by B. Cranford
Nothing.
With something in his hand—a bottle, maybe?—he’d hit her on the head, the searing feeling making Ashton feel nauseous. Making her stomach drop, her heart pound ever faster.
Baby, protect the baby, her instincts had screamed as she’d started to fall down, the strength of the blow to her head making it impossible to stay upright. She’d turned enough that when she landed on the gravelly ground of the parking lot, she was on her side. Please, let her be okay. She’d cupped one hand—the one with the broken finger—over her stomach when he let her fall down, but her reprieve was short lived. He’d grabbed her other hand and started to drag her to the door she’d come out of when she’d left her apartment in search of her phone.
“Bitch.” He’d called her that, again, when she’d slumped into dead weight, the ripping of her skin as he’d dragged her making her want to stiffen even as she knew she needed to make it too hard for him to pull her along.
It had worked. He’d let her go and made for the door, slamming whatever was in his hand down on the handle, causing a loud banging noise that she was sure would alert someone to her plight.
Except . . . there was no someone.
She was alone and the man who’d hurt her was trying to break into her bar, her home.
“Nononononononono,” she’d chanted, praying for someone to come along.
Her prayers were answered when Andrew arrived. Her assailant had already managed to break the door, break into her place, and it took most of her strength to just call out to her frantic boyfriend. “Andrew.”
It was a pathetic sound, she’d known. But it worked, somehow. He saw her and came over to her, telling her he was there and she’d be okay, all while calling the cops and the medics to come help her.
It was the last thing she really remembered before opening her eyes, here, in the hospital.
“Hey, Little, how are you feeling?” Aaron’s soft question came from the end of her bed. She hadn’t seen him there, too focused on Andrew to notice, but now her head slowly moved in his direction.
It hurt. But she wanted to see him. He was standing with Simon, leaning into his husband as if for support, twin looks of worry on their faces.
“Heavy?” Her answer came out as a question, but he nodded anyway, as if he understood. Which, in all likelihood, he did. He’d always just seemed to get her, her big brother. “Sore.”
“He got you pretty good. Scared us all.”
“Baby girl?” she asked, terrified of the answer but desperate to know if her little one was okay.
“She’s okay. The doctor said she’s just fine.”
The relief made her muscles clench momentarily, like she’d flinched for impact before realizing the news was good. Better than good. “Thank God.”
Andrew’s warm hands around hers tightened, signaling that he was awake. “Kitten,” was all he said, turning his head on the bed just slightly to press a kiss to her hand. Then, he looked up at her, and her heart stopped.
He looked wrecked. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Has he been crying? His mouth was down-turned, a frown etched around his lips and on his brow. He’s angry.
“Of course I’m angry, Ashton. I left you alone and came back to . . . to . . .” He shook his head, seemingly answering her thought, but unable to finish his own.
Like it was too painful to voice.
“I’m okay though.” She tried on a smile, but it didn’t feel real or right. Instead, she raised her other hand—padded by a bandage, the finger she remembered being broken set and wrapped—and gently brushed the barely visible tips of her fingers along his cheek.
He turned his head away.
“We’ll leave you guys alone. I’ll let Austin know you’re okay.” Aaron walked around the end of the bed, and she looked up at him, thanking him with her eyes for coming, and for going.
She needed to just be with Andrew for a while, and that he understood that—it was everything.
“Love you, Little Sister,” he said as he dropped a kiss to her cheek.
“Love you, Big Brother,” she responded, leaning into his lips and savoring the connection they shared.
The connection that led her to come along when he’d been thrown away by their parents.
The connection that put her in that car, determined to support him on that long ago day.
The connection that introduced her to Andrew, her brother’s best friend, and the man who was finally, finally, hers.
“I’ll see you later, man. Thank you for being there.” Aaron’s words had a shakiness to them that told Ashton he was close to tears, and she watched, waited to see what Andrew would say.
But he said nothing. A small nod to acknowledge the words, and that’s all. He didn’t look up at Aaron, or back over at Ashton.
He just dipped his head once, twice and stared off at nothing as Aaron grabbed Simon’s hand and walked from the room. It wasn’t until Ashton directly asked after Austin that he finally looked over at her again.
“He’s at home. Still too drunk to drive.” A sigh, frustration evident in the slump of his shoulders. “I keep thinking about what could have happened. About how stupid I was to leave.”
“Andrew—” she began, only to be cut off.
“He was waiting outside the bar. They found him a couple of blocks over—apparently he’d heard the sirens and broke through the fire exit at the back of the kitchen. I thought–I thought he was still in there, and I didn’t want to leave you.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” She tried to reassure him, but he kept talking, sharing with her what happened, his anger directed not only at the man who’d hurt her, but at himself too.
“The police said he must have painted the window first, then was getting ready to leave when you came outside.”
“The window?” she asked, confused about what he was referring to.
“He vandalized the front window.” He didn’t say more, but he didn’t have to either. It was clear from what he was not saying that whatever he’d written on the window was directed at her—and wasn’t pleasant.
She couldn’t say she was shocked. Not even a little.
