Emilia's POV
Back when I was driving Ash and me back to his house after going to the cemetery at an ungodly hour, all I could think about at the time was how lucky I am to have him in my life. When I woke up to the sound of laughter and Julia's voice that night, Ash wasn't in his bed with me. I wasn't surprised that I didn't notice he was gone since I'm a bit of a heavy sleeper, but he's my personal heater and after being in the chilly air for so long, taking with the police, I needed his warmth. I liked it.
I went downstairs to see what all the commotion was about and even though I was still extremely tired and could barely keep my eyes open, I quietly went down the stairs, holding onto the guardrail for dear life until making it to the last few steps where I sat down and listened to my friends converse with one another.
I liked hearing Julia talk with them so casually. She had become just as close to them as me. I especially liked how she got together with Calum. They fit each other so well, it's cute. As I sat there listening, Julia was confused when Ash said that he told me something but she had no idea what he was talking about. I assumed it was him telling me he loved me and my prediction was correct when Calum explained to Julia that it was. Boy was she excited.
I continued to listen and when Ash was asked if I had said anything back and he told them no, I couldn't stop myself from feeling so guilty for being the cause of his solemn tone. He doesn't deserve to have to wait for me to reciprocate. He's waited for so long and even Michael noticed that. But it's as if Ashton wants to wait and I appreciate the hell out of that because I'm so confused when it comes to emotionality.
The last time I was confused about how I felt towards Ash, I went to see my parents and without a second thought, I made the decision to see them again and to have Ash meet them as well. So I did. Even though it was early in the morning (like 'why-the-fuck-am-I-awake-at-this-hour-I-should-be-sleeping' early), he still complied and took me to where I requested without question.
When I listened to him talk to my mom and dad, he spoke to them as if they were there sitting with us under the leafless tree. He was so sincere and kind to them. He spoke so positively about me and occasionally put himself down a bit, but I helped cheer him up. I swear I felt my parents there with us that night, listening intently and soaking in every word Ash said. And when he told them that he was in love with me and that he hopes that I'll feel the same way in the future, I knew that I would.
I don't know what it's like to be in love. It's not something that you can learn out of a book or find the answers to online. It's something you experience through time and like always, I need time. But I will say it to him one dayâI'm sure of it because I know that I love him. I think I've always felt love towards him, but whether or not I'm in love with him, I'm still trying to figure that out.
Now that it's Wednesday and all afternoon classes are canceled because of Thanksgiving holiday starting tomorrow, Ashton and I are impatiently waiting for our communications class to end. It sucks that we still have to go to our morning class, especially since I really didn't want Ashton to be here since his cheek and lip are still bruised, but it's fading slowly. For the past three days, he insisted on going to school and I couldn't really stop him so he got a good amount of stares and questionable looks from the other students and professors. On the plus side, his wrist is starting to feel better. He doesn't have full range of motion just yet, but he can at least hold a pen and my hand again.
Ashton and I dash out of Professor Ross' class after he wished us a happy holiday, and we practically run to his car. We didn't get to go grocery shopping on Monday like I had planned due to the events of this past weekend. Ash and I slept in most of Sunday after we got home from Glendale and on Monday, all the boys started cleaning up the aftermath of Jared's intrusion and Ashton was happy to get a new door that day. We weren't able to go yesterday either because I had work and another study session with Luke. So now that it's the day before Thanksgiving, we're taking the risk of going to a grocery store that is most likely going to be packed with late shoppers like us.
"You ready to get trampled by paranoid moms who forgot to buy the stuffing and obnoxiously rude people who think that it's okay to cut in line even when they have a shit load of stuff in their shopping cart?" I ask, pulling the seatbelt over my chest.
Ashton does the same and starts his car, pulling out of the parking lot quickly. "As ready as I'll ever be," he groans, slowing down to a stop at the stoplight.
