Ash: A Bad Boy Romance

by Lexi Whitlow

  I’ve been thinking about the man with the red hair, the one I agreed to go home with. The one in the dim light of the bar who brushed a lock of my hair behind my ear and told me that I was beautiful, even if I was his for only one night.

  But shit.

  There are more important things to think about.

  I thought moving to New York for medical school would protect me from my family drama—my mother and her constantly failing bed and breakfast—but coming to live with my aunt in my last year of medical school has done anything but remove me from family drama.

  I wring out the cooling rag into the kitchen sink and soak it with scalding water again.

  “You don’t need to wash that bar a third time,” my aunt says. Bianca Colington is sitting in the corner of her bar, one of the last of its kind in the Irish corner of Hell’s Kitchen, a holdover from years ago. She peers at me over the rim of her glasses.

  “I have nothing else to do,” I tell her. “School is done, and I’m not starting my residency just yet. Maybe I’ll do Doctors without Borders or something instead.”

  She blows a puff of smoke out of the window. “A mistake if you ask me, child. Your mother needs you home. I need you in the States. That’s how it is.”

  “My mother needs to sell the inn,” I reply, swallowing hard. And you need to sell this fucking bar, B. Two sisters, too much alike. Both of them have more baggage than I care to think about, and the debt collectors have started to harass them both.

  Bianca just watches me wipe down the bar, steam rising from the hot rag, burning my palm. I glance up at her, and she watches me with her cool green eyes. Like my mother, my aunt Bianca was once devastatingly beautiful. Strawberry blond hair, deep green eyes, and broad, Irish cheekbones. Now she just looks tired. But from time to time, there are hints of a woman I never knew. She was once able to keep the Irish Family off her back somehow, but with the growing money concerns, she’s in debt to them. I won’t say it, and she won’t admit it, but that’s the reason I’m wiping down this bar right now and not on my way home to start a residency.

  “Cullen’s men are coming to get the money.” Bianca stubs out her cigarette and drops it into an empty beer bottle. She coughs into her sleeve and gets up, slower than she should for a forty year-old woman. “After this, we’re scrambling to make payments. I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this.” As always, her voice is clipped. When she speaks to me, there’s a distance there I can’t quite define. She never pulls me into fierce hugs like my mother does. It almost seems like Bianca was meant to be the older sister, and my mother, the younger one—enthusiastic and open where Bianca is cold.

  I could tell my aunt I’m sorry I’m in the middle of it too, but I put myself here. Just like I put myself in that redheaded man’s apartment two weeks back. I suppress a shiver, thinking of him. I shouldn’t have gone to that stupid bar. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. But I knew I found it when he whispered in my ear and sent chills running down my body. He had it—the only thing that could take me away from all of this.

  I shake out the rag in the sink again. It’s as clean as the bar is and still smells of bleach. Something about that smell makes me feel desolate. Instead of getting away from my family’s mistakes, I’m wrapped up in the middle.

  At 9:45, we hear cars pull in, come to collect on Bianca’s loan—with interest. Up until now, the boss hasn’t come along with them. But now, Cullen Flood strolls through the door, his face unmistakable, a long scar in place of one eye. His single, milky blue eye passes over me like I’m nothing, and he strolls to Bianca and sits down across from her.

  She pales, hands shaking, and pulls back from him. “Cullen,” she says. “I didn’t know you were coming this time.”

  “We’re old friends, B.” He nods back to me. “Whiskey, neat. Bring it over, girl.”

  As I pour the whiskey, I hear car doors slamming outside. A man I don’t recognize—short and red-faced, with watery eyes—strolls in, followed by a very tall man. Shadows cross over his face so I can’t quite get a good look at him. But there’s something that strikes me deep in my core, like my body recognizes him before my brain does.

  My mouth drops open, and my attention turns away from my aunt’s conversation with Cullen. There’s a tattoo on the tall man’s right forearm, visible in the dim light even though his face isn’t. I see its details, the red and blue colors mixing together—a sword and cross—just before he puts his hand in his pocket and steps toward Cullen.

