by C. A. Harms
Chapter Twelve
Ashlynn
I’d been up the majority of my night, sick with worry, my mind racing as I attempted to calculate things in my mind. How could I have been so stupid?
Unprotected sex in the heat of the moment with a guy who in reality could be nothing more than a friend.
Beau and I had never been so careless, not even once. But throw me in a hot tub with Kyler and get me sloshed on mojitos, and I’m climbing on for a ride without a second thought. An unbelievable, I can’t seem to get it out of my mind ride, but the point is it was unprotected.
My head was pounding with a stress headache, and maybe the alcohol too. But it wasn’t that ache that I noticed first. It may have been completely reckless but I couldn’t forget the way it felt when he touched me, the words he spoke still very pronounced in my mind. If I closed my eyes I could still feel him and hear each word he spoke.
I had never felt so connected and so powerful. Even though my mind was hazy I was very present during every single moment we shared. It was raw and one of the most intense moments I’d ever felt.
But now I was just terrified.
I realized what I’d done and froze in fear of the fact that we’d used nothing to protect ourselves. Only before I could explain this to him, Hayley and Quinton reappeared. Kyler grew quiet after that, and before I knew it they were leaving and I was out of time. But that didn’t change the fact that he and I were in desperate need of a talk.
“Why do you look so perplexed first thing in the morning?” I looked to my left to find Hayley crashed in the bed next to me. “Are you feeling sick from too many mojitos?”
“Yeah, that must be it.” I’d keep my little mess-up to myself for now.
“Well, you better perk up, buttercup, because we have plans.” She climbed out of bed and left the bedroom practically skipping.
“Plans?” I hollered after her, only she said nothing in return. “Hello?”
When I realized she was lost to me and my confusion, I climbed from bed and grabbed hold of my head when it began to throb. Groaning slightly, I moved forward, my shoulder bouncing off the door jamb as I misjudged the opening and rushed from the room.
Imagining that little miss fixer upper had once again set me up to spend another day with Kyler, I entered the kitchen to find her already digging through my fridge.
“What plans?” She jumped in reaction to the sound of my voice and in the process smacked her head against the top of the refrigerator.
“Son of a—”
Turning around to face me she glared and laughter spilled from my lips.
“Sorry.” I pressed my lips together, fighting my giggles.
“We made plans with Kristen and Myra to go shopping.” She winced, rubbing the space on her head. “I think I have a concussion.”
“You do not.” Drama queen as always. “What if I don’t want to go shopping?”
“You don’t know that I don’t have a concussion.” She narrowed her eyes as if daring me to argue. I remained silent, because frankly it wasn’t worth the hassle. “I’m going to pop some Motrin, you need to go take a shower because you look like shit, and get something cute on. Whether you like it or not, we’re going shopping. You need to decorate this place so it looks like someone actually lives here.”
I looked around at the open space and couldn’t even for a second say that I disagreed. It was still so empty.
The sound of the doorbell triggered a displeased groan from me and I imagined two more overly excited ladies outside who would also give me shit about being such a downer.
“And here they are.” Hayley skipped around me still holding her hand to her head. She looked ridiculous, and even with the worry still lingering in my mind I couldn’t keep from smiling.
That was until she opened the door and my heart felt as if it dropped to my feet.
“Hi.” Beau stood just on the opposite side, holding flowers in his hand. He was dressed in a fitted pair of jeans and a taut t-shirt that seemed too stretched by the muscles beneath. As if his presence alone wasn’t hard enough, seeing Kyler standing near him only a few feet back made it so much worse.
“Seems I’ve missed a few things while I was gone.”
His words caused a panic inside me, and I’m not sure why, but my hands shook at my sides.
Kyler lifted his hands and held up not one, but two Starbucks coffees. “I was just explaining to Beau that I was here to see my girl.” I tried not to react because frankly I was worried about what was about to take place. There was no way Beau would accept what had taken place between Kyler and I without blowing up.
“I never would have put the two of you together.” Beau chuckled when he looked back over his shoulder at Kyler. “But hey, good luck with that one, man.”
Kyler moved past him, and as he stepped inside, he hooked his arm around Hayley’s shoulders and pulled her close. When he nuzzled her hair and whispered something near her ear, my heart literally ached in my chest.
I watched as she reluctantly looked over at me before carefully taking the coffee from him and brought it to her lips, sipping it slowly. “Mm, my favorite.”
The entire scene was surreal, watching my best friend hold onto the man who, less than twelve hours ago, I had sex with in a hot tub.
“Just thought I’d stop by and bring you a coffee.” Kyler spoke to Hayley, but looked over her head at me. “I guess I missed you.”
I could sense the struggle in his expression.
Hayley still had no idea what was going on, or maybe she did know. I still wasn’t sure what it was Kyler had told her.
“Ash.” I looked away from Kyler’s intense stare to find Beau looking at me with a curious expression. I still wasn’t really sure why we were playing that game, the “nothing happened between us, I’m with Hayley” game.
“Do you think we can talk for a minute?” Beau seemed almost hopeful.
