by McClung, Amy
I laughed as Angel shrugged and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist from behind. There was a tug of jealousy in my chest at seeing her with him that way.
Once we made it inside, we found a boutique for Angel to get some better shoes. She’d never been to the hotel before and didn’t realize how massive it was or that she would need more comfy shoes for the stroll.
We entered on the Delta side of the hotel. It has a river that runs through and you can take a boat ride around.
The ceiling was draped with lights and Christmas décor. In front of one entrance was a very large Christmas tree made out of poinsettia plants. There was a stairwell that led to a bridge where you could cross to shops, bakeries, restaurants, and ice cream parlors. We all wanted to go on the boat ride, but the line was insanely long. We took the stairs up to the next level to grab ice cream for dessert. We each bought a different flavor of gelato and passed the bowls around to try each one.
Cameron wrapped his arm around me. “This was a fun idea.”
I pointed my thumb to the right of me. “Thank Ash, it was his idea.” Ash was feeding a bite of ice cream to Angel who was giggling as it dribbled down her chin.
He turned. “Did I hear my name?”
I stood up, annoyed, and grabbed my ice cream. “Yeah, you did. I’m full. I’m going to stroll some more.”
A moment later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. “What’s wrong, bug?” Each time he called me that, I fell a little harder for him.
“Stop calling me that,” I said, with more annoyance than I meant.
His face reacted as though I’d hit him. “I’m sorry, I thought you liked it.” He turned to walk away and I grabbed his arm pulling him against me.
“I’m sorry, Ash. I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. The holidays get to me sometimes.” He smoothed my hair and kissed my forehead. My eyes look up at him from under my eyelashes as I sweetly said, “I love when you call me bug, I promise.”
He grinned. “OK, good. The others decided to wait in line for the boat and wanted us to meet them there. I told them I’d check with you.”
I sent a text to Cameron, telling him we were going to take a walk and would meet up with them. “My favorite section of the hotel is the Cascades area, can we go there?”
He smiled. “That’s my favorite too.” He reached for my hand and I leaned against him as we strolled through the Delta atrium to the Cascades atrium. Cascades had a two story waterfall that was surrounded by plants and beautiful flowers. It was like something from a tropical island.
Upstairs, you could walk behind the falls through a cave-like tunnel. Ashton led me up there. We stepped up to the window, letting the soft mist of water spray us. A woman came up behind us and asked if we’d like our picture taken. We handed her our phones. Ashton wrapped his arms around me and leaned his head against mine. She snapped a picture with both of our phones.
“You’re a beautiful young couple, you seem very happy.”
I pulled away from him after she said that.
He pressed me against the wall, to let the group coming through pass, and touched my face. “What’s wrong?”
I sucked in my bottom lip, enjoying the feeling of him pressed up against me.
Someone knocked into him causing him to push harder against me. I bit into my lip and spat, “Shit that hurt.”
His thumb reached forward and wiped the blood from my lip. “Sorry, bug.” He leaned down and kissed the edge of my mouth, the corners of our mouths touching slightly.
“What was that for?” I asked.
“I kissed it to make it better, did it work?”
I nodded. “Oh yeah, I’m good now.”
He chuckled and leaned forward again.
“Are we interrupting something here?” Cameron asked as he cleared his throat beside us.
“Huh?” I said as I turned to him.
“You looked like you guys were about to make out?”
I moved away from Ashton and I laughed. “What? Come on Cameron, I’m with Hudson. Stop being ridiculous! So, did you guys ride the boat?”
Cameron shook his head. “Nope, got tired of waiting in line.”
Ashton walked over to Angel and put his arm across her shoulder. “How are your shoes working for you?”
She smiled. “Fantastic.” She bumped his hip with hers and said, “You can still give me a ride back to the car though if you want.” She winked and he threw his head back laughing.
Cameron put his arm around me. “What’s wrong, Gracie? You look sad.”
