“Fanny.”
“Shit!” I whirled around, the black shirt I had selected clutched in front of my breasts. “Go away, Ashland! Please, please just go away.” Adding insult to injury, the tears I had so far managed to hide spilled humiliatingly onto my cheeks.
“I can’t.” He took a step closer, and I couldn’t help but notice things I hadn’t had a chance to on the roof. How fine he looked with his platinum hair tied like a sailor at his nape. No not an ordinary seaman. He was too well dressed. More like a captain in a navy Tom Ford button down shirt with mitered barrel cuffs and light beige straight fit jeans. A dashing rogue, the garments flowed with his movements accentuating his muscular frame. Yeah, I remembered how handsome the drummer of the Dogs looked dressed up and how nice he looked in those GQ spreads. Like it mattered to him what I thought.
“I tried that nearly two years ago. It didn’t take.” His gaze melded to mine, he continued to plow straight through the clothing debris field. I wanted to retreat from him. Protect myself from further harm. But there was a madness in me when it came to him that didn’t care about the damage he could do.
“I didn’t notice any trying.” I lifted my chin. “The way I remember it sitting in that coffeehouse and texting you, I don’t know, at least a half dozen times, you had absolutely no trouble at all staying away.” I fostered my rising indignation, better to unfurl it than surrender to some foolish fantasy. “You were being more direct and honest on the roof moments ago than you’re being right now with your revisionist history.” I pasted on what I hoped was an amalgam of haughtiness and indifference. “I get it. There’s nothing I have that you want to see. Right? So go on back to the party. I’m doing what you want. I’m putting some clothes on.”
“I don’t know what got into me up there. I spoke without thinking. I know that I hurt you. That wasn’t my intention.” He plowed right over my protests and got to the heart of the matter as effortlessly as he had plowed through the clothes. Stopping in front of me, his gaze dipped, a moment of regard that made me note that he was very much a man, and I was very much a woman, a half-naked one. I drew in a breath, and I held it. My breasts swelled, my nipples tightened and my heart hammered inside my chest. My body, every part of it, ached for more than just his regard, a familiar hollow feeling when it came to him. How reckless was I to continue to expect him to return my affection?
“But when it comes to you, Fanny I can’t seem to act in a rational manner. Logic doesn’t seem to factor in.” Ocean blue eyes clouded by regret lifted to hold my showery grey ones captive. “It didn’t when we first met. It barely dictates what I do in the present. It certainly did jack shit to filter what came out of my mouth a couple of minutes ago.” He lifted his hands, a silver linked TAG Heuer sports watch glinting as he framed my face. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did.” His tone softened. “I did because you looked so incredibly sexy, and I didn’t want anyone but me to see you. You’re sexy right now attempting to hide those perfect tits behind that shirt you’re holding. You are sexy to me no matter what you wear or aren’t wearing.”
“Ash,” I exhaled. “I don’t understand if you think I am why…”
“Shhh,” he soothed, his gaze delving deep, so deeply into mine. “Give me this one moment before I have to let you go.” Slowly he smoothed his palms through the wetness on my cheeks and spread his fingers wide at the base of my skull. My head now cradled, he gently tipped my face into a position where he could see all of it. Peering down at me, his gaze searching mine, his moment stretched meaningfully longer before he shattered it. “I’m sorry. Sorry I hurt you back then. Sorry I hurt you the other day. Sorry I keep hurting you.” There was a plea, a request for sympathy now within his gaze. “I have so many regrets, so many things I would change if I could. But there’s no changing the past no matter how much I wish it could be so. I’ve been selfish to let things go so long like this. I just wanted something normal. Wanted you to know my friends. To be a part of my inner circle. I thought that while you were here maybe I could enjoy having you close as a friend without having to tell you the truth. But that was a lie in itself. A self-serving one. And you sweet, sexy, beautiful Fanny deserve the truth.” He inhaled a breath and exhaled words I could never have imagined. “The truth is that I’m HIV positive.”
