“I don’t know about that,” I say. Her words of praise are doing things to me.
“Well I do.” Ashley laughs then. “And I have to say I was quite impressed that you didn’t throw a fit when you ended up with gravy down the front of your shirt,” she adds.
I glance down at myself and I can’t help, but smile. There are spots of gravy, spots of some kind of tomato based sauce and who knows what else caked onto my shirt. I’m not the only one who came out of there to help serve the food, but I’m probably the only one who was dumb enough to refuse an apron.
“It’s only a shirt,” I say. “Plenty more where this came from.”
Ashley makes a disapproving noise and although she’s still smiling, the spark has gone from her eyes.
Once again, it is clear we are from different sides of the fence. For a while, I climbed the fence and went to her side, but now I am back where I belong.
We ride the rest of the way to her office in silence and when I drop her off, she flashes me a quick smile, then disappears into her office building.
8
Finn
I look at my watch when the doorbell sounds. It’s almost midnight. I groan internally. It’s probably going to be one of my buddies, drunk and avoiding his wife. I stand up when the insistent ringing comes again. I’ve got too much on my plate to be listening to the drunken raving of anyone tonight. Normally, I’d be willing to help out a friend, but I have an important international three-way meeting scheduled for twelve-thirty and it won’t do to have a drunk prancing around in the background.
To my total astonishment, I see Ashley through the peephole. I pull the door open. “Umm, hi.”
“Hi,” she greets brightly, but she doesn’t offer any explanation as to why she’s here.
“What brings you here so late?” I ask.
She sighs then, a heartfelt sigh that makes her smile slip from her face, and allows her distress to show for a moment. I don’t know what’s happening, but she’s clearly not one of my drunk friends and I’m not about to send her away. I step back and gesture for her to come inside. As she steps past me, I see a large duffel bag slung over her shoulder.
“I came by a couple of times earlier, but you weren’t home,” she says as though that explains everything.
“I was working late.”
“I see I made the approved visitor list,” she remarks, with a half-smile.
“Well, you are going to be my wife. It would be a little weird if you didn’t.”
“About that, Finn,” she starts.
“There’s no changing your mind now, Ashley. You know as well as I do that it’s too late for that. You’ve already met the wedding planner and things are moving.”
“I’m not backing out. I just… do you have a minute?” She asks.
I subtly check my watch. It’s just about twelve. I can spare a little time.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s late,” Ashley rushes on.
Obviously, I wasn’t as subtle as I thought I was with the watch. “It’s fine. Sit down.”
Ashley puts her large bag down on the ground by the end of the couch and sits down.
I sit down on the opposite side.
We’re both in the same spots we were in the last time she turned up here and we agreed to this deal.
I look at Ashley, waiting for her to explain what’s going on.
“The lease ran out on my apartment a couple of months ago, and I didn’t get it renewed. It’s seriously hard to find a decent apartment anywhere in this city unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on rent each month, which I just don’t. I moved back in with my parents until I found somewhere suitable. My father and I got into a big argument earlier and well…”
“Okay.” I try to sound interested. Doesn’t she have girlfriends she can go to with this stuff? I really have no idea what to say to her.
She gestures to the bag. “It ended up with me leaving.”
The irony of this isn’t lost on me. Ashley, the champion of the homeless, almost found herself living amongst them. “You seem to make a lot of problems for yourself by thinking with your emotions instead of your head,” I stupidly blurt out. And that’s why she should have gone to someone else for wine and sympathy. It’s really not my area of expertise.
Ashley ignores me and carries on as though I haven’t spoken, “And it was only when I walked out that I realized I had nowhere else to go. I thought seeing as we’re about to be married, and we’re going to have to make a show of living together anyway, that maybe I could crash here for a couple of nights?”