I pull the green beanie that Ashton gave me a couple weeks ago off my head and run my hand through my hair, shaking out the flat mess before putting it back on. "I like the sound of your enthusiasm," I joke, poking the dimple that appears as he smiles.
The light turns green and he moves my finger from his face and presses his foot on the accelerator. "You know, if it were anyone else, I'd get after them for poking me," he says, glancing over to me shortly.
"And why's that?" I ask.
"I don't like being poked. I feel offended when people poke me."
"Offended?"
"Yes, offended."
I poke his arm this time. "But not with me?" Poke.
Ashton glances at me again and stifles a laugh. "Not with you. You're the exception." Poke. "But if you keep poking me, don't think I won't stick you in the shopping cart like last time," he warns.
I pull my hand back and set it in my lap. I'd rather not be in the cart again, especially since we have a lot to buy and I don't want to be buried under a pile of groceries.
Ashton laughs at my quick reaction to his threat and pats my shoulder softly, knowing that the huge hickey he gave me on Sunday is still healing. Thankfully it's sweater weather time and I can easily cover the large bruise. I actually don't mind that he did that. It's actually pleasurable when it's done by someone who you're attracted to. I liked it. I liked the sensation and I liked that he covered Jared's scar. It's still going to be there nonetheless, but it's the thought that counts.
"How's your shoulder?" he asks, placing his hand on my thigh like usual.
"It's healing. It's not as purple as it was yesterday. It's more of a blue-green now," I say, stretching out the collar of my sweater and looking at the mark. He turns his head and looks over to my exposed skin and slightly lifts the corner of his lip, taking pride in his work. "You're lucky it's in a spot where it's easy to hide or else Luke would flip shit and Julia would bombard me with questions that I'm too embarrassed to answer." I'm not sure how Michael and Calum would react. They might just give Ash a high-five or the 'guy nod.'
"Right, lucky," he snickers and I slap his arm playfully. He pulls into the lot of the market and begins driving down the filled rows of parking spaces, looking for any open spots. "Remind me next year not to go grocery shopping the day before a holiday because this is ridiculous." He circles around the lot again until finally finding a spot at the very back and parking.
"Next year?" I ask. He's already thinking that far into the future? We don't know what the future will bring us and yet he has such a positive outlook on it. I can barely plan what I'm going to do next week let alone next year.
"Yeah," he says with a smile, turning off the car and unbuckling his seatbelt. "Now c'mon, let's go get trampled by hostile Americans." He pushes the brown frames up on the bridge of his nose and gets out of the car.
I hurry and follow behind him, reaching out and grasping his hand and steadying my pace with his. "Trampled might be an understatement. We just might get mauled today," I joke.
"I'll be sure to use you as a shield then," he says, laughing.
"Oh, how sweet of you," I coo, poking his hidden dimple.
"One more time, woman, and you're going in the cart." He grins as we walk through the automatic doors and grab the last cart left.
"Fine," I huff, crossing my arms over my chest and walking by his side as we enter the holiday version of Hell.
__
"Never again," I shout once we walk inside Ash's house with heavy plastic bags hanging on our arms and cutting off our blood circulation.
"Never again, what?" Michael shouts back from inside the kitchen.
I wobble over to the kitchen and drop the bags onto the island. "Never again will we go shopping the day before a major holiday. Those people are vicious." I shudder.
"It couldn't have been that bad," he says.
"Oh, it was bad," Ashton says, backing me up and placing the bags he is carrying onto the island. "Poor Emmie here kept getting pushed around and mistaken for a teenager messing around in the store," he says half-serious.
"I can't help that I look younger than I really am!" I whine and lean against the counter.
"When you wore makeup at the party, you looked your age," Michael says. "It makes you look even more hot."
If looks could kill, Michael would be six feet under by the way Ashton is glaring at him. I know that Michael doesn't mean it in an 'I-find-you-attractive' way, but more so as a compliment. Michael quickly diverts his eyes from Ashton's stare and scratches the back of his neck.
