Into The Fire (8 page)

She didn’t flinch at my words. “Why do you
have that in your closet?”

I shrugged. “It makes me feel better knowing
I can blow someone’s head off at any moment. Our base was invaded a
few times, and some guys were shot in their sleep. Since then, I
always keep my gun beside me. A few years ago, I managed to put it
in the closet instead of leaving it at the bedside. Maybe one day,
I’ll dismantle it and forget about it altogether.”

She listened to my words and watched me
stoically. She didn’t seem disturbed or uncomfortable by anything
that I said. Instead of judging me or saying I needed to see a
therapist, she nodded in understanding. “Traumatic experiences take
time to recuperate from. And sometimes they never stop haunting
you.” She didn’t patronize me by saying meaningless words, she was
honest with me.

And I really liked that
. “Yeah…” It
seemed like she knew exactly what I was talking about. But how
would she know?

“Well, good night.” She settled back down and
pulled the sheets to her shoulder. “Thanks for letting me sleep
here.”

“No problem.” I gave her one final look
before I shut the door.

CHAPTER FIVE

Alessandra

I was such an idiot for losing my keys.

How did I manage that?

Anything I touched disappeared like a mouse
hiding under a couch. You saw him make a run for safety, but once
he was hidden, you could never find him again. Sometimes I thought
I was a scatterbrain. Perhaps Ash and I weren’t that different.

“How’d it go with that hunky guy with
tattoos?” Shelly asked when I entered the office.

“Surprisingly well.”

“Why is that surprising?”

I shrugged before I sat down. “I don’t
usually have a lot of fun with my clients. But this time I
did.”

“What did you guys do?”

“After I met his parents, we went back to his
place and he played guitar for me. He’s really good.”

“Sounds romantic.” She gave me a meaningful
look.

“He’s so scorching hot.” I wouldn’t lie about
that. “But he has more arrogance than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“A guy like that should be arrogant,” she
said with a chuckle. “I don’t blame him.”

“It’s his biggest flaw but he has a lot of
great qualities.”

“Like what?” she asked.

I tried to gather my thoughts. “Well, he’s
really sweet even when he doesn’t mean to be. He gives me
compliments left and right without sounding sleazy. He was in the
military for years and he has a distinct maturity to him. When his
friend passed away in combat, Ash took care of his wife without
being asked to. And I told him about…what happened with Tony and he
was really nice about it.”

“Wow…sensitive and manly. That’s a deadly
combination.”

“But he’s a typical manwhore that never wants
to settle down. That’s not what I’m looking for, and he made it
clear he would never change.”

“Well, why can’t you just…be with him?”

I gave her a glare. “Because he’s my client.
You know that.”

“So, if he weren’t, you would go for it?”

“I don’t know…”

“Yes, you do.” She smiled when she knew she
had me. “You would totally jump his bones.”

“Fine,” I said. “If I met him at a bar or
something, I’d go home with him. But that’s not our situation. He’s
a really nice guy and being friends is actually…not so bad.”

“Not so bad?” she asked.

“I’ve seen a different side to him than he
lets most people see. If we just banged and I left the next
morning, I wouldn’t know anything about him.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’d prefer to get laid.
But whatever.”

“Of course you would,” I said
sarcastically.

“So, you’ve been single for four
months—officially.”

I knew this conversation would happen
eventually.

“You need to get back on the horse. Four
months is a long time to wait around.”

Ugh, I hated dating. All those awkward
dinners where you don’t know what to say to each other, and then
the sex is just…blah. You have to go on ten of them before you
finally find someone decent, and even then it still isn’t worth it.
It took me forever to find Tony. How long would it take me to find
the next one? “I will…eventually.”

“Come on. Let’s go out tonight. With that
face and that ass, you can pick up someone in a heartbeat.”

“You overestimate my capabilities.”

“I really don’t.”

“You know how awkward I am at the bar
scene.”

“Then don’t be awkward.” She said it like it
was the simplest thing in the world.

“How about we get some wine and order in? We
can watch a chick flick.”

