Circle, page 6
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.” And I wish you’d fuck off. But I didn’t say it. Ellen had made my life a million times easier since Liam had come to Chicago, and whatever she was saying now that I was too pigheaded to understand was likely something she considered to be in my best interests.
She swatted me around the head with her clipboard. “I’m saying that you can have two weeks off, Pete. In December. Why are you glaring at me like I’ve run over your dog?”
I opened my mouth. Shut it again. I’d spent the last two days drowning in a fog of knowing how badly I was fucking up but seemingly unable to stop. And even now the worst had happened and Ash had gone, I still couldn’t think clearly. “What?”
Ellen turned her gaze to the heavens and slapped the schedule against my chest. “Read it and weep. Then come and find me and tell me you love me.”
She stomped away, leaving me to stare at the schedule and the thick red lines that had been struck through my name. Starting from tomorrow, I wasn’t due back at the hospital until the day before Christmas Eve.
In the time it took my brain to compute what that meant, my body was already in motion. Ignoring Glenn’s snort, I shot after Ellen and pretty much tackled her to the ground before she went into one of the trauma rooms. “I need to go.”
“What?”
“The personal time you’ve given me. I need to start it now.”
Ellen glanced at the watch pinned to her scrub top. “Your shift doesn’t end for another three hours.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not supposed to be here yet. I came in early to fix the schedule.”
“I know that too, and I’m sorry and thank you for giving me so much time off, but if I don’t go now, it won’t matter. Please, Ellen. I’ll make it up to you.”
I was going whether she allowed me to or not, and something in my face must’ve given that away. Her head moved in the barest hint of a nod, and I was gone, racing through the ER to the locker room and then out of the hospital without even changing my clothes.
Heart in my mouth, I dashed the two blocks that stood between Ash and me. The frigid winter air bit into my skin, but I didn’t care. He was going to Portland with or without me, but I wouldn’t survive it if I didn’t get to him in time to have his back like I should’ve done all along.
He’d brought the van home from Ted’s garage last night. As I rounded the corner onto our street, the sun reflecting off the icy sidewalk blinded me, leaving nothing but empty space outside our building. My stomach dropped to the floor, but as I ran a few more steps, my vision cleared, and the van’s dark blue form took shape.
Ash gunned the engine and began to pull away. I ran harder and made a grab for the passenger side door, pounding on the window with my fist. “Wait!”
Whether he heard me or not, I’d never know, but the van slowed enough for me to wrench the door open and hurl myself inside. “You fucker. Now you can drive.”
Chapter Six
Ash
Pete seemed as surprised as me to find himself in a heap in my lap. I stared at him as he struggled to catch his breath, and unease prickled the back of my neck. Had I dropped into another world? The one where Pete wasn’t so unhappy he’d rather stay home by himself than be with anyone who loved him? Or was Pete’s warm presence a figment of my desperate imagination?
The fact he was in his nursing scrubs didn’t bode well for the reality I craved, and as he sat up, I put the van in gear and pulled away from our apartment building. Fuck this shit. Denial was all I had.
“Ash?”
The pounding in my heart slowed with Pete’s labored breaths. I chanced a glance at him, found him smiling, and shook my head. “Is this really happening? Or do you need a ride to the store?”
“It’s happening.”
“How?”
“Scheduling snafu. Ellen gave me two weeks off.”
“Two weeks?”
“Yup. It’s supposed to start tomorrow, but I kinda ran out on her.” He didn’t look even slightly contrite, but then his expression sobered. “I wish it had happened a day earlier, though. Then we all could’ve gone to Portland, huh?”
I felt every ounce of his disappointment that Liam wasn’t with us, but life over the past few years had taught me that everything happened for a reason. Perhaps Pete and I were meant to take this trip alone. Perhaps we needed to.
While Pete got his shit together, I drove out of the city and onto the expressway. I’d never driven farther than to Michigan, and I couldn’t deny that I was nervous. Driving the van was fun. Navigating, not so much, even with my phone’s GPS, but having Pete along calmed me like a belly full of benzos—a calm that was quickly dashed by the sight of him changing his clothes.