“Why would she want to talk to you?” Hayley barked as she tried to step away from Kyler, only he held her tighter. I knew it was an act, but I hated that she was in his arms.
I could hear Beau and Hayley going back and forth, but to be honest, I couldn’t tell you a word either of them actually spoke. I was entirely too focused on the way Kyler soothingly rubbed Hayley’s back and the ache it all caused in my chest.
“Listen, why don’t we take off and let them talk?” I focused on Kyler, feeling as if he kicked me in the stomach. “They need to work out whatever it is going on between them without us here hovering.”
“Are you fucking insane?” Hayley was angry as she pushed against his chest. “They don’t have anything to talk about. You of all people should realize that she is over their joke of a relationship.”
“How would Kyler know anything about Ashlynn or the way she and I feel?” Beau stepped further into the house and I noticed the death grip he had on the flowers in his hands. They were bent at an awkward angle, the stems nearly split in two. “I thought Kyler was with you?”
Hayley bounced back with a quick recovery. “Yeah, asshole, and being with me gives him first dibs on my rants. So when I’m bitching about what a prick you are and how you cheated on my best friend like it was so damn easy, he gets to hear all those rants.”
“Leave.” They all turned around and finally stopped focusing on one another. “Just leave.”
“You hear that? She said leave, Beau.” Hayley crossed her arms over her chest, looking satisfied with the outcome.
“All of you.” She stood frozen, a shocked look covering her features. “I just need to be alone.”
“What about our shopping trip?”
I didn’t even take the time to reply as I turned around and begin walking toward my room.
This morning I actually allowed myself to believe Kyler was a sweet guy. He was different. But he wasn’t, he was a coward.
***
“You gonna tell me what’s going on with you and Kyler?” Hayley sat on the edge of my bed, but
I didn’t look at her. Instead I focused on the television. “All I know is Kyler shows up announcing that he and I are an item. Then he’s whispering some bullshit in my ear about this not being the time to tell Beau. So I ask again, what is going on between the two of you that Beau doesn’t need to know about?”
Hayley lasted ten minutes outside before she came right back in, demanding to know what was going on. Her persistence was annoying.
“Nothing.”
“Since when do you and I lie to one another?”
I rolled to my back and glared at her. “You’re impossible and nosy.” My comment did nothing to faze her. “Fine, something happened.”
“Something as in?”
“Do I need to spell it out for you?”
“Yes,” she nodded, “in explicit detail.”
“Fine.” I pushed my body up off the bed and slid backward, resting against the headboard. “Before you and Quinton decided to join us in the hot tub, he and I—”
“You and he what?”
“Oh my god, are you serious? You are not that dense.”
“I just want to hear you say it.” She shrugged, waiting for me to respond.
“We had sex. Are you happy now?”
“I’m extremely happy. I already told you I was Team Kyler.” Kicking off her shoes, she climbed further onto the bed. “What I want to know is what happened after that?”
“That’s the thing, nothing.” I said with a shrug. “You two showed up, then he and I sorta went silent. We didn’t talk after that and then he left.” I had been going over it in my mind wondering the same things. “Then he shows up here today at the same time as Beau, who I didn’t even know was back yet. Kyler decides to play this weird game of who’s dating who, and then you know the rest.”
“The two of them left here after a real heated conversation in the driveway.”
“How heated?”
“I heard Beau tell him that if he found out different, shit was going to blow up. Then Kyler assured him there wasn’t anything?”
“There wasn’t anything what?”
She shrugged looking confused. “That I don’t know, because I didn’t hear the beginning of the conversation or the end, I just got bits and pieces.”
***
“I could see the regret in your eyes, Ashlynn.” I sat in silence as I listened to him tell me how he thought I felt, irritated with each word because I thought he was different. “I showed up to tell you that I should have stopped things. We were drinking, and had you been in your right mind, we wouldn’t have gone through with it.”
“That’s so noble of you, Kyler.”
“Come on, Ash, you know I’m right.”
I hmmphed in laughter. “What I know is that I woke up thinking about you, for various reasons. Not one of those reasons were regret for what had happened.”
Silence was all I heard and I found myself hoping he was feeling like a complete ass.
“But I’ll make this easy for you, let’s just categorize that night as a drunken mistake. You can go on living your life like it never happened and I’ll do the same.”
I didn’t even attempt to listen to what else he had to say before hanging up.
Chapter Thirteen
Kyler
“Kyler, get in here.” I came to a screeching halt just outside my father’s office. Taking a step back, I peeked inside the open door and found him sitting in his chair with two men sitting opposite him.
“Gentlemen, meet my son.” He held his hand out toward me, motioning me to come in further. “This kid right here is a genius when it comes to cars, bikes, and the mechanics. Give him any car out there and he’ll have that thing purring. I always thought he’d be a race car driver with the way he handles the wheel, but he chose to follow in my footsteps instead.”
“Where else can I test out a different car and motorcycle each day of the month?”
The men chuckled and my father joined them.
