Ash: A Bad Boy Romance (16 page)

The thing is, when he’s here with me, it’s like no time has passed at all. It’s like the three years and all the space I put between us doesn’t mean a thing.
 

If I’d known he was living here in town, I would have found somewhere else to come home to.
 

The thought has occurred to me time and time again since I got back.

“Well, Sunshine, serves you right for not reading those damn letters.”

I hear his voice in my head as I fall into bed, scrubs and ugly white socks still on. These aren’t feelings I expected. The memories cropping up in my mind as I try to sleep bring to mind a different Ash than the one I vilified for so long.
 

I try to focus on that night I boarded the bus, the night he sent me away, but it fades out, like I can’t quite get a grip on it.
 

The other memories—the feel of his arms, his lips—those all seem clearer and more distinct.
 

When I finally sleep, the memories wash over me in a flood, and I can no longer hold them back.

Three Years, Four Months Ago

She looks small in the white sundress she’s wearing. Before we came into the church, she had on a gray UNC hoodie. She’s still wearing her Uggs, since New York’s weather hasn’t quite caught up to the season just yet. When she saw that the address I gave her was a church, she stepped back like it might bite her, but I pushed her in, my hand on the middle of her back. She doesn’t know it, but Cullen told me to go in and
take
her today. Take her God knows where, but he’s sick of Bianca’s shit, sick of her stiffing him for a hundred dollars here and there, sick of her not paying on time, and sick of her being a bitch. He figures Summer is the only way to get to her, but after today, he won’t be able to get to Bianca at all.
 

She promised Summer she was leaving town—but not even Bianca knows what we’re up to.

Summer taps her foot as she sits next to me. She’s nervous as fuck and still not convinced that this is the right thing to do. She said that shit when we came in here, and she keeps on saying it.

But I’ll be damned if I put her life in danger, and we both know how close that is to being the case.

If we weren’t here right now, we’d be on the way to one of Cullen’s safe houses in Queens, and what I’d have to do to her there wouldn’t be pretty.

It’ll be some shit when I explain to Cullen what I did. But every man has his reasons.
 

Since I quit fighting—and since I quit gambling too—I haven’t thought much about right and wrong. When I joined Cullen’s army to take my father’s place—and fill his debt—it was about survival, what I
had
to do to keep on living, to make money and pay off the debts I’d incurred at just about every exclusive gambling club in the city. My life was about recovering from the fight injuries and all that came in the wake of my many fuck-ups.
 

When you become a man—and I might not be one yet—there’s got to be someplace where you draw the line. Maybe I should have drawn that line a long time ago. And maybe it took the idea of losing something—even something as fleeting as my feelings for this girl might be—to make me wake up. But an innocent girl is where I draw the line.
 

Summer jabbers nervously about the decision we made, about how she might be putting me in danger. But I squeeze her thigh and say some bullshit about what a good lay she is, and the priest calls us up to the front. The old guy is probably drunk as shit even though it’s eight o’clock in the morning, but he’s the only practicing priest I could find who would even consider marrying us. He made some rumblings about how he doesn’t like to work shotgun weddings, but the $500 I slipped him seems to have settled it.
 

Summer, pregnant.
 

I get chills at the thought. Our marriage probably won’t last long enough for that, and she’s a woman with places to be. I don’t stop to consider what our lives would look like if she actually
stayed
, because that isn’t part of the deal. I protect her, she leaves, we move on.
 

Why even think about it?

“You ready, Sunshine?” Her hair looks like it’s been slept on, a wild mess of sun-colored waves. I smooth it out and take her hand. Instead of protesting again, she nods and looks at me with clear green eyes that look like the surface of a lake. In this moment, she reminds me of what it felt like to be younger, full of hope and plans and all the shit I left behind when I tore my quad and couldn’t fight anymore.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she says as she squeezes my hand. I walk her up to the pulpit, and the priest reads a few words. Everything seems to flash by in an instant, like this moment is set on fast forward. People say that there are big moments in everyone’s life, things that a person will always remember. Up until now, all that shit had to do with the Family, and with my old fights, the injury, being holed up in the hospital for more than two weeks. None of it had to do with a woman. But as I stand with Summer and hear her say “I do” as the priest looks at us impatiently and waits for someone to produce a ring, I know I’ll remember this moment above everything.

Maybe because this is a stupid and senseless thing to do, and a totally reckless way to take advantage of my boss and his code. Maybe because Summer looks so vulnerable, with dark shadows beneath her eyes like she stayed up far too late. But it seems like there’s something else at work, something beyond my understanding, something that’s searing this moment in time into my memory.

Her mouth drops open as I hold out the plain gold band, then she lifts her hand automatically. It feels natural when I slide it onto her finger, like it’s something that’ll always be there, even after we part ways forever.
 

