by Jess Bryant
“Are you upset I slept in?” Ashtyn frowned, “Because you could have woken me up if…”
“It’s not that.” he cut her off, pushing the box of donuts onto the dresser along with the coffee so that his hands were free. “We need to talk.”
Ashtyn sat upright in the bed, holding the sheet over her breasts, “About what?”
“Last night.” He started to move towards the bed to sit beside her and then thought better of it. He couldn’t join her on the bed. He couldn’t be that close to her. Not yet. He perched on the edge of the chair instead. “What happened between us, it was a mistake.”
Ashtyn’s mouth gaped open, “What?”
“It shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have let it happen and I’m sorry that I took advantage of you that way.”
“What?” she repeated, her voice rising, “Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“You didn’t take advantage of me.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t.”
“Ashtyn, you’re in a sensitive position right now.” He leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees. “You ended a serious, long-term relationship by running away from your own wedding less than a week ago. You’re vulnerable right now and I took advantage. I shouldn’t have slept with you. I should never have let that happen and it can’t happen again. It was a mistake.”
She stared at him for a long moment and he was thankful that she seemed to understand. She wasn’t arguing with him. He thought that had to be a good sign but then, as the silence grew, he watched as she began to shake her head, slowly at first and then more firmly. When she finally spoke, she surprised him by uttering a curse he had never expected to hear out of her sweet mouth in that soft voice.
“Fuck you, Tyler.”
He flinched backwards, “Excuse me?”
She was still shaking her head but her eyes had narrowed angrily, “I can’t believe that you’re doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“The exact same bullshit that every other man in my life does.” She ripped at the sheets as she tried to keep them around her naked body and scoot to the opposite side of the bed, away from him, at the same time.
“Ashtyn, I…”
“Shut up.” she snapped, whipping the sheets around her as she stood, turning back to hit him with that fierce glare again. “Just, shut up. You got to say what you wanted to say. Now it’s my turn.”
It was also his turn to stare, and he couldn’t look away. Hair mussed from sleep, nothing but a sheet wrapped around her body, her cheeks flushed with anger, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He wanted to kiss her but he reminded himself that he’d already taken that off the table.
“I thought you were different.” Her anger seemed to falter and she bit her lip, looking away.
He wondered if there were tears welling in her eyes. Dammit, he hadn’t wanted to make her cry. He hadn’t thought she had real feelings for him. But if she was crying maybe she did and he had stomped all over them by calling their night together a mistake. He’d just opened his mouth to apologize again when she jerked back towards him and made him shut his mouth without saying a word.
“You’re just like all the rest of them. You think your opinion is more important than mine.”
“No, that’s not...”
“I said, shut up.” she snapped, swiping a hand over her cheek before he could even tell if a tear had been there, “You think you have the right to invalidate my choices? You don’t.”
“Ash, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just…”
“No.” She cut him off again, voice growing louder by the second, “You don’t get to sit there and tell me what kind of state I’m in or how I’m feeling. I didn’t sleep with you because I was vulnerable last night, Tyler.” she spit his name at him like it was another curse. “I slept with you because I wanted to, because I made the choice to act on my attraction to you. I thought you understood that. I thought you understood me but you’ve made it perfectly clear that isn’t the case at all.”
“I’m not trying to invalidate your choices.” He frowned. “I’m just saying, the two of us, sleeping together, it wasn’t a good choice and it’s one that we definitely shouldn’t make again.”
“Really? Then why are you acting like I didn’t make a choice at all? Like you’re the only one that had a choice in what we did last night and I was just the delicate, fragile girl that you coerced into it because I’m so vulnerable and innocent.”
“That’s not how I meant it.” He felt his hackles rise as she continued to twist his words into things that he was fairly sure he hadn’t even thought of, let alone meant.
“Oh?” She narrowed her eyes at him and everything inside of him screamed danger. “So you can admit that we were both there last night? That we both decided to have sex? That we are both rational, reasonable adults who made a decision to be intimate and there’s nothing to feel guilty about for acting on our desire?”
“I… well…” He shook his head, “No.”
She growled and for a split second he thought she might throw the lamp at him.
She didn’t understand though. She couldn’t. She didn’t know the whole truth and he couldn’t tell her or else he’d ruin everything. She’d think everything between them had been a lie. She’d know that her supposed freedom on this trip was a façade and she would hate him and her parents for hiring him to all but babysit her while she ran away from her problems. She didn’t know that he regretted what had happened between them only because he was being paid to take care of her and he had crossed a professional boundary.
If he was just a man and she was just a woman then no, he wouldn’t feel guilty. But everything was more complicated than that. It was complicated and messy and he’d made it a thousand times worse by blurring the lines between them last night.
“I’m sorry you feel guilty for sleeping with me, Tyler. Really I am.” She looked back at him, her chin high and her eyes far, far away now. The fire of her temper had extinguished as fast as it had risen. She looked sunken now, almost hollow, and he hated it more than he had ever hated anything. “If it makes you feel any better, you’ve managed to make me feel guilty now too, so… mission accomplished.”
