Settling Ashes: A New Adult/College Romance (The Ashes Series Book 2) (6 page)

I walked toward her like a fish on the end of a line, oblivious of the other eyes in the room locked on us.

Tima cleared her throat. “Um, Gill? Let’s go to your room for a minute. I want to borrow that necklace.”

“What necklace?” Gillian snapped, glaring at her.

“Shut up and come with me,” Tima said firmly, grabbing Gill’s arm and guiding her to her room.

Drew followed them with a wry smile on his face.

“The things I do for you, bro,” he muttered over his shoulder.

The door shut behind them, and within two strides I was standing in front of her.

She held both hands up as if to ward me off. But her makeshift shield was no match for me and my churning emotions.

I grabbed her and crushed her to me, and my heart was pushed back into my chest again.

“You’re home,” I breathed into her hair.

I brushed the sleek dark strands back from her face so I could look down at her. “I wasn’t sure you would come back.”

“I always knew I would, “ she admitted. “Eventually. And here I am.”

“Here you are,” I agreed, hungrily absorbing her gaze.

She backed away from me, too soon. My eyes pleaded with her silently, wondering where to start.

“We have to talk,” I said lamely.

“Yeah...”

The front door opened, and a guy I could only assume was Beau walked in carrying three large pizzas.

“Son of a
bitch
,” I swore.

He walked calmly to the bar and set the pizzas down, and then turned to face me.

He spread his arms wide. “So, we’re gonna do this?”

Paige looked warily between the two of us.

“Guys,” she warned.

“We’re gonna do it. Outside,
now
,” I growled.

“No,” Paige said, shaking her head vehemently.

Beau walked over to her, and God only knows what kept me rooted to the spot where I stood. He reached out for her, and then glanced at me. He dropped his arms warily at the sight of my outraged expression.

“I’m going to go outside with him. We’re just going to talk. I promise. I think he needs to settle things with me before he can even get started talking to you. You can go hang with Gillian for awhile. We’ll be fine.”

The fact he was explaining all of this to her, like they were intimately close, caused my vision to go from perfectly clear to a hazy red.

I didn’t allow myself to voice my extreme displeasure. I didn’t want to upset her. But I was going to handle this with him.

I walked silently out of the apartment and turned toward the parking lot. He closed the door behind me. When I reached the asphalt beyond the walkway leading to the housing units, I turned.

“What the
hell
are you doing with her?” I barked. “You took her away from me. Why?”

He walked right up until he was inches from my face. “Let’s get something straight, Rich Boy. Paige is a person. She doesn’t belong to you. I didn’t take her away. She needed to leave. Because you hurt her. So I picked her up. I will always come for her when she needs me. Always.”

I stared at him, my breath coming fast and hard.

“Why?”

“Why what?” he barked, backing up a few inches.

“Why will you come for her?”

He stared at me, and then he let the words that I dreaded most loose from his mouth.

“Because I love her.”

“
Fuck
,” I muttered. I ran a hand over my hair, and paced away from him. “Then you must know that she loves me. We’ve been apart for a month because of a misunderstanding. I didn’t sleep with another girl. I would never. Hannah drugged me and then called Paige from my phone. I wanted nothing to do with her, and I was at her house that night to tell her that.”

He shook his head. “Paige doesn’t know that. And she does love you; I’m aware of that. I’m not an idiot. But I’m not going anywhere. If she’s going to be with you again, then fine. But don’t just assume that’s set in stone. Because as soon as you mess up again”—he appraised me— “and you will, I’m sure, I’m going to be there for her. Again and again, until she realizes that she and I are a forever thing.”

I clenched my fists, because I wanted to hit him. I really did. He didn’t realize that what Paige and I had wasn’t temporary. There wasn’t going to be any more misunderstandings. The one person who didn’t want us together was gone now. There was nothing left to keep us apart.

I shook my head angrily. “Whatever, man. Stay the fuck out of my way. Because Paige
is
mine. She belongs to me, whether you like it or not. And I to her. She
owns
me. So you can be her friend, you can wait in the wings if you’re that desperate. But I’m telling you right now, there’s no end to this show. Paige and I are taking it all the way to the curtain call.”

