Chapter Thirty-Four
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Ashland
“Are you ok?” she asked after we were back inside the penthouse.
“Yeah, why do you ask?” Bullshit deflection. My tone was noticeably defensive. I should ask her if she was ok after the things with my mom and then seeing me lose my shit with that street punk.
“No reason, I guess.” She backed away from me looking unsure.
Fuck. Tonight had not gone the way I had wanted it to at all. I needed to regroup before I proceeded. I was not ready for our talk.
“I’m going to the roof. Bang around for a while. I need to be alone.”
“Of course you do. It’s your personal space. I’ll leave you to it.”
I nodded curtly. I needed my drums. I needed to pummel them while I considered long and hard how to fix this. Was it fixable? Did we continue going forward at the speed we were going? This morning in my bedroom together. Then the studio. That song. The kiss. Her beside me again with my friends. So good. Then later. My mom. The retribution I had dispensed. I’d wanted to kill El Jefe. He had been on the ground his arm shattered, yet I’d wanted to hurt him more. Only knowing she was there had restrained me. I’d acted too much like her stepfather. Like Linc’s father. Relishing bringing pain to someone else. Not so admirable. So should I put on the brakes with Fanny? There was so much against us. A pipe dream with all of my issues and who she was. Already I was corrupting her bright outlook with my cynicism. Her song had proven it. Then there were other things. She was so eager to please me. I liked…no I loved that. But was that only her gratitude toward me? Or was that her spirit being in sync with mine? She was so sweet, so full of hope. I was so not either of those things.
And here we were now with her staring at me expectantly.
“Do you need anything before I go?” I asked telling myself to tread softly.
She shook her head. “I’ll find Hollie. I mean, I hear her iPad. She’s in the bedroom. You don’t have to entertain me, Ash. Thanks for dinner. For surfing earlier.” Her hands flapped in front of her body like a little bird trying to fly, but unable to in the face of the stiff and unpredictable wind that I represented.
I lifted my chin. “You’re welcome,” I managed lamely.
“Yes, ok, alright.” Her arms settled at her sides. “Well, goodnight.” Hesitating, she looked like she was considering saying something else, but in the end she only bobbed her head, turned and walked away.
“Goodnight, little one,” I whispered, but she was already too far removed to hear me. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe a little more space would be better. Room to reestablish boundaries. To clarify roles. If I was going to sail this ship, it would be easier to do if she was more like a crew member than a co-captain. I was better at giving commands than consulting others about them.
Shaking my head at myself and my indecision, I spun in the opposite direction from Fanny. Crossing the apartment, my movements were briskly efficient, my jerky strides as agitated as my thoughts. I hit the stairs. I took them fast. Up at the top in seconds, my drums were almost in reach, yet I had to pause. My cell was ringing again. Taking it out, I saw my dad’s face on the screen and sighed, the wind carrying my exasperation away.
“Hey dad,” I answered while continuing to my kit. The ocean was a steady comforting roar in the background, but my guts were churning like the Pacific during a squall. They had been since that first phone call from him. “Everything ok at the hospital?”
“Yes. I’m sorry about tonight.”
Ah, so no new crisis. The churn calmed a bit.
“It’s ok. It’s not a big deal,” I reassured him. He was almost as apologetic as my mom was after recovering from one of her episodes. I got more reserved, pulling back to basic controllable variables. Structure comforted me. He knew that. When I was little, and she was having trouble, I went to my room and organized my closet. When I got older, I played my drums. He did what he usually did, enduring her extravagant behavior, buffering her from harm the best he could, standing at the ready to catch her when she inevitably crashed. We each had our own ways of dealing. “I was glad I could be there to help. I just feel sorry for you.”
“I called the store like you suggested. There weren’t any cameras inside.”
“That’s a relief.”
