Loving Ashe (16 page)

They were fast asleep when Ashe’s phone buzzed from somewhere on the floor. At first, Riley had dreamt that she needed to be at work, but seconds before she would have leapt out of bed and rush to get ready, she realized two things. First, she was off work for the next three days so there was no need to jump out of bed. And second, there was a man in said bed. But then she remembered who it was, and she nudged him softly and mumbled something about his phone ringing.

“Oh, God, so sorry,” Ashe muttered as he searched for his phone on the floor, easing his arm from under Riley’s head as he did so. A woman’s voice screeched from the other end of the line even before Ashe put the phone to his ear.

“You were supposed to be at the gala last night, Ashe,” Collette said. “Because of your damn no-show, you might just have lost your title role to Gareth. He pulled off the accent in front of the studio execs that were there. He pulled it off, Ashe! And I don’t care if you look more like Conley than Gareth does, that’s what the make-up team is for!”

“Can we talk about this later?” Ashe asked calmly, his voice thick with sleep. “It’s six in the bloody morning, Collette.”

“I’m just giving you a heads-up, Ashe. If you don’t play well with others, you won’t make it in this business, and I’m tired of you being too damn independent and doing your own thing!”

“What are you worried about, Collette? They’re using my screenplay. Wasn’t that why I was in LA the whole time?” Ashe said, sighing. “I’ll speak to you later.”

“Where are you? I had the driver stop by your place, and the doorman said you hadn’t come home.”

“It’s none of your bloody business where I am, Collette, but I’ll call you later,” Ashe said and hung up the phone. He turned to Riley. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Riley said, burying herself deeper in the covers. “But couldn’t she talk a bit louder? I might have missed a word here and there.”

“She’s upset,” Ashe said, lying back on the pillows and pulling her towards him. “She prides herself in making a nobody into a somebody, so whenever I don’t play along she gets quite upset — even when I actually already have played along. It doesn’t matter to her that I was already making movies in England before she met me, but that I became a Hollywood name because of her managerial efforts.”

Riley laid her head on his chest, her body nestled under the crook of his arm. “Is that what she did with you — repackaged you for the American market?”

“My success didn’t happen overnight, though she’d like to think that it did. I was already working when she met me. British TV mainly — specials, mini-series, and a few movies. So there was no need for repackaging, or at least, not too much, I hope. I’m still mostly me, though I’ve paid my dues to be where I am.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Riley said. “I mean, Gareth went fast — it seemed like he went from 0 to 60 in two minutes flat.”

“That’s because of Collette. She calls it her Fast Track to Fame 101, for which she exacts a higher commission when it actually works,” Ashe said, twirling a lock of her hair around his index finger. “As for me, I took the slow route. I’ve been working since I was eighteen, modeling first, then after graduating from RADA, I worked with the RSC. I also did a small film-”

“The one with a full frontal naked shot of you?” Riley interrupted, smiling.

“Yes, though I hope you’ve seen the whole movie,” he replied, eyeing her suspiciously. “It’s called
Besties
.”

“Was that the title? I thought it was called
Ashe’s-“

“Stop it,” Ashe said, smacking her playfully on her buttocks over the covers. “In case you missed the storyline — because there was a storyline — it was about two best friends who end up as lovers and go back to being best friends again. I wrote the screenplay, and my friends said I might as well play the title role since there were no takers, not with the prospect of a full-frontal shot.”

“You’d think people would line up to do it for the exposure. It was an excellent shot, by the way, at least from the online GIFs I found of it,” Riley chuckled, reaching down beneath the covers to touch him, but Ashe caught her hand, shaking his head.

“Anyway, I did two more films before deciding to try my luck in Hollywood,” he continued. “But when too many talented people want the same job, it’s quite easy to get lost in the pile.”

“Do you regret any of it?”

He shook his head, his face turning serious. “Without the money I made acting, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish many of the things I was able to do on a personal level. I know my looks won’t last forever, so I’ve always been looking out for other opportunities as well.”

“Like producing and directing?”

“Yes,” Ashe said. “Though I prefer producing to directing a film.”