  My chest tightens, fear mixing with something deep and insistent, a pulse that’s been running through me at a low thrum since the night he first touched me.

  His eyes meet mine for a moment, and his brows furrow for one instant. He walks toward me and takes the whiskey I’ve poured over to Cullen, his finger barely brushing against mine.

  With his back toward Cullen, he winks at me and leans in close. “Hey there, Sunshine.”

  A jolt runs through my body, sending heat to muscles I didn’t even know I had. I feel like my heart might stop, but somehow, it keeps on going. I watch as the man I slept with, despite all of my better judgment, sits down beside the man who’s been threatening my aunt for months.

  “This is Jonathan Ash,” Cullen says. “Former fighter, now a member of the Family. He’ll be watching your bar and making sure everything goes smoothly from here on out.”

  Holy. Shit.

  Present Day

  I keep waiting for Ash to pop up again during my shift, but he doesn’t. For once, it seems like he listened to me. When I left for Syria, I emailed him and told him to never contact me again, but he emailed me back anyway—again and again until I closed the account altogether. And then there were the letters. All in his tiny, cursive writing that was impossible to read, on what I assumed was college-ruled notebook paper. That’s what it looked like when I held the letters up to the light. But I didn’t open them, not a one. I only knew he didn’t show up to sign the divorce papers, and that he didn’t respond to any one of the summons I’d sent for him. And then he’d fallen off the face of the earth, and the letters stopped coming.

  I comb out my hair and change from my scrubs, my body still alight from seeing him. I feel a pang of disgust from the excitement that’s coursed through me during my entire twelve-hour shift, but I can’t exactly fault myself when a man stumbles into the room looking like that.

  Why does the thought of him still thrill me, like it used to? It shouldn’t. He’s trouble, with about three or four capital T’s. I know what’s at the end of any road with him.

  I throw my scrubs angrily inside my locker and adjust my top. It’s one of the Doctors without Borders shirts I picked up in my three years away. It hugs my breasts and stretches the MSF logo across the shirt.

  “Medecins sans frontières,” I mumble. “I dodged bullets for three years and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

  And I thought about Ash every day.

  My hand still feels his, fingertips pressing against mine, like they used to in the frenzied months after we first met. Young and stupid. It was like he’d never grown up, and I had the idiotic idea that we’d do it together. But he’d certainly proven that idea wrong in the end. I put on my windbreaker—even in June, the winds whip in from the Albemarle Sound and can be biting even when the day has been humid and hot.

  Calm down. You’ll deal with him, and it’ll be over with once and for all.

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Before I leave, I look around and silently welcome myself to my new life. I knew this part of it would be hard, but I didn’t know how quickly it would sneak up on me.

  Throwing my purse over my shoulder, I stride confidently out of the residents’ changing room. I walk left for about ten feet before I realize I should be going right.

  “Damn fluorescent lights,” I mutter. My muscle memory will adapt soon enough, and I’ll fall into a rhythm. If it weren’t for that stupid man showing up. With any luck, he’ll leave me alone until I can
gather my thoughts. I’d figured I’d be driving up to New York and trying to find him there, or scouring through the letters I never read. But he’d been here all this time. And when I was done running, when I thought it was all okay, I’d ended right back where I started.

  Isn’t that the way of things.

  I walk down the yellow tile floors to the exit, and the doors to the waiting room open. When I reach the revolving door that leads to my car outside and the world that lies beyond this hospital, I can see a tall figure standing outside, obscured by the glass.

  It’s not him. It’s not.

  But I’d know him anywhere, across any distance that stood between us.

  “Shit, shit. Shit.” I look around. It’s probably not a good precedent to set for a doctor to stand around muttering to herself on the first day of work. If I walk around to the back of the hospital, there’s no way for me to get to the parking lot, and if I wait it out in the dressing room, there’s no guarantee he’ll go the hell away like he should. My stomach growls. I haven’t eaten since the cake this morning, and the idea of fish and grits has been toying with me all day. I clench and unclench my fists and push my way through the revolving door. Ash is standing right in front of me.

