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Yeah, I was already in that deep.
Ash carefully picked the cup up and handed it to me. I purposely let my fingers graze his and once again, he let out a little breath. There were several long seconds of tense silence as he stared at me. I was reluctant to break the eye contact, but when the customer behind me cleared his throat, Ash quickly released his hold on the cup and dropped his hand.
The moment broken, I shot him one last grin. “Glad to see you’re not a red shirt, Ash,” I teased, referring to the characters in Star Trek who wore red shirts and got killed off before the audience got a chance to know them. “See you tomorrow.”
“Wait!” he called out as I turned to leave.
I turned back around, feeling my heart stutter for a quick second in my chest. “Yes?”
“Thank you for the scone yesterday… Aiden,” he said quietly, as if testing out my name. My body reacted as if he’d touched me and it was hard to focus on his next words. “You were right. It was worth the extra long walk I took in the park to burn it off after work.”
I nodded and shot him a wink. “Just stay away from her toffee squares. Once you open up that can of worms, your entire paycheck will go right back to her.”
His grin deepened enough to punch dimples into his cheeks, and I felt those things low in my belly. “I’ll keep that in mind. Have a great day, Aiden.”
“You too, Mr. Valentine,” I teased before walking out.
It wasn’t until I walked out with my coffee that I put two and two together.
Ashton Valentine.
A.V.
For the next several days I stressed about what to do with the journal. How could I turn it over to him without him realizing I’d at least looked at it? I went out of my way every chance I got to stop by the coffee shop to catch a glimpse of him and with each short interaction, he seemed to relax more and more. It was nice to see him settling in at the little shop, and my secret hidden geek self thought it was quite a turn-on to see the guy dressed in the Star Trek themed apron he was sporting. Despite my best efforts, we hadn’t had any more conversation than the bare minimum required to complete the drink transaction. It seemed the man wasn’t interested in more than just the friendly banter during those few moments at the register.
He was friendly enough, and very pleasant, but as soon as I’d turned up the flirt factor, I’d noticed he’d lose his smile and revert to a business-only attitude. If I was being honest, the rejection stung, especially since I wasn’t sure what had caused the abrupt change. I’d managed to pull Emily aside one morning to try and pump her for some information about Ash, but the normally talkative woman had clammed up. And then she’d taken it a step further.
“Be careful with him, Aiden,” she’d warned. “He’s not like the others.”
I’d been surprised by the shame that had curled through me. While Emily and I had always had some fun with our back-and-forth pretend flirting, she’d clearly figured out what kind of guy I was. Probably because I’d found more than one conquest in her shop while standing in line for coffee. Not to mention that one of those conquests had had a very public meltdown when we’d run into each other a week after I’d fucked him into oblivion at his apartment thirty minutes after I’d picked him up while we’d both been waiting in line. I’d left the guy passed out in his bed without leaving a note or my phone number. When I’d encountered him the following week at Beam Me Up Latte, he’d called me a host of names after telling everyone in the shop that I’d told him I’d never felt about anyone the way I had him. He’d been lying, of course, but I couldn’t deny the fact that I’d used him for sex. It was a fact he’d conveniently forgotten, because I always made sure the guys I was with knew the score.
I hadn’t responded to Emily’s warning about Ash, but I’d taken it to heart because I’d already figured out that Ash wasn’t like the guys I normally went for.
Which made me wonder why I kept coming back and torturing myself by lusting after a guy I couldn’t… no, shouldn’t pursue.
But I knew the answer.
It was the damn journal.
Assuming it was Ash’s had changed the game entirely. His words haunted me and had confirmed what I’d already started to suspect just from Ash’s behavior in the shop and the wrist brace he’d finally removed the day before.
Someone was hurting him.