“So what is this about Gareth getting the accent down? I thought you had that part already,” Riley said, propping herself up on her elbow to look at him.

“It started out as an independent film, one that I wrote based on late singer, Conley Brennan. And if it remains an independent film, then basically I have the part,” he said. “But with Abe Reign purchasing the rights to the screenplay, then I suspect Gareth will get the lead role instead of me. And Isobel will be playing opposite him, which she was already slated to do in the independent production. Only opposite me.”

“Is that why he’s with Isobel?” Riley asked. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard.
What Isobel wants, Isobel gets
. Is that true?”

She hated mentioning Gareth’s name, or Isobel’s for that matter, since she’d heard that Ashe had dated Isobel for over a year, but it was difficult not to. Ashe worked with both of them, and she couldn’t quite get over the love triangle that the media had played up to promote the latest movie.

“You could say that,” Ashe replied, smiling faintly though there was no humor on his face. “That was Collette’s idea of repackaging me — that I’d be Isobel’s latest boy-toy. Isobel and I were already seeing each other at the time we made
Sentience
but, looking back, I came to realize how everything had been orchestrated to be that way. But don’t get me wrong, Riley. There was nothing fake about how I felt about Izzy, but when I realized that we had to keep up appearances when we could no longer stand each other, that’s when Gareth came into the picture and the ‘love triangle’ was born.”

“And you let this happen?”

“I had no choice. Life intervened and I had to go back to Reeth and deal with personal things,” Ashe said. “I was away for a few months and I’ve only recently returned. The day I met you was my first day back after doing the Cannes appearances, and even then I was already tired of the bullshit.”

“What happened?” Riley asked, seeing a pained expression cross his face as he glanced away. “I’m sorry if I’m prying, but don’t you think I have a right to know some things about you other than what the tabloids say? Unless this is a one-night stand, then I’ll understand.  But I won’t be happy.”

“This is not a one-night stand, Riley,” Ashe said, kissing her on the forehead. “Unfortunately, sometimes I’m too private for my own good, and it’s not because I want to keep things from you, or shut you out. It’s because it still hurts that she’s gone.”

Riley didn’t know what to say. She knew what she wanted to ask, but didn’t like to.  
What hurt? Why? Who was gone? Had Paige been right when she’d told Riley that Ashe’s girlfriend had died four months earlier, and that he had a child? But hadn’t Ashe just said that he’d been dating Isobel at that time?

But Isobel was alive and well. Still, Riley didn’t want to push him into telling her any more than he was willing to share. She felt a deep connection with Ashe. Like him, she’d kept her feelings hidden from everyone else, making them believe she was fine after Gareth had left her, when she was actually far from fine. She’d never told Ashe how she’d bought drugs with the money that Gareth had given her and then tried to kill herself, and she found herself wondering if her really needed to know that right now.

“It was my sister,” Ashe said.

“Your sister?” Riley said, emerging from her thoughts to assimilate what Ashe had just said. “I’m sorry, but Paige told me that your girlfriend died.”

“You can’t believe everything you read or hear, Riley. Hazel was one of the reasons why I decided to tackle Hollywood, where most of the big money was being spent. That’s when Collette came into the picture and became my manager. I’d never needed one before in London, only an agent and a lawyer and I was working quite steadily, but after two years of supporting roles here — the Englishman at the bar, the henchman who gets what he deserves, that sort of thing – I decided to see what Collette could do for my career.”

“So she repackaged you,” Riley whispered.

Ashe nodded. “She repackaged me, yes, and she helped me get the roles I eventually landed, parts that finally got me noticed by the right people. That’s what matters in this business. It’s not so much what you know or that you’re actually good doing what you do, but whom you know. And luck, of course. Someone, a casting director or a producer, might be searching for someone who looks just like you and he’ll say, ‘That’s him. That’s who I want.’ It’s being at the right place at the right time. But of course, once you do get through that door, you better have what it takes to keep on going.”

He was tracing the outline of her cheekbones with his index finger as he spoke, his thumb continuing down to pinch her chin.

“I was able to afford to pay for Hazel’s treatments to be carried out here in New York. Radiation, chemo, even experimental drugs when all else had failed,” he continued.