She stuck out her tongue. “That’s lame. Let’s
go out and meet some guys. It’ll be fun.”

Ugh, I wasn’t going to get out of this.
“Fine.”

***

The bar scene was a big letdown. There were
more creepers than I’d ever seen congregated into one area. They
were sleazy, and I could see date rapist written all over them.
Maybe we just picked the wrong place, but it wasn’t a good
scene.

We ended up doing exactly as I suggested,
staying in and drinking wine. I preferred that plan anyway. I
didn’t like going out and putting myself on display. I preferred
organic meetings, when you met someone at a grocery store because
you were both going for the last apple in the produce section.
Waiting for Mr. Right to hit on you at a bar was so…cliché.

The rest of my week was pretty uneventful,
and I spent my time thinking about Ash when I wasn’t distracted. He
had really nice hair. It was such a weird compliment to give
someone, but it was the truth. It looked soft but also a little
coarse. It had a slight curl at the end and I wondered how it would
feel in my fingertips. I wondered how many other women had the same
thought.

Probably a thousand.

He was stubborn and bossy at times, and if he
didn’t get his way, he would throw a tantrum. When he demanded to
walk me home, I knew I would never win the argument. He truly
seemed harmless. I couldn’t picture him stalking me somewhere down
the road. He had too many other options, and he was against
commitment so chasing me down was unlikely to ever happen. But I
was still on my guard.

I would always be on my guard.

Of course, he got his way. But that was only
because I let him. If I were truly threatened by him, I wouldn’t
have slept in his apartment with only a thin slab of wood
separating us. If anything, he would be the guy who protected me,
not harassed me.

The fact he had such an interesting life made
me more drawn to him. He did three tours in Afghanistan and was
overseas for fifteen months. I couldn’t even imagine having that
kind of experience. He saw so many terrible things I couldn’t even
dream of, but he was still upbeat and friendly. His parents were
terrible to him, but he had nothing but nice things to say about
them. Sometimes he was a complete paradox.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Hearing him play his guitar and sing so
confidently was a turn on, I’ll admit that. His fingers moved
across the strings with ease, and his voice never shook like he was
nervous. He was comfortable in his own skin, probably because he
understood just how beautiful he was.

Everyone knew how beautiful he was.

It’s funny to think I was irritated with him
when we first met. He talked too much, primarily about himself. And
he just didn’t know when to shut up. But his annoyances were
balanced out by his thoughtfulness. And when he complimented my
appearance, I didn’t hate it. I loved it, actually.

I was at work when Shelly took a phone call.
“Yes, she’s right here. Let me put you on hold.” She put the phone
on the receiver. “That hunky man is trying to call you.”

“Thanks.” It was probably for the dinner with
his parents that weekend. “Hello?”

“Can’t stop thinking about me, huh?” His
cockiness had returned in full force.

“You called me, idiot.”

“But I bet you were thinking about me.”

“Actually, I was.”

“See?”

“I was thinking how I wish I had this weekend
off instead of going to dinner with you.” That was totally bogus
but he didn’t need to know that.

“You think I’m going to buy that crap?” he
asked. “You conveniently lost your keys so you could sleep over?
You think girls haven’t pulled that number on me before?”

“What?” I said defensively. “I didn’t—”

“Kidding.” He chuckled. “Chill, baby.”

“You chill.” My heart was beating fast
because I assumed he really thought I was that desperate for his
attention.

He chuckled again. “Someone’s wound tight
today…”

“I wasn’t until you called.”

“Ouch.” He said it in an amused way. “So, are
we still on for Saturday?”

“You tell me.”

“Dinner is at seven. Can I actually pick you
up this time? Or do you still think I’m crazy?”

“I do think you’re crazy. But you can pick me
up.”

“Good. I felt like a chick when you picked me
up last time.”

“Well, you’re paying me for a service and I’m
delivering.”

“That’s the part of the service I don’t
need.”

“Do you want me to bring something? Make
something?”

“Make something?” he asked. “Can you
cook?”

“Yes.” Why was it surprising? All people
could cook.

“Hmm…what kind of things can you cook?”

