Life After That (13 page)

Kirstin didn't want Ashley to start talking about their personal lives in front of everybody, so she gave him a look so he'd understand what she was about to do and would go along with her:

"Hi Ashley, Kirstin, Nice to meet you." She held her hand out to him. He got her hint and shook her hand with a incredulous look:

"You too."

Jacob, Erik, Dan and Trevor, watching that scene, realized that was THE Kirstin. Ashley's Kirstin. Andrew and the Mikes didn't know a thing, so seeing Ashley there, staring incredulous at Kirstin and still holding her hand was a weird picture for them. There was an awkward silence for a moment and Erik decided to end it:

"Hi Kirstin. I'm Erik. Nice to meet you." he held his hand out to her. Kirstin unlocked her eyes from Ashley's and let go of his hand.

"Hi Erik. Nice to meet you too." she replied shaking Erik's hand, the Latin guy she remembered from 'Inferno'.

"You two, please sit." Morin motioned for Erik and Ashley to sit. Erik took the sit between Trevor and Andrew.

Ashley was still staring at Kirstin when Cronin informed:

"Ashley, you are gonna have to get a chair in the kitchen."

Ashley finally looked away to face Cronin:

"Excuse me, what?"

"You are gonna have to get a chair in the kitchen. There's no chair for you to sit here. Go get one in the kitchen."

"Oh, ok."

When Ashley was off to the kitchen, Kirstin felt 4 sets of eyes on her. She noticed then that all Ashley's band mates were glancing at her. 'He must have told them about me' She thought. That was awkward for her. She was not comfortable with all os those 8 eyes on her. So she glanced down and waited. Ashley got back in the dinning room and placed his chair between Mike Morin and Andrew, at the corner of the table. Kirstin felt worse. That way Ashley was right in front of her and the minute he sat, she felt his eyes on her. Mike Morin then spoke up:

"So, Andrew, tell us about your editing plane for the show."

The meeting continued with Andrew and Morin doing most of the talking and sometimes Jacob would interfere telling that he didn't want his girlfriend to be exposed too much and asking a lot of questions to Andrew. Kirstin spent the entire meeting trying to avoid Ashley's staring. Sometimes she would look his way just to see if he was still staring and when she would see that he was, she would just look away. Several times Andrew would look at Kirstin like saying 'Say something!' and Kirstin would give her opinion on some issues debated. But other than that, she would remain quiet. She didn't have a lot to say anyway. This was her first time doing something like that and she had never done editing before, so what would she say?

When the meeting was officially over and everybody was getting up to say their goodbyes, Ashley spoke up:

"Kirstin, can I talk to you for a second?" a sudden silence fell over the room after that question.

"Hm, I don't know... Andrew and I must go back to the hotel and we're leaving tomorrow morning and…"

"Please?" he pleaded.

She didn't know what to say so Andrew said something:

"Kirstin, can I talk to you first? Over here?"

"Yes!" she said without even thinking. That way she would get away from there.

When Andrew and Kirstin got to a private place at the house, Andrew started:

"What does he want with you?"

"I don't know!"

"Well, you have to talk to him, I don't care about what. If he wants to talk to you, you go and talk to him. We can't get these people mad. By the way the meeting was, I can see that this job is gonna be a lot tougher than I thought it would be, so we gotta give these guys everything they want so they can leave us alone and we can have our job done our way. So, please, talk to him. Do you think it would take too long?"

"I don't know!"

"Do you know him?"

"Hm…" she didn't know what to say to her boss "We had 2 years of high school together."

"Really?" Kirstin just shook her head "Well, so talk to him. That's good! You know him! That's a plus to us! Maybe they will get easier on us. So go, talk to him. I'll be on my way to the hotel. When you are done, call a cab. Ok?"

She couldn't say no to her boss. Especially because he thought the conversation would be about the job. And she couldn't tell the whole story to him either.

"Ok…"

"Great. Let's go. I'll go back there say the proper goodbye and then I'll leave you there, alright?"

"Yeah, ok."

They got back to the dinning room and Andrew spoke for Kirstin, facing Ashley:

"She's staying. I'm going back to the hotel. It was a pleasure meeting you guys, if you need anything, please, just call me." he then shook everyone's hand and the Mikes went to open the door to him.

Kirstin was left there, totally uncomfortable with the 5 band members there, in silence. Dan talked first:

"Hey, so you are the girl that went to high school with Ashley?" he didn't find anything better to say. He just wanted to break the ice.

"Yes, that would be me." she grinned at him.