“What did she have? Cancer?”

“Leukemia,” Ashe replied. “She was in remission for a few years before it came back. Then we treated it and she was in remission again. She was only twenty-three when a simple cold finally got her six months ago, just because she wanted to come and see her big brother work in Tasmania.”

There was raw pain on Ashe’s face and his eyes grew distant as he spoke. All Riley could do was to bring her arms around his neck and hold him, feeling his arms tighten around her in turn.

“I’m so sorry, Ashe,” Riley whispered. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“My niece, Rowan, lives with her father back in Reeth. It’s because of her that I stayed back home as long as I did,” he said, shifting against the pillows so he could look at her face, his gaze focused on her once again. “I hid myself for months after Hazel died, not wanting to do anything but stay at home and feel sorry for myself. If I didn’t have to fulfill the promotions for
Sentience
, or didn’t have a queue of other projects to keep me busy for the next two years, I’d still be at home wishing I could have done more for her.”

“But something happened inside that elevator,” he continued, smiling. The fingers of one hand twined in her hair, while the other cupped her face as she lay there. “Maybe it was that weird get-this-dress-off-me dance that you were doing, or maybe it was the way you told me what had happened upstairs, how you’d changed your mind about having your heart broken again. Hearts are fragile, after all, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves that they’re not. Afterwards, I loved the way you sprang twenty questions on me, and tripped on one of them so adorably-”

“I didn’t really trip up on that one,” Riley said, blushing.

“I know,” Ashe said and for a few moments they were silent, just holding hands and enjoying each other’s company.

“Ever since Hazel died, I’ve realized that life is too short to just keep myself in a holding pattern in the middle of nowhere just because I believed it was the safest place to be,” Ashe said softly. “But it’s also the loneliest place to be – and I don’t want to be there anymore.”

He pulled her face towards him and kissed her gently.

“Where do you want to be now?” Riley asked, inhaling the scent of his skin against her cheek. The stubble along his jaw grazed her face lightly.

“Right here with you,” Ashe replied, his voice deepening as his gaze moved to her lips.

Riley moved her hand down his torso, his stomach muscles rippling under her fingers, and found him already hard beneath the covers. He gasped when she wrapped her hand around him.

She bit her lower lip as she watched him, his heavy-lidded eyes growing darker as his body tightened beneath her. She’d forgotten how tired she was, and she was sure that Ashe had forgotten as well, his eyes narrowing as he watched her every move. She drew closer to kiss him lightly on the lips, her hand never leaving him as she stroked her palm across the length of him, feeling silken wetness along the tip.

There was no more room for words. His breath hissed, warming her neck as she ran her palm across the crown, coating him. When she brought her hand down his full length, squeezing gently before moving her hand up again, Ashe pulled her face down towards his and kissed her.

Riley captured his tongue in her mouth as she shifted on top of him. She wanted to feel him inside her, filling every part of her. She wanted to discover him and hear him gasp her name as she took charge this time. She wanted him to do nothing but relish her, watch her and feel her. She wanted to watch him let go.

Riley felt as if she knew his body as well as he knew hers. She knew what made him tremble beneath her touch, the things she could do that would make him beg for more. When her lips left his mouth to travel down his neck and chest, nibbling his nipples on the way down to the six-pack abs that defined themselves with each tightening of his body against the onslaught of her mouth, her tongue and her hands, she also knew that for now, Ashe was hers.

With two days remaining before Riley had to return to work, she spent as much time as she could with Ashe. He would soon have to leave for the Asian leg of his promotional tour for
Sentience
. This time, instead of sharing the tour with Isobel and Gareth, Ashe was on his own. He didn’t mind it at all, he said. In fact he preferred it to having so many people around herding them as if they were sheep.

His schedule was packed with radio and phone interviews in each city he went to, TV appearances, and even a Q&A at a sold-out venue — all in a span of five days. His day began at six in the morning and often didn’t end till nine or ten at night, not including the private parties that he was expected to attend. With only one day allotted for him to recover from jet lag, Riley wondered how he would fare.

