Their Second Chance

Chapter 14: Cuddles with her

Ashton Pov:

    I cup her cheeks with my hands. They’re a little cold, but her cheeks makes them warm again. I open my mouth and let the words out. I want her to know what I’m feeling right now.

    “I don’t know how much I’ve said it this past weeks, but you are incredible and have the biggest soul. You haven’t say it, but I know you already forgave me. I’ll wait for you, always.” She closes her eyes and opens them.

    She stays quiet for what seems the longest time in history. She stands on her toes and kisses me with all of her strength. It’s a slow steady passionate kiss. I can’t take it anymore and I kiss her faster but with the same passion as before.

    “Mmm Ash-” I don’t let her finish talking as I lift her in my arms. Her legs circle my waist having a tight hold on me.

    She doesn’t want to let go of me. I know all of her movements and what they mean.

    Her hands go around my neck and pulls me more to her if that’s even possible since were so close. I pull my lips away from hers and see them red, raw, wet, and swollen. Mine most be like hers.

    She wasn’t holding back either. My lips kiss her neck. She likes it when I give her hickeys it’s her way of telling the world I’m taken, deal with it. I move away and look at my art with the biggest smile ever.

    “You left me a hickey didn’t you?” She lets go of me and I put her on her feet.

    “Yeah.” She shakes her head and mumbles, “Always so eager.” That’s right baby girl.

    “Then I have to give you one.” She thought that this will make me say no or go batshit crazy. With my biggest smile I say, “Okay.” Her eyes widen. “But- but you never like them.” She stutters, perplex at my acceptance. “Now I do.” She frowns and moves away from me.

    Oh, no. She’s thinking that someone else did it and I like them now. She’s the reason I like them. I always thought that if I did something like this to her, she has every right to do the same to me. I claim her, she can claim me too.

    “Autumn just to clarify. No one and I mean not a single person has ever given me a hickey.” Her entire face changes after she heard me. She was smiling and you can see she was genuinely happy. “Oh.” She looks down at the floor. So cute.

    We finish showering and dry ourselves. We’re now on her bed, fully clothes, with her head over my chest. She’s listening to my heart beating. I should be sleeping, but I can’t seem to find the sleep. My fingers are running through her hair. “It’s beating really fast.”

    “It’s always like that when I’m around you.” She looks at me. “Remember that time we make out on the boys locker room in high school?” Yes I do. It was the first time I’ve ever tasted her lips. The first time we were that intimate. “Yes.”

    “You’re heart was beating really fast, like now.” I hum in response. I can feel my eyes wanting to close. “Sleep. You need it. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

    I feel her whispering in my ear and kissing my chest softly. Her fingers in my hair. I’m in heaven. That’s how I felt. Being in her arms and she being in mine is the best place on earth.

    I wake up and look to my left. The bed is empty. I look around and don’t see her. What time is it? I get up and look at my phone it’s four in the afternoon. Wow. That’s how much I slept? Well I did worked last night. Getting up and leaving the room I walk to wear I hear people speaking. I can’t make out who are they.

    It’s another room. I open it and see Autumn in there dancing with Anna to some music. The room is full of paintings, paints, brushes, many other stuff. There’s a plastic sheet on the floor. It looks like a mini studio. I clear my throat, but they don’t hear or see me.

    “Hello.” Still nothing. Then I’m taking advantage of this. I go to Autumn and lift her in my arms. She squeals and trashes in my arms, “It’s me.” She calms down hearing my voice. “Don’t do that. You scared me.” Anna laughs and falls on the floor.

    Silly girl. “You okay princess?” She nods her head like she always does, fast. One of this day she will get dizzy.

    I let go of Autumn. She turns around and hits me with a brush she had in her hand. “What?” I see that it has paint. She didn’t. My hand goes to my cheek and feel wetness. It’s blue paint like in the brush. Let’s have a little fun. I fake being angry and look at her with a hard expression.

    They both gasps. “Oh oh. Mommy that wasn’t nice.” I look at Anna and nod. “Exactly, mommy that wasn’t nice.”  

    I take the brush and do the same she did to me. But I did it more drastically. A lot of her face is painted blue. “Oh, you’re going to regret that.” Autumn gives me a hard look and turns around. She dips the brush in the same color and turns back to me. I already moved behind Anna.

    “Cheater. Don’t hide behind her.” Anna giggles at us. “Anna you have to protect me from the mean lady. You’ re my shield.” Autumn starts to protest. “Okay. I got you Ash.” I laugh at Autumn. “Hey, I’m your mom.”

    “But you have a brush and Ash has nothing.” She says in her cute voice. I think she’s giving her the puppy eyes.

    I swear that she learned it from Autumn. Since they both do it so much. “Ugh. Not fair.”

