Amber to Ashes

by Gail McHugh

  I nod, wanting to unfuck her spirit, open it up, and release the girl I know resides beneath the steel she’s wrapped around her heart. She slides a hand through her thick mane and gives me a small smile. Sweet Christ, her smile is the most goddamned beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Pure fucking candy to each and every single one of my senses.

  “So tell me something about yourself that I don’t know,” she says, her voice light and airy.

  For good measure, I check her eyes for any signs of drug or alcohol use. “It was my fault you tripped,” I confess, inwardly telling myself to shut the fuck up already.

  What is this? Spill-your-secrets day? Show-and-tell? I toss another dollar into the jukebox, this time going with “Bleeding Out” by Imagine Dragons since that’s what I seem to be doing. Though I’m not shocked, because I knew she had it in her, this girl has me bleeding out everything I had no intention of ever revealing to her.

  Her brows pull together. “What do you mean?”

  “When you walked into the cafeteria the first day of the semester,” I say, remembering how I got her in my lap. I chuckle to myself. I had to do it.

  “It’s called a dining hall,” she corrects, “but how was it your fault I tripped?”

  “Who the hell calls it a dining hall?”

  “The intelligent people do.” A smart-ass smile wavers the corner of her mouth.

  I lift a brow. “Are you saying I’m not intelligent?”

  “Maybe,” she answers with a giggle.

  God, now I really want to bury myself inside her.

  “But, seriously, it’s not called a cafeteria in college,” she says.

  I rest my elbows on the table, a grin sliding across my face. “If you want to get technical, no, it’s not. But only when I’m ninety, need Viagra, and my teeth have fallen out will I ever call anywhere I eat a dining hall.”

  She purses her lips in thought. “It does sound kind of . . .”

  “Senior citizen-ish.”

  Nodding, she giggles again. “Okay, you win. Now, getting back to the whole cafeteria thing and me tripping”—her eyes narrow slightly—“what exactly do you mean?”

  “It was my duffel bag you tripped over,” I state simply, trying to conceal a smile.

  “Big deal.” She shrugs. “It could’ve been anyone’s duffel bag.”

  “True.” I lean over the table, no longer concealing my smile. It’s huge, like the Cheshire cat on crack. “But I purposely tossed mine in front of you when I saw ya walk into the . . . dining hall.”

  A long second passes, and her face drops. I stiffen, preparing for one of her infamous slaps.

  Another second passes, but this time I’m rewarded with laughter pealing from her gorgeous mouth. “Such a prick.”

  Her hand darts out to cup my chin. She gives it a soft, reprimanding shake that not only makes my fucking chest burn from her touch, but has my heart negotiating its next goddamn beat. She must notice the look in my eyes, because as though my flesh singes her fingers, she quickly removes them.

  She clears her throat. “You made me fall, Ryder.”

  I send her an unpretentious smile. “Did I not catch you, Amber?”

  “You did,” she says with an agreeing smile to match mine.

  “Were you harmed?” I press.

  “Not physically,” she returns, her smile melting into a sexy smirk. “I won’t get into the mental part, though.”

  Before I can question the depth of the mental anguish I may have caused her that day, our waitress finally decides to come take our orders. Considering I used sudden starvation as an excuse for coming here, I go full throttle and order a double cheeseburger platter. I complement it with a vanilla shake. Amber declines anything edible, sticking with water.

  While waiting for the food, I study Amber closely. I watch the way, every few minutes, she nervously tucks a strand of hair behind her right ear. Never the left. I watch the way her eyes, caramel and waxy honey in color, curiously move around the diner when a new customer comes in. As vibrant in color as they are, they’re lifeless, a murky, barren filter to a past that holds her hostage. I watch the way her tongue darts out, wetting her lips in increments, starting with the bottom and then circling up to the top. I watch the way her expression, every so often, suddenly goes distant as though crumbling under the septic wreckage of what’s left of her universe.

