Just a Summer Fling (20 page)

Twenty-one

JOSH WANTED ASHLEY
to wake up so she could smile at him, but he also wanted her to stay asleep so he could think about her all snuggled up, warm and safe in his bed. And so he wouldn’t have to hear anything unpleasant she might have to say. The conflicting desires ended up making him vaguely restless, but unable to pick any job to spend his energy on. He wiped half of the kitchen counter, washed a few dishes, made coffee but didn’t pour any for himself, and then heard stirring in the bedroom.

He snuck toward the door, reluctant to make noise in case Ashley wasn’t actually awake, and heard her sleepy voice say, “How’s your tummy, hero pup? Ready for some more treats?”

Josh snuck a peek through the crack between the half-open door and the wall and saw Daisy and Ashley both on the bed where he’d left them, with Daisy snuffling into Ashley’s neck for kisses. It was a bit sad that he was jealous of his dog.

“I think I saw some bacon in the freezer,” Ashley said. She was waking up now and her voice was becoming more
dynamic; Daisy’s tail wagged in response. “You think we should fry some of that up?” Now Daisy’s entire back end was wagging. “And then maybe some broccoli!” Ashley suggested in the same tone of voice, and Daisy almost fell off the bed she was so excited. “You don’t speak English, do you, pup? No, no English!”

Daisy barked, a little yip of excited agreement, and Ashley grinned and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Okay. We’ll find good snacks. Lots of vegetables, hardly any meat. Right?”

Josh couldn’t stay out of the room any longer. “You ready for coffee?” he asked as he stepped into the doorway. “Or do you want to wake up a little more slowly?”

“Hmm . . .” She stretched languorously, her borrowed shirt riding up in interesting places. “I think coffee would work. But I’ll come out to the kitchen for it.”

“I can bring it in here if you want.”

“No. Daisy and I need to start looking for her morning snacks.”

“She’s already had her breakfast.”

“Kibble. She says kibble sucks. She says bear-chasing dogs need bacon to keep their strength up.”

“She’s chased bears before and hasn’t needed bacon.”

“She felt the lack. Go get the frying pan ready.”

“I was hoping to watch you for a little longer.”

Her smile was almost shy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” As if there could be any doubt.

But apparently there was, because she made a face and said, “You didn’t call me. I was away for six days, and you didn’t call me.” She didn’t sound petulant, exactly—just unsure.

Josh had been hoping to put this conversation off until at least after coffee, if not forever. But if they were going to talk about it, at least he could try to be honest. “I should have called probably. But I was . . . I don’t know exactly.
Still trying to figure things out. Waiting to see if
you
called, or if you were going to come back at all.”

“I said I was coming back.”

“You said you were staying the whole summer. You said you weren’t going to hang out with Hollywood people. Said you were taking a vacation.”

“Things changed!” she protested defensively.

“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t mean you lied or anything. Just, like you said, things change sometimes. So you might have planned to come back, but then when you got to L.A., maybe you’d have figured out that you shouldn’t.”

“Why would I have done that?”

“I don’t know. I mean, you live there. Your life is there. It’s not that weird to decide to stay at home instead of flying across the country.”

She nodded slowly. “I guess. Yeah. But, listen, Josh, that honestly never occurred to me. I’m sorry if you weren’t sure, but I knew I was coming back. I
knew
.”

He let himself believe her. “Okay. Good.”

She slid off the bed and padded toward him on bare feet, his shirt falling to the middle of her thighs and then leaving a lot of skin for him to obsess over. “You were mad at me before I left. Is that . . . Are we okay? Is that over?”

“Yeah.” He saw her waiting for more and tried to find the words. “I wish you hadn’t gotten involved with the business. I appreciate the thought, but I’ve got my pride, Ashley. You know?”

“I do. I’m sorry. I wanted to help, but I guess I just got caught up in the grand gesture again. I’m learning, though. I promise.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and sweet. “You’re sure you’re not mad anymore?”

“I was almost done being mad when I listened to your message,” he said quietly. “And then if there was a tiny little bit left, it dissolved completely when I saw you standing there facing down a damn bear.”

“I can handle bears,” she said bravely. “But . . . I wish you’d called me. I wanted to call you, but I said I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“You can make it up to me,” she interrupted with a sly, suggestive smile.

His body responded to just the hint. “Really?” he asked cautiously.

“Yup. You can apologize with bacon. Daisy and I want bacon, and maybe eggs and definitely toast. Do you have tomatoes? We might want to make BLTs.”

He smiled at her, only a little reluctantly. “Daisy doesn’t want tomatoes. But, yeah, I might have one. Enough for you.”

“I’ll share,” she promised, and she kissed him lightly. “I want coffee and breakfast, and I want a shower, and I want to brush my teeth. And then I want to climb right back into bed with you and you can show me how much you missed me. Sound good?”

“Yeah. Sounds perfect.” He meant it. He’d missed her, and now she was back. It still wasn’t anything long-term, and he was still going to get his heart smashed down the road, but he knew he needed to enjoy things while he could. “Coffee first. Any chance you want company in the shower?”

“Daisy likes showers?”

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m not joking.” She waited, then grinned. “Now, Daisy and I would like bacon. Please serve us.”

“You were in L.A. for a little too long, I think.” But he was already moving, heading down the hall toward the kitchen, and when he got there he hauled out his cast iron skillet and the bacon. Ashley was back. She wanted bacon. He was going to give her whatever she wanted.