"Cool. He told us a lot about you." Trevor remarked.

"Oh, I bet he did." she still had that grin on her face when she turned to look at Ashley. He had his eyes glued on her and a serious look on his face.

"Yes, how ironic this is, isn't it? You, a girl Ashley knows for a long time, is back and working on our TV show!" Erik wanted to make the conversation a bit more interested but failed that mission.

"Yes. Well, everything happens for a reason. Maybe we were suppose to meet again, I guess." she had her eyes locked on Ashley's. The other guys got the hint and excused themselves.

Ashley came closer to her. Both their hearts were beating so rapidly.

"So, now can we talk ?" he had this sweet look on his face when he asked her that.

"Yes…" she replied in a sweet tone.

Ashley led them out to the pool area. Kirstin sat in a chair near the pool. Ashley got another one and placed it right in front of Kirstin's. He hold his head down, took a deep breath. Then looked up to stare at her eyes, took her hands in his, closed his eyes for a second and was about to start talking when he felt Kirstin's warm lips on his.

Ashley couldn't believe he was feeling Kirstin's lips on his own. He had wanted so badly to feel them again every since their first and last kiss.

And Kirstin couldn't believe she had made the first move, kissing him, again. But she wouldn't stop it now. She didn't want to stop it now. And this time, she promised herself she wouldn't run away. She stopped thinking about it when she felt Ashley's tongue break her lips apart. It was so good she moaned.

Ashley wasn't thinking about anything but the kiss. He would enjoy the most out of it. He didn't know if this time would be like the last. So he would enjoy it 'til it lasted. He explored Kirstin's mouth with his tongue. He could hear she moan every time their tongues touched.

None of them wanted to break the kiss but Ashley did it cause he was getting breathless. He opened his eyes and saw Kirstin licking her lips with her eyes shut. He smiled. He could see the pleasure on her face. Just by that one kiss she was that satisfied. She put a huge smile on her face, ran her hand over her long hair and opened her eyes to meet Ashley's. They kept staring at each other 'til Ashley asked:

"Why did you do that? Not that I'm complaining or anything." He smirked.

"'Cause I felt like it."

"You felt like it?"

"Yeah, it felt like the right thing to do." She frowned and continued. "Why do I have to explain every single thing to you Ashley?"

"Because, Kirstin. You don't talk to me, you don't call, nothing. And then you just appear here at my house and kiss me."

"You know why I did that Ashley?" He nodded. "I was thinking about this whole situation on my way here to Florida. I ran away from you 2 years ago, almost 3 now, and then that day, you found me in NY. That whole thing happened, we spent these months not talking to each other. And I think what we had is all over, again. Then I get this incredible job on the editing department and it happens to be your show that I'll be editing. And not only that, but you guys call in a meeting and I end up here, in Florida, back to you again. This can't just be coincidence. I seriously think it's fate doing its job."

"Me too! The minute I saw you there, sitting in that chair, I knew it couldn't be just coincidence. Then I spent the entire meeting not listening to a word people were saying at that table, just looking at you. Making sure that was really you. Making sure you were back in my life, again. 'Cause if you were, you would be back in my life for good this time. I wouldn't let you go."

Kirstin smiled and gave him a peck on the lips. Ashley didn't wanna ruin things, but he had to ask, with his head down:

"What about Tom, your boyfriend?"

Kirstin also glanced down, she had lied to Ashley:

"He was never my boyfriend."

"But…" Ashley was confused. "You were all over him at that bar and…"

"I know. But I just used him to get you out of my head. I saw you when you got to Inferno, you passed right by me. And I saw you with that Jen girl. So I used Tom to forget you. And when I noticed you had seen me with him, I used him once again to make you feel bad, just like I felt when I saw you with that girl. I thought that by making you feel bad I would make myself feel better, but it didn't work. And poor Tom…" she held her head down, she was embarrassed by the way she treated Tom. "I treated him like a doormat. I never talked to him again after that night at my place."

"YOU took him to YOUR place?"

Kirstin had said too much.

"Well… Yeah, but… nothing happened. I mean… I didn't let anything happen. I realized soon enough I was doing something for all the wrong reasons, so I asked him to leave. Thank God he did."

There was silence. Kirstin, not wanting to continue that conversation, changed the subject by asking Ashley:

"Ash, why did you break up with Jen?"

She could still tell Ashley was not happy with what she had informed him about: "It never felt right," he told her.

"Why?"

"'Cause I didn't love her. 'Cause you were the one constantly on my mind. It never felt right. We were never meant to be together."