“He was high, apparently. I don’t know everything. The officer that came by here a little while ago while you were still out just said that he admitted everything, that he’d failed the drug and alcohol tests and they’d be back in the morning to talk to you.”
“The noise.” The noise that had broken their moment inside the bar, she realized, must have been him. Waiting to attack her business, and why? Because she’d refused him service when he was drunk and out of control. “That asshole.”
“That’s the nicest thing you could say about him. I want to”—he raised his hands into a strangling motion, leaving hers laying on the bed, cold now that his warmth was gone—“I want to kill him. If he’d, if you’d . . .”
His head lowered again to the bed, along with his hand, only this time, instead of holding hers, they wrapped over her legs in a half-hug. Her heart ached for him, more than it did for even herself.
She was okay. Her baby was okay. But Andrew? He wasn’t okay. He was a protector, and had been all his life, she knew that.
He’d come for Aaron when their parents had discarded him.
He’d let Ashton go when she’d needed to get back to Austin and her dad.
He’d cared for his sister through years of treatments and illness, until the very end.
And then, after all that, he’d come back to her, ready to love her even when her situation was less than ideal for a new relationship.
“I love you,” she whispered, trying to make him see she was okay, trying to find the words that would put his heart at ease.
But he didn’t respond. And eventually, as she fell back to sleep, she realized he wasn’t going to.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Ashton dropped the Allen wrench among the pieces of wood and screws and nuts and bolts that were scattered across the floor of her spare room. She’d been
trying to put the baby bed together for a good hour—at least—but she was no closer than when she started.
The instructions weren’t any help, just a series of pictures that had no accompanying words that explained why the person in the image had little bolts of lightning frizzing out from its head.
Maybe they’d been trying to put the stupid thing together for an hour too, and were losing their minds.
“Kitten, what are you doing?” Andrew appeared in the doorway, a long-slung pair of sweatpants taunting her. He’d hardly touched her since she’d come home from the hospital two days earlier, and he looked good enough to eat.
“Trying to get this stupid, stupid, stupid—” She stopped talking, taking in the thunderous expression on his face. “What?”
“I told you I’d do it. Why didn’t you listen?” He strode into the room, leaning down to snatch the instructions from the floor in front of her. She sat still, legs akimbo, on the ground, staring up at him as he closed his eyes and tilted his head to the ceiling, like he was begging for patience or something.
“It’s just a bed,” she countered, not sure why he was getting so riled up, but feeling some kind of anger beginning to bubble within her.
“A bed that’s stressing you out. I could hear you from the kitchen, calling the stupid thing stupid.”
“Well, because it is.” She stood up, hating the feeling of being towered over as he—was he lecturing her? She wasn’t sure, but it felt like it. “I can figure it out though.”
“You don’t have to. That’s what you have me for,” he said, pointing at his bare chest, momentarily distracting her from her anger to admire his chest.
It was a really nice chest.
“And if you weren’t here, I would have to figure it out, so . . .”
“So, nothing, Ash. I am here and you should be resting. The doctor said you should take it easy.”
Okay, to be fair, the doctor had said that to her, as she’d been discharged from the hospital. But she wasn’t one for sitting around doing nothing, and besides, if Andrew wasn’t in the bed with her, she really wasn’t that interested in being there.
Except when it was nap time. She really enjoyed the reintroduction of nap time.
Kids have no idea what they’re missing when they refuse this.
“I was taking it easy. I took it easy all day yesterday and until about an hour ago when I slowly, carefully walked into this room and sat down on this here cushion”—she motioned to the pale pink cushion that she’d propped her butt on when she sat down to build the crib—“and started trying to make lightning buzz around me. Like Storm.”
“What are you talking about?”
Desperate to try and kill the fight that seemed to be brewing between them, she decided to capitalize on her semi-ramble, and pointed at the instructions Andrew was holding. “See, looks like lightning. You know Storm, right? From X-Men?”
He looked down at where she was pointing and then back up at Ashton, a hint of a smile on his lips. “You’re prettier than she is, you know?”
“Prettier than Halle Berry? Puh-lease. Only because they kept giving her terrible hair in those movies.”
“Nah, your hair right now is pretty terrible, Kitten, but you’re still gorgeous.” He stepped in closer, apology in his eyes. “Sorry. I just . . . I was worried. I can do this, you know?”
“So can I.” She knew she should accept the apology and move on, but some part of her needed him to acknowledge it—her ability to provide for her baby.
But he didn’t. Instead, he gave her her favorite kiss on the forehead and left the room, instructions still in hand.
She was still fuming a little about the crib—and other little annoyances that were beginning to pile up where Andrew was concerned—two weeks later when she made her way back to work for her first shift since the attack. Austin was in the office when she arrived—if you can call slamming the door open and then closed arriving.
“Why is Andrew behind the bar?”
“Hi, Ash. Good to have you back,” came the response, a smirk on her brother’s face that faded when he finally realized she wasn’t joking around. “He’s just helping out. It’s your first night back.”
