“Quit sneaking and come out here.”
“I’m naked.”
“So? I thought you likes the exhibitionist stuff?”
She gets over her shyness, or maybe she just wants to drive me crazy, because she steps out and walks over to us. “I heard that, you know,” she says taking a seat on the lounger next to me. She pulls her legs up and Kate immediately starts whining to go to her. I hand the baby over and she gives her the breast. “I guess she was hungry after all.”
“So do you?” I ask. She just stares at me. “Want to stay here?”
“I’m not sure you understand what you’re getting in to. I’m a single mom.”
“I’m a single guy.”
“I have Kate and—”
“And I want Kate, Ashleigh. I do. I want you both.”
She watches Kate nurse in silence for a few seconds and then turns to look out at the view. The back patio is not large, not by Colorado standards anyway. Our yard in Park Hill is ten times this big. But this place has an infinity pool with an unobstructed view.
“I’ll call in child-proofers, Ashleigh. We’ll get a cover for the pool, and fence that part of the hill off so she can’t get into trouble.” Holy shit, I don’t even know where that came from. I’ve never said the word child-proofers in my life.
“That’s not it, Ford.”
My phone buzzes in my shorts and I check the call real fast. Jason in Vail. Probably to tell me about Ash’s car. I press silent and go back to the conversation. “Then what?”
She shakes her head. “I’m a mess. Just a total mess.”
“You’re not a mess, Ashleigh. In fact, you’re coping better than most people would in your circumstances. Do you feel any better today?”
“I do,” she nods. “I do feel better. But I’m still so sad. Just picturing his face is enough to make me cry. Just all of it, the whole thing was just… traumatic. And I’m pretty sure you’re not gonna be happy if I’m moping around all the time thinking of the man I lost.” She looks up at me and shrugs. “I know I’d feel weird if the tables were turned.”
I think about this for a while and Ash leans back and closes her eyes. She is so beautiful. “I’m not jealous of him.” And as soon as the words come out I understand Ronin. It’s strange. It’s like this realization hits me out of nowhere. I’m not jealous of Tony because Tony isn’t a threat. Tony makes Ashleigh whole, but Tony is gone. And that’s not something that will ever change. Ronin must feel this way about me. I make Rook whole, but he knows her heart belongs to him. He wants me in her life to make her happy. Because he loves her.
“Tell me how you met.”
“Who?”
“You and Tony.”
“Why would you want to know that?”
“Because you love him and you miss him. And I’m sure you’re dying to tell anyone who will listen about all the things that made him so special. And I’d like to listen, Ashleigh. Because… because I want to make you happy. I want to know because he’s part of you and Kate, and I want you and Kate. I’m hooked. I can’t even imagine leaving you behind.”
She just stares at me.
“So tell me. Start from the beginning.”
She hugs baby Kate a little tighter, much to the dismay of the hungry infant, and then looks out over the valley. “I was fourteen years old. And he was sixteen. My father told me I had to join a sport when we finally settled in Rancho Santa Fe and I started going to a local school. So I joined basketball.”
I laugh.
“I know,” she says, smiling. “I’m five foot two.” And now she laughs. “But it was winter and it was either that or cheerleading. I took my chances with basketball. Anyway, we would travel to the other schools in the area for games and stuff, and Tony went to another school. Co-ed. Mine was all girls, remember?”
I nod. I have not gotten the image out of my mind and now I’m picturing her in a basketball uniform. But it’s probably inappropriate to say that when she’s telling me how she met her first love.
“I sat the bench for every game. The coach knew I was only on the team to please my father, so she never made me play. But every time we went to play against the girls at Trinity Day I’d see this guy. Total hotness, jock, already built like a man.”
“Tony.”
“Anthony Fenici.” She blushes at his name. A decade later and the simple act of saying this guy’s name is enough to make her blush. “That first game I was just minding my own business, warming my bench, and then the coach asked me to go out to her car and get her notebook. So I took her keys and went out to the parking lot, got the stuff, and I was walking back when I saw hot-assed Anthony Fenici making out with a girl against the building. And when I walked past, I was staring. I was young, I’d never kissed a boy, so I was sorta gawking at them. And then I noticed that Anthony Fenici was watching me gawk at him. Even as he stuck his tongue down this other girl’s throat. And then he winked at me.”
What a player.
“Anyway, I was hooked from that moment on. He tortured me that whole year at every game we played against Trinity Day by being around, making me notice him, acknowledging that I noticed him, and then promptly ignoring me. And when basketball season was over, I joined track in the spring, just so I could go to those away meets with Trinity. And the next year came, and I was in ninth grade, and I did it again. I joined basketball and track. Only now I’m getting a little better at b-ball, right? I had a year of practices under my belt, plus all that damn running in the spring gave me endurance. So I played a game or two that year. And every time I made a basket, which was not often, but every time that f**king Anthony Fenici would stand up and yell Li Li scores!”