule that says I’m not allowed to think about him, I don’t like it.”
“I know he’s not here and I am.”
She clutches the baby to her chest and starts to cry.
Fuck.
“Ashleigh, come on.” I sigh. “Ashleigh. I’m sorry, OK? I can see that you love him, I’m sorry.”
I reach back and touch her knee and she swats my hand away. “You’re mean. Just don’t touch me.”
I get out of the truck and get inside the backseat with her. We’re pretty squished since the carrier is buckled in on the passenger side and Ashleigh’s in the middle with the baby. She’s crying hard now and Kate is getting upset along with her. I reach down and grab the baby. “Here, I’ll take her for you.” I’m actually stunned that she hands the baby over to me. If I was her, I’d probably tell me to fuck off.
Kate makes some distressed sounds but I hold her up at almost arm’s length and smile at her. She just stares at me, blinking her big brown eyes and kicking her dangling feet.
“Hi, Kate.”
Ashleigh laughs through her sniffles.
“What?” I ask, looking over at her.
“You look ridiculous, Ford. Holding her out like you want to hand her off. You’re supposed to hold babies close.”
“I’ve never held a baby before.”
She wipes the tears away and laughs again. “Obviously.”
I bring Kate into my chest and she’s so soft it’s easy to want to hold her tight. She squirms a little in my arms and I pat her on the back the way Ashleigh does when she’s trying to calm her. She relaxes her heavy head on my shoulder and that’s it.
It’s over.
I’m done.
I’m a Kate lover. “I’d like a Kate,” I whisper down to her. Ashleigh snickers, and that makes me feel better. At least she’s not crying over Tony or mad at me for being an asshole. “Did Tony ever hold her?” I figure why fight it. Can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right?
“No,” Ash says softly. “He never did.”
“I’d make a horrible father, I think.”
“Why?” she asks, scrunching up her face.
It’s probably a bad idea to admit my care-giving limitations when I’m trying to get her to reevaluate her feelings about my partner potential. But fuck it. I’m already losing, what’s it matter? “My father was so good at it. He did everything right. He was patient, he was encouraging, he was firm when I needed discipline, but never angry or abusive. He never hit me, not even a swat. And”—I stop to laugh here—“as I’m sure Mrs. Pearson made you well aware, I was not an easy kid to raise. I did all sorts of really bad stuff. Electrocuting Jason was the least of my crimes. But my dad, he protected me no matter what because I just didn’t have much capacity for empathy back then. When I got older I finally realized that I was hurting people, that just because I could make golf balls into mini-explosives didn’t mean I should make golf balls into mini-explosives.”
I look over at her and she’s smiling. Very big, in fact. I look down at Kate and she’s sleeping. I slump down in the seat a little so she can be more horizontal. “Anyway, my dad played innocent whenever the suspicion fell on me”—I look down at Ash again—“as it often did. But he covered for me and I never got caught. I was too smart and too well-protected. He always told me, ‘Ford, I am always on your side. No matter what you do, no matter how much I disagree with it, I’m always on your side.’ But whenever I got home from whatever meeting my dad was called to about my atrocious behavior, he always handed out the most clever punishments. Except he never called them punishments.”
“Like what?” Ash interrupts. “How did he punish you?”
“One time I had to cook the meals for a month and I wasn’t allowed to use the same recipe twice. It had to be the perfect balance of protein, carbs, and vegetables. I had to shop for all the ingredients, learn the recipe, and serve it at dinner. I’m a fantastic cook when I want to be. All because of some practical joke I played on a nun in school.”
“You did not go to Catholic school.”
I smile. “I did. They were the only private school that would take me. And while our neighborhood was nice and close to lots of city amenities, it was not a place you sent your kids to public school if you could help it. So I went to Saint Margaret’s. That’s where I met Spencer Shrike.”
She busts out laughing at that. “He went to Catholic school too?”
I nod. “He did. So did Ronin, but that was much later. I didn’t meet Ronin until high school, he was already modeling for major clothing designers by then.”
She tilts her head and smiles. “Damn, I wish I’d gone to that school. I could rock a tartan skirt and some knee socks. I went to a private school too, but it was all girls.” She makes a face at that.
“What color was your uniform?”
“Burgundy with gold accents.”
I take a moment to picture her like this. “I’m gonna need the name of that school so I can hack into their records and get a picture of you.”
She chuckles. “So it sounds like you had the perfect father. You’d probably make a great one because you had such a good example.”
“Yeah, but I’m not my father. He was a lot like me, but I’m not a lot like him.”
Her eyes squint together and she pauses her smile, like she’s thinking really hard about that statement. “I’m not following.”
I shrug. “He and I shared a lot of characteristics. Looks, speech, a love for foreign languages. He played all the same sports that I excelled in. He was super smart, but not in a freaky way like I am. He was the perfect me, if that makes sense. He had all the good things but none of the bad. I’m like Bizarro Rutherford Aston III. The mirror-image of him. I look like him. But I’m lacking in all his altruistic qualities. I’m not generous. I’m not understanding. I’m not a Giver.” I look over at her and her attention is rapt. “I’m a Taker, Ashleigh.”
