After All (12 page)

“And what’s that?” I asked.

Ashley bit her lip before glancing at the floor and then at the wall. “That I should have found a resting place for Josh already, and if I had, we wouldn’t still be having this fight with his parents.”

What a mess. “I want to be. Involved.” I touched her shoulder, knowing that even after Gabby’s words about age, I wanted Ashley for who she was. Not for her youth, or the body that came with it, or anything but her.

“I feel safe with you.” Ashley swallowed, finally stopping the gentle dabbing of my nose and actually looking at me. “And I don’t feel safe with anyone. No reason for it. My mom’s a little odd, but good to me. And Josh’s situation wasn’t mine.”

“It was yours if you cared about him that much.”

I started to pull her in for a hug, and then realized I wasn’t wearing a shirt, and froze.

Ashley bridged the gap, resting her face on the center of my chest and wrapping her strong arms around my waist. The last thing I should have been thinking about was how amazing she felt against me, but the feel of our skin together became everything.

"How are you okay right now?" I asked quietly. I was working not to shake now that the adrenaline had left my system, but she seemed unaffected.

"I've seen him worse," she whispered. “I don’t know.”

Her lips grazed my chest and I kissed the top of her head, just as we heard a loud rapping on the door. “Police.”

“Oh, right.” I sighed. “The other fun part of this.”

“You get the door. I’ll get ice. And a shirt.” Ashley gave me a quick kiss before we parted ways. “
Maybe
.”

She smirked, and I moved toward the door just now starting to catch my breath. Amy was probably definitely right. At some point the fact that a man who could crush her, had her pinned against the wall, was going to hit her hard.

* * *

One hour, and endless questions from the cops later, we were alone again. There wasn’t a whole lot they could do but contact the Vegas police so they’d know he’d violated the restraining order and tell us to call if he showed up again. They had his license plate in their system, but violating a restraining order, and punching me in the face couldn't have been high on their priority list. Not in a city this size.

I was just glad he was gone, and now he had a warrant out for his arrest in Arizona for assaulting me. That was something.

“Want me to order in some food?” I asked. “If I follow Amy’s instructions, you’re apparently stuck with me for a while.”

Lots of people took a while to process traumatic situations, and if Ashley wanted me around, I wanted to be here when she needed me. I was exhausted after our evening, so I couldn’t imagine how she felt—or how she was going to feel when she let herself internalize what happened.

Anyone would have a hard time being attacked like that. And with the history there, and the crazy blurry sort of relationship I guessed her and Josh had, it must have been so much worse.

“Can we maybe take Marie and Trevor to In N Out?” she asked as she traced invisible lines up and down my arms. Kenneth’s T-shirt was a little snug, but would work.

“You too?” I slumped. “You’re just playing on my weaknesses.”

“Which are?”

“A gorgeous woman who is currently making my body a little insane with the casual way she’s touching me.” I leaned toward her and just let myself enjoy being close.

“Oh.” Ashley scooted away. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” I smiled, but then winced as the pain sliced through my nose again. “Maybe you could drive, though?”

“Doesn’t Ree have her permit?”

I groaned. “You want to sit in the front seat with a novice driver, be my guest, but it’s slightly terrifying. I won’t be responsible for heart attacks or broken cars.”

“You’re sweet, Brandt.” She stepped up to me and kissed the corner of my mouth. “Let’s grab the kids and go get dinner.”

“It’s not dinner. It’s barely food.” But my protest was weak as Ashley beamed and led me from the house.

I wondered when she’d tell me about Josh for real?

THIRTEEN

Ashley

Every time I glanced back at Brandt’s swelled nose, a wash of guilt and gratitude flooded me. I was glad again I’d invited the kids, because they kept the evening light, joking about the pizza that was about to be dropped at their house and how they planned to eat it for breakfast.

“Ree…” Brandt sighed. “Turn signal.”

Ree frowned again as she flipped it on.

“Don’t stress.” I chuckled as I clutched a knee to my chest in the passenger’s seat. “You’re doing great. Have you driven through a drive-thru before?”

“Nope.” She grinned, and I knew it was definitely a good move bringing the kids. There was still something about being with the group of them that gave me a sense of what home could be like.

“Thank you,” Brandt mouthed the next time I glanced back.