“I don’t have a ring for you,” she whispers.
 

The priest rolls his eyes at us and yells to the back of the pulpit. “Sign this fucking thing, will you?”
 

Summer nearly jumps out of her skin when another old man lifts his head from one of the choir seats, holding out his hand like he can’t bother to move. The priest brings the marriage certificate over to him, has the man sign it, and rips off a copy for the two of us. “I’ll file this thing this afternoon, and it’s done. Congratulations.” He looks at us like he wonders why we’re not the fuck out of his church already.

I walk down the aisle with my bride, clutching her hand in mine. Before we get to the door, I sweep her off her feet and carry her out of the heavy wooden doors, kicking and laughing, all the way to my car.

In the light of day, it’s easy to forget that that anything’s changed. We can both ignore it for a little while, before things start to get complicated.
 

I smile and roll down the windows—the day is getting warmer. I drive her straight past my apartment until she’s punching me in the arm and demanding I tell her where we’re going.
 

I don’t let her know that I’m supposed to be in a safe house, awaiting orders to cut up her face or break a knuckle while her aunt listens over the phone. I don’t tell her that I’ll be in big fucking trouble with Cullen no matter what, so we’re taking a little vacation until I care to face him again.
 

If our marriage is what it is, then I’m going to give her a good goddamn honeymoon while I can.

Present Day
 

“I shouldn’t have left,” I say.

Josh swings his punch around to the right and almost knocks me over, even though I’m holding the punching bag close to my chest. The boy has a good right hook, even if he’s gotten good at it in this shithole. I’ve been looking to upgrade this gym I own for a while, and Josh and I have been saving and saving. Now I’m standing here thinking about forking all money over to save Summer’s mother.

This gym I own is empty and dilapidated—but why is Summer’s mother more important than my own business?

The man who owns the other gym in town—Frank—pushes me and Josh around just like he does every other fighter in the area.
 

And all I want is a clean game, a running, working gym that’s not falling down or built on criminal activities like Frank’s.

I think about my empty-ass gym, Frank’s bullying, the building down the road just asking for a $30,000 down payment. Josh swings again, and delivers a right knee strike, and then another.
 

“The girl? The girl whose name you won’t give me?”
 

“Yeah, that one,” I say, shifting my center of balance.

Josh grins and kicks me again. He’s got two fading black eyes, but at least he’s not drinking anymore. “The one with the mother who needs your help?” He comes around to my back and tries to take me down. I might have multiple leg injuries, scars running up and down my side, but I don’t let someone like Josh take me down. I toss down the punching bag and catch him as he comes around, knocking him down to the floor of the cage. The nasty, gray plastic smells like blood and piss. I keep Josh down, and he struggles to get up, laughing hard. “You ginger son of a bitch,” he moans. “This isn’t supposed to be part of training.”
 

I bring my hand close to his face and slap it. “It is if I say it is. I’m your sponsor, remember? This is part of your... amends. For being an asshole.”
 

He laughs and pushes me up. “For what it’s worth,” Josh says, clapping me on the back, “I’d take that cash and put it where it counts. We’ve got sixty more days until we have to get the down payment sorted on that place.” Josh turns around and winks at me, a smile building up on his face like he has his own secret. “Do it for love, man. I’m going to win that fuckin’ fight. We don’t need your money.”

“Idiot,” I shout after him. The door opens behind us, and I hear Frank slither in. I can almost smell the oil he uses on his hair as Josh disappears into the locker rooms. I crack my knuckles and jump down from the cage.
 

“I couldn’t help overhearing,” he says.

“I’m sure you could help it.”
 

Frank strolls over to me, looking like a relic from a bygone era. He was with the mafia in New York, but now he runs a small time fighting ring in North Carolina. A petty criminal, a thief, a guy who has kids beat up for a living. I’d gotten my own gym so I wouldn’t have to be part of this fucking mess, but here I am, trusting that my cocky fighter in the locker rooms will win us $50,000 and a title in the championship fight. And I’m standing here thinking about spending my money—scrimped and saved over three long years working for this asshole—on a
girl
. Not just any girl, sure. But there’s not even a guarantee she’ll be mine. Not like she used to be.

Was she ever?

“You thinking about leaving here, Ash?” Frank grins greasily. “You probably should have been done with this place years ago.” This place is his
girl
—but it’s an abusive relationship. He hoards his fighters and hurts everyone who comes through here, clinging to the idea that he’s still a big time criminal in a big time place. Years ago, he might have scared me, but I’ve been through hell with bigger fish than him.
 

A few of Frank’s younger fighters wander in from the barracks he keeps in the barely passable building next door. One of them is fifteen, maybe sixteen. Another has sores on his face, and nausea hits me as I realize the wounds are probably from drugs Frank has been feeding them.