She leans her head against my shoulder, right next to Kate’s face. “You haven’t taken anything from me, Ford
.”
“Yeah, but I want to. You have no idea how bad I want to take things from you.”
She sits up and looks me in the eyes. “Like what?”
“Your body, for one. Just because I haven’t had sex with you doesn’t mean I don’t want to. And—” I almost stop myself, but fuck it. I’m on a roll, might as well just keep going. “I’d like to take Tony from you too. I’d like to make you forget all about Tony.”
She sighs and rests her head back against my shoulder, wrapping her hands around my upper arm like she’s holding on for dear life. It takes me several seconds to realize how much of her body is pressed against mine. I’ve never let another woman touch me like this. Ever.
“But I realize it’s not going to happen. It’s OK, I get it. You love Tony. I was wrong to make that rule and I take it back.”
She thinks about this for a little while, then lets out a loud sigh. A resigned sigh that speaks volumes. That sigh says, I give up. “I’d like to go for a quiet walk on our date tonight. And hold hands.”
I should be worried that she’s giving up. If I was a good person, one who cared about what’s best for her, I’d be worried about this. I’d tell her to forget about me, be with Tony. He must love her. There has to be some misunderstanding. Give it another try.
But I’m not a good person. So I lead her away from Tony and towards me. “You’d like me to take you on a quiet hand-holding walk in the biggest party city on Earth?”
“Yeah. Something slow. Where we can just be still, and look around, and think. Where we can watch life, and not participate in it.”
“I’m not sure Vegas is the right place for a slow and quiet walk, but I’ll give it my best shot.”
“You’re an overachiever, Ford. I’m one hundred percent confident you’ll pull it off flawlessly.”
I smile at that assessment. “Ready to go in and eat? Kate’s out, we should take advantage while we can.”
Ashleigh reluctantly untangles herself from my arm and nods her head. I open the door and she unbuckles the car seat and scoots out after me. I lay little Kate in her seat and Ash covers her with a blanket because it’s pretty damn cold out here, and then we walk into the diner like we’re a team in this baby thing.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Stop texting, Ford. It’s rude.”
Ashleigh and the baby are on the other side of the booth from me and I’m typing on my phone frantically. “This is the first good signal I’ve had in days. I’m not wasting it. I have work, you know. I’ve missed a shitload of meetings, my assistant is going out of her mind, and I need to make plans for a quiet date in Las Vegas for tonight.” I look up at her and she’s grinning. “What?”
“You look very serious. Very determined. Very… professional. Even though you’re the one wearing the I’m not a ski addict, sometimes I have sex too t-shirt today.”
I look down at my shirt and smile. She was wearing this the other day and just knowing that makes me feel connected to her in some small possessive way. “I got this shirt after completing a double black in Jackson.” Her face is blank. “Wyoming? Jackson Hole? Ever heard of it?”
“It’s a lake?”
I laugh. “A lake? Shit, they have Corbet’s Couloir in Jackson Hole, Ash. Corbet’s Couloir.”
“No idea what that is,” she says shrugging.
“Like one of the scariest double black diamond runs in the world, that’s what. My dad and I did it once.” I stop to smile at her. “Just once. I mean, if I had fucked it up I might’ve tried it again to get it right—if I was still alive. But it was one and done for both of us on the first jump and that was enough.”
She clicks her tongue in disapproval and scowls. “Why would you do that? If I was your mom I’d have said no way.”
“I was twenty,” I reply, laughing.
“No, I mean, I’d have told my husband if he wanted to go do dangerous shit like that he can be single again. That’s bullshit.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame you. And don’t think I didn’t just notice those unladylike words you just used. But my Corbet’s days are definitely over. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
“Because your dad’s gone now and he was your bucket-list partner?”
I look up from my phone and study her face. It’s contemplative. Normally when someone asks about my dad—and normally they don’t, but if they do—I shut it down. I don’t like to think about it. But I’ve already told Ashleigh about him, so what the fuck. It takes less energy to just answer the question honestly than it does to fight about why I refuse to discuss it. “Yeah,” I say after a few seconds. “That’s why. He and I did it all. I don’t want to do it with anyone else. It’s over.” I hold her gaze for a few more seconds and then go back to my phone.
“That’s how I feel, Ford.” I look up again and she’s got that sad look on her face. “About Tony. That’s why it’s so sad for me.” She looks over at Kate and smiles. “I’m gonna get over him. I will. But right now, that’s exactly how I feel. Like it’s over, why bother with anything.”
“Maybe you need to talk to someone. My dad was a psychiatrist, and I’m not saying you need that level of help or anything, Ashleigh, but maybe just a counselor. To talk things through.”
