by Jess Bryant
He’d meant what he told her in that bathroom. He was going to help her. He was going to do everything in his power to make her dreams come true. All of those bucket list items she was trying so hard to fulfill on this one epic road trip were now his mission too.
Except for the one-night stand, anything but that. That wasn’t happening on his watch.
“Tyler?”
“Hmm?” He blinked, realizing that Ashtyn must have said something that required a response from him because she was staring at him from across the table with a puzzled expression. “Sorry, what?”
He’d found them a diner to grab breakfast that was only ten miles up the road from their motel. By the time Ashtyn had showered, dressed and repacked her bag it was already past ten o’clock so the fast food restaurants weren’t serving breakfast anymore, not that he’d seen any nearby even if that was what he’d been searching for when he googled nearby eateries on his phone. Instead he’d found this place; a run-down roadside diner with black and white checked flooring, red vinyl booths and miniature vintage jukeboxes on every table.
He’d grinned when they walked in and he’d seen the look of wonder on Ashtyn’s pretty face, as if she’d never seen anything like it. Maybe she hadn’t. But he was fairly sure he shouldn’t take so much pride in being the one to introduce her to the simpler things in life.
He had also been very certain that he shouldn’t be thinking of how pretty she was, which was why he’d been purposefully ignoring her chatter since they sat down. Having her on the back of his motorcycle, wrapped around him for hours on end had done weird things to him even when he hadn’t liked her. Now that he was beginning to understand her and enjoy her company, he wasn’t so sure he would survive the case of blue balls he saw in his future.
“I just asked if you could pass the sugar.” She pointed to the dispenser that was on his side of the little jukebox.
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” He shoved it at her and watched as she poured a mountain of the stuff into her coffee cup.
She was on her second cup already and they’d barely placed their order. Despite the shower and the change of clothes, she still looked as hungover as she must feel. She’d made a face at him when he suggested she order a big breakfast so they could drive through lunch. He figured her stomach was still in revolt so he’d ordered his special hangover cure for her even though she’d looked sick at the mere mention of the items that went into the drink.
He figured she was full on regretting the urge to fulfill that particular bucket list item right about now, surrounded as they were by the sounds of the busy truck stop diner and the smell of about a hundred different meals cooking.
“You were off in la-la land.” She smiled up at him as she put the dispenser back down and picked up her spoon to stir. “What were you thinking about?”
“Nothing.” he said quickly, maybe too quickly because she quirked an eyebrow disbelievingly. He shifted uneasily in his seat and sighed. “Actually, I was wondering what all you have on that bucket list of yours.”
“Oh…” She pulled the spoon from the hot liquid and frowned, “Lots of stuff.”
“Afraid you’re going to have to be a little more specific if you expect me to help you cross items off the list, princess.”
She narrowed her eyes and pointed the spoon at him menacingly, “Stop calling me that.”
“Yeah, I know, I know.” He held his hands up in surrender, “It slipped.”
“Yeah, like I’m going to slip and stab you with this spoon.” She muttered through a saccharine smile.
He chuckled at her threat, “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Maybe murder is on my bucket list?” She teased back.
“I wouldn’t know. You won’t let me see it.”
“I don’t actually have it written down. Not with me at least. I have an old version written in a journal somewhere at home but it’s changed a lot since I started making it. New things get added and old things get taken off.” She shrugged as she took a sip of her coffee.
“Taken off when you complete them you mean?”
“Nah. I’ve never really tried to do anything on the list. It was more like I outgrew some of the possibilities I dreamed of over the years.”
He frowned, thinking that didn’t sound so much like a bucket list as a wish list but he didn’t dare say it. Something about the way her eyes turned downcast told him that he didn’t have to. She already knew the whole idea sounded silly and was just waiting for him to remind her of it, something he’d already promised himself he wasn’t going to do anymore.
“Excuse me.” He reached out as a waitress that wasn’t theirs walked past and she paused. “Can I borrow a pen?”
The waitress acted as if this was a question she got regularly and simply began to dig into her apron until she came up with one, “Sure thing, sugar. Here you go.”
“Thank you.” He smiled and the waitress winked at him before carrying on towards the kitchen. When he turned back to Ashtyn, she was smirking at him. He grinned, “What?”
“Sure thing, sugar.” She mimicked with a playful wink before she burst into a fit of laughter and shook her head, “God, have you ever had a woman deny you anything?”
“Nope.” Tyler popped the p on the word and chuckled with her when she only laughed harder, glad she knew that he was teasing.
When she finally got control of herself Ashtyn sighed, “At least you’re honest. I just hope you’ve been using your powers for good and not evil.”
“Always.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything else and he let the subject go happily. He was aware that he was a good-looking guy. He’d been told as much by many a woman over his lifetime but talking about women fawning over him simply because he smiled in their general direction with Ashtyn felt wrong somehow.
Maybe because she had never gone along with what he wanted, not from the moment he met her and that was one of the things he could grudgingly admit he liked about her most.
