Amber to Ashes

by Gail McHugh

  “What?” I question through a gasp, my heart pounding anew with a fresh round of pain the asshole’s left me with. “No, I’m not in love with him. What would even make you think that? I love Brock.”

  Brock . . .

  She climbs back onto the bed, cradling me in her arms like a mother would her newborn. And she thinks I’m dramatic? “Amber, I say that because of the list of emotional unpleasantries I just went through so conveniently for you, that you’ve made me endure over the last several weeks. Suck it up, you lucky slut. You have two of the hottest dudes on campus pining over you and you’re depressed, crying like it’s the end of the world because of your confusion about loving Ryder.” She takes a swig from the bottle and blows her hair away from her forehead, a huff leaving her mouth as she hands me back the liquid bliss. “Pfft, more than half the chicks at Hadley, at least the ones who aren’t carpet-munchers, would die to be in your position.”

  “No, they wouldn’t,” I whisper, fighting back tears. “Ryder . . . disappeared. Hasn’t returned my calls or texts. Plain and simple: he used me the way he has every other girl he’s messed around with.” I slide from the bed and stomp across the room, wishing he were here so I could rip his balls off and feed them to him. “God! I should’ve known better!”

  “Wait, stop!” Madeline hops to her feet and catches me by the arm, spinning me around. “That doesn’t seem right. What I mean is, he’s looked just as shitty as you every time I’ve seen him lately. And that’s hard for him considering he’s a walking god. Seriously, it’s like he lost someone, Amber. He looks bad enough that I actually asked him if everything was okay with Casey.”

  “What are you trying to say?” I ask, confused as to where she’s taking this conversation. The Captain’s definitely drowning me in his sea. “I’m telling you he wants nothing to do with me, Madeline. Nothing.” Now I can’t help it. The tears come, falling fast, falling hard—Mr. Morgan aiding in their rapidness—as Ryder’s touch, taste, words, and face shroud my vision, every stolen and unstolen moment we shared spiraling through my memory.

  Madeline’s eyes soften, her fingers stroking my tears away. “He’s missing . . . you, Amber. You have to believe me. Again, so much makes sense now. We went to Atlantic City and after that, both of you changed for the worse. He’s miserable right now and not seeing you, not calling, is the reason for it. I know it, can feel it.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I question through a sloppy, hiccupped gulp of air as I try to compose myself. I want her to shut up. Her words are making me second-guess myself, second-guess what’s really going on with Ryder. “He’s not missing me.” I chuckle through my tears, pacing the room as I simultaneously hit the bottle again and gnaw on my thumbnail. I get talented when I drink. “He’s getting off on the fact that he was able to fuck me and then get the perks of not having to deal with me and my stained past.”

  She shakes her head, her hand capturing mine in a death grip. I halt, my face inches from hers. “Do you trust me?” she asks, her voice soft, soothing.

  Trust. Something I’ve never felt. Though I’ve wanted to, it’s not an emotion that’s come easily for me, if at all. It’s foreign to my bones, a rite of passage to those who’ve walked the clear path of a normal life, not one planted with minefields polar opposite of what it stands for.

  Still, I nod, hoping I can trust Madeline, praying whatever she says will lead me in the right direction.

  “Go to him now, Amber. Find him and tell him that you need him, that you’re in love with him.”

  “I’m not in love with—”

  “You are,” she interrupts, pulling me closer, her hands squeezing mine harder. “For whatever reasons you have, ones I won’t ask you about because they’re yours to keep, you’re denying your feelings for him.” She sighs and wraps me in her arms. “It’s written all over your face. Has been for a while. That fine piece of ass owned your heart the second you laid eyes on him, and you his.”

  I rear back, my heart thumping out of control as the truth in her words brush over my limbs like a raging wildfire, burning me down to the core. Who am I kidding? I do love Ryder. I love him in more ways than I thought was ever possible. Love him so badly it hurts. Love him the way the earth does the warmth of the sun. My unconditional match, he’s whispered his love into my soul, my entire being lost without its calming presence.

