TWENTY
“Dave, have you seen my phone? It has been a while since I set my eyes on it.” Ashley walked into the living room, her towel hugging her wet body.
Dave who was busy with his laptop looked up and on seeing her, his pupils dilated, “Are you trying to tease me now?”
She walked even further into the room, her gait suddenly having a touch of sexiness as his question gave her an idea. “Tease? I have no idea what you are talking about.” On getting to his front, she bent a little, her hands on her knee caps for support.
Putting the laptop aside, Dave’s eyes left hers and flickered to her exposed skin, then his shorts. “You are going to get me wet.”
“I know.” Leaning further, Ashley maintained the smirk on her lips. With her lips gradually closing in, she continued, “It is my intention to get you wet… with water.”
“I don’t know Ashley. I don’t think you should be playing with something so deadly.”
“Deadly?” With a swift movement, she helped herself onto his laps. “I don’t see anything deadly here,” she whispered onto his lips which were just inches away. Slowly, she began to draw on his face, her eyes not leaving his amused ones. “So, as I was asking, have you seen my phone?”
“Uh?” His eyes were closed shut as though he was trying to fight something within him and that encouraged Ashley to do more.
Tilting her head to plant a light kiss on his neck, she repeated her question with a murmur. “I asked if you have seen my phone.”
Grabbing her hand suddenly as though set to take over, he replied gruffly, “It’s in your luggage.”
Nodding, her eyes went back to meet his which looked very eager. As she leaned in towards his lips, Dave did too. But before he could claim hers, she withdrew and jumped off his lap with a jolly, “Thank you!”
Laughing sinisterly at the look of disbelief his face wore, she walked out of the room.
Moments later, after a long call with her assistant and the insurance company, Ashley walked into the living room. This time dressed in a black cotton top and sweatpants.
“Dave, why didn’t you tell me you had already seen to the reconstruction of my house?”
“Well,” he walked out from the kitchen, his two hands occupied with two glasses of orange juice. “,you were busy sulking and complaining about moving to a hotel, so I decided to see what I could do to make sure you moved to your house sooner.”
“Thank you so much. I really don’t know how I could probably repay you for all you are doing,” she said with an absolute sense of sincerity as she sat down beside him.
“Just try to be happy Ashley. Stop being unnecessarily sad, that shit is dangerous.”
“Okay *sir*. Ughh, what did you put in this juice?” she complained as she spat the awful tasting juice into the cup.
“Oh. That is meant to be mine.” He swapped their drinks. Peering into the cup he just collected, he made a little frown appear on his crown. “You actually spat into my drink.”
“It was my drink a second ago. What did you put in it anyway?”
“Vodka.” And he gulped the drink he was just grumbling about. When he saw the look on Ashley’s face, he shrugged and asked, “What?”
“You… just drank my saliva.”
“No, I drank a mixture of liquids. Enough talk.” Dave stopped her before she could say anything. “Let’s continue our talk from last night.”
Ashley downed the rest of the juice in her cup and set the glass object aside. “Yeah?”
“Do you have friends?”
“Uh…” her eyes darted to the ground. “Not really.”
“Yes or no, Ashley.”
“Well, I can’t say I have. So, no.”
“Why?”
Shrugging to shake off the guilt that came with the topic, her eyes darting here and there, Ashley replied, “After I got married, I just felt like I did not need anyone anymore. I wanted to focus on my marriage and work without any distractions.”
“That was not a very good decision Ashley.”
“Well it seemed good at that time.”
“See, you need to understand that in this life, for every situation we find ourselves, bad or good, we need someone beside us to help us. In your case, if you had a friend, the divorce wouldn’t have taken such a toll on you that you become some kind of living nightmare.”
“I did think about that when I was alone in that house.”
“See? You need to make friends. It can be just a friend. You know, someone you can talk to or go out with to have fun. Something like that. That is a way to attract happiness.”
“Well, you are my friend. So, I guess I have that part sorted out.”
“Ashley,” he reached for a loose strand of hair and pushed it back. Ashley could not help but smile, that action of his always made her feel mushy inside. “,I am your friend, yes. But you and I know that our friendship is not a regular one.”
“Uh… very true.” She looked on thoughtfully. “You know, I can’t help but wonder what exactly it is that is going on between us right now. What do we call it?”
“How about we leave it nameless and just enjoy what we have here. Let time decide what we should call our relationship.”
Nodding in agreement, Ashley continued the conversation. “You know, all these days all we have been talking about is me. How about we change that and you tell me something about yourself.”
Looking up at her from the phone in his hand, his brow quirking, Dave adjusted in his seat, an interested look on his face. “You already know something about me.”
“I want to know more. Who you are, where you are from, just tell me your story, Dave Scott.”
Letting out a short chuckle, Dave pushed his phone aside to fully face an awaiting Ashley. “Well, what can I possibly say?” He played with his jaws. “I was born a spoilt rich brat. This man used to feel so entitled while growing up, it grossed some people out.” He heaved a very heavy sigh before continuing.
“But everything changed when I lost my parents in a car crash. Even though my uncle helped with relieving me of my dad’s company, I became a very lost, sad child. Suddenly, I lost hope in life and the riches that surrounded me didn’t help at all.”
Dave chuckled again as he looked away towards the kitchen as though travelling back to the past. “Let’s just say I fell into the wrong crowd and almost destroyed myself.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Something terrible almost happened on a certain day and at that moment, in the midst of that craziness, the stupid things I had been doing flashed through my mind and I just… I realized how wrong everything was. My life had become an absolute chaos.
I just knew that I had to retrace my steps and help myself the right way. And, that worked out well as you can see. So… yeah.”
“Wow. It is actually hard to believe you were once a conceited fellow. You are so modest now.”
“Well, once you have seen the ugly side of being rich, you will realize the saying; *modesty is key*, is not just any saying.”
He always found a way to sound so motivational. “So, the company is your father’s not your uncle’s?”
“It might as well be my uncle’s. He handled that company with a strong fist and that helped us get to where we are right now. On the other hand, when my father was on the seat, the company was so close to bankruptcy. My father is not a man I like to remember anyway.”
Sensing a bit of anger within his words, Ashley quietly said, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Blinking away the strain in his eyes, Dave faced her with a smile. His hand reached out and cupped the side of her face and Ashley reacted. She took his hand and played with it as they both shared a stare.
“Ashley, I have a question.”
“You always have a question.”
He scoffed, an air of hilarity surrounding his reaction. He went on to cup her chin and after playing with it a bit, he withdrew his hand. “Do you think you can ever forgive your mother?”
Anger taking over the surprise the question brought along, Ashley felt her jaws setting. She did not even think twice when she replied with a sharp, “No.”
“Ash…”
Getting up abruptly, she grabbed the empty cup and faced Dave, her face trying not show the sadness his question just dug out. “Don’t ever ask me that question Dave.”
Dave pushed further, “You need to stop being acting like she isn’t the…”
“She is not even my fucking real mother, so please, drop the question!” As she stormed out, the image that had managed to stay away after more than a month stay in her head, came back.
And as the picture became clearer, it slowly began to sink that it was really her mother that she met in bed with her ex-husband.
As she sank into the bed, the cup in her hand rolling away, she realized her anger had brought a familiar feeling along.
*Devastation.*