“Here.” He grabbed a napkin and pushed it and the pen across the table towards her, “Write down your list.”
“Seriously?” Her blue eyes went wide.
“Yes, seriously.” He pushed the items closer to her. “Write down everything you want to do on this trip and then we’ll make a plan for how best to get it all done before we hit Vegas.”
“You’re for real.” Ashtyn’s lips tilted up at the corners.
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to help me?”
“That’s what I said.” He shrugged, expecting her to smile or thank him but instead she only narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why the sudden change? You were dead set on making me so miserable I begged you to take me back home to the safety and comfort of my luxurious life, remember? Now I’m just supposed to believe if I write out a list that you’ll help me accomplish all my dreams?”
“Ashtyn…” He started but their waitress returned in that moment, brandishing plates of food.
“Okay, folks. We have the Sargent Pepper Platter for you.” The waitress easily slid the big plate of bacon, sausage, hashbrowns and an omelet complete with the namesake peppers in front of Tyler and then turned to Ashtyn with a look of knowing pity and put down her order as well. “And here’s your toast with jelly, hon. I’ll get you a refill on that coffee and a glass of water while I’m at it.”
“Thank you.” Ashtyn gave a grateful, if shy smile and the waitress patted her shoulder as if she knew what a hangover looked like.
“And that drink I ordered?” Tyler prompted before she could walk away.
“You were serious about that?” The waitress raised an eyebrow and looked between them.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She harrumphed but nodded, “Okay, I’ll get that too and be right back. Y’all need anything else right now?”
“No, thank you.” Ashtyn offered quickly and once the waitress was out of e
arshot she hissed at Tyler, “I’m not drinking that thing you ordered. It sounds godawful.”
“It is.” He simply smirked as he unrolled the napkin around his silverware.
“You admit it but still expect me to drink it.”
“I do, because it might be godawful but trust me, it’s better than spending a day on the back of a motorcycle with a hangover like yours.”
“Trust me, he says.” she muttered as she began to open the little jelly packets and put them on her plain slices of toast. “Like either of those choices is a good one.”
“I’m not the one that decided to get drunk knowing we’d be on the road all day.” He shrugged and lifted a piece of sausage to his mouth, pausing before he took a bite. “You made your choice and now these are the consequences. I’d suggest you choose your next bucket list item more carefully.”
She stuck her tongue out at him like a disgruntled five-year-old and he chuckled as he ate his meal. He let her chew on her bland toast and drink her coffee and they ate in relative silence for a long time. The waitress returned with the special drink, putting it in front of him and giving Ashtyn another pat on the arm as she refilled her coffee cup and put a large glass of water in front of her as well. Once she was gone, he pushed the drink towards Ashtyn who steadfastly refused to even look at the glass.
Finally, as he was finishing his food, he decided he had to break their stalemate. He had a feeling as an only child that Ashtyn could go all day without talking if she wanted to. He couldn’t though. It would eat at him every minute longer the silence went on so he leaned back and looked at her expectantly.
“So, why Vegas?”
“Hmm?” She finally glanced up from her plate.
“Why is Vegas on your bucket list? Why not Miami or New York City or Seattle for that matter?”
Ashtyn delicately wiped the corner of her mouth with her napkin, “I’ve just always wanted to go.”
“That’s it?” he asked skeptically.
“Pretty much.” She shrugged. “A big group of my friends went on spring break one year when we were in college. They wanted me to go with them but I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t?”
“I was dating Aaron and he didn’t want me to go. He was spending that semester interning at the Capitol and he asked me to come see him instead. There were some big political dinners and he needed me there, so…”
When she trailed off, Tyler frowned, “So you spent your spring break playing political girlfriend Barbie instead of enjoying yourself with your friends.”
Ashtyn winced but nodded, “Yeah, I guess. Something like that.”
“That sucks.” He offered her a smile when she looked back up at him again. “Is everything on your list like that?”
“What do you mean?”
“All the things on your list that you haven’t done, are they on it because he didn’t want you to do them? Because he told you that you couldn’t?”
He watched Ashtyn’s face as she took a long drink of her coffee but her poker face was a good one and he didn’t know her well enough to recognize a tell yet. He’d wanted to see if she would flinch at the accusation that her ex-fiancé had been controlling but of course she didn’t. She’d already admitted as much to him and though her eyes looked sad, she gave no other sign that his words had hit their mark.
When she finally spoke it was low, so soft it was barely more than a whisper, “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t do the things on my list because I was scared. Scared of letting my father down, scared of letting Aaron down too. But no, he never told me that I couldn’t do something I wanted to do. He never had to, because I never mentioned them to him.”
“Maybe because you knew he’d have said no if you did.”
She shook her head, “No, Aaron is a good man. He might be too serious and too strict and too single-minded, but everyone has their faults. He’s one of the best men I’ve ever known.”
“A good man, but not good enough for you to marry.”
Ashtyn’s face fell and she shook her head, “That’s not the same thing.”
“No?”