We were lucky the family run market hadn’t decided to join the current century technology wise. Video surveillance cameras were almost everywhere in Ocean Beach nowadays. The Rite Aid had them. The pier had the OB cam. Not much stupid stuff you could do in a public place without it being widely disseminated on the internet. “Love you, son. Thanks again for helping out.”
“You’re welcome, Dad.” On my stool now, I leaned forward and reached for my sticks.
“I like your girl.” I wondered if he would go there tonight. The answer was yes, obviously. “She’s quiet, but I talked to her a bit.”
“You did, huh?” I sat up straighter on my seat. “What’d you talk about?”
“This and that. I showed her your old room where Linc and you used to sleep. Your trophies from drum line. The ones from baseball, too, before you gave it and the drum line up for the Dirt Dogs.”
“So you bored her in other words.”
“Oh no. She was very interested. Asked about your grades, the subjects you liked. The girlfriends you had.”
I bet she did.
“What’d you tell her?”
“That you were salutatorian. How you favored math and science. Facts and figures. Cause and effect. How you never got serious with anyone, mostly because you didn’t know how people would react to your mom and the major episodes she had more frequently back then.”
Oh great.
“Anything else?” The storm kicked up in my gut again like a gale wind.
“No. I just told her that after Linc came to stay with us regularly that you were really too busy to date. That you were very dedicated to him. Your career. That kind of thing. I didn’t want her to think you’re one of those men who can’t commit to anything.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that.” The obstacles to us even getting near a committed relationship would probably scuttle any chance of that. “You should get some sleep, Dad.”
“One more thing.” Oh fuck. “Remember what I always told you about women?”
“Which thing?”
“It’s not the way she looks on the outside that should matter most, but the way she looks at you. A woman’s eyes tell you a lot. And son, your Fanny can’t keep her eyes off you.”
“Yeah. She’s a fan of the band.” I was making excuses for her interest. In the likely case it turned soon. Thanks to my mom and now my dad she probably had a really good idea, not only how fucked up in the head I generally was, but why. Given her intuition probably only confirmation of conclusions she had already drawn. Dots to follow to connect the lines. My mom’s mental illness. The way we coped with it. My inability to hold my shit together. Sending that fuckstick who had hurt her to the ground. Control. I had lacked it tonight, but I was going to regain it. She needed to know she could trust me. That I could handle myself and take care of her. Take care of us.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and when I removed it, I saw her, standing in a puddle of light from the stairwell. “Hey, Dad I gotta go. Fanny’s here. I’ll call and check up on you both in the morning.”
After we said goodnight, I clicked off and focused on her, dressed for bed and sexy as an emerald goddess in that green robe. Heaven help me. Could my control be tested anymore tonight? She wore a pair of pink striped socks at least, so I didn’t have to fuss at her overly about being out here in the cool damp night air barefoot.
“Fanny, come here.” I set down my cell on a lattice side table and beckoned to her.
Her pensive expression lightening, she moved toward me. Had she been worried about my reception? I probably hadn’t been as communicative or as gentle as I should have been when we’d returned to the penthouse.
“Was that your dad you were talking to?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“He’s pretty awesome, you know.”
I nodded. He was. So was my mom. But she hadn’t gotten a chance to see that tonight.
“Everything ok? With your mom, I mean.”
“Yes. No cameras in the store. Only a few witnesses. She’ll be embarrassed in the morning. The depression is the part she needs to avoid now. She’s got an appointment with her psychiatrist. Hopefully she won’t have too severe of a downward turn. Talking. Understanding. The right medication, of course. All that helps.”
“Love,” she added and cleared her voice. “She has a lot of that. Your dad. You. Linc. Simone.”
I nodded. She was right. My mom had plenty of that. But was love really part of this particular equation? “How’s Hollie doing?” I needed off the subject of my mom so I could proceed on to the subject of us.
“She’s fine. She’s binge re-watching Gilmore Girls. She’s halfway through season two already.”
“Good. Fanny. We need to talk…”
“Ash, can I talk to you?”
