The Best Kind of Trouble (23 page)

My gut churned with guilt and confusion as my insides burned. A knifelike pain sliced through me. Part of me wanted to throw my arms around him and kiss him until I couldn’t feel the pain anymore.  But a louder part of me, the broken mangled part, remembered, all too well, the heartbreak of Nate’s rejection.

The words felt heavy on my tongue but I pushed them out anyway.  “I can’t.”

As my words registered, pain flickered across his face and his eyes welled with tears. My knees shook, my body silently begged me to reconsider.  Watching his pain was almost worse than feeling my own.

Two seconds later, Nathan’s lips crushed against mine.  I wanted to respond.  Everything inside me flared to life, hot and achy and intense. I trembled with need and want and the tension coiled in my muscles from resisting him. 

When my lips remained rigid and closed despite the firm delicious pressure and insistence of his, Nathan grunted and pulled back.  He shook his head and dropped his hands from my face as he took two steps away from me.

He dropped his gaze to the ground and ran a shaky hand through his hair.

“I’ll still always be yours,” he whispered.

Then, without another word he turned on his heel and walked away from me—once again— and slid into an idling taxi, disappearing from view.

I shoulda just called him "Whiskey".

~Jenna Kramer

One year later…

I exited the stage breathless, my skin slick with sweat, and my body humming with adrenaline from the rocking show I had just put on to hundreds of thousands of screaming fans.

My band and several roadies and hanger-ons patted me on the back and congratulated me as I made my way through the crowded backstage area.  My high from performing began to fade and the words of my songs—most about my dad or
him
—all filled my head and caused a festering wound in my chest to ache.

What used to be therapeutic was now torment.

I couldn’t stop the pain or the regret or the images from bubbling up or my gut from twisting.  I walked faster, pushing my way through the crowd.  I heard Caleb call my name and I looked back. Our eyes met across the densely packed space.  His were full of sadness and something else I didn’t want to see.

I turned away and fled.

I had tried so desperately to let go of Nathan. I’d tried to bury my pain. I’d tried to love Caleb.  I’d screamed. And cried.  I had written songs and poured myself into my music and tried to let it consume me.  I had tried to forget.  To forget my dad’s death.  To forget Nathan—the vulnerable look in his eyes when he stood on my doorstep last summer.  And the way he touched me, kissed me, like he
needed
me.  The way it felt when all his focus was on me. The intensity and passion that consumed everything and everyone around him.

I could never deny how very un-fairytale like our story was or that he was an asshole who’d lied to me.  I couldn’t trust him.  Or forgive him. And I couldn’t love Caleb because my heart was ruined
.

When I got to my dressing room, I ransacked the place until I found a bottle of amber liquid.  I unscrewed the lid and drank it straight from the bottle, relishing the burn of the whiskey as it slid down my throat and warmed my gut.

By the time Caleb appeared, I was halfway through the bottle and almost blissfully numb.

“Ash,” he said, eyeing me cautiously.  He sighed heavily and plopped down onto the couch next to me. I handed him the bottle and he took one long swig out of it and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

He smelled so good. Familiar and warm. I leaned my head against his shoulder, unable to hide anything else.

“I wish I could just—”

“Ash, don’t,” he interrupted me. He looked down at me and I glanced up at him.  The anger in his face disappeared and he sighed heavily.  He cupped my face in his large warm calloused hand.  “Me too, baby.  I wish I could be your hero. But—”

He leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips. He pulled back a second later and gave me a sad wistful smile, stroking his thumb over my cheek.

“I’m not him,” Caleb whispered. “I don’t think that’s the kind of man I am. Even if I wish I could be that for you.”

My mind flashed back to Nathan’s words last summer.

I’m the kind of man that will love you for the rest of his life.

Caleb continued, “And even if you don’t want to hear it, I think you need to take some time off music and touring.  You need to go back to Texas and deal with your dad’s death. And—”

I held up my hand to stop him. We’d had similar conversations before, I already knew what he was going to say. 

Caleb had somehow become more than just my sometimes lover.  He was my friend.  My issues with my dad’s death and Nathan were certainly part of what kept us from being fully together, but there was a sadness to Caleb and more to his past than he’d ever willingly reveal to me. 

It was times like these that my feelings of guilt over Caleb eased a little; when I realized he and I were the same.

I grabbed the bottle and took a long pull of the whiskey.

“I think you need to go see him.”

I coughed and sputtered, liquid ran down my chin.  “Who?”

Caleb turned fully to me and titled my chin up. “I think you need to go to your dad’s gravesite.  And I think you need to talk to Nathan.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Caleb had never said Nathan’s name out loud before.

I swallowed against the lump in my throat and shook my head. “I can’t.”