“What?” My gaze widened, registering the shock first. “No,” I whispered, feeling like the ground trembled beneath me, but realizing it was only me shaking.
“I had testing done right before the Oscars.” His hands slipped away from my skin. Cool nothingness replacing them. The warmth in his eyes turned cold, just like they had when I had revealed my identity to him.
“The crossroads you mentioned.”
Why? Why him? Why us? Was the beginning I always wanted us to have already at an end?
“Yeah. I had started feeling run down. I kept catching colds one after another and recovering slower each time. I hoped for the best but suspected the worst. I knew I was at risk. Sharing needles. Having unprotected sex. Lots of unprotected sex.”
I felt the blood rush from my head.
“You followed the band. I think you were well aware of my reputation.”
I nodded numbly. I did on one level, but at a distance. Back then at least. Back then he was a picture on my wall. A symbol of rebelliousness. I don’t know if the consequences of that lifestyle ever crossed my mind. I wondered if that’s how it had been with him, too.
“Other people I knew had similar stories. I knew I needed to get checked out. I got the bad news a couple of days before I was supposed to meet you.”
“Do your friends know?” I whispered, guessing the answer before he gave it. Too many things they had said now made sense.
“Of course,” he confirmed. “Yes they do. All of them now know…including you.” Right before my eyes, I watched him transform. The tender openly affectionate man retreated into himself, becoming a one-man island, hiding behind his diagnosis like I had been concealing my identity beneath my disguise. We had more in common than I had realized. We were each afraid to reveal to the other what would make us the most vulnerable.
Chapter Twenty-One
Fanny
“Is everything ok?” Hollie asked. Coming into the bedroom only moments after Ash had stalked sullenly out of it, she dropped down on the bed beside me.
“Hardly.” I hadn’t even begun to process all of the emotions spinning inside of me. Unfortunately to Ash my initial shock plus my hesitancy seemed to have equaled a condemnation of him in his mind.
“I didn’t think so. Ash took off. Linc followed him. Simone and Karen are still out there in the living room with Ramon. Do you want me to ask them to come in?”
“Not right now.” I took her hand and cradled it to my chest. “I love you, you know.”
“Yeah, I love you, too. But now you’re scaring me. What’s going on? Ash was a jerk, but this is something else, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “He’s HIV positive, Hollie. He just told me.”
“Oh no! That’s awful. I’m so sorry. When did he find out?” Her brow furrowed.
“Right after he met me. It’s why he didn’t show at the coffeehouse, I’m pretty certain, though he didn’t specifically say so.”
“That would totally make sense. I mean, I can see that throwing him for a loop, making him reluctant to start something new with someone.”
“You think?”
“Yeah,” she answered like it hadn’t been a rhetorical question. “But it’s not the death sentence that it once was.”
“What do you know about HIV?” I latched onto her words like a life ring.
“It’s not uncommon in my profession. People talk about it pretty openly. Ernie has it. It was an adjustment for him after he was diagnosed. For him and his partner.”
“Oh.” Ok maybe things were not quite as dire as I imagined.
“It can be controlled with antiviral medication. One pill is all that’s needed these days. There are risks, sure.
Ernie has to take his medicine at the same time every day. He has to have his T cell count monitored. He can’t have unprotected sex, of course, since the virus is spread through bodily fluids. But if he stays fit, eats healthy and takes his meds then the fact that he’s HIV positive won’t keep him from living an otherwise normal life.”
“Truly?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
My gaze returning to the doorway I remembered how Ash had looked when he had left, how he had acted. Had that been just a reaction to my reaction?
“But knowing Ash, how he is, so protective of you, I wonder.” Her brow crease deepened. Following the vein of her thought I started putting pieces together.
“He’s usually very reserved physically according to what his friends have told us. Is there any risk from casual contact?”
