Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Hippie Chics and Front Men and Foolish Games

This chapter switches point of view in the middle. The song  for this chapter is Foolish Games, but I think for most of the chapter Ash is in a fairly positive place. I think her feelings mirror the song in the final  paragraphs of this chapter, where the action solidifies her position that she needs to protect herself from Leed's advances...

Ash, Present Day, Tamara's Wedding Weekend

"Fuck Ash, you look like you could set the goddamn world on fire in that dress," my dear friend Mac greets me with her usual blend of profane encouragement, as she sails into my hotel room.

It's just a little black dress, like almost everyone else but the bride will be wearing for the rehearsal dinner but Mac is always thoughtful with a fashion compliment.

True to form, her husband Adam is right behind her. Mac doesn't bother with a hug, she's more interested in the fruit tray that I was snacking on, but Adam gives me a casual one-handed embrace. Gosh, I haven't seen Adam in more than six months—not since that day he found me wondering the halls of the hotel in Atlanta. He stashed me in his room, refusing to give me Trace's room number. I feel my cheeks color, remembering how rude I was to him.

So much has happened between then I now. I had a car accident that forced me into detox. Trace and I dissolved our marriage-of-convenience because it was no longer convenient and it hadn't helped me to get clean, like we had hoped. Then I went to my fourth rehab treatment program, but this one was different. This one Leed helped me find—an alternative wellness program. I learned to treat my underlying pain with yoga, medication, and acupuncture, and the debilitating headaches I have suffered for three years are practically non-existent these day.

I've been sober for over six months—the longest sober stretch since my brain injury over three years ago. I still take it one day at a time, but I feel healthier than I have in years. I'm happy for the first time in years.

I return Adam's hug lightly. Adam is truly the nicest guy in the band and thankfully he's big on forgiveness. I have apologized for the many times I was ugly to him when I was hurting or high and also for the couple of times I stole his weed when I was desperate for pain relief. He was very gracious about the whole thing, and I think he and I will be friends again, especially because Mac never stopped being my friend, no matter what horrible things I did. But with Adam, and with most everyone, I know I have to earn back my credibility.

"So good to see you, Ash. You look great. Healthy," Adam's greeting is genuine but his eye contact is brief. He's watching Mac like a hawk as she rubs her six month baby belly. She's already dressed for Tam's wedding rehearsal and dinner, in a form fitting mauve dress that shows off her beautiful pregnancy shape.

"What?" she snaps at him as she waves a fruit kabob threateningly. "I sat on a plane all day. I sat in the limo. I took a nap when we got here. I sat in a tub, and I sat at a vanity to get ready. I walked from our room three doors down to here, Adam. I can stand for five minutes and eat this fruit, you know. The doctor said partial bedrest. Don't start with me again," she warns him.

He crosses to her and bites the strawberry off her kabob, chewing as he pulls her in. "Shut-up. We're not fighting anymore remember? You won, we're here in LA despite my best efforts. Sit your ass down before I pick you up and carry you back to bed and you miss the rehearsal dinner."

They are always like this. The only thing Madam like better than pretending to maul each other with words is actually mauling each other in bed.

Mac draws her arms around Adam's shoulders and sticks the kabob suggestively in her mouth, pulling off a piece of melon. "I call your bluff. I'm too fat for you to pick up," she mumbles around her cantaloupe.

Adam responds by swooping her up bridal style and heading for the door. She shrieks, grabbing my arm as he passes with her. "Ash! Help me! He's kidnapping me!"

"Oh no, you don't," I laugh pulling away. "You aren't drawing me into the middle of your Madam Marriage Mayhem. You're on your own, when it comes to dealing with your overprotective husband. Who by the way, is right. Preeclampsia is no joke."

"Thank you," Adam slings a hand at me. "Finally, a woman with sense."

"You're right, I'm completely senseless. I married you twice," Mac pops back.

"You walked right into that one," I tell Adam and he chuckles. He gives up arguing and kisses Mac into submission with a series of sweet romantic nips and pecks. She looks so in love as she stares into his eyes, yielding her lips.

