I Love You, Always (25 page)

“Okay,” she says, grabbing my beer again to take another sip.

I half laugh. “Okay? That’s it?” I ask.

Ash looks up at
me and smiles
. “Yeah, it is. If you don’t want to see him again, then don’t,” she says, finishing off my beer.

My eyes flick to the empty bottle and I raise an eyebrow at her. “This isn’t some sort of reverse psychology thing again, is it?” I ask, leaning in to kiss her quickly.

“Nope,” she says, letting go of me as she starts to walk inside.

“Asha?” I ask, as I grab the steaks and follow her in. “You sure about that?”

“Luke,” she says, turning and putting her hand on my stomach, stopping me. “I promise, really. I get why you don’t want to see him, I really do, and I’m not trying to convince you otherwise.”

“Would you go and see him?” I ask, knowing that she has never faced anything like this before.

Ash shrugs now. “I don’t know, I really don’t. My dad dying was nothing like this,” she says as we walk into the kitchen and start getting plates and utensils for everyone.

“Yeah, I know…” I say, knowing that not only was the relationship she had with her dad different, but so was his death. Everything about him was different. My fingers spin the ring I wear. “But you never…” I trail off, not sure if I should be asking her this.

“I never what?” she says, leaning back against the counter.

I stare at her for a second, wondering if I should be going here or not. I hate bringing up these memories for her even if she insists she doesn’t mind talking about it all. But I also know if anyone’s going to know what saying goodbye, or not saying goodbye is like, it’s her.

“Luke,” she says when I still haven’t said anything.

“You never got a chance to say goodbye to him, did you?”

She glances down at my fingers, still spinning her dad’s ring. I love that she gave it to me, because I know it’s the one thing of his that she used to wear all the time. I know how much it means to her. I’ve tried giving it back to her, that it was only something I was looking after for her, but she won’t take it back, insists it’s mine now.

“No, I didn’t,” she says and the way she says it has me walking over to her, pulling her into my arms.

“I’m sorry, beautiful, sorry for bringing it up,” I say, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Ash’s hands rest against my chest and she looks up at me, a small smile on her face. “No, don’t be, it’s okay, Luke,” she says, pressing a kiss to my lips. “I don’t mind talking about it, really.”

“You’re sure?” I ask, my hands on her hips now.

“I’m sure,” she says. “I wish I’d had a chance to say goodbye to all of them, not just my dad. But my situation is very different to yours and I can’t be the person to tell you what to do.”

I’m nodding at her. “I know, and I know you’re not trying to.”

“You have to do what feels right for you, okay,” she says. “And only you know what that is.”

“Yeah,” I say exhaling loudly. “I just wish I knew how to work that out.”

“You will,” she says, pressing up on her toes to kiss me again. “Come on, let’s eat.”

If somebody had told me not to bet on us

I’d tell them forget it, because it’s in this that I trust

I’d give
my everything
, my everything to you

Because I know in my heart baby, that our love is my truth

∞

A week has passed since we found out about Dad being taken to the hospital. I still haven’t been to see him, and once again, I find myself lying on my back staring up at the ceiling and unable to sleep.

“I can hear you thinking, you know,” Ash says, and I can’t help but smile as I roll over so my head is resting on her chest.

“That bad, huh?” I say, my arms wrapping around her waist.

“Mmmm,” she says, her hand rubbing over the top of my head. “It’s pretty loud, yeah.”

I laugh, pressing my lips to her skin, my eyes closing as I breathe in the scent of her. I feel Ash’s hand as it slowly runs over my head and down my back. Her fingers trace slow patterns over my shoulders and my body melts into hers, every muscle relaxing. I don’t want to be anywhere else right now.

“You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you?” she eventually asks.

I close my eyes as her fingers slowly smooth over my skin. “Yeah.”

She slides her hand up my back now, cupping my jaw in her hand and forcing me to look at her. “So, tell me what you’re thinking about,” she says, her fingers brushing across my bottom lip. I try to catch them with my teeth, but she moves them away. “Luke?” she says quietly, when I haven’t answered her.

I exhale, my arms squeezing her body. “I don’t know, him I guess. Going to see him. Whether I should.”

“Are you worried?” she asks, her fingers brushing over my scar now. “That if you don’t do it soon, you might run out of time.”

