For the Love of Gracie (12 page)

I couldn’t help smiling at the affection in his tone.
 

He continued, “I kept feeling like I was doing something wrong tonight.”

I sighed. “No, Ashton, you didn’t. You’re perfect.” 

He laughed. “Not really, Gracie.”
 

I clarified my statement, “You’re perfect…to me.”
  He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Ditto.” 

That one word lit my whole face up. I glanced at the clock and noticed it was a few minutes after midnight. “Merry Christmas, Ash.”
 

“Merry Christmas, bug.
  Goodnight.” 

As I brushed my teeth, I noticed the bracelet in the mirror.  It was so beautiful I didn’t want to take it off.  Tonight was the defining moment for me. I'd never be happy with Hudson as long as Ash was in my life. Now I needed to figure out what to do about it. 

Chapter Eight

The next few weeks I spent most nights at Hudson's. It was getting really boring for me, the monotony of it all. It became obvious to me that, although I enjoyed sex with him, there were no feelings developing.

We had been together for five months and I barely cared anymore if he didn’t call me one night. Even now, I had to bite my tongue from saying Ash's name instead of his, because he was always on my mind.
Tonight was the point that the awkwardness grew with Hudson. 

"I'm falling in love with you, Gracie," he whispered as I lay in his arms. Luckily, I'd been quiet for a bit so I pretended to be asleep. 

There was one thing I knew for sure, I was not in love with Hudson. The only person I got really excited about seeing lately was Ashton. He had shown me a different side of Nashville. It was the town I grew up in, yet somehow he had seen so much more of it than I had. It gave me a pang of guilt that I was lying here thinking about Ashton after Hudson professed his feelings for me.  

In the morning, I woke up to an empty bed. I slipped my clothes on while Hudson was in the shower. The plan was to sneak out before he could come in and tell me that again.  I would have to answer and I didn’t want to right then. Carefully, I closed the door behind me. I scribbled a quick note about getting to class and bolted out the door. 

My text beeped, I groaned until I looked at the name and realized it was Ashton. He wanted to meet for breakfast.  Relief washed over me as I realized I needed to talk to someone about what happened and he was always good at listening. 

We met for breakfast at a diner down the street from school. As I walked up to the door, I heard his bike pulling in. He slid off the bike, removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his thick dark hair.

My body reacted to his allure.  It was so hard to be just friends with this man. It wasn’t the choice I had made though; it was the way life was. Ashton couldn't help who he was attracted to and I understood that and knew I couldn’t change it. It didn’t make him less attractive to me. Oh, how I wish it did though.

He spotted me and his lips curved into that gorgeous smile of his, outlined by that sexy beard I love
d so much. "Hey bug," he said as he leaned down and kissed my cheek. 

I was so glad he
didn’t kiss my lips like Cameron did. If he did, it would be hard not to want more. He opened the door for me. I slid past him and found a table in the back. He always sat beside me in the booth instead of across from me. 

"So, what's up?  Your text sounded like you had something on your mind," he said, after we ordered our food. 

"I need to know how to break up with a guy."

His face seemed to light up a bit at this. I had a feeling he didn't like Hudson
any more than anyone else and that he just always kept it to himself for my sake. 

"I thought things w
ere good with Hudson, mostly?" he asked. 

"He told me he loves me." 

Ashton squirmed a bit uncomfortably at this and asked, "And you…?" 

I didn’t have to think about the answer. "Don’t love him. Some days I'm not sure I even like him. I don’t really understand how he thinks he's in love with me anyway. He barely knows anything about me except for what I look like naked." 

Ashton squirmed uncomfortably again.  

The waitress brought our food over.  She was a cute blonde with her cleavage ready to spill out of her uniform. She flirted with Ash. He didn’t seem to notice. I watched him a lot in these situations,
and he never seemed to notice girls at all. Yep, definitely didn’t make the wrong assumption. 

He shifted his body towards me, laying his arm across my shoulders. He smelled so good that I wanted to press myself against him. My eyes drifted upward and he smirked at me. I licked my lips slowly and could've sworn I felt him shiver when I did.

"What's going on in that head of yours, Gracie-bug?" 

I stuffed a forkful of eggs into my mouth.  I covered my mouth with my hand and said, "Just hungry." 

He chuckled and began forking food into his own mouth.  “You don’t have feelings for Hudson at all?” Ash asked, as though this was news to him.

“Not really.  You seemed surprised at that.”

Ash’s shoulders shrugged. “I just don’t understand why you're with him if you don’t like him?”

My head dipped to my plate in shame, unable to face him. “Lack of options
, really. No one wants to be alone, and it’s nice to be wanted.” 

His hand brushed across my cheek.  What I hoped would happen next was that he would confess these deep hidden feelings for me and sweep me off my feet and away from Hudson.

That didn’t happen. Instead, he said, “Gracie, you’re an amazing girl. You can’t stay with the wrong person, simply because you haven’t found the right one yet. You’re beautiful, funny, smart, and incredibly sweet. Any guy would be lucky to have you. The thing is, you're the one that needs to feel lucky to have that guy as well. If you don’t, then it isn’t gonna make you happy.”

I shrugged. “I always manage to meet jerks. What’s to say the next jerk will be a better trade?”

He folded his arms over his chest.  Good grief, they looked massive when he did that. His face crumpled up into a stern look that made me feel like I was being scolded by my father or a teacher.

“Gracie Walker, what has made you so cynical?”