I wonder what that feels like. Being in love. I remember being with Cam, but I can't remember the feeling. I don't feel things the way I used to. Maybe it was the brain trauma or maybe just the drugs, that distorted my emotions. Maybe eventually, I'll figure it all out and all my emotional memory will come back.

Then again, maybe it's a blessing, I don't remember feeling in love with Cam, since all that's long past.

Mac pats Adam on the face. "Adam, okay, okay, I'll sit. Put me down."

He deposits her in a chair, and puts her feet up on the ottoman. He throws himself haphazardly across the bed, and pulls out his phone.

After a few minutes of awkward minutes, Adam says, "Why aren't y'all talking?" We just stare at him. Adam looks up and grins. "Oh. Shit. Y'all want girl time? Shorty, you gotta tell me this stuff upfront. I'm still new at the husbanding." He rolls off the bed, kisses her on the head, and says, "I'll go see what Trace is up to."

"Uhhhhhm, maybe...don't," I call after him. "You know how he and Kat are...at hotels..."

He throws a devilish look over his shoulder at Mac, "Hotel wedding sex combo? The best sex."

"I don't know. I like married sex, and pregnancy sex and tour bus sex and boat sex and sex on a tractor and..."

"Shut-up!" I put my hands over my ears, and Mac screeches in laughter.

"She's making that up—about the tractor," Adam says, glaring at her.

She bats her eyes, rubs her adorable belly and smiles as sweet as angel as she says, "I am not making that up. Head while you are mowing hay counts as sex, Adam."

"Jesus Christ, MacKenna!" he yells, but his grin betrays him. "I'm out! I'm going to get a drink at the bar with Leed. See you lovely ladies down in the ballroom for the rehearsal." He throws up two rock star fingers to indicate goodbye and the door bangs shut.

"Speaking of Leed and hot hotel wedding sex," Mac says.

"We were not speaking of that," I say and lean over the dresser, looking for a pair of earring in my jewelry case. "Here, you want these?" I ask Mac casually, holding out large diamonds studs to her.

She looks at them. "Why?"

I shrug, not wanting to tell her that Trace gave them to me for my twenty-first birthday. Honestly, I think maybe Riley got them and Trace had so little to do with it that he forgot about them altogether, because I don't think he would have gotten Kat virtually the same gift for their anniversary if he had remembered. He's way more considerate of her than that. Obviously, I'm not going to wear them, like ever again, since Kat and I have reconciled as sisters and we just moved into an apartment together in Calabasas. I would never want her to see them, amd realize Trace gave them to me while we were married. I would never want to take away her pleasure in the gift he got her.

Mac shrugs. "I don't need them."

"So have them cleaned and boxed and give them to your PA for Christmas," I suggest.

"Good idea," Mac winks. "Why won't you come work for me? I need someone to manage all the other people that work for me," Mac yawns and stretches like a cat. I laugh at her. A couple more kids and Madam will have an entourage of staff that rivals the del Marco's.

"You know why."

"Because you want to stay in LA and have sweet, hot, meaningful friendship sex with my brother?" Mac says helpfully.

"No," I say tersely. "Because I want to repair my relationship with Kat. Because I promised Leed I would help him out with the Cub. Because after the new year I'm going to start studying with Ravi. And because-no offense—I eventually want to have a job that is my own, not just fold into SCIC for life."

"You are SCIC for life," Mac pouts.

I finish putting on gold spangly earrings and sit down on the ottoman at her feet. "I know, but I have to have my own identity, too. I lost that, you know."

Mac smiles sweetly at me. "Okay, I get that. But why can't you have your own identity and still have sweet, hot, meaningful friendship sex with my brother?"

I put my face in my hands. "If you weren't pregnant I would clock you right now."

Mac draws her feet up in the chair, sitting up straight. "Okay, I'm kidding. Sort of. But can we have a serious talk about what's going on with you two?"

"We are friends. We are good friends."

"He thinks you are avoiding him," Mac says. "He says you will talk to him on the phone all day long, but you've only seen him once since you've been been out of rehab, when he introduced you to his Yogi."