“I don’t know, beautiful,” I say truthfully. “I guess a part of me is. If I wait long enough, then my decision is made, isn’t it.” I close my eyes, not wanting to think about what kind of person that makes me. Waiting for my father to die so I can avoid facing what I know I need to.

“What’s holding you back?” she asks. I open my eyes; find her eyes watching me with nothing but love and concern in them. “Tell me why you’re so worried about it,” she says, and I can hear the pleading in her voice, the way she really wants to know.

But I don’t want to think about it, much less talk. So I slide up her body and press my lips hard against hers now. I wish I didn’t have to make this fucking decision at all. I wish I’d never even found out about Dad, that he’d never found out about me being here. And as much as Ash wants to me to talk about this, right now, I don’t want to. I love her and I never want to be without her, but this is a part of my life she never witnessed. I don’t want her to and I don’t want her dragged into all of this shit.

“Luke,” she says, breathless as she tries to push me away.

I lift my head and meet her stare. Her eyes are full of concern and I try smiling at her, hoping to placate her. “What?” I exhale.

“We should talk about this, talk about what’s going on in here,” she says, running her hand over my head.

I kiss her again. “I don’t want to talk right now, Asha. I don’t want to talk because I don’t want to feel this. I want to feel something good. Something real.” I lift my head again. “I want to feel you,” I tell her.

Her hand slides around my neck now and she pulls me back to her mouth. I kiss her hard, urgently, desperate to feel her.
Desperate to erase all the thoughts and fears that are running through my head.

“We should talk about this, Luke,” she murmurs against my mouth, but still kissing me.

I wrap my arms tightly around her. “I know, beautiful, but not now. Please not now.”

Even I can hear the desperation in my voice and I know she does too, because she doesn’t stop. Her arms tighten around me, and she pulls me even closer. I’m desperate, desperate to feel her, to be inside her. She is the best thing for me right now and I want to forget about everything else. All of the shit that I don’t want to deal with, all of the shit that I thought I’d left behind.

“Asha…” I moan, not letting her speak anymore.

I’m lying here staring at the ceiling again. I still can’t sleep, despite exhausting myself in the best possible way. Asha knows what I was doing, and even though I know she wants me to talk about it, right now she’s letting me deal with it the way I want to. I really thought I was done with all of this, but apparently not. I slide out of bed and leave Ash sleeping, pressing a gentle kiss to her shoulder before grabbing a pair of sweats and pulling them on. It’s a warm night, so I head downstairs, grab a bottle of water from the fridge and walk out to the pool area. Falling into one of the lounges by the pool, I run my hand over my face and wonder what the fuck I am supposed to do about all of this.

I don’t realise I’ve left the patio door open, but I must have because I don’t hear Ash come outside until her hands slide over my shoulders and onto my chest. Leaning my head back, I see her standing over me, a worried look on her face. I reach up, sliding my hand around her neck and pull her down to me, our lips meeting for the softest of kisses.

I pull her around the side of the lounge and onto my lap. “I can’t keep waking you up, Ash,” I say, knowing that’s what she wants me to do instead of sneak out.

“Yeah, you can,” she says pressing a soft kiss to my neck. “You’re supposed to be doing exactly that, I thought we talked about this already?”

I run my fingers through her hair before tracing the lines of her face. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m not meaning to shut you out, I just…I don’t know what the fuck I’m thinking or even supposed to do here,” I say, my eyes on hers. “I have no fucking idea what I’m supposed to do, Asha.”

She kisses me on the lips this time and we sit here silently watching each other. My hand rests on her bare leg and I slowly slide it up under the t-shirt of mine that she’s pulled on to come out here. I love it when she wears my clothes, it’s so unbelievably sexy and right now, I’m discovering that there’s not a whole lot else on underneath it. And somehow, despite everything that’s going on inside my head, I want to do a lot more than just run my hand under it.

Ash runs hers fingers across my chest, tracing the outline of her tattoo. “Don’t think about him,” she whispers as she leans in and kisses me. “Just think about you for a second, about what it is that you want, what you need from all of this.”

I exhale, gently sliding my hand back down and lightly squeezing her thigh as my head falls back onto the lounge and my eyes close. Ash doesn’t say anything else, just waits patiently for me to answer, lightly stroking her fingers over my head now. She does this a lot and it’s amazingly comforting.

I know I need to talk to her. I’m not trying to shut her out and I don’t ever want to. It’s just not something I’m used to doing, even now. I’m okay with dealing with other people’s shit, but when it comes to mine, that’s a whole different story. But I also know when the situation was reversed I did everything I could to get Ash to talk to me. And when she finally started to, everything changed, everything got better.

