Perfect Match: Enemies to Lovers Romance, page 16
My bottom lip quivered as the three hundred Band-Aids I’d placed over all of my internal emotional wounds ripped off in that moment.
And I’ve come to save you, if you’ll let me.
Each word filled a hole inside of me. I couldn’t control the tears that streamed down my face, the relief that washed over me. Ashton leaned in, the couch dipping as he did and causing me to bump closer to him. “I need you. I need all of you and I won’t let you go without a fight. The truth is, Millie, if some girl were out there walking around with Jenna’s heart, I would have gone a little psycho too.”
I glared at him playfully, holding the piping bag tip right in his face. “Call me psycho one more time…”
He grinned, pushing up off the couch with surprising strength, and then his lips pressed onto mine. I leaned backward, letting him lie on top of me, moaning when the weight of his body fell onto mine.
God, how I missed his touch. We didn’t have enough time together, we needed more time, more kisses, more of this. I parted my lips to deepen the kiss and our tongues met with a feverish need. My tears were still falling, forming a salty seal around our lips. I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth as he groaned, his hand slipping under my shirt to tweak my nipple. My back arched into his touch as I felt the length of his hardness grow between us. I’d never wanted him more than I wanted him right now on my mother’s brand-new sofa. Yes, that was the weirdest thought I’d ever had, but I needed him, I needed us to be closer, to fix the wounds we’d inflicted on each other with lovemaking.
He pulled back suddenly, looking into my eyes with a serious expression. “Shit. I forgot to say I love you. I rehearsed the whole thing in the car.”
Laughter pealed out of me, and then he pulled off his t-shirt and I did the same, lying topless underneath him.
“I love you too.” I looked up at the scar on his chest and a thought struck me. “Wait, are you cleared for sex? I mean … will you?” I stuck my tongue out of my mouth and crossed my eyes.
Ashton’s gaze hooded as he reached over to the coffee table and pulled the icing bag into his right hand, supporting his weight with his left. “I had something different in mind.”
He brought the tip of the icing bag to my left nipple and squeezed a little dollop of rainbow icing, then did the same on the right. My heart picked up five notches as I anticipated him licking this off, but he didn’t stop there. He put a dot of icing in my belly button too and heat exploded between my legs. It was summer, I was wearing tiny silk jammie shorts, which he easily removed as I tucked my butt up into the air. After the final dot of icing had been applied, I couldn’t wait any longer.
“Ashton,” I whimpered, grabbing his neck and pulling him closer to me. Dipping low, he sucked the dollop of icing from my left nipple and wetness pooled between my legs.
“Mmm,” he growled.
Leaning up to kiss me, I tasted the sweetness on his tongue and remarked in the back of my mind that it was the perfect level of sweet and not too buttery. When he dipped down to go for my right nipple, he also plunged one finger inside of me. It caught me so off guard I cried out with pleasure like those stupid girls in the movies did. But this was real. This was the realest thing I’d ever had. Everything with Ashton was ramped up a notch, the pleasure and the pain. When he got to my bellybutton I was aching, tipping my hips into his fingers, begging for release.
When his strong fingers were replaced by a soft wet tongue, I lost my mind. The orgasm slammed into me, fast and hard, like I’d been holding on to it for months. My butt squeezed together, thigh muscles quaking as I grasped his hair and guided his gentle lapping. I shook for what seemed like a full minute before collapsing back onto the couch, panting. When I looked down at him, he was grinning, blue, purple and pink frosting all over his lips.
“Okay, I’m going to need to make all new frosting. This is for a kid’s party and that’s just not right,” I breathed.
He burst into laughter, his chest heaving, but it quickly turned into a violent cough. I froze, pulling on my shirt and undies, and then I looked over at him. He was done coughing but he looked tired just from that little exertion. Reaching out, I trailed my finger over his scar.
“So, what are we dealing with?” I was scared to ask but I had to know. He’d kicked me out of the hospital before I could talk to the doctors about what happened. I know he’d had a heart attack, but that was all.
He was stoic and silent for a long minute before finally looking at me. “If these new anti-rejections meds don’t work…”
Oh God. No.
Colin’s heart could kill him? I lose the first man I love to a car accident and then the second man I love might be killed by my first.
Life couldn’t be that cruel, right?
“They’ll work.” I reached out and squeezed his hand, grasping at positivity like a life raft.
He nodded, giving me a weak smile. “So … it’s noon. That means if we catch the next flight out, we should still have time for the open mic night tomorrow.”
A grin swept across my face. “You didn’t cancel it?”
He shrugged. “I was going to and then I saw that a thousand people had RSVP’d. Thought it might be stupid to cancel that.”
I nodded. “It would.”
His brow furrowed. “Although everyone is commenting that they are only coming for the free beer.” He pinned me with a glare and I laughed. “Trust me, we’ll sell enough avocado toast to pay for the whole thing.”
He smiled, and I pulled back to face him. “Ashton?”
He looked up at me with vulnerable eyes.
“No drinking, no smoking, no throwing away your second chance,” I warned. If I was going to be with him, I needed to know he was going to try.