“Ashtyn…” He stood slowly, as if he might cross the room towards her but she held up a hand.
“All I wanted was to be with someone who saw me, really saw me, the real me, and I thought that person was you.” She gave a sad shake of her head, “I was wrong. You’ve proven that, and you won’t have to worry about it happening again because the last thing I need in my life is another man that wants me to be something I’m not, that wants to make me doubt myself and my feelings and my choices. This… whatever it was, whatever it could have been… it’s over.”
Tyler opened his mouth to say something but he had no idea what it was. He closed it without uttering a sound. Instead he could only watch as she pulled the sheet more tightly around her and headed towards the bathroom. With her back to him, without those piercing blue eyes on him, it was easier to find his voice and he cleared his throat before asking the question.
“Does that mean you’re ready to go back to Tennessee now?”
Ashtyn turned in the doorway of the bathroom, her jaw set and her eyes burning like the hottest fires of hell, so he knew the answer before she said even a word.
“No. I’m not going back. I’m going to Vegas and you can either take me or I’ll find someone else who will.” she paused, her eyes steady on him when she gave a dismissive snort, “After all, I still have a bucket list to finish, even if I can now cross one night stand off the list.”
She slammed the door behind her with that final cutting blow and Tyler didn’t know if he wanted to rush across the room and kick it open, follow her in and kiss her with every ounce of desire still coursing through his body or get on his bike and leave her there while he got as far away as humanly possible, as fast as he could. The damn wo
man knew just how to push his buttons and that last comment had been designed with the express purpose of cutting him down to size.
It succeeded. If he hadn’t already felt like an asshole, he would have in that moment. Because no matter what he said about regretting what they’d done, the truth was, he liked Ashtyn. He liked her a lot. And maybe if they’d met under different circumstances, in a different time or a different place, the attraction between them would have been enough to take a chance and see what could come next.
But in this life, in this moment, it wasn’t, and there was nothing he could do to make that better for either of them.
15
They rode all day in silence. When they stopped to eat, they ate in silence. When they pulled over to take a bathroom break or stretch their legs, they walked in opposite directions and didn’t say a word to each other.
By the time Tyler pulled the motorcycle into the parking lot of a motel on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Ashtyn had gone from angry, to hurt, to sad and all the way back around to angry. That was the thing about spending hours upon hours on the back of a motorcycle. There was nothing to do but listen to the voices arguing in your head and after the debacle this morning had gone down, Ashtyn’s head wasn’t a very fun place to be.
They’d driven until the sun set and then even further, until what little light was left only came from the streetlamps and the city ahead of them. She knew Tyler didn’t want to stop. She knew he had spent the entire day pushing through as fast as he could, trying to get them to Vegas so that he could be rid of her.
He’d promised to get her there and he wasn’t the kind of man to back out of a promise no matter how much he might want to. But he wanted this trip to end and the proof was in the sheer number of hours they’d spent on the motorcycle today.
There had been no stops for fun excursions. No stops to explore the towns or cities they passed through. No stops at all unless one of them needed to fulfill a bodily function. She was almost sure Tyler would have preferred to drive through the night to get them to Vegas but at their last stop she’d made a decision to take back control of this trip.
When he’d been outside the gas station filling the bike up, she’d gone inside under the pretense of using the bathroom. Instead, she’d bought a small pay-as-you-go cell phone. The clerk had been an older woman and she’d happily let Ashtyn open the phone, set it up and then pay for the purchase through an app she downloaded. Ashtyn knew that she must have seemed desperate and her constant glances out the window at the man by the motorcycle had likely given the woman the impression she was in some sort of trouble, but she hadn’t cared then and she didn’t care now.
She’d used her new phone to look at the map while she peed and after she’d gone back outside, she’d had the only conversation with Tyler of the day. He’d asked if she was ready to go and she’d told him they should stop for the night in Flagstaff. He’d been suspicious of her suggestion, but eventually nodded and then she’d simply bided her time until she saw the motel that she’d found on her phone come into view.
She’d tapped his shoulder and motioned for him to pull in and miracle of miracles, he had done what she asked. The motel was a tiny bit better than the last few they’d stayed in but not so much so that he would be instantly suspicious of why she’d chosen it. He’d gone into the office, paid for the room and Ashtyn had hidden a smile as she followed him inside, dropped her bags onto the bed and then turned to leave the room again without so much as a word to the man she’d spent every waking moment with for days.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Tyler glanced up from where he was already sorting through his own bag, looking for his shower essentials.
“Out.” She shot him a bland smile but his eyes only narrowed dangerously.
“Try again.”
“What? I’m not allowed to go out for a walk and stretch my legs alone now?”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.” he snorted.
“I don’t even know what that means.” She rolled her eyes.
“You might think I’m stupid but I’m not. I know you’re up to something.”