Damn. Even though I saw him every day, his strong, supple body never failed to set me on fire. Smooth olive skin, and ink that I’d etched over and over in my favorite dreams. Pete was one of those lucky fuckers that never worked out, ate like a horse, and had lean, coiled muscles anyway—muscles that would thoroughly distract me from the road ahead if I didn’t stop ogling him.
He slid his scrub trousers over his narrow hips, and I bit my lip, forcing myself to look away. If I saw his dick, I’d be done. The excitement of him crashing my trip had gone to my head, and two miles in, all I wanted to do was pull over and beg him to fuck me. The reality that he’d likely refuse cooled the heat rising in my belly, though. Being the reticent pair of idiots we were, I’d never actually asked him to top since it had become clear he didn’t want to. How could I, when I’d spent years being so scared of it? Pete hadn’t pushed me then, and I wouldn’t push him now. My gut told me it wasn’t about me, and if I was wrong, well, I could live with not knowing that for a little while longer.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Hmm?” I kept my eyes on the road as Pete settled into his seat dressed in the sweats and hoodie he’d left the apartment in that morning—back when I’d felt so far away from him I’d barely been able to kiss him goodbye. “I’m thinking about not getting us lost in Wisconsin.”
“Is that where we’re headed today?”
I shrugged. “Maybe?”
“You don’t have a plan?”
“Not really. I figured I’d just point west. We’ll get there eventually, right?”
“What the fuck?” Pete reached for my phone that was lying useless on the dashboard. “You can’t wing it, Ash. Are you out of your damn mind?”
“What do you think?”
Pete glared at me, clearly past caring if I was kidding or not.
I laughed and pointed at the route I’d printed off at the studio. “Relax. Jed helped me plan everything. I’ve got it covered.”
“What’s Jed got to do with it?”
“We’re staying with him when we get to Oregon.”
“When did you figure that out?”
“From the beginning.” I changed lanes. “I didn’t want to stay in a hotel by myself, and Jed and Max live twenty minutes from Portland. They offered us a bed for a few days, and I said yes.”
“Us?”
“Yeah, I’d kinda set my heart on us making this trip together, even though I knew it was wishful fucking thinking. Or maybe I didn’t, huh? ’Cause I never called them and said I’d be coming on my own.”
“And you packed all the socks.” Pete shook his head slightly and I laughed again.
“I knew you were pissed about that.”
“Only because I didn’t want to go to Target and get some more. If I hadn’t been working, I wouldn’t have cared.”
“Uh-huh.” I didn’t want to get into the fact that he didn’t seem to care about much at all these days. “We’re not stopping in Wisconsin, by the way. Joe booked us a hotel in Minneapolis.”
“Joe? I thought Jed planned the route?”
“He helped, then Joe got all excited about Minneapolis. Said there was a club we had to go to.”
Pete stared at me with mock horror that likely had a healthy dose of realness. “You let Joe choose a club and a hotel for us to go to? What the hell would you have done if I hadn’t stopped being an asshole at the last minute?”
“Slept in the van. I put a mattress in the back in case I couldn’t find any more hotels on the way, and you know what, Pete? I’d have been fine ’cause I’m not a fucking child.”
Pete said nothing. Just stared at me some more, apparently incredulous, and so I turned my attention back to the road. His hand on my thigh startled me a few seconds later.
“Sorry.” His warm fingers burned. “I’m just getting a little freaked out that you really might’ve been out here on your own. I’m so sorry, Ash. What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re not happy.”
“I know.”
Halfway to Minneapolis we stopped for gas, and Pete hassled me out of the driver seat. “What? Were you going to drive for seven hours straight?”
“No.” I slid across to make room for him. “I was going to stop and take some pictures for Danni.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “Right. Who does that?”
“She does. So I figured I’d do it for her this time seeing as I was going to be by myself.”
