Page 115 of Ash Storm

* * *

Ash

There was a knock on the door.

Ash stilled. It was useless to pretend he hadn’t been waiting and hoping for this knock ever since the women had gotten back to the hospital.

Fuck, he’d missed Reka.

He’d missed having her in his bed, but also missed looking at her, talking with her … he’d missed her.

He rolled his shoulders carefully, looking to dispel some of the tension in them before opening the door.

Bad idea.

His left shoulder complained loudly. The ice pick had done a number on it—worse than most other things he could have been stabbed with, according to Slate. He was going to need some serious rehab if he expected to get it anywhere back to its former strength.

Ash wasn’t about to complain, though. He’d been willing—and fully expecting—to give up a whole lot more.

He opened the door, drinking in Reka’s presence. She was wearing slim jeans that hugged her curves in the best possible way and a white short-sleeved top that made her bronze skin glow. Though there were dark patches under her eyes that spoke of how little she’d been sleeping, she also looked calm and happy—happier than he’d ever seen her.

“Ash,” she said.

His name tasted sweet in her mouth.

“Come in,” he said, stepping back to let her in. And he hated it, because the mere act of letting her in was him accepting that this wasn’t their place anymore.

It’s not.

She’s going to move on.

As she should.

Your only job is to make this as easy as possible for her.

She walked inside and strode over to the window, bending down to look at the chess set.

“The pieces are all still in the same place,” she said.

He shook his head, remembering not to shrug. He hadn’t felt like playing. He hadn’t felt like doing much of anything.

She looked at him pointedly, and he knew she was looking at the visible wrap on his biceps and the thick bandage that poked out from his shoulder blade.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded. “How’s Chloe?” he said.

“She’s resting,” Reka said.

“Good. I’m glad.”

“It’s going to take time for her to go back to normal. And maybe normal is not the right direction, anyway,” she said softly.

“You also need to give yourself time,” he said carefully.

“She wanted to cut her hair tonight. I asked her to wait until tomorrow. I’ll help her cut it if she still wants to,” Reka said.

“That sounds reasonable,” he said. “If anybody can begin helping Chloe, at least until she finds a doctor back home, that’s you, Re.”

“I missed you, Ash,” she said.

Ash inhaled sharply.

“I missed you, too.”

God, I’ve missed you.

And he wanted to take those steps separating them and wrap her up in his arms, tell her he was never going to let go.

But that would be selfish, and he couldn’t be that fucking selfish. He needed to stop thinking about himself and start thinking about her and her recovery.

Reka opened her mouth to say something else, when there was a knock on the door.

Grateful for the interruption, Ash opened the door—to find a furious Reynolds on the other side.