  As a mountain of emotions pile up in my heart, I watch her flip through the music selection on the jukebox. I’m half tempted to stretch out my arm and touch her face, but I know I can’t. She’s off-limits. My best friend’s soon-to-be-kind-of-already girl . . . the ultimate forbidden fruit. Still, I need another taste of her, the urge stronger than ever before. A pull so deep within my gut, I feel as if I’m about to lose my fucking mind. Instead, I continue to watch her, trying to relish the short time I have left.

  I rest my forearms on the table, my need to learn anything about her heavy in my chest. “It’s your turn to tell me something about yourself.”

  I capture her gaze, and though she smiles, her eyes cloud over in hesitation. “Like what?”

  “Anything.” I shrug. “Everyone has a fetish—uh, I mean a . . . thing.”

  She hikes up a brow. “A thing, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I grin. “What’s your thing, Amber?”

  “If I did have a thing, why would I tell you?”

  “Because I wanna know.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “Because I really wanna know?”

  “Nope.” She laughs, crossing her arms. “Not working.”

  “No?” I slide across the booth, the king of all smirks tilting my mouth. “Do I need to cause a scene to get ya to give me something?”

  “God, no!” she gasps, giggling.

  “Mm, now you definitely have me convinced that I gotta make a big deal outta this.”

  “I like Twizzlers,” she blurts, panic rising in her eyes as I get to the edge of the booth. “That’s my thing. Does that work for you?”

  “Nah, momma. I already know you like Twizzlers.” I stand and rest my palms on the table, her cute nervousness awakening my cock. “I need deeper than Twizzlers.”

  “Ryder, sit down,” she hastily whispers, curling a jumpy hand around my wrist. She gives it a tug, unsuccessfully moving me. “You’re impossible.”

  “I’m curious,” I counter as I straighten and look around the diner. “Now give me something before my curiosity embarrasses the both of us.”

  “This is nuts.” Her eyes dart between me and the busy restaurant. Still, she’s smiling, so I must be doing something right. “I’m boring. There’s really nothing to tell.”

  “Excuse me, everyone,” I announce, grabbing the attention of several patrons. I’m not looking at her, but I hear Amber inhale a sharp breath. I also feel her tug on my wrist again. “I’m sorry for interrupting your dining experience, but I’m desperately trying to get this fine-looking peach to give me a little information about herself. But no matter how hard I try, and believe me, I’ve tried, she won’t cave to my request.”

  “Peach?” Amber asks, a nervous smile twitching her lips as she glances at me, then the curious spectators, then back to me.

  “Yeah.” I drop my voice, every syllable a slow burn. “A sweet . . . juicy . . . ripe peach.”

  She swallows, her breath faltering. Yup, I’m definitely doing something fucking right.

  “Whatever. Fine. This peach has a sick, slightly twisted, unhealthy crush on Jared Leto.”

  “Jared’s not gonna do it.” I chuckle. “Dig deeper, Moretti.”

  “I love thunderstorms,” she tries, getting closer but not quite there.

  “Deeper.” I drag out the word. “I know you can do better.”

  “I hate the smell of cheesecake. It nauseates me.”

  I blink. “Che
esecake’s doing better?”

  “Well? I really don’t know what you’re after, Ryder.” Confusion twists her beautiful features. “I’m not some kind of enigma.”

  “Ah, but you are. You just don’t know it.” I shoot her a wink.

  “It all depends,” an older woman speaks up, shoveling a bite of apple pie into her mouth. “What kind of information do you want her to tell you?”

  I glance at the woman before crouching down in front of Amber. Resting an elbow on the table, I hold Amber’s gaze. Her eyes soften, a storm of curiosity thundering behind them as she searches my face.

  “I want to know what makes her tick, what gets her going. I want to know what she dreams about, what she fears.” Still staring at her, I take a deep breath, hoping my tactics don’t scare her away. “I want to know her quirks, her weird little habits. I want to know what she looks like when she wakes up in the morning and who she’s thinking about when she goes to sleep. I want to know her favorite color, cereal, and band.” I pause, losing myself in everything that makes up this girl, this . . . gorgeous mystery. “I want to know anything she’s willing to tell me.”

