“We need to get those plane tickets booked.”
I let out a huff and kissed her forehead, nodding reluctantly. I finally knuckled under and agreed to go with Bronx out to California to see our mom and sisters.I know, I know.It was about the last thing I wanted to do, but when Ashtyn offered to come along, I felt a tug in my heart. I wanted to do this shit with her.
Did I forgive Mom? Abso-fucking-lutely not. But I did want to meet my sisters, and I knew Bronx was going with or without me.
“We should get you cleaned up,” Ashtyn said, running her hands over my bare chest.
“I’m very dirty,” I said, and Ashtyn rolled her eyes.
We walked inside, and the place still made my eyebrows shoot up at the difference from a few weeks ago. It looked like an entirely different house. It was now a house of love and laughter, filled with Ashtyn’s paintings, drawings, and photos. Her next project was for me to build a bookshelf to go under the front picture window. She realized I knew how to use a table saw and the rest was history.
I told her if she made the place too nice, she would never want to leave.
We planned on staying until summer, then we would find an apartment near GPU campus. We both applied to Gilchrist Point University and had been accepted–shocker, they accepted anyone with a pulse and a bank account.
But we were still looking forward to our next chapter. I nixed the business degree idea, instead enrolling in their kinesiology program. Physical fitness was where my passion resided, not business and paper-pushing. Axel was more than smart enough to handle running the business side of Brass Knuckles. He didn’t need me for that.
Ashtyn had her heart set on becoming a teacher–eventually–but she began writing her story one day and it took off. The words flowed from her fingers, and she was preparing to self-publish her first novel.
It was her story, her history, her pain, her experiences told in her way. She was so fucking brave for sharing it with the world. I couldn’t be more proud of her.
A few of the details had to be omitted–like the names, locations, and themurder. Heh, oops.
“What?” She asked, realizing I was staring at her.
“I was just thinking about how incredible you are, Ashtyn Moretti.”
“West…”
“Just practicing,” I shrugged, pulling her in for a kiss. I loved to make her squirm. She might be a Hawthorne now, but someday she would be a Moretti, and I couldn’t wait.
“Who would’ve thought that you’d be the settling type?”
Not me.
But fuck if I didn’t love it.