    I take Anna in my arms and move her around the room. They aren’t any hiding place, maybe the closet, but that’s obvious. She will see us. About twenty minutes later we are all painted with different colors.

    Autumn and I are sitting on the floor laughing. Anna is trying to clean her face, but it’s impossible. She needs a shower. We all do.

    “Okay.” Autumn says trying to stop laughing and taking air to breath. “Dinner is going to be serve soon so we need to get clean up. Sweetie go shower.”

    I see that Anna wanted to protest, but Autumn gave her a stern look. Anna complied and left us. “You too mister. Move it.” She tells me as she hits my ass. “You have work in a couple of hours.” At the mention of work I drop my smile. “s**t, sorry.”

    “You don’t have to apologize.” I get up and help her to stand up. “Thank you for today. I needed it.”

    She looks me in my eyes. She’s been doing it more and more. We walk out of the room, and I go to take a shower. Autumn heads to Anna’s room. I’m guessing to make sure she is doing what her mom told her to do. I look at myself in the mirror.

    My entire face is full of red, blue, yellow, white, green, pink, purple, even brown and orange. And many many more colors that I don’t know their names. We ended it up opening more paint bottles. I’ll buy her new ones. I know she can buy them, but it’s the thoughts that counts. Right?

    I walk out of the bathroom with a towel around my waist. She stops pacing and looks at me. Precisely at my chest. “Like what you see?”

    Instead of denying it she nods with her mouth slightly open. I go to her closet and take ‘my clothes’ to put on. For five days I’ve been using the clothes she has bought over the years. It just seems right and not using them is a waste.

    I look around the closet. It looks like I’m living here. All that is left is some of my stuff and me in this house. And how much time I’m spending here, it feels more real. I walk out and hear the shower running. She’s singing now. No. She can sing, but it’s not like a singer’s voice. It’s like a between of good and bad.

    “I’m going downstairs.” She yelps and jumps. If I keep at it one of this day I’ll give her a mini heart attack. “Sorry.” I mumble so that she doesn’t reprimand me.

    “Have you talk to Sarah?” I ask her. “Nope.” She moves to me, still inside the shower. “Well yesterday after she left. Thought I give her a break from my ranting and problems.” She is never trouble, trust me. She is a gift sent from the heavens. Any person that knows her or had the chance to know her will tell you that she is the best person in the world.

    Not only that but kind and caring. She still has her flaws and imperfections. To me it’s things that make her who she is. “You’re never a bother.”

    I left her to finish showering and went downstairs. Anna is already there with a brush in her hand. She’s standing in the middle of the dinning room/living room looking outside. Sammy is sitting beside her. They look like those photos you find on the internet. “Princess?”

    She turns to me and smiles. “Can you brush my hair?” She asks skipping to me.

    “Sure.” I sit on the couch in the living room, and she sits on the floor in front of me.

    Anna hands me the brush. “What were you looking at?”  I brush her hair slowly. I’ve never brush a little girl’s hair, only Autumn’s and that was years ago. “Trying to find Julius so that he could brush my hair. Like he does.”

    The butler is to chummy with the princess. Hmmm. How long has he been with them? “Does he usually do it?”

    “When mommy can’t. It’s not like mommy that she do it all the time. When he do brush it he do it softly. It makes me sleepy.” I hum in response. “That’s nice of him.” She says a low yes. Is she falling asleep? I stop brushing her hair and she stands up. “Was that good?”

    “Yes, thank you.” I give her my sweet smile. “Any time.” She rans up stairs as Autumn comes down.

    “What’s her rush?” I shrug. Sammy whines at me from the floor.

    “I think someone wants to go on his walk.” I get up from the couch and he follows me. Has he fallen in love with me too? “Come on Sammy.” Autumn is holding his leach on her hands. “I’ll do it. Stay with the princess.” I kiss her lips and take the leach from her.

    Sammy wags his tail rapidly as he looks at me. “You sure?”

    “Yeah. I can stretch before going to work.” Sammy and I walk out.

    I take note that no one is observing or looking intensely at the house. Except one of Autumn’s neighbors. The petite blonde women. Why is she always outside? It’s like she wants to know everything that happens here. I guess she’s the one that likes to gossip around here.

    Sammy and I walk minding our own business. He does he’s business and I clean it up. Thank god the leach has his doggy bags. About half an hour later he whines and whines. He also moves in the direction of the house. “You want to go back?” He barks back at me.

    This dog doesn’t like to be separated from his girls. Another thing we have in common. We walk back to the house. Once we’re in I can smell an incredible smell. Wasn’t Nick with his family? I walk to the kitchen. “Who made this?” I go to the stove and smell the pot of wonders.

    Hmm. “Julius made us some vegetable soup.” And he cooks too. If he wasn’t old I would have felt threaten.