I chuckled, “How much time you got?”

His face softened, he reached out and stroked my cheek. “All the time in the world
, for you.”

My heart fluttered. If only he knew how much he tortured me with his sweet words. 

"Sometimes happiness is staring us right in the face and we don't even know it," Ashton said as he stared into my eyes. If only that statement was literal at this moment. 

"Happiness doesn’t like to make eye contact with me it seems," I replied. 

Ashton smiled sadly. "I think we all feel that way at some point."

At times, I wish he'd treat me like dirt so I could stop having these feelings.  Ashton's hand waved in front of my face. "Where'd you go, bug?" 

Oh, nowhere, just into a delusional fantasy world where I was performing naughty acts on you.
  I smirked at my unspoken confession. 

He smiled, letting out a soft laugh. "Now you look like you're up to something?"  If he only knew. 

"Ash?" I said, turning to him.

"Yeah, bug?" 

I giggled. "First, I totally love that you call me that.  I've never had a nickname before.  Cameron's always called me babe, or hottie, or something to that effect. Anyway…what I was going to ask is…would you spend the rest of the day with me?" 

He held his finger up asking me to give him a moment. He picked up his phone and made a call.  Faking a cough, he said, "Yeah, man I'm not going to make it in today. I feel pretty crappy. Can we reschedule for tomorrow? Thanks."

"You didn’t have to do that. By the way, what do you do?" I asked, curiously. 

"I'm an independent contractor. All I did was cancel a meeting with a venue to strategize over who they want to book next. I own a promotion company for entertainers. I help book a lot of the venues around town with local artists, as well as some big time entertainers." 

My mouth fell open. "Shut up!" 

He laughed at my shock.  

"Who have you met? I must know now!" 

The waitress interrupted again with the check.  Ashton grabbed it before I could, handed her a large bill and told her to keep the change. He slid out of the booth, pulling me with him.

"I can't tell you who I've met.  It's a confidentiality thing." 

I huffed. "You suck."

He let out a loud laugh. 

"How did you get into
the business?" I asked, genuinely curious. 

"Kind of born into it
, really. My dad owned a night club when I was growing up. I helped him run it while I was in college, made a few contacts that way. When I graduated, my dad gave me a loan to get me started and it took off pretty well." 

I grinned. "Well, duh.
Anyone as hot as you will go far in show business." 

Ashton's lip turned up slightly. "You think I'm hot?" I bit my lip as he leaned closer to my face.  He kissed my cheek. "That's sweet." 

You're evil Ashton Collins, pure sexy evil
, I thought to myself.

We left my car at the restaurant and took his bike.  He placed the helmet on me as usual. I watched his butt as he slid his leg over the bike.

Dang Gracie, why weren’t you born a man?
I snickered silently to myself. That was something I didn’t remember wishing for before! My hands ached to run up inside his shirt to feel his muscles. 

"Where do you want to go?" he asked, into the helmet. 

"Do you like art?" I asked, with a plan in mind. 

"Yeah, of course.  Are you thinking the Frist Center?" 

I responded, "Yep, let's start there." 

As we were driving, I glanced up at the back of his helmet. There were stickers all over it, hearts, flowers, smiley faces, all very girly and pink. 

I snickered, "Um, what's with the stickers on your helmet?" 

He answered, unabashedly, "Katelyn, my niece, she decorated it last time she was over at my place."

I chuckled. "Did you forget to take them off?" 

Still unaffected he replied, "No. She was so proud of decorating it for me. I'm leaving them on there because it would break her heart to see them gone." 

I sighed and pressed myself harder against his back.  I was convinced there was no man more perfect than this one.

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts was in downtown Nashville. It was a museum with art exhibits that rotated throughout the year, and was one of my favorite places to visit. The outside of the building was all white, and there were two stairwells to go inside. In front of the stairs was a row of giant black concrete balls. They were at least two feet tall and wide. 

Ashton handed me his phone with a smirk. "Take a picture of me, you'll know when." 

I prepared myself to capture the moment. He took off running. He jumped in the air, spreading his legs out over one of the balls with his hands straight down to brace him. I snapped the shot. It came out awesome, as though he was balancing on the ball. 

He ran over and grabbed the camera from me and said, "Your turn." 

I responded with, "Do huh?" 

He snickered. "Do something, anything. We're going to capture our day together with crazy pictures. Trust me, it's fun. Gavin and I do this all the time. Now go!" 

I saluted him and walked over. I pressed my finger to my lip, contemplating what I wanted to do. "Ok, get ready!" 

He aimed the phone at me.

My back was to him, I bent forward placing my hands on the ball. I lifted my legs up until I was doing a hand-stand on the top. I could only hold it briefly. Once I came back down I ran to him to see what he captured. The first shot was me bent over looking as though I was making out with the ball or something.

"Nice, thanks for catching that shot!" 

He laughed. "I kept clicking to make sure I didn’t miss the big event."

The picture of my handstand was perfect. Then the ones of me coming down were priceless. I tried to delete them on his phone, but he yanked it from me and held it above his head.

"No way are you erasing those!"  Ashton ran toward the entrance. I followed, yelling for him to give me the camera. When we were in front of the door, he stopped and I ran straight into him.

We were laughing loudly when a couple came out the door. We covered
our mouths to quiet ourselves. They smiled and as they passed us I heard the girl whisper, "What a cute couple."  I blushed as I looked up at Ashton who seemed a little uncomfortable.