  Yet how do I call it love for Ryder when my feelings for Brock remain the same, untouched in all they are? There was a time in my life when I couldn’t rustle up a crumb’s worth of feelings, let alone love, for anyone, my heart locked off to the notion as I stood alone, afraid to death of it. I’ve seen what love turns into, the emotion the deadliest disease to the human race. But here I am, my heart bleeding out for two different men, the organ split down the middle between who it truly belongs to and who it truly loves and needs in order to produce another beat.

  Confused, but determined to find and tell Ryder how I feel, I swallow my fear of love, my fear of trusting others. Hands shaky, I nod as Madeline hoots out in excitement. “You’re right. I do love him,” I confess, unable to believe I actually said it out loud. “God, I love him so much, Mad.”

  “I know you do!” She gathers me in her arms, squeezing me as though I’m her lifeline. She has no idea. “That’s why this is a good thing, Amber.”

  “But it’s not,” I say, working myself out of her hold. I stare into her eyes, mine filling with tears again. So weak. “It’s not good. Brock. I . . . I have to tell him. I can’t lie to him or myself anymore. I refuse.” I rush a hand through my hair and sway over to the window, peering down into the parking lot. My vision blurs on the asshole parked outside, who’s there to make sure neither I nor Madeline leave the building without him following us. “Maybe he’ll understand. Let the three of us go on as we are. He’s the one who wanted this to begin with. Begged to see me and Ryder together.”

  “Hold up,” Madeline says, joining me. “Okay, that’s some kinky shit we’ll have to hit another time, but do you honestly think you’re going to be able to keep them . . . both?” She hooks her finger under my chin, dragging my attention to her confusion-swamped face. “Amber, you have to choose one of them. Not both. Surely you can’t expect that either guy will be cool with you loving the other? Come on. You’re noticeably out of it, but that’s just irrational thinking, chicky.”

  “Mo, I . . . uh, mean, no. I’m not out of it,” I insist through a slur. I’ve always sucked at lying, plus I’m half tanked. “Well, I am a little tipsy, but yes, I think Brock will understand. He has to. Like I said, he’s the one who wanted this.” I open the window, sticking my head out into the frigid, early evening Friday night air. “Hey, asshole!” I yell, catching the attention of the moron three stories below us, sitting in a beat-up Chevy Trailblazer, his eyes narrowed on mine as he waits, alert, for either me or Madeline to try to get past him. Gotta love my paranoid boyfriend for keeping me hostage. “Go. The. Fuck. Away.” I kick him a wink, wondering if he caught it. I turn to Madeline, urgency thick in my tone. “Will you help me get out of here without numb-nuts seeing me? I have to find Ryder, Mad. Have to tell him how I feel. I’ll deal with Brock afterward, but right now, I need out of here without daffy-dick down there following me.”

  “Yeah, I got you,” she says, helping me squirm into my pea coat as I pluck my car keys off my desk and gulp back the last few ounces of Captain Cool. She shoves a white winter cap onto my head, a green cashmere scarf following her motherly act as she spins me in the direction of the closet mirror. “I don’t think this whole I can have them both and be fine thing’s gonna work in your favor, but I have to ask on a serious note: Are you really going to see Ryder Ashcroft looking like this?”

  Through mascara-streaked eyes, I glimpse my sweatpants-sporting, vintage-Metallica-donning getup and scowl, a sigh dropping from my mouth as I rip the cap off and attempt to pat my hair down from its just-fucked, d
emon-clown arrangement. It’s no use, but to hell with it. I’m going to see him looking like a deranged psycho stalker, my need to tell him I love him taking precedence over vanity any day.

  Nodding, I slip the cap back on. “I don’t care what I look like. Now, how am I getting out of here unnoticed?”

  Madeline kneels down, a giggle bursting from her chest as she helps me into a pair of purple, spongey snow boots. My appearance is getting worse by the second, but I have to keep my main goal in sight . . . the man I can picture spending the rest of my life with. The man who, if not by my side, I can see dying without in my darkened universe.

  Madeline gets to her feet, a smirk creeping across her face as she pats my back. “Have no fear, my dear. Momma Maddie’s got a foolproof plan.”

  • • •

  Okay. So maybe Madeline’s plan wasn’t foolproof, but it’s working.

  Despite wanting to watch her put on the worst-ever alcohol-induced, embarrassing version of the belly dance, I turn away from her diversion show. Better for me, the sandy-brown-haired, unsuspecting twentysomething dumbass who’s sitting in his Trailblazer—enthralled with her twisting capabilities—is buying into her less-than-stellar Marilyn Monroe award-worthy bullshit.