A serious expression crossed his face and he nodded. “I won’t, but, Millie, just so you know, you’re my second chance, not this heart.”
In that moment I thought that maybe we could save each other.
Ashton
Millie had been a tornado of activity all morning. We’d barely slept on the red-eye back from Connecticut. We landed at 1 a.m. and I got a few hours of sleep, but Millie was at the farmer’s market at 5 a.m. buying every avocado in sight. I watched her now as she sat crossed-legged on the concrete out in front of the shop, scribbling tonight’s menu on the chalkboard sign. She wiped her cheek and a smear of white chalk streaked across her face.
A sly grin worked its way up my mouth.
My girlfriend was a little psycho, so what? Weren’t we all? As Gran said, love made you do crazy things. Did it matter that Colin’s heart brought her to me? I’m the reason she stayed and that’s all that mattered now.
A timer went off on my phone, and even from outside she must have heard it because Millie looked at me with stern eyes.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the anti-rejection meds and shook them in the air at her and she smiled.
Walking back to the bar, I filled a cup of water and downed the pills.
For the first time since Jenna died, I had found my will to live, and she was standing not twenty feet from me. Chalk on her face, hair a mess, a little bit crazy, but she was it for me. I wanted it all with her. Marriage, house, kids, all of it. Anything she wanted, I wanted just so she’d be happy. I hated this fucking bar because it reminded me of my deadbeat dad, but she saw something in it, a future for us and so I’d love it too. In time.
She looked up at me as if she read my thoughts, and we shared a knowing look. It was one of those looks where you both know that you’re thinking the same thing.
A sly smile swept across her face, but then her phone rang and she pulled it to her ear. I went back to wiping down the bar top, slowly. Everything was slower, but the doc said my strength would return when my damn body stopped rejecting the heart.
No. My heart. Not the heart. They told us not to think like that, not to think of it as something that didn’t belong to us. Some rejected organs could be pinpointed back to “psychological adjustment issues.” That’s what my new organ transplant therapist said. Yep. I’m starting therapy. I was doing everything possible to stay alive and healthy so I didn’t put Millie and Gran through another heartbreak. So that I could have a million more days with this woman who drove me insane.
I glanced up at her again and her face fell, like she’d gotten bad news on the phone. I stiffened, and she looked up at me, seeing if I was watching her. A smile graced her face and I relaxed a little, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She waved me off, as if telling me it was okay and I went back to cleaning the bar.
This whole relationship thing was new to me. If she wanted to tell me who was on the phone, she would … right? Or did I walk out there and ask who just called? No, that was demanding, and I wasn’t that kind of guy. But she’d definitely looked like she’d seen a ghost … and even now, back to writing the sign, you could see her mind chewing on something.
Was Julie okay? Did her and John break up? Was it—?
“Reinforcements have arrived!” Gran’s voice broke through my thoughts and I grinned when she walked in holding a mop and wearing her farm worker overalls. My cousins and aunt were behind her, all ready to lend a helping hand.
“Hey, how did you know we needed help?” I asked.
“Millie,” they all said in unison.
The day I got back from the hospital, Gran had been waiting for me in the bar. I’d showed her Millie’s letter and she’d cried reading it. I’ll never forget what she’d said.
“If a woman is capable of so much love and loyalty that she’d do what Millie did to be closer to Colin and get closure, now that’s a kind of woman you want loving you.”
She was right. I wanted that love now, I wanted that kind of devotion. I’d had it and now I’d never let it go. Yes it was new, but it was deep, and it hooked into me with a permanency that scared me a little.
Millie walked in from outside, wiped chalk on her pants and gave everyone hugs.
“How can we help?” Gran asked.
Millie rattled off the to do list of things as I watched her.
Something wasn’t right, there was a sadness just below the surface. When Gran and everyone dispersed and Millie turned to walk back to the kitchen, I yanked the belt loop of her pants and pulled her into me.
She smiled as I wrapped my arms around her and gave me a small peck.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
Her face darkened for the slightest moment before she gave me another fake smile.
“Fine. Just busy.” One more quick peck and then she disappeared into the kitchen.
With a sigh, I raked a hand through my hair. If this heart didn’t kill me, that woman would. No doubt.
Chapter 19
Millie
Fuck Fuck Fuck.
I mashed the avocado like a mad woman as my brain chewed on the phone call I’d received earlier today.
I was a perfect match for a liver transplantation to Ashton’s father.
The music blared into the kitchen as the open mic night raged on. It was a total fucking success. Like, we had to turn people away because someone called the fire department about it being too crowded. The Instagram page I’d made for the bar was blowing up with hashtags and pictures. Each band paid twenty dollars a head to be heard and most of them were actually really good. I’d made more food than I ever had in my life—vegan nachos with cashew cream, truffle mac and cheese, and BBQ chicken sliders were our top sellers. And of course avocado toast with sunny-side-up egg on top with a hint of sriracha mayo. I had to call a local grocery store and beg for them to deliver more produce! I was too busy to worry about the liver transplant or the fact that I’d said yes without telling Ashton.