  “Sunshine—”

  “Don’t start. I just want a burger. Or some grits.” Ash didn’t know what grits were when I first met him, and he’d certainly never heard of fish and grits. But he’s been here for three years now, living a whole life without me. And I would reckon he knows plenty about grits now, even if he usually orders the steak and potatoes.

  “You need something to eat, looks like.” He gives me a once over, eyes lingering too long before they rise again and meet my face. He cocks his head to the side and gives me a grin.

  “Ash, what I really need is for you to just get out of my way and cooperate when I send the papers this time. MSF didn’t ask any questions when I listed myself as married. But people here are going to ask.”

  “What’d you do, leave it blank on the paperwork?” A hot blush starts to rise in my cheeks, and Ash’s grin grows wider, like he’s enjoying this. “Or did you tick it off so little that Della wouldn’t notice it?”

  “Debbie.”

  “Debbie, that’s right.” He steps closer to me, the ugly cut on his arm covered in a bandage that somehow got ratty between this morning and now. There’s a fresh bruise spreading over his jawline, and I wonder if it’s from sparring—or if he’s back in the game like he used to be, picking fights with people who can’t pay up. It’s sleepier down here, but there’s no shortage of D-rate criminals to get involved with. And it never seemed like Ash was too picky. I move to go towards my car, but he puts one arm out and scoots over to block me, legs spread like he’s getting ready for a fight.

  My heart catches in my throat. Something tells me that if he touches me again—if I feel that calloused hand against my skin, I might incinerate from the inside. Even being this close to him makes me feel weirdly hot. “Ash, can you fucking not?”

  “Can I fucking not what? Not touch you? Not be in your line of vision? What?”

  “All of the fucking above! Get out!” I shout. “Go! Just show up when I tell you to. We need to get this settled.” My voice is hoarse, cracking as I shout at him. Several of the patients, including a mom with a new baby, look our way as they pass, giving us a wide berth. I try to duck to the side again, but I can’t avoid him this time, and he catches me by the arm. His hand holds me tight, but not hard enough to leave a bruise. He was never like that. Just firm enough that I can’t wrench myself free.

  “We need to get what settled? Our divorce?” He pulls me in close, his bicep rippling with muscle. His skin looks healthier and fresher than it did when I first met him. My eyes move down his shoulder and to his arm again. He’s definitely bigger. That uncomfortable heat comes back, starting deep in the pit of my stomach and moving lower, lower, lower.

  No, no. NO.

  “Let. Me. Go. I have a shift at six again tomorrow morning, and I need some food—”

  “I’ll take you out to dinner.”

  “No. I’m not going anywhere with you—”

  “If you’d give me a chance to explain—”

  “Explain what?” I try to break free again, but he won’t let me.

  He wipes the smirk off of his face and looks at me seriously. “Did you read my emails? Any of the letters?”

  “No,” I say, knitting my brows. “I read the first email, saying you wanted to talk to me, but after that I deleted them.”

  “Goddammit, Summer.” He lets my arm go, and I nearly run off to my car, but something about his tone stops me.

  “What? What were you going to say to me to undo what you did?”

  “What I did? What about what you did—running off to God knows where after all that shit—”

  “All the shit you put me through, you mean.” My voice cracks again, but I stand firm and stare at him. His hair almost looks white in the twilight, and I wonder what he might look like as an old man. Distinguished, maybe. With a scar across his cheek that I patched. That scar will always be with him, every day of his life. I purse my lips, and Ash is silent. He crosses his arms, muscles pulling against his shirt sleeves. He’s changed into a gray t-shirt, like the one he was wearing when I first saw him. “You want me to spell it out? You left me long before I ever left you, Ash. You talked me into an obligation—”

  “I saved your aunt.” His eyes don’t leave mine. “And I—” He pauses and looks down. “I saved you, didn’t I?”