  Score!

  At a speed that’d surpass Superwoman’s, I round Fifth and Washington, my panicked gaze snagging my golden-horse-driven ride. I cross over State Street, still within earshot of Momma Maddie as she continues to flirt her way through my escape. I grab the handle to the taxi and swing open the door. Nerves skyrocketing, I lunge into the backseat, my sporadic breathing trumping that of a burglar who’s committed armed robbery as I tell the overly confused, and somewhat scared, driver my destination: Ryder’s apartment.

  No questions asked, Bin Laden’s ghostly doppelgänger takes off, the vehicle slipping in and out of traffic like a centipede as we head toward Ryder’s casa. I have to hand it to Middle Eastern men. They might scare me a bit, but they sure as hell know how to navigate the busy streets of Baltimore on a frantic Friday night. Before I can blink, we’re in front of Ryder’s apartment. However, he’s not. My heart sinks some as my sluggish vision lands on his empty parking spot. Knowing this was a possibility, I tell the driver plan B, directing him to Glen Burnie, where, hopefully, Ryder’s hanging at his mother’s house with Casey, possibly in the midst of a game of Hedbanz.

  Fifteen minutes later and no such luck, another piece of my heart bruised as I try to think of where he’d be. The only other place is Ram’s Head Tavern, down in the heart of Annapolis, where Lee’s sure to be the man of the night tending bar. Going with an unexpected plan C, we’re off and running again, my nerves mounting as we hit West Street, tear through the roundabout, and land on Main Street, smack-dab in front of Ram’s Head. I ask the driver to hang on a second before jumping from the cab to see if Ryder’s Mustang’s parked around the back.

  Touchdown!

  The orgasm-producing muscle machine is sitting pretty under a streetlamp, its black-cherry glow a condescending balm to my nerves as I pull in a shuddered breath, worried. Scared that Madeline’s spiel was just that—a drunken spiel, filling me with false hope—I clear my throat, a snowflake hitting my nose as I scurry, like the desperate woman I am, through the alleyway and back over to the taxi.

  “I’m going to stay here.” I pluck a twenty from my purse, eager to get inside as I hand it to the driver. “Thanks.”

  “It taking you long enough to decide,” he answers, shaking his head. “And it fifty for the ride, not twenty.” He sticks his wiry hair–smothered hand out and, with his unibrow scrunched up—its angry wave staring me straight in the face—he huffs. “You think I going to go all the way to the jungle, stop in the semijungle, and come down here into wasteful-wealth land for only twenty dollars?” Another huff, this one as he sticks his nasty hand out farther. “If this is truth, then you Americans are crazier than us.”

  And to think I was gonna slip the undercover terrorist an extra twenty for his speediness.

  Shame. On. Me.

  Keeping my narrowed eyes on his, I dig another thirty bucks from my purse, Mr. Captain Morgan himself—another bastard contender in tonight’s Hunger Games—kicking the shit out of my brain as I slam the correct fare into the driver’s palm.

  He smirks.

  I smirk in return, but decide a proper dose of patriotism’s due. With my middle finger saluting the asshole like a true-blooded American, I spin on my heel, my feet nearly coming out from beneath me as my boots slosh through a few centimeters of freshly dropped snow.

  Paying no mind to the dickhead driver’s tires grinding through the white blanket of slush, I approach the crazed bar, my heart imploding as I witness Hailey Jacobs, a she-devil in the flesh, place a long, lingering kiss on Ryder’s cheek from beyond the frosted window.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” My muscles tense, the hot strands of emotionally fueled gas lines reacting of their own accord as they send a signal to my hand, causing it to grab hold of the door. Yanking open the door like Hercules’ long-lost daughter would if she were stuck in my mental state of WTF, my teeth skid across my lip in an angry attack, my pulse trying to fight its way out of my veins as I . . . swoop into a vacant booth like a petrified coward?