Stanley Harrington, the owner of not one, not two, but ten different automotive dealerships throughout the state of California, was my father. He had every type of vehicle you could think of in at least one of his locations. There was the Chevy dealership in L.A., the Ford dealership in San Diego, and then the various BMW and Mercedes stores that stretched from one end of the state to another. He also had two locations that carried Ducati Sports bikes; this location in Santa Barbara was one of them.
We loved our vehicles, and I really loved our bikes. It was a common rush my father and I shared. Pure adrenaline, the need for speed, and the power of the revving engine, all of it was like our own form of crack. Nothing was better that that rush—okay, so there was one thing better.
Until my night with Ashlynn I’d never thought anything would make me feel the same type of thrill as climbing up on my Ducati Super Sport and flying through the hills near sunset. Beautiful scenery with the wind whistling by was the most amazing feeling.
But one night with her and I knew I was wrong. The reminder of her last words hit me and my stomach tensed. I thought I’d seen regret, I thought I’d make it easy and give her an out. Now I just felt like the one chance I had with her was gone because I had to go in with my ego on high alert and now I was backed into a fucking corner.
“These are the men behind those bikes you love so much.”
They each stood and shook my hand one by one. “Well, I thank you,” and I did. From the day I got my motorcycle license I’d been addicted.
“We’d like to discuss an opportunity with you,” the older, taller of the two announced as he motioned for me to take a seat next to them.
By the smile on my father’s face I assumed he already knew what it was they wanted to discuss.
“We’d like to use this location to launch our new campaign. The hills of Santa Barbara seem like the perfect place to highlight the speed and handling of our new line.”
“You don’t need our permission to shoot in Santa Barbara.”
The older man chuckled and he looked between me and my father.
“No, son, but I do need your permission to shoot you upon that bike.”
I was momentarily speechless.
“Wait.” I know I had to have a confused as fuck look on my face. “You want to shoot me in a commercial?”
“Not just a commercial, Kyler, but a campaign, posters, billboards, all of it.”
“A few small roles in a couple of commercials doesn’t entitle me to this type of deal. You want someone bigger, more known in your commercial, believe me.”
“No, we’d have to disagree. You are a man who loves his bikes and that shows in the way you ride. You may not be a professional, but you ride like one.”
I left feeling intrigued by the adventure that had been laid out before me, excited to be offered the chance to be filmed doing something that I truly loved. I found the first person I wanted to share the news with was Ashlynn. Prior to my idiotic move to call her up and attempt to explain my actions she and I had developed a friendship, or so I thought. A friendship that changed to something more real fast, but again I fucked that up.
Climbing on my bike, I kicked back the stand and revved the motor, unable to control the smile that covered my lips. I fucking loved that sound.
I rode through the winding roads that led to my condo, hidden up in the hills. I loved the location because it gave the most amazing view of Santa Barbara. I took the long way home, simply enjoying the ride, allowing myself to imagine sharing my love for the ride with the world. I just wasn’t sure the fame part was me.
It had been something I’d experienced in a small sense growing up, but it was never something I really found myself enjoying. Hollywood was something many friends called me as a joke, one that Beau had started, but that life, it wasn’t for me.
As I rounded the corner and turned up my drive, my stomach felt like it plummeted. There in my driveway, leaning against the side of his Beamer, was Beau, his arms crossed over his chest, a look of irritation on his
face.
Slowly I came to a stop and kicked out the stand before turning off my bike and removing my helmet.
“Hey,” he said, pushing off his car and moving toward me. I fully expected him to punch me so when he threw his arm over my shoulder and pulled me in for a brotherly hug I was shocked. “I think you and I need to talk. Shit got a little uncomfortable the other day and I wanna apologize.”
“Apologize for what?”
“For thinking something’s going on between you and Ash. I should have known better.” That was my chance to clear this between us, tell him the truth, only I didn’t. “You’re a loyal friend, Ky, you always have been. I guess I just don’t know how to accept that there may not be anything I can do to get her back.”
I nodded, hoping this was his way of agreeing to let go.
“I finished up things early in Charlotte so I could get back here. My dad had a real change of attitude after this guy I know threatened to beat his ass and toss him out of a fifth story window.”
I couldn’t keep myself from chuckling at that. Fucking asshole deserved it.
“I know I made mistakes, huge ones. Not only with Ashlynn, but with you too.” When he said her name I felt territorial, like he had no right to even speak her name. “Noelle was a mistake, an epic one. I love Ash.” His words made my stomach feel sour. “I’m gonna win her back, I have to. She’s it for me, Kyler. I don’t know what I was thinking, but with all the pressures of my father and work I really fucked things up. I don’t know how I’m gonna get her to forgive me, but I have to. I have to prove to her that I do love her and that if she’d give me just one more chance, I’ll never hurt her again.”
Part of me wanted to tell him to back the fuck off and that she was mine. Then there was that piece of me that doubted whatever it was that Ashlynn and I had or could’ve had if I had just kept my damn mouth shut.
“Can you help me get her back?”
His question caught me off guard, and what do I do as a reaction? I nodded, like some dumb fuck who had completely lost his mind.
