TAUT (26 page)

I take over since Ash is still daydreaming about our date. “We’ll both have the number six. Pancakes, real bacon for her, turkey for me, scrambled and coffee. One regular, one decaf.”

The waitress writes it down on her pad, takes our menus, and walks away.

“Back in control then, are you?” Ash says with a crooked sideways grin.

“I was never out of control, Ashleigh. But I know when to give a person space and when to make my move.”

“Your move is breakfast?” She giggles again.

“This whole day is my move. Tomorrow you can let me know how I did.”

She looks away, a little embarrassed. “You just made my stomach flutter.”

“Just one of many flutters I’ll make you feel today, so get ready.”

This time she laughs out loud. Several people actually turn to look at us. “Oh, shit—”

“I’ll add that on to your count.”

“What?”

I tilt my head at her and wait for her fight, but she gives in and that gives me a little thrill.

“What’s my count up to anyway? Ten?”

“Ten? OK, if you say so.”

“No!” she laughs. “I was asking, not telling!”

“Ten it is. Ten good ones, Ashleigh. Ten spankings that will change your life. Are you ready?”

She does that unconscious gesture where she puts her hands between her legs. I can’t really see her do it, but I know from her posture and movement. I almost want to bend her over the table right now, that’s how much it turns me on. “I’ll just warn you. A night with me, my undivided attention, that’s not something you’ll ever forget. I might ruin you for life. I might make it impossible for you to ever be with another man again. I might—”

“Ford?”

“Yes, Ashleigh,” I answer, smiling.

“I can’t wait.”

I’m about to reach under the table and grab her, but the waitress returns with our coffee and by the time she leaves, I’m back in control.

“I like this part,” Ashleigh says as she takes a sip of her coffee.

“What part?”

“When everything is new and interesting. When you meet someone and you just have to know everything.”

“Then tell me something new, Ash.”

She takes another sip of her coffee. “You have to ask specifics, otherwise I don’t know where to start.”

Everyone likes guidance once in a while. And she basically just asked me to guide her. So I do. “Why did you go to Japan? Why did you run away?”

“Well, it’s not quite as dramatic as I made it out to be. I call it running away because for me, it was. But everyone knew I was going to Japan. I went for college. I have a nice trust fund for education, but not much else.”

I nod at this. My educational fund worked the same way. School was always paid for, but I only had so much discretionary income for expenses. I got the house in LA when my dad died. It was one of his last wishes. And I get money from another trust that matured when I turned twenty-five, so I’m far from broke now. But college wasn’t an endless stream of money like most people think.

“And I wanted to get as far away from my family as I could, so I chose a school in Japan. I knew Chinese, some anyway. And I took Japanese in school for a few years. Mostly to piss off my dad, who wanted me to be fluent in Chinese. So I picked a school in Japan and left.”

“Did you graduate?”

“Yeah, I graduated,” she says a little defensively. “I’m in grad school. Well”—she sighs—“I
was
in grad school. I’m sure they’ve kicked me out by now. I haven’t even bothered to call in and explain what the fuck—oops.” She covers her mouth with her hand and looks hesitantly at me. I smile and she continues. “I never told them what was going on, and then I was very pregnant and was put on bed rest last fall. Kate was born a little early, there were some complications, and they have very different ways of delivering babies compared to the US, so I had to stay in the hospital for almost a month. I had to stay another two weeks after Kate was born because they wanted to monitor her. There was this whole breastfeeding debacle. They were pro-formula in the little hospital I was at. And I’m not against that, I just really wanted to breastfeed. I just needed it, that…
closeness
with someone, you know? So I figured it out. But it was not easy and it was painful for a while. None of that was easy.” She stops to let out a long sad sigh. “In fact, I think looking back, even though I did get Kate out of all of it… the past six months have been hell for me. I’m not even sure why I’m still here.”

She takes a moment to steady herself and I try to imagine what it must’ve been like, to be all alone in another country and going through all this. “Did your family come? Your father or sister?”

Her head shakes out a no. “They never knew I was even pregnant. Not until I came home, and even then I never intended for my father to find out. It was an accident. I only wanted to come back, talk to Tony one last time, and then go home to Japan and be left alone.”