He nodded. “We’ll see.”

I spun and walked back inside. When I opened the front door, Paige and the girls were sitting on the couch, giggling together like she’d never left. Drew was sitting on a barstool, digging into the pizza.

“You good?” he asked me, pausing in the act of scooping out a slice to lie on his plate.

“Yeah,” I said gruffly. “Paige?”

Her eyes found mine, and then to my discomfort she glanced over at Beau, who had followed me inside.

“You want to talk now?” she asked.

I nodded and she stood.

“Save me some pizza, Drew,” she ordered sternly, and Gillian snorted.

He came over to hug her, picking her up off her feet. “I’m glad you’re back, Paige. I missed you.”

She smiled up at him, and then headed down the hall toward her room.

I followed her, preparing myself to beg and plead for my life back.

Paige

My soft blankets sank underneath me as I sat, and Clay stood in the doorway, drinking me in with his crystal-clear blue eyes.

I watched him warily. Despite the anger I still experienced every time I looked at him, the painful euphoria was slowly taking over. I’d always felt drawn to Clay, from the moment I’d met him. He was the first guy I’d met after my recovery, and the pull I had for him was unexplainable and terrifying. He’d broken down my walls by showing me he really wanted to be with me, and I’d eventually let him. I’d painfully allowed him into my still-broken heart, and he’d healed it in a way that no one else was able.

So, staring at him now, all of those feelings and thoughts came flooding back as I pulled up the dam of my emotions. The pain crippled my limbs, rendered me motionless in my spot on the bed. Clay read my face from where he was standing, and his crumbled in response.

“Damn,” he muttered.

He came toward me and sat in my desk chair, wheeling it closer until our knees were touching.

“I’m so sorry, Paige,” he said tensely. “I never wanted to be the one to put that look on your face. Ever. You bolted, and there’s been nothing else on my mind since. That note you left…” His voice cracked and he was unable to continue.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he went on after a moment. “For good. I was going to look for you forever if I had to. And if I never found you, I would just keep looking. That was the plan anyway. So I’m beyond happy that you’re here. And I want to start by apologizing from the bottom of my heart for the pain I caused you.”

I leaned forward. I expected my own expression to be downcast, but I felt braver than that. This guy had hurt me, he had made me cry and run away and writhe over the agony of my heartache for him. So I wasn’t afraid to look him in the eye after all that. It was all I could do, really.

“Why, Clay?” I whispered as I stared into those endlessly blue eyes I had missed so much.

They melted, and he reached out his hands to take hold of mine. I allowed the contact, staring down at his big hand covering mine with the tiniest of shivers.

“I didn’t,” he answered, his voice firm and strong. “Paige, I didn’t betray you. I never would.”

I sat back on the bed again, reeling. He hadn’t? My eyes had been working just fine that night. I had walked into the bedroom and seen him lying naked in Hannah’s bed, right next to her while she cackled with hateful laughter.

“You…didn’t?” My voice was dubious. Hope immediately began to linger on the outer edge of my heart, but I pushed it back. I wanted to hear what he had to say.

“I didn’t,” he repeated firmly. “I did go to Hannah’s that night, baby. I went there to talk to her. About everything she’d been doing to you, to us. I wanted it to stop. So I was there, talking to her one more time, about how we could come to some understanding about the relationship she thought we had, but actually didn’t.”

“I’m confused, Clay. I know what I saw.”

“I’m getting there,” he promised. “So I went there to talk to her, and I was actually stupid enough to take a drink from her. I honestly didn’t know her as well as I thought I did, or I would have never done that.”

Realization dawned in my soul, completely eclipsing my anger. “Oh, my God, Clay. She drugged you?”

He nodded grimly, and squeezed my hands tighter. “She drugged me. And I realized it as I was stumbling toward her bed in a face-plant. At that point, I couldn’t do anything but hate her harder.”

“So you were drugged, passed out, and she called me. Oh, hell. If you could have heard the things she was saying to me!”

