Maybe. Maybe I liked sour blueberry beer. Maybe I liked it when my boss glared at a bartender and pawed me like I was marked territory. Maybe I liked leaving the lid off the blender because now—finally now—I didn't have to pretend I cared about the mess I'd made. The mess that was made of me. I didn't have to keep it anymore. It was out, sprayed all over the ceiling and walls and everywhere, and it wasn't inside me.
"I'll put your order in and bring you a sample of the Allagash," the bartender said, pushing away from the bar with a wink in my direction.
Ash's lips were on my temple before the bartender made it two steps.
The twinges that felt good and right? I felt them in all the places Ash touched me.
12
Ash
Well,I'd lost my fucking mind.
That was the singular explanation for my manic reaction to the bartender who'd given Zelda an altogether too thorough once-over. He'd eye-fucked her cleavage while she studied the menu and, for the first time in my life, I wanted to grab another man by the collar and slam him up against a wall. And that asshole thought her blue hair somehow translated to a preference for blueberry beer. Of all the ridiculous, reductionist things.
Then, I'd tugged her closer, whispered into her ear, kissed her forehead. Watched as she sampled several different beers, scrunching up her face and shaking her head at the taste of each one. Wanted to find the one that would make her smile more than I wanted anything else.
Yeah. I'd lost my fucking mind.
That was why the hand not enclosed in the sling was shoved deep in my pocket as we walked up Dartmouth Street toward the Apple store on Boylston. This was a rare moment where having one useful hand helped rather than hindered matters. It was hard enough minding that hand when I wanted to run my fingers through her hair or brush my palm over the small of her back or squeeze the rounded backside she kept wrapped like a birthday present in vintage jeans.
I wasn't this guy. I didn't fight off the urge to grab anyone's ass. I didn't notice physical attractiveness unless I stopped and made myself focus on seeing it. I didn't think I'd ever touched a woman's hair because I'd wanted to feel it on my fingers and I didn't understand that reaction now. I wasn't this guy.
Now that I was thinking about how much I wasn't that guy, it was worth noting I didn't spend much time thinking about sex. The world wanted me to believe that was uncommon. Some kind of anomaly. I didn't care. I'd had sex. I'd enjoyed sex. I'd never found a reason to let it dominate my life and I appreciated the hell out of that because I had too much on my mind as it was.
And then Zelda Besh came along and quite literally fucked me up. Oh yeah, she made me this guy. I must've hit my head when I fell in the airport. Knocked something loose. Traumatic brain injury was the only explanation for my newfound desire to—to fucking consume this woman.
That traumatic brain injury must've also accounted for my manic lapses in judgment because there was no way in hell's sandcastle I'd interact with an employee like this otherwise. She wasn't technically employed as she hadn't signed an offer letter or standard confidentiality agreement, and hadn't completed an I-9 or W-4. In that sense, I was only flouting ethical business practices in theory. Like that made it any better.
When I stepped back and looked at the way this week came to a close, I wasn't positive I knew how it all added up. Millie had broken up with me; I'd broken up with the normal functioning of my shoulder. Then Zelda swept into my life and now I had a new assistant, a new roommate, a new case of grabby hands, and a fuckton of new problems I didn't care to solve.
And I wasn't that guy.
Leaving issues to linger on the fringe of my consciousness made me restless and irritable. More irritable than usual. I didn't like leaving work for another day.
"This is a perfect night," she remarked, her face tipped up toward the sky. "I like nights like this, when it's never fully dark until midnight and there's no reason to be inside."
I didn't do this. I didn't want this. And yet—
Rising up on her toes, she turned in a circle like a punk rock ballerina. The tall, gleaming windows of the Boston Public Library reflected her movements, forcing me to choose between the glowing silhouette of her and the real thing. Both were enchanting but it was the silhouette that never made me wonder why she was running away from home. What she was running from. How I could help her.
"These are the nights you remember," she said. "They're the ones that go down in your memories as emblematic of summer, and when it's dark and cold in January, this gets you through the worst of it. You never remember the days of disgustingly oppressive heat or the bug bites. The sunburns are forgotten and only the gorgeous morsels of perfection remain. Memories are good to us that way. They help us forget the rough spots and crave the bright ones."
She twirled again, her arms held over her head in a proper pirouette. I stopped to watch. People swerved around us on the sidewalk but I barely noticed. Zelda was right, it was the perfect night. But I wasn't sure about my brain forgetting the rough spots. I wasn't sure I worked that way.
I held out my hand to her when she stopped spinning. "Come on," I said, nodding toward the Apple store ahead. Her lips quirking in an odd grin, she placed her hand in mine. "Let's get this done. Then we can walk some more."
When we reached the store, it was blessedly empty and the staff sprang into action to replace my device. I had to drop her hand to retrieve the dead watch from my pocket and I couldn't decipher Zelda's sigh when I did it. I wanted to ask her whether it was relief or disappointment, or something else altogether, but I couldn't seem to start that sentence. Instead, we circled the display tables while we waited.
She stopped in front of the watches, examining the samples closely. "You really dig this thing, huh?"
I turned away from the iPads on the adjacent table and stepped up to her from behind, my chest brushing her back. "It works for me, yeah. It also tells me when to calm the fuck down so I don't stroke out over inappropriate expense reporting."
"Always helpful," she murmured, still fingering the watch.
"Do you want one? Here, I'll grab one for you and you can give it a shot," I said, glancing around to find the genius assigned to me.
"No, no, no. Slow down, Ashville."
