For the Love of Gracie (11 page)

“I saw it and it made me think of you. The day we went fishing and the ladybug landed on you. Plus, since I call you Gracie-bug, I thought it was fitting.”
 

And the tears began to fall. I knew at this moment I’d fallen deeply in love with this man and there was no turning back on
those feelings.  

His fingers traced the charm against my wrist. Once again, I closed my eyes and relished his touch.
 When I opened my eyes, they met with his. They seemed to match my feelings at the moment. His hand moved to my cheek. His face leaned in toward mine.

The moment was interrupted by the deck door opening.
   Hudson stood there looking sad. “Can I talk to you?” 

Ashton looked as disappointed as I felt.
  “I’m going to head back in.” 

Turning my back to Hudson, I asked, “What do you want?”
 

He wrapped his arms around me from behind and I cringed at his touch.
  I closed my eyes and imagined it was Ash instead.

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Give me a chance?” he asked.
  He moved my hair aside and pressed his lips against my neck.  I squirmed away from his embrace. 

“Right now, I need some space. Go home, Hudson.”
  Defeated, he walked back inside. slamming the door. 

When it opened again, Ash looked concerned. “Did he hurt you? He looked pretty angry.”
 

I shook my head. “I’m fine. I told him to leav
e. He didn’t do anything wrong.”  I fingered the bracelet again and smiled. As he stepped closer to me, I embraced him, pressing my face against his chest. “Thank you for my gift.” 

He smoothed my hair, “You’re welcome, bug.”
  He moved toward the swing and I sat beside him.

“I’m glad you spent today with us. Are you doing the family thing tomorrow?”
 

He nodded. “Yep, brother, niece, parents, we all have a tradition of going to the Opryland Hotel to look at the lights and the décor.”
 

“I love that place! Especially at Christmas! I haven’t been since they remodeled from the big flood.”
 

He glanced at his watch. “It’s still early. Why don’t we see if everyone wants to head over there tonight?”
 

I jumped up. “That would be so much fun!”

I ran inside to tell everyone else and they all had the same reaction, excitement. We bundled up, considering it was a cold, thirty degree night with a brisk wind. Ash had driven his truck instead of his bike, due to the cold. Angel and I rode with Ashton, and the others piled in Cameron’s car.

Angel sat against the door, putting me in the middle, against Ash. It was a manual transmission, so I had to straddle the gear shift.
   Each time he went to shift, his hand grazed my knee. If I had been wearing something other than jeans it would have driven me insane each time. Even with jeans on, it was causing me to practically bite my lip off.

Angel leaned over, smushing me into Ashton, as she played with the radio.

I glanced up at him and he smiled at me. “Sorry, Angel’s a bit rude about music. She’s always changing my stations too.” 

Angel shoved her elbow into my stomach teasingly. “Look chica, I can’t help it I have better taste in music than the two of you. Ash, you don’t mind that I changed it, do you?”
 

He shook his head. “You ladies can listen to whatever you like.”
   

As we neared the hotel, it became clear that everyone had
the same idea judging by the amount of traffic to get inside to park. 

“Go over to the mall entrance. We can park for free and walk ove
r," I suggested. Ashton moved out of line to head toward the mall around the corner. 

When we stepped out, Angel looked down at her shoes. “I wish I’d worn better shoes for this walk.”
 

Ashton walked over and stooped down. “Get on my back and we’ll get you some shoes inside.”

She laughed. “Seriously?”
 

He nodded. “Yeah girl.
 Come on, you’ll keep me warm too.” 

I laughed as Angel shrugged and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist from behind.
  There was a tug of jealousy in my chest at seeing her with him that way.

Once we made it inside, we found a boutique for Angel to get some better shoes. She’d never been to the hotel before and didn’t realize how massive it was or that she would need more comfy shoes for the stroll.

We entered on the Delta side of the hotel.  It has a river that runs through and you can take a boat ride around.

The ceiling was draped with lights and Christmas décor. In front of one entrance was a very large Christmas tree made out of poinsettia plants.
  There was a stairwell that led to a bridge where you could cross to shops, bakeries, restaurants, and ice cream parlors.  We all wanted to go on the boat ride, but the line was insanely long. We took the stairs up to the next level to grab ice cream for dessert. We each bought a different flavor of gelato and passed the bowls around to try each one.  

Cameron wrapped his arm around me. “This was a fun idea.”

I pointed my thumb to the right of me. “Thank Ash, it was his idea.”  Ash was feeding a bite of ice cream to Angel who was giggling as it dribbled down her chin.

He turned. “Did I hear my name?”
 

I stood up, annoyed, and grabbed my ice cream. “Yeah, you did. I’m full. I’m going to stroll some more.”

A moment later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. “What’s wrong, bug?” Each time he called me that, I fell a little harder for him. 

“Stop calling me that,” I said, with more annoyance than I meant.
 

His face reacted as though I’d hit him. “I’m sorry, I thought you liked it.” He turned to walk away and I grabbed his arm pulling him against me.
 

“I’m sorry, Ash.
  I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. The holidays get to me sometimes.”  He smoothed my hair and kissed my forehead.  My eyes look up at him from under my eyelashes as I sweetly said, “I love when you call me bug, I promise.” 

He grinned. “OK, good. The others decided to wait in line for the boat and wanted us to meet them there. I told them I’d check with you.”
 

I sent a text to Cameron, telling him we were going to take a walk and would meet up with them. “My favorite section of the hotel is the Cascades area, can we go there?”
 