“I could,” he admitted, his breathing ragged. “I could, Paige. And I fought it as hard as I could, but I just wasn’t stronger than the drug. And then I passed out. And I didn’t wake up again until morning. I got out of there as fast as I could, but I swear to you she was nowhere to be found. I was passed out on a Roofie, for shit’s sake. I didn’t kill her. She left the house that night for some other reason while I was asleep. She was gone in the morning.”

I shook my head, cursing myself over and over again. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I doubted you.”

He left the chair and slid down to his knees in front of me, holding on to my thighs with both hands. “I would have doubted me, too. I can only imagine what you saw when you came in.”

I winced, and his eyes grew cloudy as he imagined it with me. “I’m still sorry you were hurt that way. I should have found a way to stop her sooner. I think her ultimate goal was to have me to herself again.”

I nodded.  “Can you ever forgive me?”

He ogled me, the disbelief in his eyes giving them a wild expression. Then he grabbed my hands and pulled me up with him as he stood, lacing our fingers together as he held our hands down by our sides.

“You’re kidding me, right? There’s nothing to forgive. I love you, Paige. I always will. There’s nothing--”

I cut him off by pressing my lips to his, rising up on my tiptoes. I was suddenly hungry for him, it had been too long since I’d touched him, smelled him, breathed his air.

He covered my lips with his, moving against me, just as needy as I was.

“God, I missed you,” he murmured against my skin. “Don’t ever leave me again.”

“Never,” I whispered.

I took his bottom lip into my mouth and nibbled on it, wanting to get every piece of him as close to every piece of me that I could. As quickly as I could.

He made a low noise in the back of his throat and pulled me closer, grabbing hold of my hips and yanking me toward him until our bodies were melded together.

I ran my hands over his short hair and let my fingers trail softly down the back of his neck. He shivered under my touch, and I smiled against his mouth.

“You blow me away,” he said, pulling back to look at me. “I can’t believe how much I missed. And it just fell right back into place when you touched me.”

I stepped back, remembering something.

“What’s this I hear about you not putting one hundred percent into your defense, Clay? What the hell? I didn’t come back here just to lose you again. You have to fight.”

He smiled abashedly. “I will. Finding you was my first priority. Now I can fight. Are you going to stand with me?”

“I will stand by you through anything and everything. I know I haven’t proved it to you, but I swear to you I will make up for leaving you when all of this happened. It won’t happen again.”

He grinned, and then his smile faded quickly. “Shit.”

“What?”

“I changed my mind. Let me deal with this. I will keep you updated on everything that goes on.”

“Uh-uh,” I protested. “That’s not going to happen. Why did you just do a one-eighty? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I haven’t told the police about you,” he blurted. “And I don’t plan to. I want to keep you out of the investigation.”

A knock sounded on my bedroom door, and I kept my eyes locked on Clay as I went over to yank it open.

Gillian and Beau stood there sheepishly. Well, Gillian looked sheepish.

“I missed you,” she whined. “Don’t stay holed up in here all night. Plus, Beau is here.”

She looked pointedly at me. I hadn’t had a chance to explain just what the hell I’d been doing with Beau for the past month.

And now that I’d heard Clay’s explanation and realized I had left before he could tell me what really happened, I felt torn. If he’d been able to tell me then, I never would have left. Facing Hannah’s funeral and the aftermath her murder brought to my life would have been tough, but I could have gotten through it with Clay by my side.

I stared at Beau, realizing that I now had two devoted men by my side.

And neither of them was going anywhere.

Clay

I ate a slice of pizza slowly, one hand never leaving Paige the entire time. I watched her while we all ate. She kept darting glances toward Beau, like she felt guilty for something. It was taking everything I had inside me not to ask her point blank if something had happened between the two of them while she was gone.

If it had, I’d forgive her. I knew I would. I needed Paige, and the circumstances had been awful. She felt like she needed to leave. She had been in a horrible place.

But knowing that she’d…well, knowing that anything had happened between Paige and Beau would just about shatter me. I wasn’t ready to hear it.

