AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I have no idea what happened on this show beyond the broad picture David painted for me and I have no intention of finding out who Luca or Poppy are, but I already dislike them.
“We bonded over her situation,” Ash continues. “We still talk and hang out, but we have to stick to the story our season told. Viewers can’t know how scripted this all is. And she has a good chance at getting onto next season.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know. What about you? What’s something that would surprise me?”
I glance at her. “I’m terrified I’m going to be awful as Warwick.”
She lifts our hands from the gear stick, planting a kiss on mine. “I think you’ll surprise a lot of people, including yourself.”
It’s my turn to pull our joined hands close so I can kiss hers. It’s not that I doubt my abilities. I don’t. But I could give the performance of a lifetime and it might not be enough. Too many other hands will shape the movie into what they want it to be, and fandom will do the same.
“That wasn’t much of a surprise,” she says softly.
I guess not, since she’s already picked up on that anxiety. I want to give her something real, though, because she gave me something real. “I got detention in third grade for making a bong in art class.”
Ashley’s jaw drops and she stares at me, blinking. “What?”
The laugh dies in my throat. There’s no going back if I tell her about my past, but she’s signed an NDA, and after the last couple of days, I don’t think she’d tell anyone anyway. It’s lonely keeping everything inside.
“My dad modified stolen cars to transport drugs.” No one in my life knows this outside of Cora. “We used to take these family trips, just the two of us, often with one of his women friends. They weren’t vacations though. We’d always leave with a different car.”
Ash squeezes my hand and for a while, I’m lost in those memories. My father was pretty good at looking relaxed, at mimicking a working-class dad taking the family camping or visiting the grandparents. We’d always stop at a drive-through just before we got home for burgers and fries, eating in the car. A little celebration for making it without getting caught.
I shake myself and glance at Ash. “What flavor of awful was your childhood?”
“Probably not as bad as yours,” she says, biting her lip.
“Doesn’t make it better.”
“Yeah.” She blows out a long breath. Silence hangs for a few minutes, and I imagine Ash is debating the same thing I’ve been. How much to tell, how much to keep close?
“When I was six,” she says eventually, “my dad left. He always left, and he always came back, but this was the first time I realized it was my job to bring him back. Mom taught me the words to say, taught me how to cry, and sent me to him. It didn’t work, and he sent me back. My mother didn’t speak to me for two months. Not a word. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong—I did everything she asked me to. I don’t know how she got him back that time, but she did. Then she ran off, so he took me to Europe with her best friend and promised that if I told her the way he wanted me to, he’d take me to Disney World.”
“That’s messed up.”
She shrugs. “It was better when they were fighting because they both wanted me. And they’d give me whatever I wanted to win me over. When they were together, they forgot about me. They’d go off somewhere and leave me with a nanny or a sitter or sometimes alone and never tell me when they were coming back, or if they were coming back.” She squeezes my hand. “Your turn.”
I can hear the layer of fear under her voice. It never really goes away. Somewhere inside, that scared kid is still worrying about what happens next, how to survive it, and how it’s going to get worse. We’re the same that way, even if the worlds we grew up in were very far apart.
“One time my dad disappeared for a couple of days. He didn’t say where he was going or when he’d be back. I just came home from school and he was gone.” It wasn’t that unusual for him to disappear, but usually he left me with someone, a friend or a neighbor. “I lived off of cereal and slept with every light in the house on. He came home, beat to hell, in the middle of the night. Turned all the lights off, yelling at me about the power bill. He took me down into the basement. Our house was shot up a few hours later. It was terrifying, hearing the bullets breaking windows and hitting the walls. Every night for a week we’d hear these cars drive by really slow, but they didn’t shoot again.” Then one day it stopped. We didn’t sleep in the basement anymore and life went back to normal, but for the longest time I couldn’t sleep without nightmares.
Ashley squeezes my hand, but it isn’t enough for her because a few seconds later, she shifts in her seat to rest her head on my shoulder, both her hands wrapped around my arm.
There must be something about being on the road, about being together or about surviving, because it’s easy to talk to her. The rest of the day we trade horrifying stories in dispassionate voices, holding hands and passing back and forth encouraging squeezes as needed.
It’s ugly and heavy but by the time we reach the exclusive Sedona resort, I feel closer to her than I have to anyone in my entire life. The door closes and Ash is already kissing me. I take her against the door, hard and fast as her nails dig into my shoulders like we can fuck away our painful pasts.
With her, maybe I can.
Chapter nineteen
Ashley
Gabestopsatarest stop, donning a baseball hat and a pair of mirrored sunglasses before heading in the direction of the men’s room. I wait until he disappears to get out of the car. It doesn’t take long to pull the shirt out of my suitcase, but I stand frozen in front of the car for a long minute, holding it tightly while a hot little breeze tickles the back of my neck.
Nic’s shirt.