"Thanks, but I'm not going to spend thirty minutes trying to make myself look my age," I say. "I'm fine with my two minute routine of just putting on concealer and foundation and leaving it at that. Now enough with that. Help us put away all this stuffâactually, no. Ash and I did all the hard work, so you and the boys can put this stuff away while we relax," I say, walking past Michael and Ashton and into the living room where I plop down onto the couch.
"She's feisty today," Michael whispers to Ash, loud enough for me to hear since he projects his voice and doesn't know how to actually whisper.
"Well, she did get mobbed while trying to get a decent sized frozen turkey," Ashton says, purposely increasing the volume of his voice. "I'd be a bit feisty too if that happened."
"You do realize that I can hear you, right?" I ask as I make myself comfortable of the soft couch.
"That's the point, babe." Ashton chuckles and leaves the kitchen to sit on the edge of the couch while I take up the entire space by lying flat on it.
It's rare that he calls me by any pet names, which I actually appreciate because sometimes hearing couples call each other stupid names all the time can get annoying. I'd rather him call me by my actual name or nickname, but hearing him call me that is cute every once in a while.
Michael calls Luke and Calum down from their rooms and two pairs of footsteps scramble down the staircase. Once they hear what they have to do, they groan, but comply. It's not like they're doing anything important or risking their lives in a supermarket.
Ash leans over and whispers, "Let's go upstairs. I have a new door and I'd like to put it to good use." He smirks.
"You can easily do that by opening and closing it," I tease and he rolls his eyes. "Fine, but I call the bed. My back hurts and I just want to lie down." Ashton stands up and helps me up off the couch and guides me over to the stairs. "Oh," I say, stopping in front of the kitchen, "fill the sink up and stick the turkey in there so that it can defrost overnight in the water." I instruct to whichever boy is actually listening to me, and in this case it happens to be Calum.
"Yeah, yeah," he sassily says. "Julia already told me what we need to do to get things ready for tomorrow, so just go upstairs and do what we all know you're going to do."
Michael and Luke snort at Calum's comment.
"Cal," Ashton says, stretching out his name in a warning tone.
"No, it's okay, Ash," I say. I crane my neck and wink at him before turning to Calum. "Since you know what we're going to be doing, we'll be sure to be extra loud for you." After watching each boy's mouths drop, I take Ash's hand in mine and pull him out of the kitchen, up the stairs and to his bedroom, locking the door behind us before I leap onto his bed and land flat on my stomach.
"We're gonna be loud now, huh?" Ashton says. Even though my face is planted into his sheets, I can practically hear him smirking as he crawls onto the bed next to me.
"Extra loud," I correct, turning my head to meet his. "You do know that I was joking, right?"
He chuckles softly. "I know. The little wink you gave me was a dead giveaway."
I'm surprised I even managed to give him a wink. Most times that I try to wink, I end up looking like I have an eyelash stuck in my eye or that it's twitching.
"How's your back?" he asks, propping his head up with his hand. "Does it still hurt?"
"Yeah, I think I'm just really tense from everything that has happened. Not to mention the stress of finals coming up." I'm pretty sure all my back muscles have knots and those knots have knots.
"Do you want me to give you a massage?"
"Dear God, yes, please," I blurt. "I-I mean, if you don't mind." I try to cover up my outburst, but it's no use.
His eyes squint shut, showing off his long eyelashes as he laughs and sits up straight. "That was cute," he says before placing his large hands on the fabric of my oversized sweater and begins putting pressure on the stiff muscles. "You weren't kidding about being tense," he says as he rubs my shoulders.
I close my eyes and lay motionless as Ashton's miracle hands ease my pain. Each movement he makes relieves the tension that has built up over the last few days. He slips his thumb underneath the collar of my sweater and then slips the rest of his hand beneath it; touching my bare skin and making the massage even more enjoyable and causing me to elicit low moans of pleasure.