    I’m not trying to be disrespectful. Older than us, like a father. Yeah. I see her making some sort of salad and bread. There’s also mac and cheese. “Did you made them?” I point to the mac and cheese.

    “Yeah.” I bite my lower lip. She makes them delicious. It kind of became our food after our first date.

    Also the six different sandwiches I made her in that date. But I don’t remember it for being our first date. It was also the time she told me about her ex-Ryan and the day of the fire; where she lost Charlotte and Asher.

    Two of the most important people in her world. Her unborn daughter and her twin brother.

    She lost so much that day. I’ve never even comprehend how much. I sometimes think it’s a miracle she’s standing in front of me. That day she could have died too. If it weren’t for Asher that ran back inside the school to safe her I don’t know where she will be or any of us. She used to blame herself for their death.

    She learn to let go. She went to therapy for a long time. The first time we remotely talked was six months after Asher’s death. When she started going to the same school as me. It was senior year and I walked in to my first class of the day, of the year, and there she was in my seat. I had the reputation of a bad boy, but never with her.

    Since the start of that year I became an angel. My reputation was thrown out the window. I changed for the better, but she made me change for me. Not because she didn’t want to be with the bad boy. It was the opposite because I didn’t want to feel like I wasn’t worthy of her.

    Something I did that day when I broke of with my girlfriend at the time, who cheated on me in the school parking lot, came to bite me in the ass. It made her feel paranoid and freak out. I always regretted what I did because she ended up paying for me. Also what I did was horrible.

    “What are you thinking?” She shakes her hand in front of my face.

    I take it and kiss her knuckles. “How we started dating.” I hear a gasp and see Anna looking at us. “You guys dated?” Oops. Forgot that she was here. Autumn gives me a death glare. I’m dead. “We did sweetie. When we were in high school and a little after that.”

    “That’s why you both love each other.” My eyes go wide at her realization.

    Didn’t she said that we like each other? Now she’s saying we love each other. How does she conclude to this? Autumn has the same expression as me so she most be thinking the same. “Sweetie why do you say that?” She shrugs her little shoulders at her mom’s question.

    “Aunt Sari and uncle Kenny said you both love each other and should stop pretending and get together already.”

    I’m going to kill them. One of the reasons that Autumn is taking this slow is because of Anna. She doesn’t have to tell me to know that. So them saying this just makes Anna get her hopes up of us being together. “Do you?” We both look at each other. I sit beside Anna.

    “Princess I love your mom and I know she loves me. We just need to get used to being together again. Some time and space.” She looks sad. I shouldn’t have said anything. “Okay. Don’t take too long.” She gets a slice of bread and eats it.

    She’s smiling right now. No one will have guess that she was at the verge of crying a few seconds ago.

    I walk into that didn’t I? Autumn tries to suppress her laugh from behind me. “She really has you wrap around her finger.” I straighten my back and scowl at her. She laughs some more. “I was going to help you serve dinner, but I change my mind.” I cross my arms and turn my head to the side.

    Like a grumpy little kid. “Oh, now I have two little kids?” She asks with her hands on her hips.

    I stand up and help her. I see the time on my phone and see that I still have time for work. We eat in silence sometimes Anna making a few comments here and there. By the time we finish and clean the dishes the three of us. It was time for me to leave.

    “I’ll probably come by tomorrow in the morning or before I go to work.” I tell her. Maybe before work so that I can see them both.

    “Call or text me when you get at the hospital.” I kiss her lips and Anna makes a blah sound. “You want one too princess?” I drop to my knees. “In my cheek. I’m not mommy.” We chuckle at her response. I gave her the longest kiss ever. “Bye. Sleep well princess. Keep mommy company for me.”

    I drive to the hospital and take deep breaths. Last time I was here someone died on my watch, a mom. I walk in and go to the residents locker room. Kyle is there putting on his civilian’s clothes. “Are those clothes new?” I look down at what I’m wearing.

    “Why are you asking?” He ties his shoes. “Because I’ve never seen them before. For days now you come to work with new clothes.”

    “Yeah there new.” I strip and put on my scrubs. Not new new, but to me they are. They’re from Autumn that’s all that I care about. I take my phone out and text her that I got to the hospital with no problem. She sent me a photo of both of them smiling. “She’s hot.”

    Kyle is looking at my phone, at the photo. “Dude, personal space.” I push him away while he chuckles.

    “Who is she?” I close the locker door. “It’s none of your business.” He murmurs a whatever. “She’s the reason you’ve been different this past few weeks. And she’s the girl in the photo of the background in your phone isn’t she?” Nothing passes by him.

    “The girl yours? Looks like it.” I turn around. “Yes, the kid is mine.” After that I walk out and go to work. I’m in no mood to explain my complicated but wonderful life.