“Friends?”

“I have some friends, but I’m sort of a loner. My grad school friends were just co-workers, really. I was the only American in the program and even though I look a little bit Asian and I speak Japanese pretty well, I’m not Japanese. I enjoy the culture, I fit in, I guess. But Tony was my life. So when he was gone, I got very lonely.”

We’re both silent for a few seconds and then she huffs out a laugh. “I’m sorry for being such a downer. I bet I make your head spin with my mood swings.”

“I like hearing about it.”

“I like hearing about you, too, Ford.” She peeks up at me from under her hair.

“Well, then I have a confession to make.” She waits for a moment to see what I’ll say and I enjoy her attention. Her eyes sparkle a little and I look for that now. I crave it. It means she’s happy and I like seeing her happy. I’m looking for ways, words, things that will make that sparkle appear in her eyes. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth back in Vail. About why I never went to the funeral.”

“Are you going to tell me now?”

“Do you still want to know? It’s not a big deal. I’m not even sure why I left it out, other than I would’ve had to admit that my dad died in the avalanche and I didn’t want to do that with you right then.”

She nods enthusiastically. “I still want to know. I really do.”

“OK.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, Minturn is the town where he was laid to rest, you already know that because we went there. But there’s this out-of-bounds run on the backside of Vail Mountain, it leads to Minturn and it’s called the Minturn Mile. It’s three miles long, so don’t let the name fool you. It’s no Corbet’s Couloir, it’s a baby trail compared to that shit, but you know, it’s got its own set of challenges.”

I picture the ride up on the lift and the sign that says you’re leaving the in-bounds run and if you need a rescue, you better have a lot of money because there will be a bill. That memory is a little funny, but knowing that part of my life is over, that’s not fun at all. I suddenly know how Ashleigh just felt admitting that having her baby alone in a foreign country hurts. It’s hard. It’s hard to admit this stuff hurts.

“My dad and I did the Minturn Mile at least once a year. We’d take the lift up, hike over to the trail, and ski down to Minturn, then take our skis off and walk into town and have lunch at the local tavern. My mom always picked us up later. It’s kind of a Vail thing, right? A tradition. Something we do as locals, something people come and do when they want to pretend they’re local. So when the lawyers gave us his final wishes it said he wanted to be cremated and then buried in Minturn and he wanted to go down the trail one last time. It was a pretty big deal to set it all up, and like Mrs. Pearson said, everyone turned out for it. Everyone but me. The whole town was disappointed I didn’t come.”

I stop because I’m suddenly overwhelmed with shame that I missed it. My dad made his final request something special for me. Something we could share together, something that might give me a bit of pleasure. Something that might ease my pain.

And I missed it.

I ran.

“But you couldn’t bring yourself to do it, could you?” Ashleigh asks quietly.

My throat feels like it’s closing up on me and I have to clear it several times to make that tight constricting feeling go away before I answer. “I never skied again. I never went back to Vail. I just… left. I left my mom to clean it all up and took a job producing a game show in Japan.”

“When were you in Japan?” she asks, her eyes squinting down a little.

“On and off for the past few years. I started out there after graduation and they liked me. My weirdness never rubbed them the wrong way. I almost fit in there, if you can believe it.”

“So you and I were living in the same foreign country at the same time. And yet we met on a freeway in Colorado. Do you think that’s weird?”

That conversation I had with Rook at Coors Field comes barreling back to me. She got off the bus in Denver on a whim, so she could go to CU Boulder and study film like the guys who made
South Park
. The same school I went to.

I said
fate
and she said
weird
.

But I’m done with fate. “Yeah, it’s weird all right.”

We’re silent for a few moments. And then Ash kicks me under the table. “You know what’s really weird? The game shows in Japan! I can’t believe some of the strange stuff they do on TV there. What was your show called?”

I go from sad and ashamed to embarrassed as fuck in two seconds flat. “I can’t tell you,” I say, laughing.

She knows why because she’s laughing too. “Let me guess, it was Kiss Ass Roulette? And saying ass isn’t a spankable offense, because it’s a real show!”