“I’m not an invalid. I wasn’t even that hurt. It was more the shock than anything.” She licked her lips, trying to find her calm, but struggling. Her emotions, already on high alert because of the pregnancy hormones, were heightened by the realization that Austin was on his side.
On Andrew’s side.
“He doesn’t work here.”
“Yeah, he does. He completed all the paperwork this morning and got right to work.” He held up a sheath of papers, which Ashton assumed was Andrew’s employment forms. “It’s good to have someone else around, I have to say.”
“For you, maybe,” she muttered before she could catch herself.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Forget it. I’m going to get started out there.”
“Ash, he was scared. Cut him some slack,” Austin called after her. She didn’t reply, thinking instead of waking up to him every morning, a look of weariness on his face that told her he hadn’t slept. Again. Or the roll of his eyes when she said she was going to run errands and the resigned look on his face when he plucked her car keys from her hand and gestured for her to go ahead.
Not asking. Not offering. Just shuffling her out to her car and driving her around like Miss Daisy, but with this broody mood hanging over his head.
She drew in a long breath before she entered the bar, remembering the stutter in his voice when she’d been on the ground in the parking lot and he’d been asking her what happened. She pictured his red eyes when she woke up in the hospital, eyes that betrayed how hard he was taking what had happened.
He just needs time. He’ll get over it. She was sure of it. After all, she’d gotten over it, helped by the fact her attacker had pleaded guilty and struck a deal, meaning she was off the hook for any further involvement with him, with the case.
Walking out into the main area of The Avenue, she walked over to where Andrew was standing in front of a couple of women. Women who were not shy in their appreciation of him.
“So, handsome. You single?” one of them purred, leaning over the bar, her tits practically spilling onto the sleek wooden top.
“No.” His gruff reply made Ashton smile, a nice change from all the scowling she was sure she’d been doing of late.
The woman tried again. “Too bad. But hey, what she doesn’t know . . .”
“I wouldn’t do that to her. She needs me,” he replied, before turning around and spotting Ashton.
Her temperature raised, her blood boiling. She needs me. Is that what he thought? Is that all he was sticking around for? She wished like hell that he hadn’t spotted her, desperate as she was to know how that conversation would have played out had he not.
“Kitten, what are you doing here?” he asked, ignoring the disappointed looks on the faces of the two women he’d been serving, and the growing frustration she was sure was evident on her own face. “You know you need to be resting. I have you covered.” He smiled at her, but it was different. Hollower.
Like he was paying lip service to a smile that should have touched his warm brown eyes, wrinkling the corners in a way that would have made her agree to anything.
Including going back to bed and resting, which she definitely did not want to be doing.
“I’m fine. I told you I’d be back today and that Doctor Renner said that was a good idea.”
“Doctor Renner should probably be sued for malpractice then,” he muttered under his breath, his voice low enough that she couldn’t be sure that’s what he said even though, in her roiling gut, she was sure.
Deciding to ignore it, she surveyed the bar, deciding that getting more bottles out here in reserve was a good idea. It was a Friday, after all. The night would be busy, and running out could be a disaster. “We need more inventory out here. I’m just going to—”
“Nothing. You’re going to nothing. I’ll get what we need.”
She clenched her fists at the interruption, knowing that he meant well. Reminding herself that he meant well. Never mind that she knew she shouldn’t be carrying the heavy cases out of the stock room, having already planned to put Austin to work. A little act of revenge for hiring her boyfriend to work behind her own bar—not as a bartender, but as a goddamn babysitter, instead.
Mouth open to respond, she just shook her head instead. If he was in such a hurry to circumvent her non-existent plans to lift all the heavy things, then fine. Let him. She needed some time to try and dislodge the stress beginning to form in her shoulders anyway.
“Little,” Aaron’s voice called to her through her front door. “We’re here and we come bearing gifts.”
She swung the door open. “Those gifts better be a muzzle for your best friend and Pringles, or else you’ll be denied admittance. Oh, not you, Simon,” she added, leaning in to give her favorite brother-in-law a hug, “you’re always welcome.”
“Thanks, Ash.” Simon returned the hug, then walked over to the sofa, making himself at home. “Better go get that muzzle, babe. Leave the Pringles, though. We’ll wait.”
“But if I bring them our muzzle, then what? I know much you love it when I—”
“And that’s enough.” Ashton held up a hand in a stop motion and grabbed the bag from Aaron’s hand, jerking her head to invite him in. “I don’t want to know what you were going to say next, so congrats, you’ve earned yourself entrée.”
Aaron gave a little fist pump, earning a laugh from both Ashton and Simon before he sat down next to his husband. “Where is Dunk anyway?”
Controlling the urge to roll her eyes at the mention of her boyfriend’s name, Ashton popped the top on the chips and answered, “Working. Downstairs. At the bar.” She shoved a handful of Pringles into her mouth and took out her aggression on them in the form of great, big chomps.
“Whoa, so ladylike,” Aaron commented, while Simon laughed into his hand at her display. She was playing it up for them, because that’s what they did, and also because if she didn’t, she might explode.