We both smiled as we spoke over each other.
“You go first, little one.”
“Ok, but can I come up there with you?”
“How so? The drum kit was between us. I kind of liked it that way given the things I planned to say. But, oh no. Not Fanny. Or the universe that seemed determined to fuck with my control.
“Like this.” She scooted around my drum set, side shimmied along the narrow gap behind it and the wall, stopped in front of me, put her hands on my shoulders and proceeded to climb right onto my lap.
“Fanny,” I protested on a groan as she wrapped her legs around me. “This isn’t talking.” Her robe had gaped open at the top and the bottom, giving me an enticing eyeful of her sexy curves and creamy skin. “What are you doing?”
“I wanted to kiss you again. And I think better when we’re close. Plus, you looked so alone back here.”
“With you in this position I’m not thinking about talking. I’m thinking about fucking your mouth with my tongue and your cunt with my cock.”
Her eyes went wide like a new moon.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Unleash all of my pent-up passion on her. She wasn’t ready for me to do that. “So climb off, darlin’. Let’s talk.”
“What if I want the other first?” She brought her hand up, her gaze dropping as she touched her fingertips to my mouth. “Can’t we talk later?” She started to trace my lips like I’d done to hers. Pleasure made my muscles tense. The chains of my self-control rattled. The links groaned from the pressure or was that me for real? I didn’t know.
“Uh-uh.” I grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand back. We had to do this according to a plan. My plan. “Off my lap, babe.”
“Ok.” Her eyes remained wide but not with shock anymore. I’d hurt her feelings. She scrambled off my lap and backed away so abruptly as I stood that she bumped my kit with her ass.
“Here.” I took her hand and led her sideways through the gap away from the drums. “Let’s go inside. Downstairs. To the living room.” Her sitting in one chair preferably and me in another. Separation. Distance. “We do need to talk, and you’re underdressed for outdoors.”
I could see the trepidation in her expression as we walked across the roof. I felt the tremors in her hand as we hit the stairwell and descended the stairs side by side.
“Maybe we should talk another night,” she said once we were downstairs. “You don’t seem like yourself. I should have left you alone to play your drums. I was just worried after all that happened, and I thought… well, that maybe I could get your mind off things and comfort you.” Her voice quaked.
“No, we talk now. Get some things straight and out in the open. This is me. I am being myself. There are more parts to me than you’ve seen, and we haven’t talked about them. The things I said on the roof? I still want to do them to you. What we did in my bedroom this morning. I want to do more of that, too. Step by step when I decide. When I’m ready. When the timing is right. At the moment, I feel like I’m doing them out of order. Kneeling in front of you at the beach. Pouring my heart out to you…”
“I did that, too.” She cut in. “In the lyrics to my song. I put my heart and my hope for us to music. The guy from the beach and the girl from the hills, that’s us. But you’re making it complicated. When you don’t, it’s simple and our feelings match. We’re on the same page.”
“We’re not on the same page. We’re not the same people we were at the Oscars. Or at least I’m not. I’m HIV positive. And what that means for you is only the first of many things I want to discuss.”
“Oh.” The glow in her eyes faded.
“I want you. That is a fact. Do not get the opposite idea inside your head. Only you can’t come onto me like you did up on the roof without any warning. I have to be careful with you. I need to have things planned out. Boundaries need to be set. Sit down,” I gestured to the chair I’d sat in when Renee had gotten fucked hard in front of me.
“Alright.” Fanny lowered herself into it, looking dazed as she drew the lapels of her robe together and arranged it to cover as much of her thighs as the short hem would allow.
“Good. This is better.” I took seat on the ottoman, leaned forward and reached for her clasped hands.
“Now we can both think better.” I squeezed her fingers and let them go. “You’re too distracting, too sexy in that robe. Everything’s going to be alright,” I reassured her, disturbed that she didn’t even crack a smile from my compliments. “You liked what we did this morning, right?”