Ashton turned to look at me; his expression fell into a frown as a tear slid down my cheek. I wiped it quickly. “Nothing, I’m tired and want to go home. We have a busy day tomorrow.”
Ashton reached for my hand; I passed him as if he wasn’t there. When we got to the car, Ashton opened the door for me without saying a word.
I yelled out to Mary Jane, “Hey MJ, wanna switch rides?”
She seemed confused. She shrugged and said, “Sure, I guess.”
Ash reached for my arm and pulled me aside. “Did I do something wrong?” His face expressed so much sadness that I hated myself for making him feel bad.
I shook my head, “No, I just want to spend time with Cameron."
The drive home felt excruciatingly long and I sat in the backseat and cried silently to myself. When we arrived at the house, I ran straight up to the house. Ashton caught up with me; he reached for my arm to pull me aside.
“Goodnight guys, Merry Christmas” he said to the others as they went inside. It was just the two of us now. He brushed my hair aside and tilted my chin up. “You’ve been crying?”
I turned my face away.
“Gracie, what’s wrong? What did I do? It’s been you and me for months now and tonight, you’ve pulled away from me more than once. You've never done that before. Tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it.”
"It wasn't you. I'm in a bad mood because of Hudson. My own boyfriend didn’t think to give me a Christmas present? I mean, I get that isn’t what it's about, but it still makes me feel like crap. It makes me feel like I don’t mean anything to anyone." I sat down on the porch and put my hands over my face as I cried.
He sat beside me and encircled me in his arms. "You know there are a lot of people that care about you. One of them is holding you right now."
It wasn’t the lack of gift that upset me. It was the fact that Ashton gave me such a thoughtful romantic gift, and it was killing me inside.
A car pulled up. We both looked up and Hudson was walking toward me with a gift wrapped box. Ashton pulled away from me. I wiped my eyes clean as I said, “Hey. Where did you get a present so late on Christmas eve?”
He smirked. “You don’t want to know. I know I was a jerk and I wanted to make it up to you. You deserve better than this, but it's all I can do for now.” He held the box out to me. Ash stayed seated on the porch. I opened it and laughed at the contents.
Everything had come from a convenient store. It was full of stuff to clean my car and some of my favorite snacks and candy. Hudson grinned. “You’re always saying you need to clean your car more and I know you always want chocolate after…well you know,” he said as he glanced at Ash.
Ash stood up. “I’m going to leave you two alone. Merry Christmas, Gracie…Hudson.” He walked away.
I hugged Hudson. "This is awesome, thank you." At the same moment, Ash turned and our eyes met. He smiled sadly as he held his hand up in a wave. I closed my eyes and held onto Hudson.
“Come home with me tonight?” he asked.
“I can’t. Tomorrow’s Christmas and I am going to my family dinner.”
He wrapped his arms tighter around my waist. “I could meet your parents,” he said as he wiggled his eyebrows, flirtingly.
“I don’t think it’s the right time for that yet.”
He nodded. “OK, I understand. I’m going to head home for the night. Merry Christmas, babe.”
As soon a
s I stepped in my bedroom, I dialed Ash on my cell phone. He picked up instantly.
“Hey, bug.”
I sighed with a smile. “I’m sorry for how I acted tonight. None of that had to do with you. I’m in a weird place here lately. I feel like I don’t know which way I’m going anymore. That may not make any sense…”
He interrupted me. “Gracie, you always make sense to me. I like how close we’ve become and I don’t want to lose that. You pulling away from me tonight scared me. I thought I did something to hurt you and I never want to do that.”
I couldn’t help smiling at the affection in his tone.
He continued, “I kept feeling like I was doing something wrong tonight.”
I sighed. “No, Ashton, you didn’t. You’re perfect.”
He laughed. “Not really, Gracie.”
I clarified my statement, “You’re perfect…to me.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Ditto.”
That one word lit my whole face up. I glanced at the clock and noticed it was a few minutes after midnight. “Merry Christmas, Ash.”