I put an arm around her and pulled her close, and addressed Beau over her shoulder.

“So, “ I said, munching. “When are you planning on going back home, Beau?”

He stole a glance at Paige, leaning back against the back of his barstool. His cowboy boots peeked out from beneath his jeans, and I sighed. I suddenly felt the ridiculous spirit of competition rear its chauvinistic head. He’d experienced life with her before I’d even known her and that bothered me more than I liked to admit. They seemed to match pretty well, too. Even their accents matched.

“Well,” he said pointedly. “I’m going home tonight, just to make things easier for Paige. But I told her I wasn’t leaving her, so…expect to be seeing a lot of me, Clay.”

I heard Drew sigh heavily from the floor next to me, and Gillian landed a sharp little elbow into his ribs.

“Well, I’m happy you’re here,” she piped up. “I’ve missed seeing you around, Beau. I wish you hadn’t been such a stranger.”

“Yeah, me too,” he answered quietly. “I’ve got some making up to do there.”

Gillian glanced at Paige and I, concern wrinkling her brow.

Paige cleared her throat. “Can I walk you out, Beau?”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin, and then nodded. “Yeah.”

They walked to the door, and I didn’t miss the fact that he grabbed her hand as she led him outside.

I turned and glared at Gillian. “Really, Gill?
‘I’ve missed seeing you around, Beau’
.” I mimicked her.

“What?” she said defensively. “Beau’s a great guy.”

She avoided my gaze, so I pressed her on her statement.

“As in, he’s a better guy for Paige than I am?”

Tension floated between Gillian and I like a river, and not for the first time since Paige left.

“Dude,” Drew cut in. “She didn’t say that. Don’t forget, she grew up with Beau, too.”

I sighed in frustration, scrubbing my hands over my face.

“What the hell am I supposed to do here, guys?”

“Nothing,” Tima said.

She’d been quiet thus far, but now she made her opinion known.  “You don’t do anything extra, Clay. You didn’t do anything wrong, before, and Paige knows that now. The situation will correct itself, just stay close to her without strangling the girl. It’ll all be okay. If Rob were here, he’d agree with me.”

I stared at her hopefully. “You think so?”

“Yeah.”

Paige came back in, blushing a furious scarlet. She sat down next to me once more, and I placed an arm around her shoulders.

“Everything okay?” I asked quietly in her ear.

“Yep,” she answered.

“We’re going to have to talk about him,” I said hesitantly, dread pooling in my stomach.

“I know,” she said, squeezing my leg reassuringly.

“I want to talk about Clay’s case,” she said to the group.

“Oh, crap,” I said suddenly, as her words reminded me.

“What?” she asked.

“My parents are in town. I’m supposed to be meeting them at their hotel tonight. I totally forgot, what with the getting back the love of my life and all.”

I stood, holding out a hand to her.

“You want me to come with you? And meet your parents? Now?” she asked incredulously.

“Might as well be now,” I said. “They’re going to meet you eventually, right?”

Gillian popped up to hug her. “Well, let’s go change. You can’t go meet the parents in that get-up.”

“I think she looks beautiful,” I pointed out.

“That’s because you have no clue what the hell you’re talking about,” Gillian said sweetly. “Come on, Paige.”

Gillian dragged Paige back to her closet, and I sat on the couch to wait.

When they emerged again, about fifteen minutes later, Paige looked incredible. Her black pants covered by short black boots and a white cowl-necked sweater was tasteful enough to impress my parents but sexy enough to keep my eyes glued to her…curves.

“Wow,” I breathed when I saw her. “Amazing.”

Gillian grinned. “Thank you.” She patted Paige’s backside. “Now get out of here.”

Drew cleared his throat. “I’ll um, just get a ride home with Gill after I’m done eating.”

Gillian rolled her eyes drastically. “So, I’ll plan for two more hours or so?”

Paige gave them all a wave, her hair falling across her eye like it always did. Only now, she brushed it back behind her ear without a hint of self-consciousness. She caught me eyeing her, and quirked an eyebrow in question.

“You used to like to hide the scar from the fire,” I mused. “What changed?”