“Yes. You know I did, Ash. But I don’t understand why you keep asking me that or what’s going on right now. You’re not making sense.”
“I’m trying to. Be patient with me. This isn’t a conversation I’ve ever had before.”
“No?” she asked, her brow creased.
“No,” I confirmed. “You do remember what I told you about the kiss? How it’s an intimacy I’ve never shared with anyone else?”
“Yes.” Her eyes brightened. “So you believe we have something real, something worth building on between us. I wasn’t certain. You didn’t say for sure. I assumed we were still just messing around and seeing what might happen.”
“No. We are most certainly not just messing around. That kiss means you’re the one. It means I choose you.”
“So why all the rules? The steps? The talk about decisions, timing and you not being ready?” She blew out a breath. If she still had her curls it would have lifted them from her brow.
“It’s a matter of me being controlled so things don’t get too crazy too soon.”
“Is that why you stopped me on the roof?”
“Yes, so that when we do go the next level I’ll be ready. So I can make it good for you. Hopefully.”
“Whenever you say hopefully,” her brow creased, “it doesn’t mean what it means to me. To you it means you expect things not to work out.”
Stunned, I jerked back on the ottoman as if she slapped me.
“My priority is protecting you.” I regathered my thoughts. “You need to understand there are some things we can’t do. For instance, you can’t perform oral sex on me. Having intercourse without condoms for another. I need to know that you accept those limitations.”
“I do.” Her gaze darted across my features searching, analyzing and drawing conclusions. “But I don’t think limitations are the real issue. You being in control of me, the timing of what we do physically, and how close I can get to you emotionally during those things is, right?”
I didn’t speak, and she didn’t pause to let me.
“It’s a matter of trust. It’s all making sense to me now. The walls you put up. The barriers. You don’t want a relationship. You can’t handle one! You want to be friends with benefits that you spell out. Limited benefits.” She spit out the words out and leapt to her feet, her eyes filling.
She started to move away. I grabbed her hand.
“We’re not done talking.”
“Oh, yes we are.” She tugged her hand free. “We’re done. So done. I let things go way too far and too long with my hope and my expectations.” She turned her head. “Hollie, come out!” she called, her voice cracking mid-yell.
“Yes?” The guest bedroom door popped open. Her sister emerged stomping straight to Fanny’s side and already glaring at me. She had been listening, no doubt. “You don’t have to sleep in the guestroom. Get your things. You’re coming back into the master bedroom with me tonight.”
Fanny had intended for us to be together tonight. All night.
I wanted that. I wanted her. “Fanny.” I stood. “Please hear me out.”
“I did, Ash. I listened. But I don’t think you did.”
“How do you mean? I heard every word you said.”
“Not what I said. You need to rewind this conversation and listen to what you said. You don’t want to go forward with me, and yet you don’t want to go back. You want us to stay right here in suspended animation with me being the one and you knowing my heart.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not fair. And you’re not being honest with yourself. You don’t want to protect me. You want to protect yourself. You crave your stability more than anything. But emotions don’t follow rules. They’re not a step by step process. Keeping our feelings wrapped up and on ice, that’s not good for either of us. Maybe you think that’s best for you. Maybe you’re happy enough with your control, your boundaries and your arrangements.” She watched me closely. Did she know about Renee? I didn’t get a chance to ask because she kept hammering. At the walls. The ones with all the fine cracks she had already put in them. She seemed determined to bring down the barriers brick by brick if she had to.
“Well, guess what? I don’t accept the pittance you’re offering me. To hell with all your rules and boundaries and steps. I want more. I want it all. I want all of you. Intercourse. With a condom of course. And a full emotional and spiritual connection between us. Maybe you can give that to me. Maybe you can’t. But until you make that choice, I’m protecting myself and setting up some boundaries of my own.”
(Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances #1-5) Page 80