"Feel good?" he asks. I just hum and let my body go limp as he moves his hands down between my shoulder blades. He works his thumbs into my skin, hitting each knot perfectly and loosening them up. "Your sweater is getting in the way," he mumbles to himself as he tries to reach further down my back.
It feels much better when his hands are actually on my skin rather than him trying to massage through the fabric, so willingly, I sit up and pull my sweater over my head. "Not anymore," I say.
It feels easy to do things like this with Ashton now. I don't feel hesitant to take my shirt off in front of him. I feel comfortable being with him behind closed doors where we can be alone together. I can let him touch me, let his hands roam my body as well as kiss me in places that I was scared for him to kiss before. Everything is just...easy. There are no restrictions anymore. It's just me and him.
With my back still facing Ash, he gathers all my hair that hangs down to my lower back and moves it over my shoulder and out of the way. He shifts around behind me to get more comfortable before placing his hands back onto my shoulders, avoiding the love bite that he left me. Even without a shirt on, I don't feel cold. Ashton being so close to me is enough to keep me warm.
His hands trail down my spine, feeling each vertebrate before moving back up. He presses his palms on either side of my spine in the middle of my back and pushes them inward, allowing for my back to pop, sending a rush of alleviation through my body.
I let my head drop as he continues to give me the best massage that I have ever had. I am going to save a lot of money by having Ash give me massages for free instead of going to an actual masseuse. My back probably looks red from the amount of pressure he is putting on it, but it's a good thing I have a high pain tolerance.
Without warning, I feel his lips press softly against my shoulder blade and his hands shift down to my hips, pulling me closer against him. He continues to let his hands roam over my bare flesh and moves his lips up to the crook of my neck. I throw my head back and let it rest on his shoulder as he reaches the most sensitive part of my skin beneath my ear. His hands move up my torso and touch the royal blue lace fabric of my bra before cupping my breasts gingerly as if waiting for me to stop him and letting out a throaty groan against my neck.
What started out as a simple massage has turned into a sensual act, but I don't care. It's inevitable that this would have happened. I've read books, I've seen movies; it always ends up this way. There's no innocence when two adults who are dating are left alone in a locked room together. It's not like we are going to sit in here and go over what we're baking tomorrow (although, we probably should) or play a game of poker. I'd probably lose to him at poker anyway.
He pulls away shortly and within seconds, his shirt is flying across the room and his glasses are placed on the nightstand next to him before he latches onto me once again. "You know, I like being the one who takes off your shirt, but I'll let it slide this time," he whispers in my ear before pulling down one of the straps to my bra. "By the way, lace suits you well," he compliments before kissing where the strap once was.
I don't normally wear these fancy bras because they're not supportive and quite frankly just not comfortable, but I haven't done my laundry and the pretty looking ones are all I have left.
"Lace is itchy, but thank you," I say.
"You should wear it more often," he says.
"The day I dress for a man is the day they dress me to meet Jesus," I retort.
"Fair enough."
I giggle and turn around to face the shaggy-haired boy. His face is flustered and I can almost hear his heart pounding against his chest. I like when we're together like this. I'm not scared anymore. I still have my boundaries, but I'm not scared.
The way he is looking at me right now is more intense than I have ever seen before. Those hazel orbs that look almost emerald today aren't the same eyes that I gazed into when I bumped into him months ago. They've changed so much and hold so much emotion that not even I can comprehend it completely. I wonder if when I look at him, he sees that in me.
"What's wrong?" he asks, cupping my cheek in his hand which I lean into.
The corners of my lips curve up and he mimics my expression. "Absolutely nothing."
He leans forward until our chests are touching and slowly leans me back until I am pressed against the mattress with him hovering over me, his lips barely brushing against mine. He searches for my hands that rest on either side of my head and locks them with his.
"Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?" he asks, his voice low.
"Once or twice," I tease.
He chuckles softly. "Well, add a third time to that list because you undeniably are." I can feel him smiling against my lips as he attaches his to mine.