A rush of warmth hit me, and I smiled in response. Maybe now he’d get that we could all do this together. And maybe I’d start to comprehend it all, too. That being with Brandt, wasn’t being with just Brandt, it was inheriting a family. Something I both craved and was still a bit terrified of. But in that moment it felt perfectly easy.

* * *

Brandt sat on my couch leaning his head against the wall, and I sat next to him. Close enough that our legs and sides and arms touched. Close enough to be warm. We’d all eaten. His kids were home and heading to bed. All was taken care of, and tiredness began to drag me down.

We sat in silence for long enough that my afternoon started to hit. The feel of Josh Sr.’s arms on my throat. Again. Against the side of a house. Again. What would have happened if Brandt hadn’t shown up, or Amy, or… My chest split as I thought about how terrified Josh must have been every day.

“You okay?” Brandt asked quietly.

“I can’t believe he drove so far.”

“Crazy dad,” Brandt whispered.

“Too crazy. Why did they bother having a kid?” I blinked furiously to keep in my tears. “They didn’t even like him. Josh, I mean."

I hated that man. Hated him. All I saw when I looked at Josh Sr., was Josh’s executioner. He didn’t care about him when he was alive, why would he care now?

The way I love him tore into my chest again and a whimper came up my throat. I clasped my hand over my mouth trying to stop it, but it didn’t work. How could anyone not love Josh? How could they hate their son so much they were willing to hurt him? His dad with his fists, and his mom by not stopping it.

I ached for what his life should have been like. For how it was cut short. For how he should have been treated by the people who were supposed to love him most. For the small bits of fear I’d had at the hands of his dad and knowing it was such a small portion of how Josh felt.

In seconds I was curled in a ball in Brandt’s arms and sobbing. Again. Over the friend I couldn’t save.

Brandt said nothing. Just let me cry, and gently stroked his hands up and down my back. I curled into him further wishing to disappear. It didn’t work. I cried harder. Balled up tighter and sunk into the pain of losing someone I shouldn’t have lost, and knowing that I should have been able to stop it.

* * *

I blinked a few times in the dark. Brandt and I were lying tangled on the couch together. His arm rested around my waist and I was still curled against him, just lying down now instead of sitting up, my face still pressed into his chest.

He seemed so peaceful as he slept, and I watched him for a few moments. His mouth hung slightly open, and his breathing was slow and steady. His eye was going to be ugly tomorrow, and I realized I’d slept with a beat up guy in my bed more often than not.

I traced his hairline, and around his jaw, and I loved that he'd stayed. That I felt on more equal ground with him than I'd ever felt. Maybe this is what it was like to be grown up.

There was a time I thought I was in love with Josh, but he didn’t feel like this. This…complete.

Brandt sucked in a short breath and his eyes opened. “You okay?”

“You stayed.”

“Of course.”

My hands rested on Brandt’s chest, and he tightened his arms. “I’ve never been with someone who felt like this.”

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Something I’ve never had, which makes me wonder why I never tried for it.” I didn’t know if I expected an answer, but it needed to be said.

“Protection?” Brandt asked.

“Safety,” I answered.

“You watched your mom be heartbroken, and the guy you were closest to was probably confusing because of the way he felt. Since he’d only ever be a friend, maybe he was safer to love. People who might have returned what you felt with the same force, maybe felt like too much."

It felt like Brandt was seeing through me, and I found comfort from that instead of being afraid. “Do you think I’m crazy? I mean, I keep forgetting you’re a shrink and maybe see more than I mean for you to.”

“I think…” He paused as his eyes searched mine in the dark. “I think it means you’re cautious, which makes me feel a bit amazing.”

“What? Why?”

A corner of his mouth pulled up as he pulled me closer. “Because you’re letting me be here. With you. Like this.”

I wasn’t sure how to answer him, but I wanted him to understand Josh and me better. “Josh was my best friend. He cried with me when my favorite step dad left, and he showed me how to tongue kiss before my big date with Davey, who turned out to be an ass, but you know, it was important then. He was around when I had a bad dream and my mom was working, and I was around for when his dad hit him, which was often. I know that to most people, whatever we had was weird, but it worked for us."

“Ash…” Brandt ran his hand through my hair, pulling all the loose strands off my face.

I blinked but a few tears still escaped. “I’ve nursed broken ribs and black eyes, and bruises and broken fingers, and…”

“Broken hearts,” he finished.

