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We went back into his old bedroom which…awkwardly still had that topless poster visible on the unattached closet door.
“You sure you don’t want to take her with you?” I asked, teasing the shit out of him.
Ashton grinned.
“Nah. My girlfriend’s hotter than her, anyway. Bigger tits, too.”
I giggled and blushed. Bigger? Uh, no. That woman had double G’s, easily. I was a firm D.
Ash led the way out of the house, slowly going through the small place as he looked around at what must have been an assault of memories, probably good and bad.
“Do you miss her?” I asked when his eyes landed on the singular family picture that I’d seen in the house.
Ash was still a baby in his mother’s arms, and his dad didn’t look nearly as miserable and angry as I’d imagined. He almost looked like…Ash.
“Always,” he admitted. “I missed her a lot the first couple years, and every time I’d have a pin ceremony or an achievement. I’d just kind of pray and talk to her, telling her what I’d done, hoping she was proud.”
“I know she was proud,” I said, pulling on his arm a little to make him pause on the way out the door after putting the family picture in his duffel.
“How could you know that?” he countered.
“Because you’re not even my kid, and I’m proud of you. That makes me unbiased, so my opinion counts.”
Ash snorted at that.
“Pretty sure us fucking makes you biased,” he joked, then pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.
I smiled, but paused to look back.
“Oh, shit,” he murmured, dropping my hand and handing me the bag. “I almost forgot something.”
Running back into the house, he went to go find whatever it was he’d almost left behind, He returned in mere moments.
“Let’s go look around, and then I’ll take you to my favorite old place and get you dinner. Sound good?”
I agreed, glad to see some of the sparkle back in his eyes.
Chapter 40
Ashton
I was finally able to take a full breath now that we were out of that hellhole. Being back in my childhood home was equal parts nostalgic, and nightmarish. My father’s presence was all over the place, and just like I’d remembered before leaving, Mom had been almost erased, with the few exceptions of some pictures and personal items. Not that Mom had much of anything, anyway. My father had always drunk away all our money, so there wasn’t much for her to buy things besides the necessary food, meds, and school supplies. Even with sports and stuff, I’d started making my own money to pay for that, as well as food and school lunches if I had any to spare.
Now, I’d volunteered to take the one person in the world that I loved more than anything around the place I’d grown up. But the boy that grew up here and roamed these streets wasn’t who I was anymore. The military had changed me in more ways than one. I’d grown up in the Marines, and it’d shaped the man who I was now, and I was so fucking grateful for that. I was unrecognizable compared to my father, which had been my main goal of joining in the first place.
“It’s insane how much it’s changed, but also how much is exactly the same,” I mused while driving down the road. “That over there is where I worked for about six months in tenth grade. It wasn’t my jam.”
Freya leaned way over, trying to look out the window at the pizza joint I’d pointed to.
“Oh my God, you’re taking me to pizza for dinner, right? You can’t let me leave Chicago without getting the pizza!”
I’d planned on bringing her to the Italian beef sandwich place I used to love, but she was right.
“I’ll tell you what,” I compromised. “Let’s get the pizza tomorrow and bring along Felicity and Woodrough. I doubt they’d sat down to get some yet.”
She easily gave in, sitting back into the chair as her eyes kept flitting from one thing to another.
What to show?