After a short while, he removes his hands from mine and maneuvers them under my back, reaching for the clasp to my bra while I tangle mine in his unruly hair. Once I feel the release of the clasp, I pull away from him abruptly, gently pushing his shoulders to make him stop.
"Not yet," I say breathlessly. "I'm sorry."
He shakes his head before dropping it onto my chest. "No, I'm sorry. I got carried away." He moves his hands back under my back and hooks the clasps together again. "At least I got to somewhat touch them," he jokes and I smack the side of his head and laugh with him.
Four knocks on the door followed by the jiggling of the doorknob to try and get in make us turn our heads over to the door.
"I don't know what you guys are doing in there, but just so you know, this door is thinner than the old one so we can still hear you even if you're not being 'extra loud' like you said," Calum jokes from the other side of the door.
Even though I was able to joke around with Cal before about 'being loud,' it still doesn't stop my cheeks from burning when he informs us that we were actually being loud.
"What do you want Cal?" Ashton says, carefully pushing himself off of me and grabbing both our shirts off of the floor and throwing mine at me.
"Julia is coming to stay the night and she wants to know if Emmie is staying too so that she can bring her a change of clothes and whatever else you girls need," he says.
I look over to Ashton whose eyes are already locked on me and I smile. "I'll stay," I say. "I'll text Julia what I need."
The grin on Ashton's face is priceless and I want to always see him look like this. Not giving either of us a chance to put our shirts back on, he throws himself back onto me and begins nibbling at my neck in a ticklish fashion, causing me to squeal and burst out laughing.
"At least warn me before you guys go at it again," Calum huffs, his voice trailing as he walks away from the door.
"Shut up, Calum!" Ash and I yell simultaneously, causing us to laugh together.
"Why are you so happy that I'm staying? I've spent the night here before," I say.
"Because this is the first time that you've agreed to stay here because you want to," he says. "I like not having to wait to see you every day. It's nice to just wake up and see you here next to me. If I could have it my way, I'd have it be like that all the time."
"I actually wouldn't mind it being that way either," I say, earning the most heartwarming smile from him.
"I love you," he says before placing a chaste kiss on my lips. He says those words so casually now that I actually can't get enough of it. I like hearing him say it. This boy loves me so much and I love that.
"I love you too," I mouth. I still can't say the words aloud just yet, but this is a start, and by the way Ashton's eyes are gleaming with pure happiness, I think it's enough to suffice for him right now.
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A/N:
Filler chapter, but it was needed. I didn't want to jump right into Thanksgiving until the next chapter.
Cute Ashlia moments!! You know you get too attached to your characters when you begin having feels while writing about them. I'm so sad to say this, but PYW is coming to an end soon. I don't see more than 15 chapters left. Maybe less. It really just depends on how much I incorporate into each upcoming chapter and how much I time lapse. But don't worry, there will be a sequel called Painting Flowers!! :)
School is still being sucky and it's already mid semester so everything is going to Hell and I am ready to rip my hair out. But I am somehow keeping sane by writing :)
Now, I want to involve you guys in the next chapter so I want you to comment and give your ideas or suggestions on what should happen in the next chapter for Thanksgiving. What should they eat? Do you want them to play games or something? Someone gets a food baby? Just throw your ideas at me and I will incorporate some of them and credit you :)
Thank you guys so much for 36.7k reads! I really can't thank you guys enough. You make me want to become a better writer and I even changed my major to journalism with a minor in creative writing so that I can hone my skills as a writer and one day work in the publishing industry (psychology just wasn't working for me). I know I'm not the greatest writer, but I just want to say thank you for enjoying this story even with all its flaws.
Please continue to vote, comment, and share! Love you! âRebecca xoxoxoxoxo
P.S. Good Girls music video was amazing!!!! And I am planning to write a Michael fanfic in the near future. I have the idea, I'm just trying to find the time to plan it out and write it, but it won't be until after PYW is finished or maybe a little later.