Tomorrow, after the high of tonight wore off, I’d tell him. Just in time for the surgery Monday morning…
His dad was on borrowed time and something inside of me said that if I could save someone like Colin saved Ashton, it would make things right with the world. Make things right with me.
Maybe I was also hoping to repair some of Ashton and his father’s relationship, but honestly I wasn’t sure that was possible.
“Holy fucking shit!” Ashton jumped into the back kitchen and I startled.
“What?” I looked behind me as I flipped an egg, then three pieces of chicken, at the same time as I pulled six slices of bread out of the toaster.
Did he find out?
But when I looked back at him, I saw the grin stretched across his face and I sagged in relief.
“Papa’s gettin a new truck!” he stated, causing me to smile.
“We making money?”
He nodded. “Gave all the free beer away and now they’re buying top shelf liquor. Not to mention the food and the band fees. If we keep this up on weekends, we might actually turn a descent profit!”
He pulled me away from the stove and spun me around as the fan blew the sticky hair away from my face.
I leaned in and kissed him quickly. “I get a new fryer before you get a new truck.”
He pulled back, grinning. “Deal.”
Richie peeked his head in the window. “A little help out here!”
Ashton patted my butt and then walked for the door, looking over his shoulder as he fixed me with a curious gaze. “Oh, Millie?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Later you’re gonna tell me who called and got you in a weird mood, right?”
I swallowed hard, unable to keep the panic from my face. “Right.”
Shit.
I could lie, say Julie and John broke up and then a week later say they were back together. But … this was our fresh start and I didn’t want to start a relationship on lies.
I’d tell him after we closed and pray he understood.
The next two hours passed in a blur. Ashton was sitting in a barstool relaxing behind the bar and popping beer tops while his cousins did the harder work. On my orders of course. We’d crowned the winner of the band battle and named the Cherry Pies our new house band. They were surprisingly good, and I’d heard a rumor that a talent scout had even shown up at some point in the night.
All the bands asked the same thing on their way out. “When can we play at this venue again?”
I took their info and told them we’d do an open mic night every Tuesday and Wednesday when the house band wasn’t playing.
“We’re going to need to hire more people,” I told Ashton, bleary eyed as I closed down the kitchen and Richie made last call. Staff was way too low and service too slow tonight for my liking, but no one seemed to mind.
I started to help Richie wipe down tables when I noticed the chalk wall we’d painted on the far end of the bar had writing all over it.
‘Best nachos in town.’
‘Holy Avocado toast Batman.’
‘I lost my virginity tonight.’
Whoa, what?
“We carded everyone, right?” I asked Ashton as I read the chalkboard.
He grinned and nodded. “My buddy worked security, whole night was legit.”
This thing was thrown together so last minute it wasn’t even funny.
There were only about twenty people left in the bar when the clock struck 3 a.m.
Benjamin, leader of the Cherry Pies, grabbed the mic. “Alright, y’all, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”
People booed, chugged their drinks and then started to walk out.
“Long Live Wayne’s Place!” A guy stumbled out with his fist raised in the air.
We all smiled and the band started to pack up. I finished wiping down the tables while Ashton did the bar top, and by the time we turned off the lights and got upstairs it was near 4 a.m. and my eyes were crossing.
I kicked off my shoes, faceplanted in Ashton’s bed, and didn’t bother brushing my teeth. Only when I felt the bed dip did I remember Ashton wanted to talk about the phone call. I peeled one eye open, praying against all odds that he was asleep next to me. He wasn’t. He sat fully clothed, looking down at me with a frown.
“You okay?” he asked.
My throat went dry, and I sighed, forcing myself to sit up. Taking a deep breath, I let it all out. “When you kicked me out of the hospital, I didn’t leave. I went downstairs and gave a sample with your Gran to be tested as a donor liver for your dad.”
His eyes went as wide as saucers but he didn’t say anything, so I continued.
“They called today and I’m a perfect match. Surgery is Monday.”
I could hear the crunch of his teeth when his jaw clenched; his nostrils flared and he got up, left the room and slammed the door.
Shit.
I heard him rustling around on the couch. I planned to give him a few minutes to cool off and go after him to talk but then I accidently fell asleep.
Ashton
Millie came out of the bedroom the next morning, puffy-eyed and hair tied in a top-knot. She still looked adorable but I was in no mood to tell her that. She was holding the papers I’d stayed up all night printing. The ones I’d left on the bed for her.
“Ashton.” She shook them at me, frowning.
“You wanna be a living transplant donor, you need to know the side effects,” I told her curtly.
The fact that she even thought her and my father’s lives were equal was laughable. If Millie died on the operating table and my father lived, I’d lose my fucking mind.
It was preposterous, the whole thing. But I didn’t want to push away the woman I’d just won back by yelling at her, so I decided to scare her instead.
“Have you ever had general anesthesia before?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “I dunno. I got my wisdom teeth out…”
I scowled at her. “That’s not the same, and do you know how many people die from bleeding with the surgery? Did you know you have to give seventy percent of your right lobe? Or forty percent of your left depending what my dad needs?”
She nodded. “Yep. I researched it back when I was flying home, you know, right after you kicked me out of Tennessee.” She glared at me.
