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Bea
Iexpected Ash back hours ago. The sky outside my bedroom window is golden now, sunset is almost here, and with it twilight and night. I know he has his own life, I know I’ve only been with him for a very short time, I know I shouldn’t have any expectations. But I also know that I need him, that I want to see him and that he’s the only thing that can keep my thoughts from spiraling into the darkest depths of what happens next. With the murder hanging over me and my stalker still out there… best to not think about it. But I’ve never been any good at that.
I tried watching TV with Mom and Rick, I tried going for a walk in the park, I even tried to take a nap. But none of it kept me from checking my phone for Ash’s call or text for more than five minutes at a time.
So when the doorbell rings, I run down the stairs so fast I reach it before Mom, who was much closer.
He’s standing there, wearing a plaid shirt and a clean pair of jeans, his eyes kind of muddy, his arm covered by a thick white bandage.
“What happened?”
He grips and takes me in his arms, even though my Mom is standing right behind me.
“It’s over,” he says. “You’re free.”
And then he kisses me deeply before I can even make sense of the words.
“Let’s go for a ride and I’ll tell you all about it,” he says, and I only just have enough time to say a quick goodbye to Mom before he pulls me after him to his bike, standing at the curb, glowing gold.
Mom warned me about him, warned me about falling for a biker. She took every opportunity to do so today. But there’s nothing she can say that will keep me away from Ash. Nothing.
And that knowing is confirmed as his bike rumbles to life beneath me, as we fly through the sleepy town, on the way to the wide open road, to the future that will be better than the past. I hold on to his waist and lean into the wind, let it hold me up, let it take all my worries, all my cares, until nothing but this moment, this man in my arms, this glorious wind in my hair, this setting sun warming my face, exist.
We stop at the top of a hill, sitting at the very edge in the grass, above the tree line, near the sky where hues of purple and pink are already mixing in with the gold.
The sun is just a dark gold ball in a purple sky by the time he finishes his story. He put his arm around me at one point, and I’m leaning against his side, trying to make sense of all the senselessness.
My nameless terror in the shadows, my insanity as some would say, the man who peeped and creeped around me for most of my life has a name now. Fuse. One of my father’s MC brothers.
Ash told me I can go and speak to him. That he’ll go with me.
But what do I even say to the man who dogged my life for years, who made it impossible for me to live a normal life, who killed a man just because I had a drink with him? The man who tried to kill Ash?
I have no words for him. Only hate. Only anger. I hate him so much I might want to cut him myself. But the peace of finally getting justice, finally being free of the fear is stronger.
“Do you think he attacked my roommate in San Diego too?” I ask. “The man they arrested for it was a guy I had been seeing.”
Ash shrugs. “I’m sure Cross, or should I say Scar, will get to the bottom of that too if you want them to.”
I take a couple of seconds to think about it, but I don’t really need them. “I do.”
“It’d be best if they let the cops have him,” he says. “That way your name will be cleared.”
“And yours,” I mutter.
“And mine,” he agrees. “But it’s up to Cross, I suppose.”
I lean my head against his shoulder and he turns his head so he can kiss my hair. A tiny shower of stars passes through me as he does, pooling around my heart.
“Why are you even here, holding me?” I ask.
He gives me a confused look. All light is almost gone from the world, but somehow it’s still there in his eyes.
“Since you met me, you’ve almost been arrested for murder and then the actual murderer tried to kill you too,” I say. “Why aren’t you running for the hills?”
He chuckles. “I am on a hill, with you.”
“Yes, and I’m very, very happy that you are. But why?”
He narrows his eyes, hiding the glorious, peaceful lake for a couple of seconds, but then he grins. “Let me put it this way, since I met you, I feel like we’ve already gotten married, and had a few kids, the got a divorce, then found each other again, got back together and lived happily ever after. Does that answer your question?”
I smile, his words finding a home in my mind and in my heart in vivid, colorful images of the life he just described.
“Or the short version,” he adds. “I’m falling in love with you. Hard.”
“Me too,” I breathe finally finding my voice again.
But then he kisses me and I lose it again. Not that it’s a problem. Words can’t express what I feel for him, can’t do it justice. But this kiss, this deep slow, loving kiss does. It’s the only thing that matters. The only thing that’s real.
He’s given me my life back. And he is the only one I want to share it with.
