I crossed the bathroom and crouched down beside the bath. “Ashy, are your parents still . . . ?” I whispered.
Finally she looked back at me. “Yes, they are alive. I just choose not to talk about them. To be honest, they don’t deserve the time it takes to talk about them.”
A blanket of awkwardness covered us, and the tone in her voice told me she had no desire for this conversation to continue. I buried the need to press further, but only for now. This was a conversation we would be having, just maybe not while she was lazing in the bathtub with bubbles barely covering the curves that could destroy me on sight.
“What are your plans for the night?” Ashlyn asked, swiftly changing the subject and pulling me away from thoughts of losing control on her curves. When her green eyes flashed to mine, they begged me to accept her change of topic.
“Eating garlic prawns, drinking beer, and sitting on the couch with my roomie.”
“Roomie makes it sound so formal. I’d prefer to be called the most awesome, fantastic, incredible house guest.”
“You call me Tarzan, and I’ll call you Roomie.” I shot her a wink, rose to my feet, and headed for the door.
She chuckled softly. “Well played, Mr. Crawford, well played.”
After forcing myself out of the bathroom, I stepped into my room and changed into sweats. There was no need to go out, no thought of random pussy, and absolutely no desire to do anything but stay in and sit on the couch with her.
Twenty minutes later, Ashlyn appeared dressed very similarly to me, and then disappeared into the kitchen. This whole scene was so domestic; me getting home from visiting my parents, a gorgeous woman cooking dinner, general chit-chat, and spending the night in.
“Do you realize we’re turning into Ky and Eden?” I asked from the couch, with amusement.
“Huh?” she asked with a quirked brow as she walked into the living room carrying two bowls filled with garlic prawns and rice. After placing them on the coffee table, she returned to the kitchen to grab wine and two glasses, and then came back to the living room.
“I get home, you have dinner cooked, we talk while you’re in the tub, and now we’re about to spend the night on the couch with wine. That screams Ky and Eden.”
Ashlyn abruptly stood from the couch and grabbed the bottle of wine and glasses, then returned to the kitchen and disappeared from sight. What the hell was she doing? I gazed at the entry of the kitchen with fascination, and waited for her to return. The clink of glass sounded, and then she reappeared. Ashlyn strutted back into the living room carrying two beers with a cheeky grin spreading over her face. She handed me one, before dropping to the couch beside me.
“Kyden wouldn’t drink beer with amazingly delicious garlic prawns,” she stated with a smirk before holding her bottle up.
I clinked my bottle against hers in cheers before asking, “Kyden?”
“Yep, you know those Hollywood names? Like Brangelina? Well, we have Kyden.”
“Please tell me you didn’t just combine their names?”
“Oh, you better believe that I did.” She winked before digging into her dinner.
We sat in silence as we both ate. It was incredible.
“Is that what you want? The type of relationship where you come up with a cutesy name?”
“A Kyden kind of relationship is a relationship I’ll never have.”
Her statement stunned me. Ashlyn spent all of her time getting lost in her books and stepping into the pages of her favorite romance novels, yet she didn’t believe that she would get that? She was Queen of the happily-ever-afters. My head went crazy with scenarios about why she believed she’d never have it.
“Why do you think you’ll never have something like Ky and Eden?”
“Kyden.” She corrected me.
“I am not calling them Kyden,” I said, groaning at the craziness of that nickname. To be honest, I couldn’t wait to get on the phone and tell him of this new development.
“You will.”
“Ashlyn?”
“Ashlyn and relationships go together as well as Josh and monogamy. I have all but given up, so from now on I’ll get my romance from my books and my orgasms from my vibrator. Book boyfriends never let me down, but even if they do, I know I’ll always get a happily-ever-after.”
She placed her empty bowl on the table and moved so she was facing me. Her legs were folded and her hands clasped in her lap. She observed me with intention, like she was assessing whether this was a conversation she wanted to have with me. I mimicked her movements, leaning forward and placing my bowl beside hers. She lifted her beer to her lips and continued looking at me over the neck. The silence was torture.
“I’m clearly not good at relationships. My track record speaks volumes, and I only seem to attract men who want me for what’s between my thighs. I’m not enough for people, Josh. My history shows that, my relationship with my parents shows that, but I’ve come to deal with it. That’s why I won’t experience a Kyden kind of relationship.”
“Tell me about your parents,” I pressed through gritted teeth. I had a billion things I wanted to say to her. The fact that people had made her feel like she wasn’t enough caused me to want to commit a felony. But I had her talking, and if I could learn more about her, I would bite my tongue for the moment.
“They weren’t around much. Well, they were, but weren’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I grew up not really getting too much love. The people who should have showered me with love didn’t get the memo, and the only one that gave me any form of affection was Austin.” Her gaze dropped to her hands in her lap, and she began chipping off her nail polish. “I had a house, clothes, food—the best of everything, really. To everyone looking in, we were the perfect family, but my parents didn’t have motherly or fatherly bones in their bodies. To be honest, I don’t know why they had Austin and I. Grandma basically raised us, and her and Austin have been the only ones to ever love or care for me unconditionally. You’ve heard the term trophy wives? Well, Austin and I were trophy children. We were only wanted and needed when our parents had to look good for the camera, and because of that I’ve felt like an inconvenience my whole life.”
Her eyes bounced around the apartment, avoiding any chance of meeting mine. Her whole facade was cracking, and I was seeing the little girl that hid behind the mask of a confident woman. The innocence, the fear, and the naked admissions of her past were hard for her to divulge, but here she was, sharing them with me. The fact that she had to deal with this her whole life and that her asshole parents didn’t realize the prize they had, riled me. She was anything but an inconvenience; she was a life-changing gift.
“Sorry for dumping all this on you,” she said softly.
“Look at me, Ash.”
Finally, her eyes met mine and she offered the most nervous smile I’d ever witnessed.
“You never have to apologize to me about sharing stuff. I’ve known you for almost five years, and this is the first time I’ve heard about this. You are far from an inconvenience, Ashlyn, and anyone that has you in their life should treat you like fucking royalty. I’ve never met your parents, and I hope I never do because I don’t want to I wish I could thank the woman that raised you because she did a great job.”
“Grandma would have liked you. She would have flirted with you like crazy, though. She had a thing for handsome men, and she was never one to hide that fact,” she said wistfully, and the smile I saw in the bathroom came out again.
“Did you just call me handsome?” I smirked with a lifted brow of suggestion. “You’ll make me blush, Ashy.”
“Oh, please. You know you’re handsome, and there is nothing I could ever say that would make you blush.”
“I’d be happy to have you try.”
She pulled the cushion from behind her and threw it at my head. The seriousness of our conversation seemed to have vanished, although it continued to swirl in my head.