Pete’s only response was a grunt as the van’s engine rumbled to life, but as he eased out of the gas station and back into the traffic, guilt clouded his gaze again. “You shouldn’t have been contemplating going anywhere on your own.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to come without that last minute scheduling snafu, and we both know it, so maybe I should’ve contemplated it all along.” I took a deep breath. It was time to be real. “I was kinda devastated when I figured that you really weren’t coming.”
“Ash—”
“I know, I know. You had to work.”
“Fuck work.”
“How? Your job is who you are as much as mine is.”
“Not if it’s all I am. Ash, I haven’t taken more than a week off since I started at the hospital, even when Maggie died.”
“You didn’t want to. Ellen would’ve given you a month off if you’d just fucking asked her.”
It came out sharper than I’d intended. Pete set his jaw and stuck his hand in the bag of Twizzlers I’d stashed down the side of the driver seat. “When was the last time you didn’t draw for more than a week? And where do you turn when shit gets real?”
“I don’t draw to punish myself. You work yourself into the ground because you’ve been doing it your whole life and you don’t know anything else.”
“You’ve answered your own question there,” Pete said dryly.
“I didn’t ask you anything.”
“Touché.”
Pete fell silent for a while, and I gazed out of the window at the flat landscape. To an outside observer, our dead-end conversations would’ve served no purpose, but I knew Pete better than I knew myself, and my faith in him grew stronger with every mile we left behind.
Pete
Later that day, I woke Ash as we passed a spot that was perhaps scenic enough for him to photograph, despite a years-old instinct to let him sleep. He wasn’t a great passenger—cars, trains, planes: he hated them all—and it was sometimes better to let him doze a journey away. But I’d been an asshole earlier, and I wanted to try and make up for it.
I shook him and he jumped, sitting bolt upright, instantly alert, his gaze darting around for danger. “Easy, fucker. It’s just me.”
Ash brought his hand to his chest like he could slow the painful rush of his stampeding heart. “I know. I know. Fuck. Where are we?”
I told him. “It’s pretty dark,” I added. “But we can stop if you want?”
Ash glanced out of the window at the murky landscape. “Huh. It doesn’t seem such a good idea now. Maybe on the way back?”
“Sure.” It had slipped my mind that we’d have to drive all the way home again at some point. I didn’t even know how long Ash had intended to stay with Jed and his partner. “So, where does Jed live, if it’s not in Portland?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“No?”
Ash rubbed the last remnants of sleep from his eyes. “It’s too freaky.”
“Try me.”
“Ashton.”
“Seriously?”
“I know, right? Maybe there’s a Petesville nearby.” Ash took his phone from the dashboard and peered at the screen. “Only an hour to go till Minneapolis. Do you want to go to that club?”
“Um…” Did I? It had been a while since we’d last hit a club together or separately, in fact. Ash rarely drank anymore, and I’d become terminally antisocial, so what was the point? But we’d had some great nights in the past when we’d left it all behind and gotten cozy in the dark corner of a smoky club, so… why the hell not? “I’m game if you are?”
Ash snickered. “Game on, then.”
Minneapolis was awesome. The last time I’d left Chicago had been years ago to confront my sister about her bullshit, and before that, my dad had been alive. Now I was wandering the brightly lit streets of Minneapolis, gazing around like a dorky tourist, I couldn’t imagine why.
And the fact that I was with Ash made it seem like I was seeing the world through new eyes. I tried to remember the last time we’d walked around our neighborhood like this—hand-in-hand, worrying about nothing more than where we were going to eat dinner. It used to be our favorite way to pass an evening together. When had we stopped doing it? It was unfair to blame Cosmo and Liam. Even with conflicting work schedules, we always had time for each other, right?
“How about this place?” Ash stopped in front of a Turkish restaurant. “You like kebabs, don’t you?”
“Sure.” Though by now, I was so hungry I’d agree to pretty much anything.
Ash tugged me into the restaurant, and we scored a booth in a quiet corner—my favorite way to eat dinner with him. We ordered the first things on the menu that we vaguely recognized and then kicked back with a beer for me, and a soda for Ash.