“Merry Christmas, bug. Goodnight.”
As I brushed my teeth, I noticed the bracelet in the mirror. It was so beautiful I didn’t want to take it off. Tonight was the defining moment for me. I'd never be happy with Hudson as long as Ash was in my life. Now I needed to figure out what to do about it.
Chapter Eight
The next few weeks I spent most nights at Hudson's. It was getting really boring for me, the monotony of it all. It became obvious to me that, although I enjoyed sex with him, there were no feelings developing.
We had been together for five months and I barely cared anymore if he didn’t call me one night. Even now, I had to bite my tongue from saying Ash's name instead of his, because he was always on my mind. Tonight was the point that the awkwardness grew with Hudson.
"I'm falling in love with you, Gracie," he whispered as I lay in his arms. Luckily, I'd been quiet for a bit so I pretended to be asleep.
There was one thing I knew for sure, I was not in love with Hudson. The only person I got really excited about seeing lately was Ashton. He had shown me a different side of Nashville. It was the town I grew up in, yet somehow he had seen so much more of it than I had. It gave me a pang of guilt that I was lying here thinking about Ashton after Hudson professed his feelings for me.
In the morning, I woke up to an empty bed. I slipped my clothes on while Hudson was in the shower. The plan was to sneak out before he could come in and tell me that again. I would have to answer and I didn’t want to right then. Carefully, I closed the door behind me. I scribbled a quick note about getting to class and bolted out the door.
My text beeped, I groaned until I looked at the name and realized it was Ashton. He wanted to meet for breakfast. Relief washed over me as I realized I needed to talk to someone about what happened and he was always good at listening.
We met for breakfast at a diner down the street from school. As I walked up to the door, I heard his bike pulling in. He slid off the bike, removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his thick dark hair.
My body reacted to his allure. It was so hard to be just friends with this man. It wasn’t the choice I had made though; it was the way life was. Ashton couldn't help who he was attracted to and I understood that and knew I couldn’t change it. It didn’t make him less attractive to me. Oh, how I wish it did though.
He spotted me and his lips curved into that gorgeous smile of his, outlined by that sexy beard I loved so much. "Hey bug," he said as he leaned down and kissed my cheek.
I was so glad he didn’t kiss my lips like Cameron did. If he did, it would be hard not to want more. He opened the door for me. I slid past him and found a table in the back. He always sat beside me in the booth instead of across from me.
"So, what's up? Your text sounded like you had something on your mind," he said, after we ordered our food.
"I need to know how to break up with a guy."
His face seemed to light up a bit at this. I had a feeling he didn't like Hudson any more than anyone else and that he just always kept it to himself for my sake.
"I thought things were good with Hudson, mostly?" he asked.
"He told me he loves me."
Ashton squirmed a bit uncomfortably at this and asked, "And you…?"
I didn’t have to think about the answer. "Don’t love him. Some days I'm not sure I even like him. I don’t really understand how he thinks he's in love with me anyway. He barely knows anything about me except for what I look like naked."
Ashton squirmed uncomfortably again.
The waitress brought our food over. She was a cute blonde with her cleavage ready to spill out of her uniform. She flirted with Ash. He didn’t seem to notice. I watched him a lot in these situations, and he never seemed to notice girls at all. Yep, definitely didn’t make the wrong assumption.
He shifted his body towards me, laying his arm across my shoulders. He smelled so good that I wanted to press myself against him. My eyes drifted upward and he smirked at me. I licked my lips slowly and could've sworn I felt him shiver when I did.
"What's going on in that head of yours, Gracie-bug?"
I stuffed a forkful of eggs into my mouth. I covered my mouth with my hand and said, "Just hungry."
He chuckled and began forking food into his own mouth. “You don’t have feelings for Hudson at all?” Ash asked, as though this was news to him.
“Not really. You seemed surprised at that.”