He smiled. “That’s my favorite too.”
  He reached for my hand and I leaned against him as we strolled through the Delta atrium to the Cascades atrium.  Cascades had a two story waterfall that was surrounded by plants and beautiful flowers. It was like something from a tropical island. 

Upstairs, you could walk behind the falls through a cave-like tunnel. Ashton led me up there. We stepped up to the window, letting the soft mist of water spray us. A woman came up behind us and asked if we’d like our picture taken. We handed her our phones. Ashton wrapped his arms around me and
leaned his head against mine. She snapped a picture with both of our phones.

“You’re a beautiful young couple, you seem very happy.”
 

I pulled away from him after she said that.
 

He pressed me against the wall, to let the group coming through pass, and touched my face. “What’s wrong?”
 

I sucked in my bottom lip, enjoying the feeling of him pressed up against me.
 

Someone knocked into him causing him to push harder against me. I bit into my lip and spat, “
Shit that hurt.” 

His thumb reached forward and wiped the blood from my lip. “Sorry, bug.” He leaned down and kissed the edge of my mouth, the corners of our mouths touching slightly.

“What was that for?” I asked.  

“I kissed it to make it better, did it work?”

I nodded. “Oh yeah, I’m good now.” 

He chuckled and leaned forward again.

“Are we interrupting something here?” Cameron asked as he cleared his throat beside us.

“Huh?” I said as I turned to him.
 

“You looked like you guys were about to make out?”

I moved away from Ashton and I laughed. “What? Come on Cameron, I’m with Hudson. Stop being ridiculous! So, did you guys ride the boat?”

Cameron shook his head. “Nope,
got tired of waiting in line.” 

Ashton walked over to Angel and put his arm across her shoulder. “How are your shoes working for you?”
 

She smiled. “Fantastic.”  She bumped his hip with hers and said, “You can still give me a ride back to the car though if you want.”
  She winked and he threw his head back laughing. 

Cameron put his arm around me. “What’s wrong, Gracie? You look sad.”

Ashton turned to look at me; his expression fell into a frown as a tear slid down my cheek. I wiped it quickly. “Nothing, I’m tired and want to go home. We have a busy day tomorrow.” 

Ashton reached for my hand; I passed him as if he wasn’t there. When we got to the car, Ashton opened the door for me without saying a word. 

I yelled out to Mary Jane, “Hey MJ, wanna switch rides?” 

She seemed confused.
 She shrugged and said, “Sure, I guess.” 

Ash reached for my arm and pulled me aside. “Did I do something wrong?”
 His face expressed so much sadness that I hated myself for making him feel bad.  

I shook my head, “No, I just want to spend time with Cameron." 

The drive home felt excruciatingly long and I sat in the backseat and cried silently to myself. When we arrived at the house, I ran straight up to the house. Ashton caught up with me; he reached for my arm to pull me aside. 

“Goodnight guys, Merry Christmas” he said to the others as they went inside. It was just the two of us now. He brushed my hair aside and tilted my chin up. “You’ve been crying?”

I turned my face away. 

“Gracie, what’s wrong? What did I do? It’s been you and me for months now and tonight, you’ve pulled away from me more than once. You've never done that before. Tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it.”
 

"It wasn't you. I'm in a bad mood because of Hudson. My own boyfriend didn’t think to give me a Christmas present? I mean, I get that isn’t what it's about, but it still makes me feel like crap. It makes me feel like I don’t mean anything to anyone." I sat down on the porch and put my hands over my face as I cried.
 

He sat beside me and encircled me in his arms.
 "You know there are a lot of people that care about you. One of them is holding you right now." 

It wasn’t the lack of gift that upset me. It was the fact that Ashton gave me such a thoughtful romantic gift, and it was killing me inside.

A car pulled up. We both looked up and Hudson was walking toward me with a gift wrapped box. Ashton pulled away from me. I wiped my eyes clean as I said, “Hey.  Where did you get a present so late on Christmas eve?” 

He smirked. “You don’t want to know. I know I was a jerk and I wanted to make it up to you. You deserve better than this, but it's all I can do for now.” He held the box out to me. Ash stayed seated on the porch. I opened it and laughed at the contents.
 

Everything had come from a convenient store. It was full of stuff to clean my car and some of my favorite snacks and candy. Hudson grinned. “You’re always saying you need to clean your car more and I know you always want chocolate after…well you know,” he said as he glanced at Ash.
 

Ash stood up. “I’m going to leave you two alone.
  Merry Christmas, Gracie…Hudson.”  He walked away. 

I hugged Hudson. "This is awesome, thank you."
  At the same moment, Ash turned and our eyes met. He smiled sadly as he held his hand up in a wave. I closed my eyes and held onto Hudson. 

“Come home with me tonight?” he asked.
 

“I can’t. Tomorrow’s Christmas and I am going to my family dinner.”
 

He wrapped his arms tighter around my waist. “I could meet your parents,” he said as he wiggled his eyebrows, flirtingly.
 

“I don’t think it’s the right time for that yet.”

He nodded. “OK, I understand.  I’m going to head home for the night.  Merry Christmas, babe.” 

As soon as I stepped in my bedroom, I dialed Ash on my cell phone.
  He picked up instantly. 

“Hey, bug.”
 

I sighed with a smile. “I’m sorry for how I acted tonight. None of that had to do with you. I’m in a weird place here lately. I feel like I don’t know which way I’m going anymore. That may not make any sense…”

He interrupted me. “Gracie, you always make sense to me. I like how close we’ve become and I don’t want to lose that. You pulling away from me tonight scared me. I thought I did something to hurt you and I never want to do that.”