“So you like Minneapolis, huh?”
I twirled the straw in Ash’s glass. “So far. The hotel’s cool too. I was half expecting Joe to have booked us into some kind of novelty hell hole.”
“You mean like the hot dog place we saw on the news?”
“The what?”
“We saw a hotel on Fox News last week that was shaped like a bun, and all the rooms had wieners for beds.”
“What the fuck were we watching Fox News for?”
“Cosmo hid the remote.”
“Oh, I don’t remember that.”
“Clearly.” Ash eyed my beer. For a second, I thought he might pick it up and take a swig, but he didn’t, and the fleeting frustration in his eyes faded so fast I wondered if I’d imagined it.
I searched for a way to question it without totally ruining dinner, but then the first of the mezze we’d ordered arrived, and the moment passed. We dug in like starving men, as plate after plate of amazing food was delivered to our table, and ate until we could eat no more.
Rubbing his stomach, Ash flopped back in his seat. “I don’t think I have the energy for Joe’s club now.”
Predictably, my phone buzzed in my pocket right at that moment, and Joe’s face flashed up on the screen with the kind of message I’d never take from anyone else.
Don’t be pussies
Ash groaned. “You know he’s going to hassle us all the way to Portland if we don’t go.”
“We’re not going to Portland; we’re going to Ashton.”
“Very funny. You know I’m right, though.”
I did, and even though going to a club was the last thing on my mind as I slipped comfortably into a food coma, I tapped the link Joe had sent with his message. “Oh for God’s sake.”
“What?”
I held the phone out. “He’s sending us to a cat bar.”
“Wha—?” Ash took the phone and burst out laughing.
I was less amused. Gay bars I could do, but cats? No way. We had one that terrorized our apartment, and I was convinced the little fuck stole my stuff from the roof terrace.
Ash touched my arm. “There’s no real cats there, Pete. It’s just a bit of fun… you remember that, right?”
I snapped my gaze to him. There was no malevolence in his eyes, only sadness, and a sudden pain lanced my heart. Was this what I had become to him? A deadbeat, miserable bastard? Anyone else, I could convince myself that the comment was their own sass—meaning it was their fucking problem, but Ash didn’t do shit like that. And he didn’t bitch me out unless I pushed him to the edge.
Another wave of clarity hit me, but the words to fix the mess wouldn’t come, so I reached for my wallet and held out my hand. “Let’s go party.”
Okay, so feline-themed clubs were definitely not my bag, but I couldn’t deny that it felt amazing to be out and proud with Ash. I sank into a couple of beers, and the dark cloud that had become my constant companion lifted a touch, chased away by neon lights, glitter, and the swathes of naked man skin all around us.
Not that I took much notice of any man but Ash. He was never going to take his shirt off in public, but he didn’t need to. The fucker turned heads wherever he went, and the fact that he had no idea made me love him even more.
Made me want him even more.
We didn’t dance. Ever. But clubs had always made us horny in the past, and this one was no exception. The music ramped up and the heat seeped into us. The crowds thickened, pushing us ever closer. I pressed myself tight against Ash, so absorbed in him that I forgot to glare at anyone who dared look his way, and backed him into a nearby wall. “I like this club.”
“Yeah?” Ash hadn’t touched any booze, but his face was as flushed as mine felt, his eyes as hooded, and his skin jumped when I slid my hands beneath his T-shirt and over his chest. He licked his lips. “Do you think we’re gonna be here long?”
I doubted it, and it wouldn’t be the first time we’d cut loose early to run home and bang. But we weren’t at home now, and as I kissed Ash, it occurred to me that we’d never fucked anywhere that wasn’t our home. If tonight went the way most of our club adventures had before, where would it end? Would Ash fuck me in a hotel? I honestly had no idea. And whose fault is that? If I’d come with him when he’d first started traveling two years ago, I’d know, and perhaps would have even persuaded him that we could fuck anywhere we damn well pleased.