  “You’re just as arrogant as you’ve always been. I needed you then, and you abandoned me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m fucking starving.” Even though my words ring true when I say them, I’m not moving. I’d forgotten what it was like to be stuck in this man’s thrall.

  I’ve stayed hung up on him for three years—that’s not something he needs to know. I might even forgive him—but that’s not a road I’m willing to go down.

  He takes a pack of cigarettes from his jeans. “Trying to quit. But I’ve quit everything else. This is my last vice. Two a day.” He gestures the pack at me, and even though I want one, I shake my head. He shrugs and takes out a cigarette, and I watch as he lights it and takes a long drag. “Come on. Let me take you to dinner,” he says, exhaling a plume of smoke.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You owe a man that.” He puffs a ring of white smoke, and it dissipates quickly in the breeze.

  “I didn’t think I owed you much of anything,” I say, my tone haughty. He married me, which saved me from getting punted out of New York with a scar on my face or a bullet in my knee—and then he let me leave by myself, refusing to sign the divorce papers, refusing to come with me. Seems pretty cut and dried—I don’t owe him time or explanations. He’s the one who broke my heart.

  My chest grips at the thought of him, the promises he made back then.

  I shouldn’t have associated promises from a sham relationship with anything real. That was my mistake. And I shouldn’t be standing here right now, letting him look me up and down, letting him lure me in with a grin and a half-baked explanation after three years of hurt.

  “Blue Moon Diner. They have crab cakes right now.” He takes another drag from his cigarette, and I cross my arms against the breeze. I was going that direction anyway, and I need to get him to sign some papers before he goes mouthing off about being married to me. I don’t think my employers—or my mom—would take too kindly to a random, violent husband showing up out of nowhere.

  “Okay,” I mutter. “Fine. I’ll meet you there.”

  “What was that, Sunshine?” His mouth lifts into a grin, and he steps closer to me. My pulse quickens, and I gulp. I step back again, nearly falling off the curb and onto the hard, black asphalt.

  “I said okay. But don’t think I’m buying what you’re selling. I’ll meet you there.”

  “I’d prefer if you came in my truck, but I guess we can’t have everything.”

/>   “No. We can’t have everything.” I turn and walk to my car, my back to Ash and his soul-melting gaze. His steps fall in line right behind me, then he gets into a polished silver pickup three cars down from mine. “If you can afford that—” I shout, gesturing to the truck, “You’re buying dinner.”

  He nods, and I follow him down the road.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Three Years, Five Months Ago

  Her name is Summer.

  The girl.

  The one I went back to the bar looking for.

  Turns out this is the bar I should have been coming to all along. Turns out it’s hard to pick up a woman when you’ve been sent to threaten her family. And with the talk from Cullen, it’s clear that Bianca is short on her payments. And she’ll continue to be.

  There’s something about this girl—something that makes the prospect of burning down the bar where she lives or breaking her aunt’s fingers—that starts a pit of nausea in my gut. Cullen says she could be the lynchpin, the key to bleeding Bianca dry. I don’t know why he’s so hung up on this one woman, on the measly amount of interest she’s paying him each month. But he’s determined as fuck, and Bianca is directly in his crosshairs.

  That means Summer is too.

  I’m sitting in what qualifies as a park in this neighborhood, eyes on Bianca’s Pub. If I lean to the left, I can see Summer when she comes down the stairs to the bar and begins wiping down the tables for the night. She’s not there yet, but I check my phone and see that it’s five. She’ll be down in about thirty seconds. I close my eyes so that when I open them, she’ll be standing there and I can watch her for a moment before she sees me.

  I imagine taking her back to my apartment again, slipping off one of those tight, white tops she wears while she’s tending bar, cupping those gravity-defying tits and taking them into my mouth until I hear her delicate whimper.

  When I open my eyes, Summer Colington is standing across the street, arms crossed under her creamy tits. She’s drinking the remainder of a beer and staring at me with an expression that could turn boiling water to ice.