“A lot of different things.”

“Well, my mom is super picky so let’s go
through a test run. Come over here and cook me dinner and—”

“Only if you pay me.”

“Ooh…someone knows how to play hardball.”

“Naturally.”

“Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying,
right?”

“Nope.”

“So, I’ll pick you up on Saturday at seven?
We’re good?”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet,” he said. “I’ll see you then.”

I didn’t know what possessed me to do it but
I decided to do something reckless and stupid. “Come over for
dinner tonight.”

“What?” he asked. “Seriously?”

I wasn’t thinking. I just blurted it out like
an idiot. Why did I even think it at all? But now that I said it, I
couldn’t take it back. “Sure. Why not?”

“Free food? Hell yeah. Beautiful woman
cooking in slutty lingerie? Fuck yeah.”

“Whoa…who said anything about slutty
lingerie?”

“Dammit,” he said into the phone. “I was
hoping you’d just go along with it.”

“I’m not a whore.”

“You’re an escort, aren’t you?”

He did not just go there
. Just when I
thought he was sweet and sensitive, he said something to piss me
off. I slammed the phone down and hung up on him. I was too angry
to yell—which meant I was really pissed.

Shelly looked up from her computer. “That was
abrupt.”

“He pissed me off.”

“You just invited him to dinner. What could
he have possibly said?”

“You don’t want to know.”

The phone rang and we both stared at it.

Shelly shrugged awkwardly. “I have to get
that…”

I wish I could pull the cord from the
wall.

“Beautiful Entourage,” she said when she
answered. “Yeah, she’s right here…” She looked to me for
direction.

“Tell him I’m busy and not to call back,” I
ordered.

“Uh…” Shelly repeated everything into the
phone. “Okay.” She hung up.

That went over better than I expected. I
didn’t want to argue with him in the office while Shelly listened
to every word we said.

“For what it’s worth, he did seem sorry.”

I was particularly sensitive when it came to
this subject. I wasn’t a call girl or a prostitute. I was an
actress more than anything else. I told him how ashamed I was for
stripping, so he knew perfectly well this was difficult for me to
deal with.

Instead of dwelling on it, I decided to go
through my paperwork and wait around for any phone calls I might
receive. I had a few clients to juggle and I never knew when they
might need me.

***

“Alessandra!” Ash burst through the door,
sweaty and out of breath. His eyes landed on Shelly and he
immediately marched to her with a mission in his eyes. “Where is
she? I need to speak to her.”

“Uh, right here.” I was at the desk right
next to her. I guess he was too upset to really look around.

“Good.” He dashed to me and forgot about
Shelly altogether. “I’m sorry about what I said. It was a joke. I
swear.”

I was still too irritated to forgive him.

“I thought you knew I was joking around. I’m
sorry I took it too far.” Sincerity shined in his eyes, and his
hands formed into fists like he wanted to punch himself in the
chest. “I apologize.” He stared at me with hope written all over
his face. “I apologized,” he repeated.

“And that automatically means I should
forgive you?” I asked incredulously.

“Well, I am sorry. So yes, you should forgive
me. Isn’t that how this works?” He pointed at me then himself with
a confused look on his face. “I never apologize for anything unless
I really mean it. You should know that about me.”

“Awe…” Shelly sighed as she watched us.

I turned to her. “Do you mind?”

“Sorry.” She grabbed her purse and walked out
of the office.

“I take it back, okay?” Ash pressed forward
just the way he did when he insisted on walking me home.

It was clear his comment wasn’t malicious so
I dropped the attitude. “I forgive you.”

His shoulders visibly relaxed. “Thank you. I
have a problem when it comes to stuff like this. I say stupid shit
and it gets me in trouble. By the time I realize what I’ve done,
it’s too late.”

“Just watch it next time.”

“I will.” He stood in front of my desk and
moved his hands to his pockets. Now that I accepted his apology, he
didn’t know what else to say. He even seemed awkward. He wore jeans
with a hole near the pocket and a t-shirt, like always. “So…can I
still come over for dinner?”