I bite my lip. Leed is right. "Okay, fine. I'm avoiding him. When we are alone together things get too charged. I feel out of control."

"So you are attracted to him. Physically," Mac smiles knowingly.

I cock my head at her. "You have met your brother? You know...the one who was voted the World's Sexiest Man last year? You are familiar with the eyes, the grin, the hair, the voice, the abs, the tats, the sexy arrogance, the childlike charm and oh my goodness, the slink when he moves..."

Mac bounces up and down in her chair, beating the arms. "I knew it, I knew it! You want him so bad! And he wants you too! So much he can hardly fuck anybody else!!! Oh this is so awesome!"

Hardly, she says. That means he was still hoteling fangirls, at least occasionally, on their tour that just ended a couple of weeks ago. I wince internally at the thought of Leed, drunk and seeking comfort in random women. It's weird how I never cared when Trace was sleeping with fangirls while we were married.I was actually relieved, because we weren't sleeping together and it made me feel less guilty about all the other ways I was holding him hostage in our relationship. I have no claim on Leed whatsoever, but I don't like to think about him and his fangirls.

"It's not awesome, Mac. Didn't you hear me? I don't like feeling out of control in that way."

Mac's evil grin dies away. She cradles her belly and nods. "Okay, yeah, I can understand that. You've been through a lot, in the physical arenas. I know what that's like. I don't talk to anybody but my therapist about it, but after my assualt...I...well...it took me awhile to feel like I wanted to have sex again. And a lot longer than that to be ready for meaningful sex. With Adam."

"Since my brain surgery, I haven't...I haven't wanted that. A real sex connection. The sex I had when I was on drugs...it was nothing to me...I...hardly remember it. I didn't feel anything."

"But you feel...something...for Leed," she probes gently.

I look up at the ceiling, collecting my long hair to the right side and twisting it—a nervous habit. I deliberately make myself stop. "That's another problem. I think Leed is pretty special, but he doesn't feel for me. He just wants a friend for benefits."

Mac chews her lip thoughtfully. "I'm not sure that's true or fair, Ash. I know that Leed is kind of skewed in the relationship department, but Leed's idea of friends-with-benefits is maybe not as casual as your idea. He was with Tam for eight years. He loved her, in his own way. "

I shake my head, swinging my hair to the back. "He was with her sometimes, and then he was with fangirls and even celebrities, and she had to sit back and watch him parade other girls around. I...couldn't do that. I only ever had one boyfriend in my whole life. It's not in me—the whole meaningless sex thing.I'm still working hard to forgive myself for the things I did when I was high."

Mac sighs and slides to sit beside me on the ottoman. "I don't think Leed wants meaningless sex with you. He obviously cares about you. He has for a long time. But he's not a fairy tale kind of guy. Lawsons just aren't built like that. I fell in love with Adam five years ago and it took me this long to trust in what we have."

I shrug. "And I'm not made the way Leed is—to have sex with friends."

Mac sighs. "Maybe you are right. Maybe you and Leed aren't in same place right now. Maybe you should think about...dating other people, you know? Just to get back in the swing of romance."

"Oh god, that's as scary as Leed," I whisper. "I never dated anybody but Cam. We were together for five years. From the time I was fifteen until I started using."

Mac gives me a side eye. "You really loved him? It was that good between you?"

I don't answer for a long moment. "Ash?"

Damn. I'm twisting my hair again.

"Yes, I think I must have really loved him. I thought we would get married."

"What do you mean, you think you must have really loved him? I didn't realize you have memory loss."

"It's not that...it's just...I don't remember what it felt like. To be in love with him. I mean, I know I was... but I don't...feel it. Not anymore. Not even the memory of it."

"Well..." Mac looks perplexed. "What about the sex connection? Surely you remember that? If you loved him, like I love Adam, it must have been powerful."

"I mean yes, I remember what it felt like to have sex with him. It was...mostly nice."

Mac is looking at me suspiciously now. "Mostly nice." She repeats. "This guy was your first?"