Her laugh comes off a little sarcastic, if that’s even possible. “Right.”
I drop it because one thing I learned from being a kid who required a lot of counseling is that people generally do not like to discuss their mental health status. And Ashleigh is not interested in letting me in on the state of her mind at the moment.
But it doesn’t take a genius. She’s definitely depressed. All the crying, and then the abrupt back-to-normal mood changes. It’s very obvious she’s struggling with this breakup. “Anyway,” I say to bring us out of this funk. “I have my assistant, Pam, on it for tonight.” I tilt my head a little and unleash some dimple charm on Ash when my smile gets big. She giggles, like I’m obvious. “And I have the perfect quiet place to have a hand-holding walk in Vegas all set up.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “In fifteen minutes? They should call you the Fifteen-Minute Master.”
“I might make you call me that tonight, thanks for the idea.”
She makes a face at me.
“I know people. Famous people. Important people. People who I’ve provided certain favors to in the past. And I’ve called in a return. You’re gonna have a great time with me tonight.”
Her whole chest expands as she takes a deep breath, but before she can say what’s on her mind, the waitress comes to our table. “Ready, folks?”
I take over since Ash is still daydreaming about our date. “We’ll both have the number six. Pancakes, real bacon for her, turkey for me, scrambled and coffee. One regular, one decaf.”
The waitress writes it down on her pad, takes our menus, and walks away.
“Back in control then, are you?” Ash says with a crooked sideways grin.
“I was never out of control, Ashleigh. But I know when to give a person space and when to make my move.”
“Your move is breakfast?” She giggles again.
“This whole day is my move. Tomorrow you can let me know how I did.”
She looks away, a little embarrassed. “You just made my stomach flutter.”
“Just one of many flutters I’ll make you feel today, so get ready.”
This time she laughs out loud. Several people actually turn to look at us. “Oh, shit—”
“I’ll add that on to your count.”
“What?”
I tilt my head at her and wait for her fight, but she gives in and that gives me a little thrill.
“What’s my count up to anyway? Ten?”
“Ten? OK, if you say so.”
“No!” she laughs. “I was asking, not telling!”
“Ten it is. Ten good ones, Ashleigh. Ten spankings that will change your life. Are you ready?”
She does that unconscious gesture where she puts her hands between her le
gs. I can’t really see her do it, but I know from her posture and movement. I almost want to bend her over the table right now, that’s how much it turns me on. “I’ll just warn you. A night with me, my undivided attention, that’s not something you’ll ever forget. I might ruin you for life. I might make it impossible for you to ever be with another man again. I might—”
“Ford?”
“Yes, Ashleigh,” I answer, smiling.
“I can’t wait.”
I’m about to reach under the table and grab her, but the waitress returns with our coffee and by the time she leaves, I’m back in control.
“I like this part,” Ashleigh says as she takes a sip of her coffee.
“What part?”
“When everything is new and interesting. When you meet someone and you just have to know everything.”
“Then tell me something new, Ash.”
She takes another sip of her coffee. “You have to ask specifics, otherwise I don’t know where to start.”
Everyone likes guidance once in a while. And she basically just asked me to guide her. So I do. “Why did you go to Japan? Why did you run away?”
“Well, it’s not quite as dramatic as I made it out to be. I call it running away because for me, it was. But everyone knew I was going to Japan. I went for college. I have a nice trust fund for education, but not much else.”
I nod at this. My educational fund worked the same way. School was always paid for, but I only had so much discretionary income for expenses. I got the house in LA when my dad died. It was one of his last wishes. And I get money from another trust that matured when I turned twenty-five, so I’m far from broke now. But college wasn’t an endless stream of money like most people think.
“And I wanted to get as far away from my family as I could, so I chose a school in Japan. I knew Chinese, some anyway. And I took Japanese in school for a few years. Mostly to piss off my dad, who wanted me to be fluent in Chinese. So I picked a school in Japan and left.”
“Did you graduate?”
“Yeah, I graduated,” she says a little defensively. “I’m in grad school. Well”—she sighs—“I was in grad school. I’m sure they’ve kicked me out by now. I haven’t even bothered to call in and explain what the fuck—oops.” She covers her mouth with her hand and looks hesitantly at me. I smile and she continues. “I never told them what was going on, and then I was very pregnant and was put on bed rest last fall. Kate was born a little early, there were some complications, and they have very different ways of delivering babies compared to the US, so I had to stay in the hospital for almost a month. I had to stay another two weeks after Kate was born because they wanted to monitor her. There was this whole breastfeeding debacle. They were pro-formula in the little hospital I was at. And I’m not against that, I just really wanted to breastfeed. I just needed it, that… closeness with someone, you know? So I figured it out. But it was not easy and it was painful for a while. None of that was easy.” She stops to let out a long sad sigh. “In fact, I think looking back, even though I did get Kate out of all of it… the past six months have been hell for me. I’m not even sure why I’m still here.”