For some reasons those words hit me the hardest. “How could his heart not be broken all the time? When the people you love most in the world don’t love you back?”

Brandt pulled me closer again while I tried to catch my breath. “I don’t know.”

“I loved him more than I should. In ways I shouldn’t have, knowing that he wasn’t mine to have beyond friends, but I did.

“He committed suicide. He’d finally gotten away. Was living with the nicest guy you ever met. I loved them both. But it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t get far enough. I hate them for what they did to him.”

Brandt pulled in a breath like he was about to speak.

“I don’t need the lecture on how he’s in a better place. I don’t need to hear that he’s the one who chose to pull the trigger. I’ve heard it before.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“What were you going to say?”

Brandt’s fingers traced through my hair again before he spoke. “That he was so lucky to have you.”

Not lucky enough. “I wasn’t enough. I didn’t know he was that far gone. I should have known.”

“Ashley.” He pulled me further into his chest. “This is not your fault.”

“Don’t pull out your shrink hat now.” I sighed. “I’m so sorry this all got dumped on you.”

“This is my everyday normal, Ashley. More than you know.” His hands felt almost desperate against my back. “There’s something horrible about knowing you didn’t protect the people you love most. But Ashley, you helped him when he needed it, and there is no way you should have known what he was going to do.”

“Logically, I sometimes know that. But most of the time, it doesn’t feel that way.”

“I can understand that.” His lips touched my forehead again.

I think it was mostly because Brandt was pressed against me, and he was being nothing but sweet and not pushing anything that I kissed him. Hard. And he did the same.

All the need of having someone close flooded me, pushed us closer. The need to feel something outside of the sadness clawed through me, and I wanted him. All of him.

I dug my fingers into his sides, all of my sadness sweeping into desperation. We rolled together until he was lying on top of me, and my hands ran up the back of his T-shirt as I pushed it up, hoping he’d pull it off.

His lips trailed under my ear and down my neck, sliding across my collarbone as his hands clutched my ribs. And then he stopped and backed up, sitting against the wall, breathing hard.

Everything in me dropped as my brain scrambled to figure out what just happened.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Bad timing. That’s all.”

I reached for him in the dark until I found a hand. “Felt pretty good to me.”

“Perfect. You feel perfect,” he agreed. “Are you okay? I need to be home before the kids get up or it might be weird… Or I might need a longer talk with them than I want to.”

My mouth kept opening because I didn’t want him to go. I wanted to be wrapped up in him longer. More time. Forever. I didn’t know, but I didn’t want him to leave.

“You’re still thinking of coming with us to the cabin?” he asked. His voice was too professional, and stilted, leaving me confused.

“Yeah. I have a few more recordings I want to transcribe on Friday, so I’ll meet you in the morning. Saturday.” Confusion swirled around because we’d gone from kissing to…planning?

“Okay.” He stood.

“Um…” I stood with him on the teetering edge of panic at how he was pushing away. “What just happened here?”

He took me in his arms and kissed my forehead, which suddenly felt depressingly friendly.

“I’m trying to be the nice guy, Ashley. Desperately. I lose my head a little when we kiss, so I just… It’s just that I need to go.”

I grabbed his belt-loops to try to keep enough teasing in my voice for my forwardness to be okay. “What if I don’t want you to be the nice guy?”

“Then you’re with the wrong guy.”

I was shocked still for a moment. “This is who you really, actually are.”

“My mom always said that integrity is doing the right thing when no one’s watching, and I add to that—it’s doing what you know is right even when your body is telling you to just take the girl next to you because she’s gorgeous and feels amazing under your hands.” He chuckled.

I leaned into him feeling wholly confused. “Thanks for being here. For listening and for almost breaking your nose for me.”

“Thank you for wanting me here, Ash.”

We kissed once briefly, and then he leaned in again almost immediately with a harder kiss. Brandt sighed. “Yes. You feel way too good for me to keep wanting to do the right thing.”

I rubbed my hand across his chest. “So do you.”

“Get some sleep. I’ll let myself out. I’ve seen Amy hide your key.”

“We’re stealthy like that.” I nipped his lip again, which earned me another toe-curling kiss.

“Night.” And he bolted out of the living room, leaving me emotionally hollowed out from the previous night, but filling up with Brandt and a ridiculous grin on my face.