“No.” she said softly, “He is a good man, a great man even, he just wasn’t the right man. And I wasn’t the right woman for him either. Neither of us were who the other wanted us to be. That’s why I couldn’t marry him and I’m sure that given some time and space, he’ll realize I did the right thing.”
“You think he’ll forgive you for leaving him at the altar in front of half of Nashville?”
“A girl is allowed to dream right?” Ashtyn put her coffee cup down and sighed, “I can’t eat anything else or I’m going to be sick and I’m not drinking that thing.” She pointed at the grayish liquid sludge he had ordered. “I’ll write my list down while you finish eating but before I do, I want to be clear about something.”
“Okay.” He motioned for her to continue.
“It’s my list. It’s about me. All of this is about me. Not Aaron. Not my father. Me.”
He saw the determination in the set of her shoulders and knew that she really meant it. For the first time in her life, Ashtyn had decided to put her wants and desires above those of her family and friends. She was doing this for herself and nobody else and it was clear that while she would allow him to help her that if he didn’t, or couldn’t, that she would find a way to do it on her own.
And damn if that streak of determination and defiance didn’t make him like her even more.
“Okay.” He picked up a piece of bacon and motioned to the pen, “Start writing. I can’t wait to see this list of yours.”
She offered a grin that hit him square in the chest and he pulled his eyes back to his plate to keep from staring at her. Even hungover, with her hair in a low, messy ponytail and dark circles under her eyes, there was still no denying the girl was absolutely gorgeous. Add in her smart mouth and iron spine and she was damn near irresistible.
Tyler shook his head, trying to knock away that thought. She was a job, he reminded himself. She’d been engaged. She’d been about to walk down the aisle with another man forty-eight hours ago. He hadn’t even known her before that chance encounter in the alley and though he’d been pulled into her mess, he wasn’t going to make it messier by acting on the attraction he felt towards her.
He might be a screw-up as far as his brothers were concerned but he wasn’t an asshole.
As he swallowed and then picked up his water to take a drink, he leaned forward to read what she’d started to write. He laughed, which made her glance up at him. He leaned back and shook his head.
“Ride a motorcycle. Take a road trip. Get drunk. Dance on a bar. Correct me if I’m wrong but you knocked those out already. Why are you bothering to write them down?”
She shrugged, “I like checking things off to-do lists.”
That made him laugh, “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
She continued, putting check marks by the things they’d done already. He could read most of the napkin even upside down. He smiled as he watched her write but when she paused and glanced back up at him from beneath her lashes, biting her bottom lip far too suggestively for his liking he felt heat curl in his belly and stomped it down immediately.
“Don’t you dare write one-night stand on that list, Ashtyn.”
She flushed a pretty shade of pink, “How did you know…”
“You mentioned it last night. Remember?”
That made her cringe, “Oh yeah… unfortunately I do.”
“Don’t put it on the list.”
She smirked, “But it is on my list.”
“Not this one.” He tried to glare at her but wasn’t sure the look worked for him when she only smiled in return. “It’s not going to happen.”
“Need I remind you that it’s my list, not yours?” She raised a perfect eyebrow.
“Need I remind you that we’re sharing a hotel room from here to Vegas so you’re not going to have much privacy.”
She looked offended,
“You’re joking.”
“Not in the least.” He eyed the napkin and frowned. “You can mark skinny-dipping off that list too.”
“Oh come on!” she laughed, “It’ll be fun.”
“Give me the list.” He held out a hand but she jerked it away. “Ashtyn, give me the list.”
“Fine.” She handed it over and he snatched the pen from her as well.
He read through it again, noting everything that she had listed. When he glanced back up at her she was wiggling uncomfortably in her chair. He sighed and folded the napkin, putting it in his pocket.
“I will help you check everything on this list off that doesn’t require bodily harm or the potential to be arrested.”
She rolled her eyes, “And here I thought you took pride in being adventurous.”
“Every minute with you is exactly that, princess.” He winked playfully and then scooted to the edge of the booth. “Come on, if we’re going to get all this done, we can’t waste any more daylight.”
Ashtyn grinned as she followed him out of the booth, “What are we going to do first?”
“I don’t know. Karaoke maybe? I bet we can find a bar doing a karaoke night somewhere along the way.”
“And everything else?” she asked as he stopped at the counter to pay their check.
He grinned back at her, “We’ll just have to jump at any opportunities we come across for fun, won’t we?”
Her smile was so damn radiant it was like looking at the sun so Tyler pulled his gaze away and focused on the cash register in front of him. If he could make her that happy just by agreeing to help, he couldn’t wait to see her reaction when they really started checking items off her list. He found that he liked the idea of being the one to make her happy, a lot. Maybe even too much if he let himself dwell on it, so he didn’t.
He didn’t know why their paths had crossed. He couldn’t be sure if it was fate or luck or simple chance that he had been late and parked in that alley when she chose to run away. What he did know was that they were on this journey together now, for better or worse, and if it was adventure that she craved then she’d come to the right man for that job.
