I reach around the woman's small frame and cup her elbows to apologize over the noise. "I'm sorry,” I say. “I didn't see you there."
But as I pull back and as she looks up, I realize that I haven't been tricked at all. My senses were spot on about the scent, the sight, and the height of the woman I ran into.
"Liam," she says, sounding out of breath.
"Ashley?" I sound as shocked as I am. "What are you doing here?"
Quickly then, I search the room for any signs of Ross or a possible date or a group of women who happen to be gathered for her second bachelorette party. She’s not wearing a bridal sash, at least.
She leans in to speak close to my ear. " Hey, I heard you were going to be here tonight, and I came here because I have something to tell you.”
I’m about to get psyched over the fact that Ashley actually showed up here for me, but my inner coach blows the whistle.“Slow it down,”he cautions, “you can’t be so sure.”
Ashley continues, “I want you to know that…if I lost you now, it would be the biggest regret of my life.”
That one hits me hard. The words are more than familiar, and I can’t help but feel that we’re rewriting history right here and now. Seeing what it would be like if the outcome on that fated day had been different. Coach gives me the go-ahead with a proud nod.
“I know Beau’s getting married tomorrow,” she says, “and that you probably already have another date, but if there is any doubt in that handsome head of yours…”
She tugs onto the front of my shirt and speaks very close to my ear as I lean slightly lower. “If you’ve spent sleepless nights like I have, wondering what could be between us, then I'mbeggingyou to tell that girl to take a hike and consider taking me instead.”
She pulls back enough to look me in the eye. A soft smile curves her lips as those gorgeous brown wonders reflect light from the dance floor.
I nod, possibly letting a grin pull at one or both sides of my mouth as I take it in. “I’ll definitely consider canceling my date,but she’ll be terribly disappointed. She might even hunt you down and bite your leg.”
Ashley’s face scrunches. “Who’s your date?”
“Fifi,” I say with a grin.
Ashley swats my arm, then leans in once more, pressing herself on her tiptoes until her warm breath tickles my skin. "Can we go somewhere and talk?"
I glance to the dancefloor to see Beau, Braxton, and Luke in a huddle, looking our way.
I jam a thumb toward the door. "You guys mind if I take off?” I holler, figuring that between reading my lips and body language, they’ll get the gist.
Beau and Braxton give Ashley a wave while Luke nods and gives a thumbs up in approval. When I slide my arm around Ashley’s lower back, I hear their hoots and cheers behind us.
It’s surreal and therapeutic and more rewarding than I can say, walking out of the club after a long, discouraging night—this time with Ashley by my side.
We take my car and leave her Camry in the lot for now. We head to a nearby lookout where I pull a blanket from the trunk and spread it out for us to sit, talk, and take in the view of the ocean.
Ashley tells me about the discovery she made. She explains how she came to the conclusion, too—saying she knew she loved me, and she knew she was pushing me away, but she just couldn’t figure out why.
“Until it hit me,” she says. “I’m still processing it, honestly. But I knew if there was any chance I could be with you—and that’s definitely what I want—that I’d have to figure out what was getting in my way and why.”
I feed off every detail, fascinated by the way she narrowed the issue down to the incident in her past. I’m intrigued by the wayshe sought to carry out the pattern in her young life and how it’s carried all the way through to the present.
It seems that—so long as someone was there to assert their preference or take the lead, she was happy. Or at least comfortable to a degree.
“I thought I’d be able to change my whole life after seeing that video clip Lucy showed me,” Ashley says, reminding me of the just-say-yes TikTok. “But all that did was make me realize how badly I wanted to change. It revealed this whole list of things I was putting on hold, waiting for someone equally invested to give me the okay.”
She curls into me and rests her head on my shoulder. I smooth my hand over her hair, loving her warmth, her fragrance, her honesty, her everything.
“I love you,” I rasp, burying my nose in her hair and breathing her in. “I’m glad you didn’t forget me.”
Ashley pulls back and locks her eyes on me. “Never.” She presses her full lips on mine in a strong, driven kiss that has me shifting position quickly.
We move until we’re both on our sides, bodies lined up, my legs sandwiching hers. I slide my hand along her neck and deepen the kiss with a groan. Suddenly, Ashley’s pushing my shoulders until I’m flat on my back. She glides effortlessly over me and proceeds to study my face in the moonlight. If this is her way of asserting herself, I may like this even more than I thought.