“No. None. I’d tell you to look it up on your phone, but since we don’t have one…” She shrugged. “I’d say you’re on the right track, though, by thinking he’s being overly cautious.”
Overly pessimistic and irrationally cautious would be my guess. It had been a huge step admitting his diagnosis to me. Making himself vulnerable like that must have been very difficult for him to do.
His friends knew. But I didn’t think anyone else did. His retirement. The band calling it quits at the pinnacle of their career.
A picture was beginning to form in my mind about how everything must have gone down.
I could call Karen and Simone and ask them for more information to complete it, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to talk to Ashland himself. He had let down his guard to tell me the truth. Now he needed to tell me the rest. And he needed to see that he could trust me with the information he had shared.
~ ~ ~
Ashland
“Ash! Wait the fuck up!”
“No, Linc. Go away. Leave me alone.”
“No way,” he said, catching me at the pier. He didn’t listen any better than I had when Fanny had told me to go away. “You told her, huh?” Alongside me now, he gave me a careful look. “It didn’t go over well.” He could tell by just looking at me, but I shook my head to confirm. “Then fuck her. I like her but if she doesn’t get it then she’s not who I thought she could be for you, and she’s not worth it.”
Eloquently stated. Almost lyrical. Another time I might’ve gotten paper and a pen, and we could’ve worked it out in a song. I might’ve even smiled except I was crushed by Fanny’s reaction.
“You wanna get drunk?” he asked.
I was tempted to. Alcohol had become a crutch in the past. Something to numb the rejection of not being who Linc wanted, and to escape from all the other crap. But I knew the numbness would wear off eventually and the pain would still be there. Only I would have a hangover to go with it.
“No.” I shook my head.” I’m just gonna sit on the pier for a while. Get my head together. Can you…”
“Yeah,” he cut in. “I’ll go check on her and report back.”
“Thanks, Linc.” That had been exactly what I had wanted him to do. “Love you even though you’re a pain in my ass.”
“I love you, too, dude.” His reply drifted back to me on the breeze. I turned to tip my face into it.
Filling my ears with the reliable roar of the ocean, I reminded myself that the tides rise and fall, the waves crest and trough and the ocean recedes but always returns to the shore. The permanence of it helped me to put things in perspective. I had a place to belong, to rise, to sometimes fall. I really had some serious skills when it came to the falling. But I always had the penthouse to retreat to, lonely though it might be.
“Ash.”
Dammit. I smoothed the contemplation from my face and turned.
“Fanny. What the hell? You’re not supposed to be out here. I told you…”
“You told me a lot of things,” she cut in. “It took me a moment to absorb the last one. I’m sorry about that. But if you would have stuck around I might have suggested the walk. I like it out here. Oceanside is a good place to put things in perspective, don’t you think?”
I nodded. Another discovery of something she and I had in common.
“I wanna thank you for sharing with me tonight. For being honest. That’s a good foundation for friends to build on. And I’m hoping you can answer some questions for me.”
“Sure.”
“Why didn’t you show up at the coffeehouse? Was it because of your diagnosis or were you just not interested in me as anything more than a friend?”
“The former, of course.”
“Ok.” She gave that a couple of bouncing nods. “I would’ve liked to have been there for you. But to be honest, we had just met. I had a ton of turmoil in my own life at that time. Maybe we would have figured things out together, but I also think it’s significant that we sorted our stuff out on our own. I’m stronger today than I was back then. Wiser, too. I wonder if that might be true of you also.”
“Definitely.” I nodded. “I went through rehab for substance addiction along with processing everything it meant to be HIV positive.”
“Good. You seem settled here. Past that personal crossroads, pointed in the direction you want your life to go. Are you happy where you’re headed, Ash?”
“For the most part, Fanny. I love my parents. Linc, Simone, Ramon and Karen. They’re the people walking along with me on the road I’ve chosen. They cheer me on, encourage me, lend a hand when I need it. But the destination is set. It’s the same for all of us, yeah? It’s how we get there, and what we do along the way that matters.”
