Kristen Ashley - Own the Wind

I felt it when he laid me down. I felt it when he pulled the sheets over me. Last, I felt it (but was burying it in my pit of denial), when his lips brushed my temple and he moved away.

Incidentally, I was also burying in my pit of denial how it felt to be carried and essentially tucked into bed by a hot guy.

Since we’d gotten tight, it went without saying we spent a lot of time together. He came over and I ruined dinner, we talked, then we watched TV. I went to the Compound and we played pool or sat on a couch, gabbed and sometimes laughed, or we’d sit at the bar with some of the guys and shoot the breeze.

We didn’t see each other every day, just four, five times a week, but we talked every day on the phone, sometimes more than once, just checking in, chatting, Shy keeping his finger on my pulse (something I also was burying in my pit of denial).

With Shy’s help, I was coming back to myself and I was healing from the loss of Jason. I didn’t think of him every other minute, the times when I would feel empty were coming less frequently, and the times when I would smile or even laugh were coming more often.

As the days went by, with Shy in them, I was also realizing, in a way I couldn’t bury in my pit of denial, that it had been a long time since I’d been me, truly me, even before Jason died.

I was also remembering things. Like when I’d catch Jason staring a hair too long at my Harley tees in my drawer, his face expressionless, but the length of time he did it speaking volumes that now I was coming to understand but before I refused to acknowledge. I also recalled times like when we were sitting outside a restaurant and a bike would go by, I’d watch, listen to the pipes and when they died away, I’d find his eyes on me. I knew my face was wistful and his gaze was contemplative.

Having these memories, I wondered if Jason wondered if there was some piece of me I was burying that would eventually surface and, without Jason living, breathing, walking, talking, putting his hands and mouth on me, making it all good, I was wondering the same thing too.

He had never judged, never acted like I was anything or anyone but someone he wanted. He was cool and comfortable around Dad and Tyra, Rider and Cut, Rush, Dog, Big Petey, anyone associated with my family, or Chaos.

Jason didn’t make me be not me. It was me who was denying my world, my life, in order to live in Jason’s and I wondered if somewhere inside him he knew it.

Dad knew it and was concerned about it. Before Jason died, he’d talked with me about it, shared that it wasn’t an easy choice to step out of the world you knew and live in another one.

But then, I’d had Jason and he was the one for me. I knew it. I had no questions, no doubts, not a single one. So I didn’t rethink my decision because I knew it was the right one.

Now I was wondering and it bugged me, these questions, these doubts surfacing when he was gone.

On the drive home, as my mind sifted through the last two months, it didn’t settle on happy thoughts about Shy or me coming back to me, but I wasn’t thinking gloomy thoughts of doubts about Jason either.

I was thinking pissed-off thoughts about work.

Life was life and kept going even when you were struggling to deal with the crap it hit you with, and sometimes it hit you with more crap before you were ready for it.

And currently, my life was hitting me with more crap.

Namely, Dr. Dickhead.

We had one doctor at the hospital that was more douchebag than your average douchebag. So much so, he’d win Douchebag of the Year if there was a competition, and I’d had a run-in with him that day.

When Shy showed at my house I was still pissed, banging around in my kitchen, rock music blaring loud from my stereo.

He’d used his key. I didn’t give him a key—he’d confiscated one in order to lock up the first night he carried me to bed post–crying jag.

I also didn’t ask for it back.

His eyes came to me. I glared at him, and then I wisely ignored his lips curving up even as his eyes went to the floor, unsuccessfully hiding his smile from me.

He thought it was amusing when I got in a snit.

I didn’t find anything funny about it.

His long legs took his lanky, loose-limbed frame to my stereo and he ratcheted it down from the ten it was at to about a three, a move that was so anti-badass biker, if his brothers knew he did it they would likely have thrown him out of the Club.

Once he did this, he moved to my fridge where he pulled out two cold ones, popped the caps, and set one beside me. Then he sauntered around the bar, sat his behind on a stool, and leveled his beautiful green eyes with their rims of dark, thick lashes at me.

Before he could say a word, I announced, “We’re having hamburgers because no one can ruin hamburgers, even me.” I grabbed the beer he got me and took a hefty pull.

When I dropped it and looked at his face, I knew he disagreed. His eyes flashed with humor, and he pressed his lips together. He’d eaten my food. He knew I could ruin anything. It was his turn to act wisely, because even though his eyes disagreed, his mouth stayed closed.

Then he opened it to invite: “Talk to me.”

I grabbed the salt, started shaking it on the mound of ground beef in the bowl, took him up on his invitation, and cried, “ Get this! Dr. Dickhead wrote the wrong order in the chart, which meant I administered a higher dose of medication than was warranted or even healthy. Then, when it all went down, I overheard him telling the hospital administrator that even though the dose was written down wrong in the chart, he’d verbally given me an order with the right dosage and I’d administered the wrong one, which, Shy, he… did… not .” I slammed the salt down.

The muscle in Shy’s jaw jumped, as it had a tendency to do when he was pissed, which happened often during the times I was ranting about Dr. Dickhead.

I grabbed the pepper and started shaking, ranting on, “Luckily, the error wasn’t so bad it ended in trauma, tears, lawsuits, and loss of employment, just uncomfortable explanations and me tamping down my desire to commit physicianicide, but still !”

I ended my last word on a high-pitched note, slammed the pepper down, grabbed the minced, dried garlic and resumed shaking and blathering.

“The hospital administrator knows he’s a douche. She talked to me for all of, like, five seconds before she nodded and took off. Still, it was a pain in my ass.”

“Tab—” Shy started, but I chattered on right over him.

“Don’t worry. It’s all good. Not only does the administrator know he’s a douche, everyone knows he’s a douche. Even the other doctors think he’s a douche, though they wouldn’t say it out loud. That’s how big a douche he is. And it doesn’t matter what he says, if it comes down to it, it matters what the chart says. Still, I don’t like the idea of how this could have gone bad. Okay, sure, if the dose was crazy wrong, I’d notice it and question it before I administered it so the bad would never be that bad. Still, even not that bad, like today, was no good.”

“Sugar—” Shy tried again, his eyes to the bowl but I kept babbling.

“It’s just him lying about me. That bugs me. Okay, everything about him bugs me but, today, that’s the top of the list of all the one hundred and seven thousand things about him that bug me.”

His gaze came up to mine and he said, “Baby, I want you to rant, get that shit out, process it so you can move on and have a good night, but you’re processing it while ruining our dinner. Gotta say, I prefer it when you ruin our dinner while laughin’ and smilin’, not rantin’ and ravin’.”

My eyes shot down to the bowl and I noticed a not-small mound of garlic on the beef.