  “Dean, why don’t you want to know things like that about me?” a less-than-thrilled voice squeaks.

  I ignore Dean’s answer as Amber looks at me as if understanding my need to get inside her head. “I . . .” she starts, then pauses, her voice conflicted. Her fingers nervously rip at the edge of a napkin as she shrugs. “I write.”

  “Like, you’re writing a book?” I slide back into the booth, true curiosity taking over.

  “No,” she says with a half smile. “But I could. That’s for sure.” I see memories moving behind her eyes, her expression once again somewhere distant. “I . . . write in a journal. My thoughts, how my day went, what I ate. Dumb shit like that.” She shrugs again. “It’s stupid, but I started keeping one the day after my parents died.”

  Confused, I tilt my head. “Why do you think it’s stupid?”

  Her fingers continue their assault on the napkin. “I don’t know. It just is. Most of the foster parents I wound up with thought it was, so it must be, right?”

  “Wait. What?” I hope I misunderstood her. When she doesn’t immediately respond, I feel my jaw set in anger, fury slicing through my chest. I stare at her, trying hard as fuck to tame my sudden need to find out who those people were, show up at their houses, and beat them to a bloody death. “They told you it was stupid to write in a journal?”

  “Yeah. Well, all except for Cathy and Mark. They encouraged it, but the rest of them thought it was childish.”

  Sick bastards. Now I’m determined to find out a few addresses. “What do you think about writing?”

  “I just told you what I thought about it,” she says, her tone edgy.

  Here’s where the average person might back off and tread the rough waters in a raging sea. I’m nowhere close to average. I’m beginning to see that Amber needs a hard kick in her ass to get her talking. Really talking.

  “You told me what those assholes thought about it, not what you think about it.” I cross my arms. “I’m calling your bluff.”

  Challenge knifes her eyes. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that’s twice today I’m not buying your shit.”

  Her luscious, pink bow of a mouth drops open.

  I try not to picture it wrapped around my cock as I go in for the kill. “It means that you have a brain and can think for yourself. You don’t seem to have a problem voicing your opinion, so I’m finding it hard to believe you honestly think that writing in a journal is stupid. You said you started writing down your thoughts the day after your parents died. There’s a reason for that. There’s still a reason you use it as a way to dump out everything diseasing that pretty head of yours.”

  I pause, watching the fight deflate from her shoulders. At this, I lean across the table, making sure my tone holds the gentleness I know she needs to hear. “It means that I want you to admit that you know you need to write. Admit that at this point in your life, it’s the only way you’re surviving what happened.”

  “The paper listens to me better than any therapist ever has,” she whispers, pain spilling across her face. “There’s no . . . no . . . right or wrong about how I feel on any given day.” Her attention’s focused on the shredded napkin in her trembling hands, her lips beginning to quiver as her eyes threaten tears.

  My heart takes a nosedive, nearly gutting me wide open as the realization that she’s never spoken to anyone about this hits me. Hard. It’s been hours since I smoked a bowl and days since I killed a few shots of tequila, yet I feel drunk, completely fucking high. I may not be in her every waking thought the way she is mine, but right now, Amber’s giving me something greater than that . . . She’s allowing me to enter her empty heart, guiding me through her bent past.

  Maybe, just maybe, she’ll let me be a small part of her future.

  She moves her eyes to mine, her voice lost, broken. “It is a lifeline for me. I write without the fear of being judged. Without feeling like a freak who was birthed from a fucked-up three-ring circus. I can turn that hideous day into whatever I want without being told I’m irrational or that I need to find a way to move past what happened. I can write for a minute, or I can write for hours. There’s no uppity asshole watching a clock, making sure I’m not taking up too much of his time. I get to choose how many breaths I waste on my parents’ lack of being able to handle . . . life.” She lets out a sad laugh, wiping tears from her cheeks with a tiny piece of what remains of her napkin. “But who am I to judge what they could handle, right? I don’t handle anything the way society says I should.”