“A journey-oriented philosophy of life. I wholeheartedly agree. In yoga there is a saying: Like a tree find your roots then you can bend with the wind.”
“That makes sense.”
“So you have your roots. Good ones. Your parents and your friends, right?”
“Yeah for sure.” I motioned her to join me on the bench I was sitting on. Did she get the significance of the invitation? Knowing her, she probably did. “You might as well get comfy since we’re already out here together.”
“Good point.” She took a seat close beside me, so close we were practically touching. Was she giving me a message, too, being so quick to take me up on my offer? I turned to regard her. She wore a long-sleeved t-shirt with bell sleeves that said ‘surf to live’ and a matching pair of pants Karen and Simone owned too that I knew said ‘Offshore’ in huge lettering on the ass. I was glad she had changed into something casual. Though she had looked sexy as hell wearing what she’d worn earlier, it would have been too distracting for the kind of discussion we were currently having.
“So I’m not sure where you want me to fit on your journey.” She drew her legs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and laid her cheek on her knees, setting her gaze on me. Mine had been set on her since the moment she had appeared, set on her longer than before that if I was being completely honest. The ocean couldn’t even compete. “You said you want me to be a friend, but you don’t treat me the same as the ones you have.”
No, I certainly did not.
“You withheld your status.”
I opened my mouth to explain why, but she interrupted.
“I know we were new then, and they had all been with you a long time. Besides, you and I have had a few false starts in the friendship department.”
I nodded. She had filled in the blanks accurately. Again. I kept silent waiting to see what other conclusions she might have reached.
“The issue is trust, right? You want to know you can trust me. I want to know I can trust you. And trust goes right along with honesty. Both are important to you and me. We touched on it way back when. There’s a lot of fakery surrounding the entertainment business. You don’t care for it. I don’t care for it, either. You cut yourself off from the parts you don’t like. I left it all behind just like I told you I would. True I support Hollie in it. It’s her chosen profession. I see the value of it when it focuses on good. Maybe you c
an’t though. Maybe it’s just an affront to you personally now to believe in happy endings. Maybe you think they’re unrealistic and out of reach because of everything that’s happened since we first met.”
“Fucking hell, Fanny!” I exclaimed. She had shocking insight into my psyche. My little rose didn’t dance around the edges. She went straight for the heart.
“I’m sorry.” She lifted her head looking affronted. “I said too much, I guess, or maybe I got it all wrong.” She abandoned her reflective repose and set her feet on the pier.
“No, you didn’t.” I grabbed her arm as she started to stand. “You got it exactly right. You pretty much hit the bullseye, little one. I’m feeling kinda exposed actually to be honest. I just need a minute of my own to absorb, but I’d like you to stay while I do that. Does that work for you?”
She nodded. Beneath her pixie cap of red hair, her eyes were wide beautiful grey pools with tantalizing depths. She had given me privileged glimpses of her soul. Would I ever get to a place with her where I would return the privilege? I wasn’t sure. But right here, right now seemed like a very promising start. I took in a breath of damp salty ocean air then tried to formulate words I could actually speak out loud.
“Thank you.” I slid my fingers down her arm. She dropped her gaze to watch the motion. I watched her lips part as I reached her hand and curled my fingers around hers.
“Ash.” Her expression was soft when her gaze lifted. “What are we doing you and me?”
That was the question.
I didn’t have the answer. I was still working on it. I gave her what I had figured out.
“I feel like you being here is a second chance for us.”
“So do I,” she said.
“Yeah?”
She nodded.
“I’m not surprised, little rose. We seem to be on the same page about so many things. I’m interested to see what might happen if we turn those pages together for a change. You have a startling knack for seeing me, for understanding me like no one else. But I gotta tell you, I have no clue where we go from here.”
Oceanside Page 16