Isobel and Gareth were remaining stateside, and compared to Ashe’s schedule, they were doing a minimal number of promotions. Riley had many questions but didn’t ask them, as Ashe didn’t seem to mind the scale of the tour. His schedule was already set up for him and all he had to do, he said, was show up, smile and answer questions. And smile some more.

That Sunday, after they’d recovered from their night of dancing and sex with plenty of food and rest, Ashe took her with him to the yoga studio he recently discovered since moving to New York. Riley had only tried yoga by using the apps on her computer and found it a nice change to be around other people this time, all sweating and trying to look as well-groomed as they had when they’d first walked in. Why they had to do yoga in such a hot room she couldn’t understand, but when it was over, Ashe told her that she excelled in savasana, the corpse pose. That was only because she had fallen asleep on her mat and would have snored had Ashe not woken her up.

They spent that evening at his condo in Waverly Place. Riley discovered that because he was traveling so much, half of his things were still in boxes. So although they had originally planned on visiting some vintage shops, Riley helped Ashe move everything out of the boxes to where it ought to go. By the time they were done, all the boxes were emptied and the place looked like a real home. Best of all, Riley got to see Ashe’s own collection of books that he’d brought with him from London, as well as his vinyl record collection. Then they wasted no time playing the Beatles, David Bowie and the Sex Pistols in all their scratchy-sounding glory.

The next day, Riley took Ashe on a tour of her version of New York. With Ashe wearing what he called his ‘armor’ which consisted of a baker-boy cap and thick-rimmed glasses, she began with a trip to the Cloisters, along the northern tip of the city. Ashe surprised her by bringing along a lunch that he’d made himself — ham and mustard sandwiches with cucumber slices and salmon, and a thermos of tea with two matching cups — and saucers. It was so English that Riley smiled the whole time till her cheeks hurt.

They spent the afternoon at the public library, where Riley led Ashe into the Rose Main Reading Room. They sat across from each other between one of the original Carre-and-Hastings lamps that graced each desk, Ashe reading a script he needed to review and Riley reading one of her mother’s favorite books,
Ariel
by Sylvia Plath. Not that much reading was actually done, as they spent most of that time sparring with their legs underneath the table till a library representative approached them and asked if they’d be interested in a tour of the library’s private collection. One of the staff members had recognized him after all.

Riley couldn’t remember the last time she had felt like this, giddy as a schoolgirl as they were ushered into private halls and given the opportunity to view exhibits not currently open to the public. And the whole time, Ashe held her hand, or had his arm over her shoulder, always having her close to him. There were brief glances followed by soft kisses and hugs, all of which left her a quivering mess that reminded her being back in high school. It both scared and excited Riley at the same time. But then it saddened her to know that in a few days he’d be halfway around the world and she’d be alone again.

“Who is Conley Brennan?” Riley asked when they’d left the library, walking past the two stone lions, Patience and Fortitude. She’d seen Brennan’s name on one of the screenplays he took with him, along with the words music rights. “And why is he so important?”

“Surely you must have heard his songs. Three of them have made the top ten in the country music charts,” he said as he hailed a cab and opened the door for Riley. Two women stopped behind them and called his name but Ashe ignored them, following Riley into the back seat of the cab.

“Three years ago, after recording the last song for his album, Conley Brennan got into his truck at three in the morning to go home, drove off an embankment into a ditch and he drowned,” he said.

“That’s so sad,” Riley said, frowning.

“His songs would have ended up just hidden away if his widow hadn’t gone online a year after he died, asking for financial backers to help her release them. Hazel persuaded me to buy all the rights to his music.”

“Your sister?”

He nodded. “She was one of these social media experts, and because she was always getting some type of treatment that required her to be in bed or in a chair, she was online most of the time. She and Cookie Brennan were about the same age and they became good friends. After Hazel asked me to help her acquire the music rights to help Cookie get her husband’s songs released, we set up a production company with two other friends. After that, everything was done through lawyers. Conley’s music is actually quite good. I like them.”

“That’s so weird.”

“What is?” he asked.

“You liking country music.”

Ashe laughed. “There’s nothing weird about liking country music. It’s actually not bad. There’s Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. Wait, are you making fun of my musical tastes now?”