“Ashley,” Caleb spoke softly.  “You have to.  You can’t keep running away from your problems or trying to drown them in a bottle or hope that I’ll kiss them away.”

I looked away, my cheeks burned red hot at his honest assessment of what I’d been doing all this time.

Caleb dropped his hand from my face and leaned back against the sofa.  He grabbed the bottle and took another drink.

I snorted.  “Pot meet kettle.”

Caleb chuckled.  “I just call it like I see it, Parker.”

He sighed again and looked at me, locking those dark endlessly deep eyes on mine. Silence enveloped us as he searched my face and eyes for something.

After a minute, he leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “It’s time, Ash. We can’t keep living this way. You go deal with your issues and I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go deal with mine. Maybe then—”

He didn’t say it. Didn’t elaborate.  Instead he kissed me long and deep. And then walked away.

I sat there that night for a long time thinking.  Even after the whole place was practically empty, except for Mark who was passed out on a couch in my dressing room.  I’m pretty sure he had stayed to act as my protector or babysitter. He wasn’t doing a great job.

Maybe Caleb was right.

Maybe I just needed a little closure.

Maybe if I could figure out my own head and my own heart, maybe if I could deal with my dad’s passing and get closure with Nate, maybe then Caleb and I could figure out
us.

I took a deep shaky breath, and picked up my phone. A plan started to form in my mind and instead of second guessing myself, I started to put it into action.

~000~

I chickened out.

After I got home, back to the apartment Katie and I still shared (even though I was rarely there), I spent a week just hanging out with Katie, going to visit my mama, and for the first time in a long time feeling like a normal person.

No performances, no interviews, no plastered on smiles or vague answers. Just me. Being me.

It was kind of refreshing at first. But then, I suddenly had way too much time to think. And all I could think about was Nathan. Every single thing reminded me of him. All the memories of the train wreck that was us littered this small college town like the leaves in the fall.

Saturday night, Katie decided she’d had enough of me hanging around our apartment and wanted to go out.

“Come on,” she pleaded, pulling me off the couch.  Katie stuck out her bottom lip and pouted. “Let’s go out! You’re single, let’s find you some—”

I held up my hand. “No offense, Katie, but no more of you fixing me up or telling me to just have fun.”

She pursed her lips.

“I’m serious,” I continued. I held up two fingers. “Nathan, I tried to just have fun and I ended up with a broken heart. And Caleb—”

I sighed.  I wasn’t sure where I stood with Caleb.  Since I’d been home I hadn’t heard from him. At all. Not a single call or even a text. My stomach knotted.
Did I love Caleb? Could I love Caleb? Did he love me?

Would I ever be able to let this festering heartbreak with Nathan go?

“Fine,” Katie said.  “No boys. Let’s just go have a few drinks, listen to the band and have a good time.”

An hour later I was nursing my second beer and laughing at a story Katie and Autumn were telling.

I looked up and Colin, my ex-boyfriend that I’d dumped the night I first met Nathan, was standing at the bar, his bright green eyes and a soft smile locked on me.

“Ashley,” he said, smiling wide when he reached me.

It was strange really.  The last time I saw Colin I was so angry with him. Angry and humiliated. But now, seeing his easy smile, I just…wasn’t. 

I smiled back and motioned for him to take a seat. Katy and Autumn gave me knowing smiles and left for the dance floor.

Colin sighed heavily as he plopped into the chair next to me.

“Damn,” he breathed, shaking his head.  A wistful smile curved the corner of his lips and leaned forward in his chair.

I quirked an eyebrow at him.

“That smile,” he said, locking his eyes with mine.  “It does crazy things to a man. Never thought I’d see it again.”

Maybe it was the alcohol warming my insides, but I giggled. “What kind of things?”

He shrugged, but his wistful smile threatened to break into a full grin. “Depends on the man.”

Then he leaned forward and grabbed my hand between both of his.  His brown eyes were warm and serious.

“I was an idiot, Ashley,” he shook his head again self-depreciatingly.  “That smile of yours turned me inside out. Made me question everything I thought I knew or wanted.”

I couldn’t help the words that came out of my mouth next.  What was even more embarrassing was my voice came out as a shaky whisper.

“So then, what happened? Why did you—”

I cut off.  It’s not like I had any feelings left over for Colin, so why did I suddenly care?

“Act like a complete jackass?”

He smiled and I couldn’t help but chuckle.  And nod.

He sighed again. “I was a coward.”

He turned his head toward the bar as an uncomfortable, slightly awkward silence descended between us.

He looked back at me a moment later and smiled. I smiled back.

“That smile can break a man’s heart.”

I frowned and my brow puckered.

“Why do you say that?”

He turned his head again and nodded in the direction of the bar. My scalp prickled with awareness.  I followed his gaze and I gasped when my sight landed on a strikingly familiar pair of blue-gray eyes.