I nod, twisting my hair tighter. "I was his first, too..."

"The blind leading the blind," Mac sighs.

"It's not rocket science," I snap. "I mean...we figured it out. Cam was always really...sweet to me."

"What kind of orgasms did he give you? The please-hurry-up-and-make-me-come-a-little-so-I-can-watch-Orange-Is-The-New-Black-kind or the oh-god-I-want-to-come-but-I-also-never-want-this-ecstasy-to-end-kind or the I'm-going-to-pass-out-from-coming-so-hard-over-and-over kind?"

I release my twisted hair, suddenly panicking. I was twisting it way too tight; I don't want to cause myself to have a headache. I try to smooth it back and rub my temples discreetly, ignoring Mac's question.

"Oh my god," Mac is staring at me. "He didn't give you orgasms?" she whispers, like she's asking me if I slept with Satan or something.

"It wasn't his fault. I was nervous at first. For a while, actually. I couldn't relax, but I wanted to be with him—be close to him in that way. He was patient and sweet, and wanted to try different things, and it did get better—I did like it—but for months after we started having sex he was so stressed out and hurt that I wasn't wild for it. So one time I did actually get close and I just...I couldn't get all the way there, but I didn't want to disappoint him so I..." I put my hands in front of my face.

"You lying, shady, hoochie. You faked it, didn't you?" Mac whispers with glee.

I nod into my hands. "And he was so happy to think he had made me feel that good...that I just...kept faking it."

"Like the whole time. You never got off with him?"

I shake my head into my hands. "Never...with a guy."

Mac pauses. "But with a girl?" she asks, her voice suddenly smoother like Leed's.

I drop my hands. "What? No!!!! Wait...have you been with girls?"

Mac's Maneater face descends. "Once or twice," she says nonchalantly. "We're not talking about my sexual history, we are talking about yours."

I roll my eyes. "I'm not into girls."

Mac sticks her tongue out. "Are you sure? It's a legitimate question if you don't feel like you've ever really been in love and you haven't gotten off with a guy before. You should explore it. I mean, within your psyche. You could fantasize about girls, for example." She smirks.

"I don't need to explore it. I've seen you naked, it did nothing for me," I tell her.

She pouts "That's really insulting, Ash. I'm smoking hot."

I can't help laughing at her. She has never sounded more like Leed than in this moment.

"Yes, you are," I concede, "but I'm just not into you. Or girls, in general," I tell her. "I do have...desires...and fantasies about men."

"Any man in particular you like to fantasize about?" she teases me.

"I hate you," I tell her. "I really fucking hate you."

"Whoooo—the f-word. I see I've hit a nerve." Mac turns to me. "Look, I think it's always best to call a spade a spade. You want Leed. He wants you. He's been pursuing you for months. But you won't even give him a chance. It is possible that he might decide that he's ready for more than a casual relationship with you. You do realize that, right? You can't get big love if you don't take a big risk." She rubs her baby belly and the softest look I've ever seen my bad-ass friend wear melts away all her mischief. "I took the biggest risk of my life, throwing my emergency contraception in the ocean, after the condom broke. I'm so glad I was impulsive and not reasonable. Emotional and not logical. Faithful and not afraid."

I feel tears welling and my throat tightening. Mac is so much like Leed. A front of false bravado, but amazingly tender and wise beneath. I hug her. "I'm so happy everything has worked out for you. And I see what you are saying. I really do. But I'm just not sure I can handle big love or big risk or anything as big as Leed Lawson right now."

Mac nods. "Okay. Sorry to be so pushy. I just want to see you happy."

"I am happy," I assure her, "Happier than I've been in a long time."

————————————————————————————

Leed, downstairs in the hotel bar

"I'm not happy, Adam. And I haven't been in a long time," I say as I nurse expensive tequila at the hotel bar. I gave up shooting it years ago. Tequila this good is meant to be sipped, like the bourbon Adam is cradling. "I'm not happy at all with the way this thing is going down with Ash."