“Oh, I know. Believe me, I know all the game shows in Japan. But no, that wasn’t it.” I have to lower my eyes and shake my head a little, that’s how funny this moment is. “I can’t even think about Japan without remembering those shows. When people look at my resume they think I’m making this shit up. But when they realize they’re real productions, they give me the job out of pity, I think. When I got the call for the HBO show in LA I almost couldn’t believe it. I really thought my career would end up being one long string of Japanese game shows or Shrike fucking Bikes reality TV.”

She laughs with me and then the food arrives and we sit back and wait for the plates to be served.

“Ford—” she says after the waitress leaves.

“Yes, Ashleigh.”

“You are a nice guy.”

Any other moment and I’d probably brush her off, but today I feel like a nice guy, so I just accept the compliment. “Thanks. I don’t try to be nice all that often, but it’s good to know I can put in an effort and it makes a difference.”

“You’ve made a difference to me, Ford. And even if we never see each other again after we get to LA, I’ll never forget you.”

Her words hit me hard. The fact that she can say that so easily and not be bothered by it. So I shut down again and don’t answer. Just dig into my food. Because I can’t even go there yet. I can’t. I’m not gonna let her get away. I’m not gonna stand aside so this guy can take her back and probably throw her away the first chance he gets. I let Ronin keep Rook, but Ashleigh is mine. And I’m not giving her up without a fight.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“I haven’t been here in ages,” Ashleigh says as Vegas shimmers off in the distance. She’s got the windows down and the breeze whips her hair around as we finish the final leg of our journey today. “And I’ve never come from this direction. We come from the west, so it looks so different. Where are we staying?”

I don’t answer her, I want it to be a surprise.

She sits up a little so she can tuck her feet underneath her. Her socks and shoes were discarded as soon as the climate changed about an hour ago. It’s not hot, but compared to the frigid temperatures we just left behind in the mountains, this feels like August. She had to climb in the back and relieve Kate of all her blankets and her pink sweat suit. Thank God for a little bit of sun. At least the child can wear a dress now.

“We need to hit the stores for So Cal clothes.”

“I say we shop for all our clothes in the gift shops.”

I look at her like she’s crazy.

“Yeah, we can be walking Vegas billboards!”

“Get my phone and look for Pam in my contacts.”

For once she doesn’t even ask why, she just finds Pam on the phone and then looks at me for directions.

“Tell her what kind of clothes you want for Kate. I’ve already got an infant gift basket in the room, so we don’t need any of that essential stuff. Tell her what size and she’ll have the hotel shoppers send some stuff up.”

“I love this,” she says as she types out the message.

“Love what?”

“Being taken care of for a day.” She stops typing and looks at me. “It’s been a while and ya know, sometimes you just want a gorgeous man to take you out to eat and buy you stuff.”

I want to say a thousand things back to her. Things like,
I’ll be getting my payback later
or
just wait until you see what I’m really going to do with you tonight
.

But I keep my mouth shut. Because I don’t want to cheapen the experience for her. I want her to feel taken care of. I want this to be the best night of her life.

“You have an appointment with the fashion consultant at six, but you’ll be busy all afternoon. I’ll be watching Kate.”

“I’ll be doing what?”

“So eager,” I say with a hint of innuendo. “Be patient. Slow down, enjoy this, Ashleigh. Make it count.”

“You smell that, Ford?” Ashleigh sticks her head out the window and her hair whips past her face. “That’s called pollution.” I laugh. “I’ve missed it!”

It takes another forty-five minutes to get to the Four Seasons and by this time the novelty of traffic has worn off, the baby is cranky, and Ashleigh is looking sleepy. But as soon as we pull up to the valet everyone perks up, even Kate. She’s quiet and still as she lets us bustle her out of the Bronco.

Everyone looks at us like we are vagrants who drifted in off the desert like tumbleweeds, but as soon as I hand over my credit card, they change their attitude. Maybe this bothers some people, but I could give a fuck. I stand there in my
I’m not a ski addict
t-shirt and hand the keys over to the valet. “This vehicle is very special, do not get a scratch on her.”