She shrugged and stared him down. She wasn’t about to give him any information he hadn’t already gleaned. If she’d learned anything from her politician father it was to never give away anything until you knew what the other person already had on you.
“You bought a phone at the gas station.”
“How do you know that?” Her eyes widened in surprise.
He gave her a condescending look, “I went inside to the bathroom after you came back out and the clerk got busy trying to throw away the plastic packaging a burner phone comes in when she saw me.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah, I’m guessing you told her I was some sort of abusive boyfriend?” Tyler all but snarled. “Real nice, Ashtyn.”
“I didn’t say anything like that.” she snapped defensively.
“Just implied it then.” Tyler sighed. “Look, I know you bought the phone and I know you were dead set on stopping near Flagstaff. You even pointed out this motel for us to stop at. Now you’re heading out into the dark, alone, in a city that as far as I know you’ve never set foot in before so I want to know what you’re planning or I swear to God I will put a chair in front of that door and sleep in it so you can’t leave me, Ashtyn.”
She blinked, surprised by the gleam of determination in his voice. She wiped her face clean of emotion, worried the spark of hope his words ignited in her might be showing. He didn’t want her to leave him? Surely that had to mean something, her bruised heart all but screamed. Her head reminded her stupid heart that he was just trying to keep her from getting raped and murdered and really, if that was the most he could offer it wasn’t good enough. She cleared her throat and met his gaze, knowing she had no choice but to tell him what she’d decided.
“This is still my trip and I’m taking back control of it.”
“Excuse me?” His brows knit together.
“There are still things on my list I want to do and since you seem hell bent on getting us to Vegas as soon as possible, I’m taking the opportunity to cross an item off while we’re here.”
Tyler scratched his jaw, “What the hell does that mean?”
“I used the phone I bought to find a tattoo studio just around the block. I’m getting a tattoo.”
“Like hell you are.” Tyler all but growled.
“It’s on my list. I’m not sure why you’re surprised.” she kept her tone neutral.
“I told you I’d help you with anything on the list that didn’t involve bodily harm. A tattoo is a needle piercing your skin repeatedly to create a mark that lasts forever. I definitely define that as bodily harm.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not helping me with it. I figured out how to make it happen all on my own.”
Tyler groaned and rubbed his eyes, “Ashtyn, seriously. Don’t do this.”
“Don’t get a tattoo?”
“Yes. No. Just… don’t do it. You’ll regret it.”
“Seems a little hypocritical of the guy covered in tattoos to tell me I’ll regret it.”
“Ashtyn…”
“Maybe it’s just the regret part that you’re so familiar with then? God knows you made it perfectly clear how much you regret agreeing to this whole trip today.”
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, a sure sign he was trying to rein himself in. If she hadn’t spent every minute of her life with him for the past several days, she might not have even noticed it. But she had, and she’d been watching him, learning him in ways she herself hadn’t even realized at the time.
Her heart gave a traitorous thump and she pulled her gaze away from him. No. She wasn’t going to do this. She wasn’t going to let herself fall for another man that wanted her to be something that she wasn’t. She liked Tyler. The last few days on the road together had been fun and eye-opening and the adventure that she’d longed for all her life. But that didn’t mean she coul
d let herself fall for him, especially not when she was still so damn angry at him for giving her the best night of her life and then ripping away what small bit of happiness she’d managed to find amid this nightmare.
“Tattoos are forever, Ashtyn.” he finally said, his voice as even as hers had been.
“I’m aware of how they work, Tyler.” she shot back, using his name like he used hers.
“I mean, they’re forever and this trip isn’t. This trip of yours is going to end. We could be in Vegas by tomorrow night.”
“Which is why I need to do this now.” she insisted as Tyler shook his head, clearly not done.
“This adventure of yours is going to end and you’ll go back home to Nashville, to the loving arms of your father and your family, and maybe even Aaron. You’re going to wake up and realize this trip was just a lark, a distraction, it’ll end up being just a funny story to tell your friends at dinner parties and when that happens, you don’t want to have some gaudy tattoo marring your beautiful skin and reminding you of the mistakes you made along the way.”
Ashtyn stared at him as she tried to process his words. Did he really still think she was going to run back home and throw herself at Aaron? Beg him to take her back? Fall back into the life she’d run away from? As if this trip was just to sow her wild oats before she settled down and became the perfect politician’s wife her family wanted her to be? She couldn’t even begin to care that he’d called her beautiful because what sank in and wrapped around her heart like thorns was that he still thought she would wake up and see all of this as a mistake someday.
She bit her lip to keep back a flash of tears that threatened, “You really think that little of me?”
“Ashtyn, I…”
She held up a hand to stop him, “We’ve talked about this. We’ve gone around and around and I thought I’d explained myself. I thought you understood. I thought you knew me, because I’ve been more me with you than I’ve ever been with anyone.” She gave a sad shake of her head, “After this morning, maybe I should have realized I was wrong about you but the truth is, you’re just as wrong about me, Tyler.”
