I Love You, Always (22 page)

He says nothing now and as I turn and walk out, I hear Jared say, “And you’re fucking lucky I’m not bothering to list all the reasons I hate you, asshole. But just know, if you go anywhere near Mia again, you will be sorry.”

And then he’s beside me and we are both walking down the hall and out the front door. As it closes behind us, I take a deep breath, pulling it into my lungs, as I try to calm myself down.

“Well, that went well,”
Jared
says sarcastically.

I turn to look at him, raise my eyebrow as I say, “Did we think it would go any different?”

“Nope,” Jared says, shaking his head. “The guy’s a fucking asshole, there’s no changing that.”

“Yep. Thanks for coming with me though, J,” I say to him as we stand on the porch.

“Anytime dude, you know that.” And I do, because Jared has always been there for me, since the day I first met him. Whether I needed a lift, a place to crash, medical bills paid or whatever, he’s always been there for me.

I take a breath. “Thank you, Jared, really.”

Jared shakes his head. “It’s nothing, Luke, seriously,” he says and I don’t know if he gets what I’m trying to say to him.

“Yeah it is, J, you’ve been a great friend to me you know, more like a brother actually.”

Jared smiles, before he starts frowning. “Dude, seriously.”

“What?”

“I’m in love with your sister.”

I actually start laughing, relieved as the tension starts to leave me. “Yeah alright, I get you, but you know what I mean.”

He slaps me on the
back,
half pushing me down the stairs now. “Yeah, yeah, I do and even though it’s totally fucking creepy, I do consider you to be like a brother too. But now,” he says, turning to look me in the eye. “We have a record to make, so let’s blow this fucking joint and go do that.”

“I completely agree,” I say as we get in the car and drive away. Drive away from my father for the last time.

Momentary thought

Imaginary creation

So much more than I expected

This unwelcome sedation

∞

When we get home from the studio, it’s late and I find Ash lying in bed reading. She looks up at me walking in and drops her book on the bed, half sitting up. I smile at her, as I kick off my shoes, pull off my clothes, and crawl up her body, wrapping my arms around her waist. As I lay my head on her chest, I can hear the steady beat of her heart, the heart that is so very precious to me. Her hand moves slowly back and forth over my head and I close my eyes as I sink into her touch and her warmth. This is what real love is.

Ash doesn’t say anything and I’m not sure how long we lie here for, but eventually I speak, “He actually apologised to me, eventually anyway.”

Her hand moves and brushes down the side of my face. “Did he mean it?” she asks.

I look up at her now, my chin resting on her chest and I know she can see in my eyes that he didn’t. Without having to say anything, she knows. But she doesn’t judge
me,
she just runs her fingers gently over my cheek reminding me of why it’s okay that I’m not okay with that.

“He wants me to forgive him,” I say, staring into her eyes.

“He isn’t worthy of your forgiveness, you know.”

I press a kiss to her chest, just above her heart before looking back up at her. “See, this is yet another reason why I love you so much.”

She smiles at me now and it takes some of his shit away. That a simple smile from her can do that is amazing. But I know it’s the love behind her smile that is the real reason. The love she has for me. The love I have for her in return.

“How’d it go today?” she asks. “Afterwards?”

I smile. “Really good, much better.”

Her fingers brush over my cheek again. “Well, at least something good came from it,” she says. “I’m really glad it helped, Luke, and I’m glad you went and talked to him. I think it’s what you needed to do.”

I’m staring at her, watching the way she looks at me. Once again I’m reminded that everything I went through, all the shit that’s happened to me, was for a reason. Because all of it brought me to this very place, right now, with her. And there is nowhere else I would rather be.

I pull myself up her body so I can press a kiss to her lips, my hand resting against the side of her neck. “I love you, Asha,” I whisper. “I love you more than anything else in the world.
You
are the only thing I need, as long as I have you, everything is good.”

She rests her forehead against mine, her fingers still softly moving across my cheek. “You and me, Luke, always.”

“Always,” I repeat before kissing her again.

I wake with a start, my heart racing as I try to work out where the fuck I am. The room is dark, I am completely naked, and there is someone lying beside me in the bed.
Where the hell am I?

I swing my legs out and stand up, my eyes slowly adjusting as I try to find a light. When I can make out a lamp sitting on the table beside the bed, I switch it on and the now familiar room lights up. That’s when I realise.

“Fuck,” I whisper, my hand scraping across my face and head as I look down at Ash sleeping beside me. How the fuck did I not know it was
her
?

I glance down at myself, see the lines of tattoos on my skin, and I remember all that has happened. Why the hell did I think I was somewhere else? I left that life behind years ago.

“You okay?” Ash asks, her voice sleepy as she rolls over to face me. I watch as her eyes try to open, the dim light of the lamp making it difficult.

“Yeah, sorry, beautiful, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What happened?” she asks, her eyes closing as she pats the bed beside her, telling me to get back in. I reach down and switch the lamp off as I crawl back into bed. Ash slides over and wraps her arms around me and I start to feel my racing heart slow down.

“Luke?” she whispers in the darkness. “What happened?”

I run my hand over my head, wrapping my other arm around her waist as I pull her closer. “I don’t know, bad dream I think.”

“What was it about?” she asks. I can hear the worry in her voice and I know exactly what she’ll be thinking.

I try to remember, work out what it was that just woke me up. I don’t actually know, but I don’t think it was a nightmare of that night again. All I know is that when I woke up, I thought I was sixteen again and back in my parents’ house. Not twenty-eight and in L.A. with Asha, recording this album. Why the fuck would I even think I was back there? I never want to go back to that life.

“I don’t know, beautiful,” I tell her, because I really don’t.