*   *   *

IT
was a good thing Josh had been working so hard while Ashley was away, and a good thing, in a way, that he’d lost
half his clients, because once she was back he didn’t seem to want to leave the house. He made it clear that he didn’t want her to have the barbecue and she reluctantly accepted his decision, but it seemed like even just the possibility of rubbing shoulders with a Hollywood star had brought a few more customers back into the fold, even without a payoff.

He sent Kevin on a few jobs, and spent one afternoon helping him when there was just no safe way for the guy to do the work alone, but otherwise Josh was on vacation. So was Ashley. They rode the horses all over the property and beyond. Josh showed her his favorite places, and she appreciated them just as much as he’d known she would. He cooked for her, a little, until she kissed him and told him to go sit down; she liked cooking, and he obviously didn’t. And they spent a lot of time in bed.

But they did other things, too. Ashley was interested in the whole town, and she dragged him to one of her pottery lessons, off to Abi’s café for lunch, and when she found out his aunt and uncle owned a garden center she insisted they buy flowers for the cabin. “We can get native plants,” she said. “They’ll look totally natural. Just a little bit flowery!”

Another day he took her over to go fishing with Mr. Ryerson, nice and early in the morning, and he watched as she charmed the old man with her enthusiasm. She peppered him with questions about bait and techniques and she actually pulled out a notebook and wrote things down when she got something she wasn’t sure she’d remember. And then, when they reached the secret fishing hole that Mr. Ryerson had never even told Josh about, Ashley sat as quietly as a seasoned pro, casting and waiting and then casting again. She was a bit squeamish when she actually caught a nice bass and realized she’d have to touch it to get the hook out of its mouth. But when Mr. Ryerson moved to help her, Josh caught his shoulder. “No, she can do it,” he said gently, and Ashley stared at him for a moment, and then nodded decisively.

“I can,” she said. “I just . . . run my hand down like this?” She took a deep breath, and then she did it. “And I ease the hook around?” Her face was twisted but her hand was steady, and when she’d unhooked the fish and reluctantly set it back into the water, she’d turned to Josh with a triumphant glow. “I did it. Me! That was me who just did that!”

“I know. I knew you could.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “You did.” She shifted around in the boat, snuggled in a little closer, and Josh wasn’t sure whether to ignore the knowing look from Mr. Ryerson or bask in it.

They went to Woody’s one night with Kevin and Abi and a couple other people to hear Theo’s band, and Josh just sat back at their table and watched Ashley have fun. He was proud of her and proud of being with her. Not because she was a movie star, but because she was Ashley.

“You got a long-term plan for this?” Abi asked when Ashley had dragged Kevin out onto the tiny dance floor. “Ideas of where you’re going down the road?”

“Nope,” he said, and he took a sip of his beer.

“You think maybe you should?”

“You think maybe you should be quiet?” She raised a challenging eyebrow at him and he sighed and extended his hand. “You want to dance?”

“You hate dancing.”

“Not as much as I hate talking about this.”

So she led him out onto the floor and it wasn’t long until they switched partners and Josh realized he didn’t hate dancing all that much, not when he got to do it with Ashley. It helped that Kevin was there, being goofy and distracting for everyone, and it was even kind of fun when Theo started making square-dancing calls from the stage, getting all dancers to swing their partners and do their own versions of whatever do-si-do-ing was.

Ashley laughed through it all, and Ashley made everything good.

So they had fun when they went out, but his favorite times were still at home with just the two of them. They rode, and they walked, and they went down to the creek and looked up at the stars. They also talked a lot, and spent most of one rainy afternoon inventing and playing a strange game of what-I’d-do-if-I-ran-the-world, a game so intense that they both started writing down strategies, doing calculations, and even making maps to show the way goods could be redistributed. Ashley’s solutions tended to be more technology based, Josh’s more agrarian, but they were both pretty confident that they’d get all their worlds’ citizens fed and healthy.

“We may be the biggest nerds in the universe,” Ashley said as she surveyed the bed. It was covered with stacks of paper, a laptop, and a demon dog wearing a paper crown. They’d both agreed that a figurehead monarch, especially a furry one, wouldn’t hurt their political systems.

“Nerds might be a good choice to run the world,” Josh said. He’d never thought of himself as a nerd before, but he was pretty sure it was the right word for the way he was acting. How else to explain his strange new fascination with climatic projections? Would he be able to stop desertification in time to keep the Sahel productive, or should he be allocating even more resources to dealing with refugees? Of course, he wouldn’t have been so interested in any of it if the issues hadn’t sprung out of a conversation with a beautiful movie star he happened to be in bed with, so possibly he wasn’t a
classic
nerd.

That was when the phone rang. Josh answered, then handed it to Ashley. “Your manager,” he said.

The lack of cell coverage at the cabin hadn’t saved him from outside intrusions; they’d tracked her down. Now he couldn’t do anything but watch it happen.

Ashley’s face was flushed with excitement. “Really?” she demanded of the phone. “No, really? Adam, no. Are you sure? She really . . . oh my God, Adam, really?”

She was quiet for a while as Adam spoke, and Josh found himself going back to his old memorization tricks. He would remember the way she looked as she held the phone tight to her ear, pink and excited and so, so happy. He’d memorize the image, but maybe he’d pretend she looked that way because of something he’d done.