Riley giggled as Ashe put his arm around her. Riley’s phone buzzed from inside her purse, but she reached in and without checking to see who called, she clicked the
Mute
button. It had rung three times that morning and five the day before, but she was too scared — and guilty — to answer the calls and texts. When they were finally inside the elevator and heading up to her apartment, Ashe asked the question she’d long been expecting.

“You haven’t talked to Paige yet, have you?”

“She’s very angry with me,” Riley said, keeping her eyes on the floor. “But I’ve texted her back to tell her that I’m sorry about bailing out on her on Saturday night, and to let her know I’m fine.”

Ashe said nothing more till they reached her apartment. As she closed the door behind him, she noticed that he didn’t remove his scarf or coat.

“You need to speak to her, Riley, if not about us, about yourself,” he said.

“I don’t think I can avoid telling her about us, not after I bailed out on her charity ball,” Riley said. “But what exactly do you mean by about us? What are we?”

“What do you mean, what are we?” Ashe asked, frowning. “Can’t you see it? Can’t you tell?”

“Maybe I just want to hear it from you.”

It was way better than guessing, she thought, or second-guessing.

“I like you very much, Riley, and I want nothing more right now than to spend the rest of the day with you, and much longer than that,” Ashe said, drawing closer to her. “But there are things you and I need to do on our own before we can focus on the two of us together. There’s my work, for example, and then there’s this thing with you and Paige. I know she doesn’t like me, and that’s something I cannot control. But I’m not about to tell you what you need to do, because you already know what it is.”

Riley sighed. She wished she didn’t have to face Paige, because she knew that her sister was going to lecture her again about Ashe and how much he would hurt her, mostly because he was an actor, like Gareth, and knew Gareth. But how could she convince Paige that Ashe was so unlike Gareth? She wished she could simply text it all back to Paige, but that wouldn’t be right. Besides, Riley was scheduled to have dinner with her, Clint and the kids that evening. She couldn’t very well renege on that arrangement, too.

“I’m going to go home and get a few things done,” Ashe said. “I’ve got a few calls to make to my agent and maybe an audition or two over the phone. It will probably take me till about eight or nine tonight to get everything done, or even later, because I’ll be working on LA time. So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Riley nodded. Ashe turned towards the door, but she put her hand on his arm.

“What will happen if Gareth ends up getting the Conley Brennan role instead?”

He shrugged. “I’d be disappointed, but I’ll just keep moving forward. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that ever since we met, it seemed important to you,” Riley said. “You even had a dialect coach.”

“It is important to me,” he said. “But I’ve also got two movies to shoot next year with different studios, and two other projects that are in development with my production company, so I’m not too worried about it. They’re also working off my screenplay, which means my name remains on the credits. And because my company owns the rights to the songs, I hold the power to release the rights to the movie or not, and for a price. In the film world, nothing is ever certain until you sign on that dotted line, but until then, I try not to put all my eggs in one basket.” He kissed the tip of Riley’s nose. “Are you still worried?”

“Not after you’ve put it that way.”

Then Ashe kissed her on the lips, a kiss so soft that Riley sighed. She had fallen for Ashe and there was just no way back up to the surface, no chance of feeling like the same person she’d been before she met him.

But then, what kind of person had she been before she stepped into that elevator with Ashe? She’d been in limbo for three years, still wondering why Gareth had left her the way he did, with a mattress on the floor and $20,000 in one-hundred-dollar bills.

Riley forced herself back to the present, the price tag she’d carried inside herself for the past three years slowly receding into the distance. His kiss grew deeper with each passing minute, their tongues sparring towards the end. When she felt she couldn’t go any longer without having to rip his clothes off him, her fingers finding the buckle of his belt, Ashe drew back, rested his forehead against hers and sighed.

“I’ve fallen for you, Riley-I-am,” he whispered. “But if I don’t walk out that door right now, I won’t be able to leave at all, at least not with my clothes still on.”

“Wouldn’t that be a sight?” She giggled.

“Yes, it would,” Ashe chuckled, walking towards the door. “But I’d rather reserve that performance for you alone.”