  God. I can’t do this. Can’t approach Ryder as his cheek enjoys a second, then third Hailey-diseased kiss. I might’ve fooled myself into thinking I didn’t love Ryder, didn’t need him in my life. But as I watch him rest his hand on the porcelain curve of Hailey’s neck—a smooth-as-they-come grin curling his mouth in the process—I’m convinced he’s the magician who’s fooled me, his talent blinding me to the truth in more ways than my liquor-fueled brain can comprehend.

  He doesn’t need or want me, our connection a figment of my desperate imagination.

  On that horrifying note, I unsuspiciously wave down a waitress, my body twisted in the fetal position in the corner of the booth as she approaches somewhat cautiously.

  “Are you . . . okay?” she asks, setting a napkin in front of me.

  “I will be after I murder one of the patrons across the bar.” I laugh maniacally.

  Mute, she stares at me, appearing marginally scared.

  I shake my head, spitting out an order for three tall shots of tequila.

  I need to switch things up. Along with my credit card I hand her a hundred-dollar tip, asking her to add a full glass of Captain to my request.

  I hate change.

  I also note to keep the drinks coming, my goal set on getting as hemmed up as humanly possible as I continue to spy on the man I thought I had a future with.

  The hefty tip must’ve satisfied her fear of me going postal, because the waitress smiles and skirts off, her Christmas tree–dotted tie swinging cheerfully in tune with the bounce in her step as her disappearing act allows me an unobstructed view of Ryder and Hell-ey.

  It’s getting worse. At least from my vantage point it is. The skank’s sitting on his lap, her arm dangling over his shoulder as she whispers something in his ear.

  She giggles, he chuckles, and I . . . go postal.

  Hail Mary, there is a God, my waitress’s return timed perfectly as I stumble to my feet, whip the glass of Captain from her bar tray, and chug back the entire drink, less what I spilled while bringing it to my lips, of course. I nod my thanks to her and fly into the throng of equally wasted patrons, determined to end Ryder and his little whore’s life as I round the bar, purposely crashing into his side.

  Not only does the impact gain his immediate attention—his baby blues the width of Saturn and its rings as his gaze hits mine—but it also sends Hailey flying from his lap.

  Aww . . .

  The unpaid blonde call girl rockets to the liquor-slimed wood floor, a wheeze of pain pelting from her mouth as—if at all possible—Ryder’s eyes go wider.

  Hot damn! Another touchdown for me tonight.
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  Figuring I’m on a roll, I don’t say a word to Ryder. Nope. I stick to simple, yet black widow–ish. I keep my mouth shut, finding a sliver of peace in watching him shit his pants as an, oh, I’m so very NOT sorry for knocking your sleazy date off your lap smirk oozes across my face.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks, the shock in his voice palpable over the thumping bass of the live band’s drums. “And why are you out, noticeably fucked up, and alone?” He growls the last part into my ear, his hand gripping my waist as he hops from his bar stool. The dominant set of his jaw commands an answer, his eyes narrowing on mine.

  Yes, I’m pissed, sober Amber counting the many ways she plans on making Ryder sterile for the rest of his remaining days as she narrows her eyes right back at him. Still, though my heart might be in the midst of bursting at the seams from witnessing his deceitful acts, and the asshole’s dimpled cheek deserves nothing but another strike of my hand against it, I can’t help it, I’m human—a poisonous concoction of strong and weak, its main ingredients made to test our every move.

  With a quick intake of air, human weakness winning the battle by a long shot, my body reacts to Ryder’s touch as searing streams of needing to feel his cock inside me one last time lick uncontrolled desire over every muscle and bone holding me up. Remaining tactfully mute, I shove his hand off my waist and reach for a pinkish-colored shot winking at me from the bar to my left.

  Its rightful owner? Go figure. A dude who’d—undoubtedly—kick Ryder’s ass if need be.

  Ooops . . .

  “Answer me, now, peach,” Ryder insists through another growl, his hand recapturing the right side of my waist right about the same time Jolly the Green Giant loops his arm around my shoulder.

  “What are you doing in public without a lookout?” Before he lets me answer, Ryder cranes his head over the bar, his eyes flaming red as he taps the linebacker’s forearm. “Hey, asshole! Get your fucking hands off her before I break that neckless skull of yours in half. ” Ryder sends him a wink, his infamous cocky smirk front and center as he juts that beautiful square jaw of his out like the true wiseass he is. “She’s taken, buddy. Go sniff somewhere else.”