Page 22 of Role Play
“I’m fine,” he snapped. But I knew that tone. I had used that tone myself so many times I could recognize itanywhere.
“Why don’t you come in for a few minutes,” I said, studying him cautiously. “I can make you sometea.”
“No. I… I need to get home. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day onset.”
“We have to wait for your Uber anyway. It’s going to be at least tenminutes—”
He had his phone out, punching in a text message. “No, it won’t. My driver will be here soon. There’s a little bar around the corner… I’ll wait for himthere.”
What the hell happened? The shift in his personality was so different, so palpable that if someone had told me right this second that Ash suffered from multiple personalities? I would have believedthem.
His hands shook—visibly trembled—and he shoved them in his pockets, looking up at the slice of moon—barely a fingernail’s curve in the sky. He needed something. And it wasn’t tea. I didn’t even think he needed sex. Before he could stop me, I curled my arms beneath his and flattened my palms to his rigid back, squeezing him into a hug. Every dip of hard-etched muscle tightened beneath my flexed hands. I didn’t care. I dug my fingertips into his back, squeezing him, holding him and rested my cheek to his broad chest. The thump of his heart was rapid, thundering with each pulse in my ears. The tenderness of the moment, the intimacy of it, was alarming. He didn’t need tea. He didn’t need to come in. He needed to be held. He released a heavy breath and my cheek moved with the exhale. I felt his rock-hard muscles loosen and relax beneath my embrace, and then his arms were around me. Cradling me back. Our breath became syncopated, one with each other’s, and in that moment, I didn’t know who was consolingwho.
After several minutes, he peeled me off ofhim.
The frown creasing his gloriously handsome face was alarming. I had seen him frown before at work… but not like this. Those other times, it was a scowl. An expression of dissatisfaction or annoyance or frustration. This? This frown was grief. Heartache. Andmisery.
I brushed my fingers across the tight groves of his forehead and around his eyes, then dropped my hands and my gaze to the ground. Maybe whatever this was—whatever was going on with him was none of my business. Maybe whatever triggered him was a good thing. It was the screeching halt we needed to stop whatever momentum we’d been gainingtonight.
Curving his hands around my jaw, Ash tipped my head, waiting until I lifted my gaze to his. He didn’t have to wait long. Then, closing his eyes, he touched his lips to my forehead. Salty tears pooled in my eyes, though I had no freaking idea why. Why was he so upset? Why was I feeling his pain so intensely? Why did this kiss feel more like goodbye than goodnight or a promise of more tocome?
“Goodnight, Lucy,” he whispered in a hoarse tone, backing away. “I’ll wait for you to goinside.”
I turned, feeling hollow. Empty. A lump burned, lodged in the center of my throat. I slid my key into the front door and turned, finding him standing curbside watching me, fingers still twirling thatring.
“Whoever that ring belongs to,” I said, tilting my chin to the ring. “I’m sorry for yourloss.”
His hands froze and I could see, even in the inky night, veins pushing against the thin skin of his hand. A potent blend of emotions percolated in my stomach. Rationally, I knew Ash was going through something. Something heart-wrenching from the looks of it. But the way he pulled back from me? Peeled me from his body like a snake would shed its skin? That emotional tug of war had given me whiplash when I was a kid, too. That immediate absence of affection was exactly what my mom had done to me. Over and over and over again. And tonight? Ash might as well have taken a machete to my oldwound.
You would think that my dad’s behavior would have scarred me most. That watching him berate my mother for what she ate, what she wore, how she cooked, and every other little thing would have been the catalyst for my wounds. But it wasn’t. I grew to expect this from my dad. He was an asshole. I knew it from the time I was three and he ate half of my ice cream cone while I stood beside him crying. But my mom? I trusted her. She was my rock. Or at least… she was supposed to be. Until Dad left and he gave her the final, ultimate blow that pulverized my rock into meredust.
