“Really?” Ashley raised aneyebrow.
“Really,” I confirmed. “I’mnot much to look at.”
“Now Iknowyou’re full of shit,”Ashley said, smiling wryly at me.
He looked less devastatedthan he had when I’d left. That had to be good, right?
I couldn’t keep doingthis. Delaying the inevitable. I didn’t have a long-term solution for hisproblems.
But I couldn’t donothing, either.
This was a step. I wasstumbling into something here without knowing where the hell I was going, but I’d been finemaking shit up as I went along most of my life.
Doing something was betterthan pretending I didn’twantto do anything. I would have regretted itforever if I’dwalked away without at least trying to find another solution.
So Ashley and his familywere just going to have to put up with me for a day or two.
“Can you make it to thehouse, or should we sit a while?”
I looked at the house, atAshley, and then down at my own leg.
I was sore, but not past thepoint where I could walk. It was one thing ifAshleyknew about my leg,but I didn’twant to advertise it.
“I’m okay,” I decided. “Just…might need to sit down for a while once we get inside.”
“I was about to take a nap,”Ashley said, taking my backpack from me. I would’ve hung onto it, but hisgentle insistence meant I let go without really meaning to, the same way I’dmove to let a cat sit on my lap without consciously realizing it.
“So you could comeliedown with me,even,”he offered. “Just to nap, I can’t…”
“I know,” I said softly. “Iknow you can’t. Secret’s safe with me.”
I just want to be near you, I didn’t add. Ashleywas allowing it. I didn’t need to beg.
Yet.
***
“Are you settling in okay?”Ashley’s sister—Maisie—asked, poking her head out of the bedroom across thehall. I was leaning against the wall in the hallway, texting Gray to let himknow my car had broken down and I’d be stuck here a day or two.
Ashley was still napping, andI hadn’twanted to disturb him by being restless.
His twin bed wasn’t reallyintended for two grown men our size, and I wasn’t sure if his parents realizedor cared that I was sleeping practically on top of him.
But then, they thought hewas straight, didn’t they? So why would they be worried about him being a littlecramped?
Aside from my friends,everyone assumed I was straight.
Ihad been,or atleast I’dthought I was until this week. So much had changed in so little time. My headwas still spinning, but I knew I had something here that I couldn’t let go of.
Now I just had to figure outhow to hang onto it.
“Umm.”
She’d asked me a question, hadn’tshe?
Like Ashley, shewaspretty. I got the feeling that also like Ashley, she knew it.
Not that there was anythingwrong with that. I liked confident women.