"Why is that?" he asks in his Preacher-like way. He's going to let me ramble and  I know eventually he's going to tell me the shit I don't want to hear, but at the same time, I do want to hear it. I stare at him in the mirror above the bar. I'm not the only one staring.

Two rock stars dressed in designer duds and styled for official pictures? Yeah, we're drawing attention, but so far, people are being decent and not moving in close enough to overhear our conversation.

"I'm trying to get closer to her," I admit, " I thought I would see her more when she got to LA, but we're talking less now,and I just don't know where I went wrong. "

"Let me recap it for you then," Adam says grimly, setting his bourbon down. "You went to Ashlynn's rehab, where she was supposed to be focused on her sobriety, and you kissed her and got her all jacked up when she was trying to get even. You offered to stay and sex her up, she asked you to leave. Then you sent her a drunk test a few weeks later, again telling her you wanted to sleep with her. Basically doing the same thing all over again, except worse, because even if she had reconsidered, what you could do about it from eight states away? That was just an exercise in messing with her world. Again, she asked you to forget about it. So the next time you saw her, you offered her a whole friends-with-benefits deal. In front of her dad. And take it from a Preacher's Kid who knows a modest girl when he sees one—that probably mortified the fuck out of her. So she shot you down again. In summary, you've been an arrogant, self-absorbed douche when it comes to Ashlynn. For months."

A weird pain rises up in my chest. It's either a chi flow problem or heartburn from the tequila. I grimace and pound at my sternum.

"You alright, man?" Adam asks with concern.

"No, I feel like I'm dying inside."

He snorts. "Because the truth hurts, brother."

I sigh. I'm beginning to regret initiating this conversation, but I'm in the shit now, and I haven't really talked to anybody about it. Not seriously. I've just joked and roared, but I haven't been real.

"Okay fine, you want the truth? Here's my real deal, Adam. The arrogant, self-absorbed douche I've been? That's not who I want to be with her, but she's got my head spinning. I don't know how to act anymore. Five years ago, I spent an hour with her and I wanted her like I have never wanted anybody before or since and that's including Tam. I let Ash slip away though, just slip through my fingers because I was too cool. Then she got hurt and I...I hated seeing her that way. Hated it so fucking much. Thought I was going to lose my mind when she showed up in LA all strung out and hanging on scumbags all the time. And then, Trace takes her to damn Vegas and marries her, without a goddamn word to any of us. That's why I was trashing hotel rooms, and punching paps and shit. Because I was pissed about their fake, fucked up marriage. Then when she couldn't stay clean and she split, I thought...I thought we'd lost her, man. I was in a bad way. I gave up. Spent my time wasted with fangirls, because I knew it wasn't my place to look for her. It was on Trace, not me, to handle that. Then, by a miracle she survived—she survived the drugs and she survived that shit with Trace and now she's finally in a good place and I...I want to make it an even better place for her. I want her to have everything she lost. But I can't give her back what she lost. Cause I'm not that guy, you know?"

Adam stares at me. He pours me another tequila. "Wow. You been holding that in for a while, haven't you?"

"Yeah. For a minute."

He nods. We drink in silence. This is why I chose Adam for this. I can say shit to him and he just sits with it.

Finally, after I'm over the rattle of my truth-telling, Adam says, "Okay, you say you want Ashlynn. What happens if you get her? What does having her look like?"

"I don't know...I guess... I want to hang out with her more than we hang out now and talk to her more, too. Have fun with her. Take her places she hasn't been, or go places neither one of us have been. Obviously, I also want to bang her. Like," I clench my fist and look at Adam so he knows  what I'm talking about, "like really, seriously, get busy banging her on a regular basis. Bang her like she's my new song obsession. Over and over til I know her by heart. Know every way to play her and make her sing, too. Maybe this banging even becomes a  regular sleep over scenario, cause I haven't had that in a long time...someone I trusted to stay over, and I feel like it would be nice, for both of us. You know what I'm talking about?"

He spreads his hands in acknowledgment. "You're saying, you want to date her."

I blink at him. "No, that's not what I'm saying."

