I’d been up late with him and Dylan and a bunch of our security guys—trying to keep pace with a bunch of bikers pounding whiskey sours, not a grand idea—but I managed to drag my ass out of bed and shower. We were in San Francisco; the Dirty tour had started in North America over a year ago and had now returned to the US. It was a small comfort that at least when Ash and Danica flew home to Vancouver, they wouldn’t be too many miles or time zones away while I toured across the US and Canada with Dirty.
Maybe we’d still get to see each other? Maybe I’d fly home when I had a couple days off, or they’d fly out to see me?
The three of us went for wake-up brunch in the Mission, then got our asses to the tattoo shop where they had a private appointment—for Danica.
Apparently, on their wedding day, Danica had agreed to think about getting her first tattoo, for Ashley, who had many—including the one of her twin sister’s name which he’d had re-inked to her name. I felt honored, and maybe a little carried away with what it might mean that they’d invited me to come with them while they did this. And while Danica gotAshleyinked over her heart, just above her left breast, we both held her hands.
Then Ash decided he couldn’t leave a tattoo parlor without a new tattoo of his own, and asked us if we thought he should get a Dirty tattoo to commemorate the tour and his time playing with the band. He had the names of his other bands on his body already. And when Danica and I agreed that he should do it, they decided that I should do it, too.
So, Ash gotDirtyscripted into the flames on the side of his torso, under the claws of his giant phoenix tattoo, and I got the identical script inked inside my right forearm, my very first tattoo, while my eyes watered and they held my hands.
Afterwards, I was laughing from the adrenalin rush and the endorphins, my body covered in a sheen of sweat. “I feel like I just huffed laughing gas,” I told them, as Ash grinned and took my face in his hands. He kissed me, softly but firmly, on the lips, right there in front of Danica.
The kiss lingered for a heartbeat, two, as my breath caught. Then he released me.
I looked at Danica. She reached to give me a hug, and I gathered her tight against me, taking a deep breath. When I let her go, she smiled up at me, then hopped up on her toes and brushed a quick kiss on my lips. “That was fun,” she said softly.
Then she held my hand as we walked down the street, and Ash let her. His bodyguard, Haz, and my bodyguard, Tate, were trailing behind us. We were looking halfheartedly for a cab to go back to the hotel, but maybe we really weren’t.
We just kept walking for a long while and no one said anything about it, even though we were running a little late for tonight’s show.
When I was with Ash and Danica, I could see the life that I’d always wanted. The one I’d always dreamed of.
I could feel it, right there in front of me, surrounding me, so close.
Yet I couldn’t quite touch it. I couldn’t make it mine.
Ash had said no to me once; so now it was up to him to say yes.
He had to know by now that I still said yes. That whatever promise I’d made to him, to myself, about us not getting involved had gone out the window that first day on the tour; when he made Zane and Maggie trade seats with him and Danica on the plane so they could sit by me. And he sat right next to me, his knee resting against mine like we were connected—like hewantedus to be connected. And whatever resolve I had crumbled to dust. I said yes that day, and every day since, though not out loud.
And obviously, Danica said yes—to him.
I still wasn’t sure what she’d say about me. But I knew she cared about me.
And I knew what I felt. There was no doubt in my mind.
And it sure as fuck didn’t fade.
The day after we got those tattoos together, Jesse flew in, meeting us in L.A.; he was rejoining the tour, and Ash and Danica would be flying home before nightfall.
I had no idea how I was supposed to say goodbye to two people I loved. Two people who had become as essential to my day, to my very existence, as air, food, water and music.
We hadn’t even had a chance to see this thing through, if it had anywhere to go.
How did they really feel about me?
And when we reunited… would they still feel the same?
ChapterThree
Matt
As I went by Ash and Danica’s hotel room to say goodbye that day, already feeling like shit about it, I knew the damage was done—for me. I was in deep with them both.
I thought maybe they were in deep with me, or getting there.
I thought I heard them whispering about me whenever I was in the next room.