I take a deep breath, knowing I owe it to her to let her inside my head, no matter how fucked up and ugly I know it’s going to be. She’s laid her head against my shoulder now and I can feel her warm breath against my neck.

“I’m afraid that if I go and see him, it means I sort of forgive him. And if I even sort of forgive him, then it will mean that everything he did to me is somehow forgotten, somehow okay,” I say, my eyes still closed. “I’m afraid he’ll think that nothing that happened in the past, to me or to Mia, matters anymore. And I can’t let him think that.”

Ash wraps her arm around my waist, but I don’t open my eyes. “Tell me something, if your dad dies…”

“When,” I say, knowing it’s a certainty now.

“When your dad dies,” she continues. “What do you think you’re going to feel?”

I take a deep breath, hoping she can understand what I’m about to say, hoping she won’t judge me for it or think less of me because it’s the truth. “Relief,” I finally breathe out, knowing this is probably the one thing I never thought I would be able to say out loud.

I feel her head lift off my shoulders, her lips as they gently touch mine. “Why do you feel bad about that?”

I shrug. “Because it’s a fucking awful thing to think about someone?” I suggest, knowing it’s far more than that.

“It’s human, Luke,” Ash whispers. “And it’s perfectly okay to feel this way.”

My arms tighten around her, pulling her closer. God, I love her so fucking much. I love how she understands me, how she just
gets
me, and how she knows exactly what I’m feeling or thinking. But most of all, I love that she never, ever judges or blames me. That nothing I think or feel or say, is bad in her eyes. She makes me feel fucking invincible and I feel so goddamn lucky to have Asha in my life.

I open my eyes and stare up into the night sky. “Do you think I should forgive him?” I whisper to the stars.

I hear her take a deep breath before she
says,
“I think you should do whatever feels right for you, even if that means you don’t forgive him.” Ash leans in and kisses me again before continuing, “You don’t owe him anything you know, especially something you don’t feel ready to give.”

My fingers are tracing slow patterns on her skin as I try to work out exactly what would feel right to me. “Would you forgive him?”

She exhales loudly and I lower my head to face her again. “I think some things are unforgivable, Luke,” she says, running her fingers lightly over my cheek, tracing the outline of the scar she probably can’t even see in this light. “But, I do think you need to do something, whatever that something is. Because you need to let this all go, before it destroys you,” she says as she leans in and kisses me. “I can’t let this destroy you, Luke. I won’t.”

I watch her face as she tells me all of this. God, she knows exactly what that feels like. Knows exactly what the weight of guilt and doubt can do to you. “How do I do that, Ash, how do I let it all go?”

She kisses me again before saying, “Maybe you need to start believing that none of it was ever your fault. That you did what you had to, to survive and there was nothing wrong with that. And he can’t make you feel otherwise, no one can because no one lived what you did.” Her hand runs over the top of my head again as she continues, “You’ve done nothing wrong, none of this is your fault and you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.”

I pull her tighter against me now as I whisper, “How is it that you always know exactly what to say to me, beautiful girl?”

Her hand gently brushes over the top of my head. “Because these are all the things that were once said to me,” she says smiling now. “Said to me by
the most
amazing guy in the world.”

My heart melts at her words. “Oh yeah, and who would that be then?”

She kisses me again, her hand resting on my cheek as she stares into my eyes. “You, my gorgeous man. You.”

And I kiss her this
time,
amazed that one person can be so perfect, so unbelievably right for me.

“Come on, back to bed please,” Ash says, standing up and pulling me to my feet now.

I’m still not sure I’m
gonna
be able to sleep but I let her pull me up anyway. “Asha?” I say into the darkness.

“Yeah?”

We are facing each other in the light of the early dawn, joined only by our hands and our eyes. Even now, it floors me as I think she is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. “You do know how much I love you, right?”

She smiles, pulling me closer as she pushes up on her toes to kiss me again. “I do, Luke, I really do. But right now, I want you to come back to bed with me so I can show you how much I really love
you
.”

I have no words left to say. All I can do is pull her into my arms, wrap them tightly around her and kiss her… hard. Kiss her like my life depends on it, because honestly, sometimes I think it does. She might think that it was me who saved her, but I know that really, it’s Asha who has saved me.

Every single day, she saves me.