Blindsided (Roman Holiday 3)

CHAPTER ONE

Ashley leaned in, shimmying her shoulders to the rhythm as she pounded the drum.

Across the circle, Kirk mirrored her movements, his bald head and smug smile as familiar to Ashley as were the pink cat sweatshirt Mitzi wore and the white streaks at the temples of her shiny black hair.

Ashley knew every one of the faces that comprised this gathering of the Okefenokee Land Cooperative’s twice-monthly drum circle. She knew the texture of Mitzi’s sisal rug beneath her thighs, the pattern of the plaid couch, the collection of carved woodland creatures that crowded the shelves of Mitzi’s repurposed china cabinet.

The familiarity of these people, this place, created lightness in her arms, peace and warmth in her chest.

Her problems hadn’t gone anywhere, of course. Sunnyvale still rested on the chopping block, shivering in the shadow of the knife. Her grandmother was still dead, and Ashley was still grieving as best she knew how.

But all that seemed to matter so much less now than it had earlier in the car with Roman. It had moved aside to make room for this movement, this heat, this light.

Sweat gathered beneath her right breast and rolled down her stomach. Ashley paused to push up her sleeves. Kirk winked at her. She winked back.

Leaning against the wall by the kitchen, Roman was silent. Watchful.

He’d stayed out by the mud-mired Escalade for a long while after Ashley followed Mitzi inside. When she’d peeked out the kitchen window, she’d seen him as a silhouette against the taillights, leaning over the trailer hitch and trying to get a handle on his means of escape.

He must not have found any, because eventually he’d come in—much to the delight of the assembled guests. There was nothing quite so exciting to the vegan residents of Okefenokee as fresh meat. Before Ashley joined the drumming, she’d heard him turn down offers of beet hummus, a pot brownie, and a sweat lodge visit. This last invitation had implied a three-way, though she wasn’t entirely sure Roman had caught that.

Each time, his response was a perfectly polite, perfectly calm negative, delivered in a tone that suggested he’d been asked to lunch but had a previous engagement.

He actually said those words, in response to the sweat-lodge three-way offer: I’m sorry, but I have a previous engagement. Eavesdropping from the kitchen, where she’d been helping Mitzi get the food ready, Ashley had laughed so hard she gave herself a stomach cramp.

Each subsequent indignity made him stiffer, less responsive—this place, his stuck truck, the drum circle, the unrestrained conversation and unconventional offers. The way people kept introducing themselves by asking, So you’re with Ashley?

Worst of all, the exposure to all this unabashed sharing of feelings, all this love. Roman’s worst nightmare.

And oh, yes, that lifted her up, too. That put lightness in her heart, to be comforted and buoyed, certain that the morning would bring the solution she needed, while Roman was deliciously miserable.

Nicole began a chant. Ashley repeated the words back, adding her voice to the chorus, admiring the gleam of Nicole’s waist-length red hair under the lights.

Mitzi caught her eye and smiled conspiratorially. She’d promised to help, just as Ashley had known she would. Her eyes had lit up with the delight of it. Mitzi loved to scheme, loved even more to exact revenge.

Hee-hee-ti-kago-oah!

“Hee-hee-ti-kago-oah.”

Kirk’s baritone carried the response line, and Ashley added a little flourish with her drum, an extra syncopated beat that gave her more lift.

Free me, Key Largo!

“Free me, Key Largo.”

Ashley just sang whatever words came out. Whether they made sense or not was irrelevant. When you were drumming, you didn’t care about logic. The drum circle was all about freedom from shame. About physical, rhythmical, sexual, primitive rhythm—letting it move through you, releasing you from your burdens. Kirk had a whole spiel about chakra energy and drumming, how it activated the sacral chakra, which was the seat of sexual impulse.

This explained why the drumming always made Ashley happy, hungry, and horny.