“Was it about me, that night?” she asks and I feel her lips against my neck.

I tighten my arm around her. “No, it didn’t feel like one of those nightmares.” And it really didn’t. Those ones were all in blaring high definition, continuously played out and always remembered when I woke up. Never for one second letting me forget what happened that night, or what could have happened. But this one, this felt very different.

“Your heart is racing,” she says as she lays her hand flat against my chest.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “For a second there, when I woke up, I didn’t know where I was. Didn’t understand who was in bed with me.”

I feel Ash slide up my body, lifting her head so she can look down at me. Even in the darkness I see her eyes open and focus on mine. “Where did you think you were, or should’ve been anyway?” she whispers, breaking my heart a little because I think she might think it was without her.

I take a deep breath. “I don’t know why, but when I woke up, I thought I was back living with my parents. I thought I was sixteen again.”

Ash’s hand runs over the top of my head. “You think maybe this is because you went and saw him today?”

I exhale. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“What else happened when you saw him, did he say anything else?”

Fuck, I totally forgot to tell her; how the fuck did I forget that? I know I wanted to forget everything that was said the minute I walked out the door. But I think also, a part of me doesn’t want to bring any more death into her life. God knows Asha has been through way too much of that already. But I need to, because she asked me to and because I need to tell Mia too. Although there’s a good chance Jared’s already done that for me.

“Yeah,” I say, turning to face her. Ash looks at me with so much love and concern it breaks my heart to say these words to her. “He told me he has cancer, and that he’s dying. That’s why he wants me to forgive him. I’m guessing that’s why he tried to apologise.”

I feel her body tense in my arms and I tighten them, bringing her closer to me. Ash resists, staring at my face. “I’m so sorry, Luke.”

“It’s okay, really,” I say to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. I guess I didn’t want to, you know…” I don’t even want to say the words.

Ash frowns at me as though she knows exactly what I’m
not
saying. “How do you feel about this?” she asks instead, choosing to drop it.

I take another deep breath, my fingers running slowly up and down her spine as I try to work out how I do feel. “I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I really don’t know how I feel.”

“Maybe that’s why you had the nightmare then,” she says quietly. “You’re trying to work that out.”

My fingers brush the hair back from her face as she keeps looking at me. There is sadness in her eyes and I wonder if she’s remembering back to her own father dying. “Did you use to dream about that?” I ask
,
my voice low as I ask the question that could bring it all back for her.

“What? How I felt about people dying?” she asks.

“About your dad, your family, yeah. Sam too, I guess?”

Now it’s Ash taking a deep breath. My fingers keep moving up and down her spine, willing her to talk to me. We haven’t spoken about this for a while now. Not since that night I got burned and she ran away from me. Even after she got shot, we didn’t talk much about it. Ash was more focused on getting me to forget what happened and I was more focused on getting her better. Obviously she was the stronger one back then, now too actually. Stronger than ever, and it’s so obvious when you see her. I can see how hard she’s working to let it all go and move on, and it shows every day in the way she laughs, the way she lives, and the way she loves. She’s different now, so different, and in a really good way. But I have no idea what talking about any of this will do to her. The last thing I want is to bring up all of these bad memories for her again.

“I used to dream about all of them,” she eventually says. “Dreams and nightmares, although most of the nightmares were about Sam and what happened to him.”

I want to ask her about them, but I don’t want to at the same time. I’ve never pushed her for information on him, even though he was clearly a huge part of her life. Someone she loved very much and someone who loved her in return. It’s not that I’m jealous or anything, far from it. How could I be, he was a part of her life and because of that, he’s a part of who she is today. She’s told me about him though, including what happened to him, the fucking awful shit that happened that day. I can’t even begin to imagine waking up to that, can’t imagine what that must have been like for her. Seeing how she was weeks afterwards was bad enough, and that’s why I don’t ask. Because I just don’t want her to feel or think about that nightmare, ever again.

“I even dreamed about you meeting my dad once,” she says, smiling a little.

“Oh yeah?” I ask, grateful she’s changed the subject. “And how’d that go?”

Ash laughs now. “Really great,” she says, brushing her fingers across my cheek. “You were sitting in my kitchen drinking coffee with him and laughing as though you’d known each other forever.”

I stare up at her. “When did this happen?” I ask, wondering if this was another turning point in our relationship that I wasn’t aware of.

Ash smiles again. “Remember that morning I showed up at your apartment with coffee and asked you to breakfast?”

Now it’s my turn to smile. Do I
ever
remember that
morning.
Fuck, she has no idea how much I wanted to just drag her into my bed after I opened the front door and found her standing there. I don’t know how the hell I managed to stop myself.

“Um, yeah,” I say, laughing. “I sure do, beautiful girl, I sure do.”

“Well, it was just after I’d had that dream,” she says, leaning in to kiss me. “I didn’t know if it was a sign or what, but when I woke up that morning, all I could think about was you. And even though I knew what day it was and that I was going to go and see him, I wanted you to come with me. I just wanted you with me that day.”

My eyes close briefly as I once again wish I could have taken the pain she felt that day, away for her. That I could somehow bring her dad
back
; bring back this man who I know meant the world to Ash. “I really wish I could have met your dad, Asha.”

Ash leans in to kiss me again, as though she is comforting me when really, it should be the other way around. “I wish you could have met him too, he would have loved you, you know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, leaning in to press another kiss to my lips. I slide my hand into her hair, holding her against me as I deepen the kiss. I feel her fingers tighten against my chest, digging into my skin. My heart starts racing again, but for entirely different reasons now. I can feel the last of the confusion and fear I was feeling a few minutes ago slip away as I get lost in her kisses and the memory of the day she showed up at my front door to take me to breakfast.