  “Fuck society and what they think,” I say, the response automatic.

  That earns me a hint of a smile. Yeah, there she is. The soft girl, beaming as bright as the sun, who I know exists under a blackened sky of a past she had no control over.

  Amber swings her misty eyes to the waitress, who I’d failed to notice has approached the table.

  “You two need anything else?” The woman swipes her pomegranate bangs away from her forehead as she sets my burger in front of me.

  I glance at Amber, and she shakes her head. I unwillingly bring my attention back to the waitress. “Nah, we’re good. Thanks.”

  Red drops the check, and I stare at the burger. If I take even a small bite, I’m gonna hurl. “I need you to eat some of this.”

  Amber looks at me as if I’m fucking crazy.

  I let out a groan. “I lied about being hungry.”

  A microsmile follows an eye roll. “Why am I not shocked?”

  “I don’t know. Why aren’t you?” I ask in all seriousness.

  “Hello? Sarcasm.”

  “Never heard of it.” I chuckle, cutting the burger in half. I push the plate to the middle of the table. “Eat.”

  With little reluctance, she picks up her half. After smothering it in what I’m sure’s nearly an entire bottle of ketchup, she takes a bite. I decide that I like watching Amber eat. I like it a lot. I like watching her glossy lips move as she chews, her eyes fluttering closed as though she hasn’t eaten in days. I like the way she rolls her tongue over the corner of her mouth, sensually swiping away a small dot of ketchup. I like the way she feels sitting in front of me while she eats half my burger.

  Great. I’ve turned into a freak with a fetish for watching Amber Moretti ingest food . . .

  What I don’t like is the control she has over me. The unrelenting steel hand she has wrapped around both my dick and heart. She doesn’t know it, but she owns me, and I don’t even exist in her world. Christ. In less than thirty minutes, she’s disarmed me, fucking breaking down every molecule of who I’ve been for a while.

  Only one girl was able to do that, and she shattered me, twisting my head in ways it’s never been twisted. Thus the reason I turned
into what Amber would call a “certified prick.”

  My story?

  Boy meets girl, boy does what he has to do to get the girl, and the two fall in love. Fucking blissful.

  The ending?

  Boy walks in on his girl fucking the overaged, beer-belly-sporting father of a few kids she babysits for. Fucking hideous.

  Messy break up for the boy and girl, and an even messier divorce for the cheating husband and his unsuspecting wife.

  “You haven’t touched your half,” Amber points out, breaking my thoughts from a day I can’t forget fast enough. She continues, her voice flavored somewhere between stern and playful. “The least you can do, since you lied about being hungry to get me here and then put me under the spotlight in front of the whole diner, is take one tiny bite.” She shoves the remaining piece of her half into her mouth and sends me a smile.

  Despite my stomach’s protest, I grin, pick up my disgustingly greasy half, and take a bite.

  Amber sends me another smile before chugging back a sip of water. “Brothers, sisters, both, or only child?”

  “Younger sister,” I answer, my heart caving in on itself. “She’s eight.”

  “Does she drive you bat-shit crazy or something? Your whole demeanor just changed.” She sets down her glass. “In her defense, that’s a messy age for a girl. You’re just starting to become aware of your looks, these weird . . . things happening to your body, and how the world around you judges you based on your outer shell.” She shrugs. “At least that’s the way it feels. You’re trying to figure out where you fit in and who’ll accept you. Boys start clogging up your thoughts, which only further fucks the situation.” She playfully wags a finger at me. “It’s a confusing time for her, so be nice, big brother.”

  I cringe, thinking about the cesspool of shit Casey’s going through on top of everything Amber pointed out. “Nah. Actually, she’s the coolest little girl around. I’d kill for her.”

  Amber’s smile shifts to confusion. “Then why the look of disgust?”

  “She has cancer. Acute lymphocytic leukemia, to be exact.” Just saying it makes me feel as though I’m about to puke.