Ash’s shoulders shrugged. “I just don’t understand why you're with him if you don’t like him?”
My head dipped to my plate in shame, unable to face him. “Lack of options, really. No one wants to be alone, and it’s nice to be wanted.”
His hand brushed across my cheek. What I hoped would happen next was that he would confess these deep hidden feelings for me and sweep me off my feet and away from Hudson.
That didn’t happen. Instead, he said, “Gracie, you’re an amazing girl. You can’t stay with the wrong person, simply because you haven’t found the right one yet. You’re beautiful, funny, smart, and incredibly sweet. Any guy would be lucky to have you. The thing is, you're the one that needs to feel lucky to have that guy as well. If you don’t, then it isn’t gonna make you happy.”
I shrugged. “I always manage to meet jerks. What’s to say the next jerk will be a better trade?”
He folded his arms over his chest. Good grief, they looked massive when he did that. His face crumpled up into a stern look that made me feel like I was being scolded by my father or a teacher.
“Gracie Walker, what has made you so cynical?”
I chuckled, “How much time you got?”
His face softened, he reached out and stroked my cheek. “All the time in the world, for you.”
My heart fluttered. If only he knew how much he tortured me with his sweet words.
"Sometimes happiness is staring us right in the face and we don't even know it," Ashton said as he stared into my eyes. If only that statement was literal at this moment.
"Happiness doesn’t like to make eye contact with me it seems," I replied.
Ashton smiled sadly. "I think we all feel that way at some point."
At times, I wish he'd treat me like dirt so I could stop having these feelings. Ashton's hand waved in front of my face. "Where'd you go, bug?"
Oh, nowhere, just into a delusional fantasy world where I was performing naughty acts on you. I smirked at my unspoken confession.
He smiled, letting out a soft laugh. "Now you look like you're up to something?" If he only knew.
"Ash?" I said, turning to him.
"Yeah, bug?"
I giggled. "First, I totally love that you call me that. I've never had a nickname before. Cameron's always called me babe, or hottie, or something to that effect. Anyway…what I was going to ask is…would you spend the rest of the day with me?"
He held his finger up asking me to give him a mome
nt. He picked up his phone and made a call. Faking a cough, he said, "Yeah, man I'm not going to make it in today. I feel pretty crappy. Can we reschedule for tomorrow? Thanks."
"You didn’t have to do that. By the way, what do you do?" I asked, curiously.
"I'm an independent contractor. All I did was cancel a meeting with a venue to strategize over who they want to book next. I own a promotion company for entertainers. I help book a lot of the venues around town with local artists, as well as some big time entertainers."
My mouth fell open. "Shut up!"
He laughed at my shock.
"Who have you met? I must know now!"
The waitress interrupted again with the check. Ashton grabbed it before I could, handed her a large bill and told her to keep the change. He slid out of the booth, pulling me with him.
"I can't tell you who I've met. It's a confidentiality thing."
I huffed. "You suck."
He let out a loud laugh.
"How did you get into the business?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"Kind of born into it, really. My dad owned a night club when I was growing up. I helped him run it while I was in college, made a few contacts that way. When I graduated, my dad gave me a loan to get me started and it took off pretty well."
I grinned. "Well, duh. Anyone as hot as you will go far in show business."
Ashton's lip turned up slightly. "You think I'm hot?" I bit my lip as he leaned closer to my face. He kissed my cheek. "That's sweet."
You're evil Ashton Collins, pure sexy evil, I thought to myself.
We left my car at the restaurant and took his bike. He placed the helmet on me as usual. I watched his butt as he slid his leg over the bike.
Dang Gracie, why weren’t you born a man? I snickered silently to myself. That was something I didn’t remember wishing for before! My hands ached to run up inside his shirt to feel his muscles.
"Where do you want to go?" he asked, into the helmet.
"Do you like art?" I asked, with a plan in mind.
"Yeah, of course. Are you thinking the Frist Center?"
I responded, "Yep, let's start there."