He slaps me on the back. "You want to hang out with her at home and talk about your day and shit?"

"Yeah. Maybe cook dinner sometimes, too. She likes tofu. I like tofu. We could experiment."

"You want to take her places? Fun places and fancy places?"

"Definitely, Disneyland. I think she would get a kick out of the AMA's too, ya know? Maybe even take her generic places...like the Apple Store or the bank or wherever she needs to go. It's always more fun to do that kind of shit with someone cool."

"Very true, man. And you already said you want serious sex at frequent intervals..."

"Fuck yeah. I'm talking about working it up into a sexual sync. The kind of situation where you can ask for some sweet lovin' with just a look and she loves it so much she's always looking for the look, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I do. That's how I got in that situation on the tractor..." he muses.

"What?"

"Nothing. So in this scenario, do you still want to bang other girls too?"

I shrug. "Not so much. I mean, I don't have a burning desire for anybody else but..." I try put it in a Preacher-like way, "I don't want to make promises I'm not sure I can keep, either. You feel me?"

He scratches his beard. "Mmmmm...not really, considering I promised your sister to love her and only her forever. Let me put this to you a different way...in this scenario of you hanging out with Ashlynn, cooking your weirdo tofu shit, goofing off at the Apple store, rocking the red carpets and your Disneyland fantasies, and banging her on a regular basis, if she were to call up and say, Sorry Leed, I'm not coming over for our normal Tuesday night cuddlefuck because I'm gonna try out this other dude I met in my yoga class today... how would you feel about that?"

I chew on my lip. "Yeah, for some reason, that last part doesn't sit well."

Adam grips my shoulder hard, looks me dead in the eye and says. "Leed, I'm gonna give it to you straight: what you want is for Ashlynn to be your girlfriend."

"Fuck." I laugh. "Naw. I don't. I really don't. I never had a girlfriend and I sure as hell don't want to be trying to figure that shit out with Ashlynn."

"Yeah, I get that, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, you know what I'm saying?"

"Naw, man. She just got out of rehab. She's supposed to be working on her herself, not getting into a relationship. And I don't want to do anything to rattle her cage, you know? I mean, I can't date her, Adam. No way. Not just because I don't know how, but because relationships are tough in this lifestyle and it would be way tougher because of her addiction. What if I mess her up, and it drives her back into drugs?"

"If that's the way you truly feel, then why are we even talking about this?" Adam says in exasperation.

"Because, Goddammit! We are at a wedding in a hotel!" I slam my drink down and hiss in a whisper, "Tam has four hundred people coming tomorrow. Think Adam! A fifth of the guests will either be male models, music industry guys, or Ben's marine buddies. Do you know what that means? Come tomorrow, we're in the middle of a wedding hook-up situation!"

"All the hot lonely singles at Tam's wedding will be dying to take a ride up the elevator and swipe somebody else's key card by five pm tomorrow! And  God knows there could be nobody hotter or lonelier here at this damn wedding than Ashlynn! After everything she's been through, she's probably vulnerable to a  no-strings fucking for the confidence boost it would bring. She'll be the object of desire of every horny single asshole up in this fuck-fest, and I'll be damned if I let some random with better cheekbones or more tats than me slip in there with a half-ass come-on line!"

"No fucking way! If anybody is fucking Ashlynn Ballard this weekend it's going to be me! But I want to approach it right, and not come off like a douchebag when I'm forced to make my play!"

"Too late." Ashlynn spits.

My eyes meet hers in the bar mirror. She's standing just behind me in a fitted black dress that is surely seconds from spontaneous combustion, because Ash is burning  as hot as a meteor hitting atmosphere.

I rake my hair in frustration.

Wow. Karma doesn't usually turn around to bite me in the ass this quickly.

Well darn. I thought this book was going to be all cutesy, but as it turns out, Leed is digging himself a pretty big hole  with Ashlynn. I imagine she heard his whole wedding-hookup speech and is highly annoyed at his presumptions!  We all know Leed can be pretty adorable when he wants to be...do you think he will be able to turn this around?