While we were having fun being with one another and getting to explore one another we hadn’t actually defined our “relationship.” But I knew we weren’t going to see other people. Boy, was I damn proud of that. To finally say that Ash was mine was … incredible.
Tonight was our last night in Florida and tomorrow we would go back to “normal.” Whatever the word normal is. To some people normal is ordering caviar and drinking champagne every damn day and still wanting more. To some normal is selling your body for money. To some normal is lying, manipulating, and cheating. But to me normal is what I have right now … Ashlynn by my side and my secret out in the open.
I had decided to make Ashlynn and myself a candlelit dinner out on the patio. Cooking is a secret passion of mine; one that not a lot of people know about. It’s kind of funny actually because looking at me you would never guess that I, Jason Steven Williams am a great cook. Any chance I could get I watched the Food Network channel.
For dinner I had made grilled shrimp tacos with a tangy sauce and dirty rice. I also opened one of my dad’s many red wines that would go perfectly with our dinner. I was mixing up the rice when Ashlynn walked in wearing this beautiful sundress that instantly took my breath away. She walked over and wrapped her arms around my middle and kissed my chest. I dropped the spoon I was holding and wrapped my arms around her and we just stood there breathing one another in.
The same time I looked down at her Ash looked up at me. I kissed her on the forehead and said, “You look beautiful.”
This beautiful blush came across her face and she said, “And you look like a mess.”
She began to back away and I just laughed and pulled her back to me. She giggled and wrapped her arms around me. I moved in and whispered against her lips, “You’re the beautiful to my mess.”
I then kissed her on the lips and she said, “How can I help?”
I told her to fill us up each a glass of wine and wait out on the patio. She happily obliged and poured us each a glass and took a healthy sip. I walked over to her and said, “Can I have a taste?” She began to hand me my glass when I wrapped her in my arms and my mouth was instantly on hers and I was sweeping my tongue in her mouth. She tasted of sweet red wine with a bit of tang and Ashlynn.
I started to wonder what else other parts of her would taste like but this had to go slow. Impossibly slow because I didn’t want to mess it up so as much as I didn’t want to I set her back down and she smiled up at me. “How did you like the wine?”
I couldn’t help it so I kissed her again and said, “Insatiable.”
She tried to deepen the kiss but I put her at arm’s length and said, “If you don’t go out there right now I’m going to carry you back to my room. And Ash? I’m trying really damn right now.”
She just nodded and took a few steps backwards from me. Picking up the wine glasses she started to walk out to the patio but stopped and turned. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
The second she walked out I began to set up our plates but my phone started to ring. I picked it up and saw that it was an Unknown caller so I pressed the Ignore button.
Getting everything situated I started to pick up our plates but my phone started to ring again. I saw that it was Unknown again but I picked it up anyway. “Hello?”
As soon as I heard the man’s voice I automatically knew who it was. Of course I hadn’t talked to him since Jade and I left for school but you never forget your dad’s voice. “Jason. We need to talk.”
Chapter 6
Ashlynn
I couldn’t believe what Jason had told me about his and Jade’s childhoods. It completely broke my heart. No wonder he was questioning us becoming a couple because first he had to trust somebody completely in order to tell them about what he called his mess. I also couldn’t believe what his parents had done to him and Jade.
To be perfectly honest I wasn’t really sure which parent was worse. Their dad for degrading them and beating the shit out of Jason or their mom for looking the other way? Either way I think they both deserved to burn in hell for what they did to their children and how they ruined their lives.
He had to open up his heart and while a part of me was grateful he had chosen to tell me another part was terrified completely because I didn’t want to think about what struggles we would have to go through.
I’ve read so many books where the struggles are completely worth it in the end and with Jason I have to agree. In my heart and my mind I knew that we would go through struggles and heartbreaks and this would be a complete mess. I knew there would be tears shed and shouts and screams from either end. I knew there would be words said we would later regret.
But without a doubt in my body I also knew there would be beauty, laughter, joy, and most importantly love shared between the two of us. I just didn’t know about all the struggles we were going to face until the last night we were in Florida.
Everything seemed to be going amazingly between Jason and me. However, as I waited for him out on the deck for our dinner I noticed him on the phone and that’s when his whole demeanor shifted and the mess we would have to face began. He walked out onto the deck and while we ate dinner I didn’t taste a thing. It all tasted like cardboard because in the pit of my stomach I knew something was horribly wrong. I wanted to ask him about it but I knew that with Jason I had to give him his time. I knew that if I pushed him too far he would close off from me completely and indefinitely. So I gave him his time … a month and a half to be exact.
“I still can’t believe you haven’t spoken to Jason since you guys got back from Spring Break,” Derrick said while rubbing some suntan lotion on his face.
Derrick, Patrick, Sarah, and I decided to go to the beach for the day. While it sucked that we hadn’t seen Jason since Spring Break ended, we also hadn’t seen much of Jade either. Even though Jade and I lived together she was always closed off in her room or over at Jason’s. While it hurt, I had to think that maybe something was going on at home and they didn’t want to talk about it.
Hell, Jade never even told me how awful hers and Jason’s childhoods were. I would be lying if I said that it didn’t hurt because it hurt like a complete bitch. I had never gone through something like that; not even along the same curvy, twisted lines so I can only imagine what it would feel like peeling that bandage off and opening up the wound.
I looked over at Derrick and just gave a shrug of my shoulders. “What am I supposed to do? I’ve tried to text Jason and I’ve tried to talk to Jade but they’re so closed off.”
This whole thing is just so jumbled up and I don’t know what to do or what I’m supposed to say to anybody. That is, if I’m supposed to say anything in the first place. Jason told me the secrets that were buried deep inside his closet, Jade hasn’t told me anything and Derrick, Patrick, Isabelle, Maddox, Sarah, and Gabe all just think that Jason is being a pussy and they don’t know what’s going on with Jade.
However, I can’t explain to them what exactly is going on. So in cases like the one I’m in right now I just shrug my shoulders hoping maybe that’ll be enough of an answer … but for how long exactly? I’m not so sure.
I looked down at my twisted fingers when I felt an arm wrap around me and I turned to see Sarah looking at me giving a sympathetic smile. Sarah and Gabe were like the parents of the group. While we are all going through our relationship drama now, they went through theirs back in high school. I was jealous of that but like every relationship there are good and bad times and I’m just having to go through the bad times right now.