Kristen Ashley - Own the Wind

I nodded. “You’re right, Ty-Ty.”

She grinned and we both moved down the hall.

Once there, I saw Dad and Shy in the kitchen, both taking pulls off their beers. Both wearing black tees, faded jeans, and motorcycle boots. Both exuding badassness. Both beloved by me.

It was a happy sight.

It had been said, repeatedly, that women found their fathers in their men.

Luckily, when I did just that, I had a good man to find.

It had also been said that men found their mothers.

I hoped, with the way he talked about her, Shy felt the same.

I hoped this for about a second when he dropped his beer, his eyes came to me and his chin dipped, saying nonverbally I was to go to him.

I went there, he curved an arm around me, pulled me in close, and bent to put his lips to my hair. “You ready to go home?” he asked and I melted into him.

I loved it when he held me and spoke into my hair.

I loved it when he called the house we shared our home.

And I loved it that he finally had a home.

“Yeah,” I mumbled into his throat, and he kissed my hair.

I looked to Dad and Tyra and saw Tyra had a small smile playing around her mouth, her expression warm.

Dad wasn’t smiling. I saw his eyes were intense but they were not conflicted.

He was happy. He was happy I had someone and he was happy that person was Shy, a man he understood, a man he could trust, a man who would go all out to protect his daughter.

A man who would walk a tightrope for me.

A brother.

“You have a good night, Dad?” I asked, and his eyes moved from Shy’s arm around my shoulders to me.

“Yeah, darlin’,” he answered then, “Come here and give your old man some love before you go, yeah?”

I moved out of Shy’s arm into my father’s. He tucked me close and kissed the top of my head.

“Thanks for lookin’ after the boys,” he murmured into my hair, I closed my eyes and nodded.

“Anytime,” I whispered.

“Love you, Tabby,” he said, giving me a squeeze. He curled me out and back to Shy before he looked to Shy and said, “Safe home.”

“Right,” Shy said, leaned in, kissed Tyra’s cheek then, amidst waves and good-byes, we went out to my car.

We’d pulled out of the drive and were winding through the curving roads that led down the wooded mountain from Dad and Ty-Ty’s house when Shy announced, “Three and, babe, firm on that.”

I looked from the wooded darkness outside the car to my man.

“Three what?” I asked.

“Kids,” he answered then continued. “And marriage. Firm on that too.”

My stomach flipped.

Shy went on but when he did, it wasn’t an announcement. It was soft.

“I know you lost it all right before the big event, sugar, and you said you weren’t gonna do it again. I’m just sayin’, it means somethin’ to me so you are.”

“Shy—” I tried but he kept going.

“You lost that guy, that’s always gonna sting, I get that. But that is not gonna happen again and I want a ring on your finger, my ring. I wear yours. I want every time you look at your hand to remember you belong to me. I want every time I look at mine to remember I belong to you. Same when we see each other’s hands. You want a small shindig, I’m down with that but I’ll say now, I’d rather have a blowout.”

I was stuck on something he said earlier.

That guy.

That guy.

He always, but always, called Jason “that guy”.

“His name was Jason,” I said gently and carefully.

Shy glanced my way before glancing back to the road and asking, “What?”

“His name was Jason,” I repeated. “He wanted two kids. He’d never own a Harley even though I had schemes of finding ways to get him to buy one. He loved me. We were getting married and now he’s dead.”

Shy reached out a hand, found mine, and squeezed. “Tabby—”

“He loved me and would want you for me.”

The air in the car went still.

Then Shy started again, “Sugar—”

I squeezed his hand and interrupted, “That’s how much he loved me. He’d want you for me. He’d want me to be this happy.”

Shy was silent.

I let the car be that way for long moments before I looked to the road and told him, “Three kids is perfect and I want a big shindig, so it’s all good.”

“I wouldn’t want that,” Shy declared, and I looked back at him.

“Pardon?”

He glanced my way, his hand tightened around mine then he looked back to the road and stated, “No other man. Not anyone but me.”

“Shy—” I began but it was my turn to get cut off.

“I get you believe that. I get why you need to believe that. It might be wrong that I tell you this but I also saw him with you that night at DCPA, and I know you wanna believe it but it’s not even a little true. He would not want me for you. He wanted only you for him and he wanted to be the only one for you. Now, baby, you’re right. Jason’s dead. He doesn’t get to want anything. But I’ll tell you, I love you so much, I’m selfish and I only want me for you, not you with anyone else, if I’m breathin’ or I’m dead. And Jason felt the same fuckin’ way. I know that might suck hearin’ it but the truth is, there’s beauty in that. He didn’t love you enough to sacrifice you to another man. He loved you enough to want there to be only him for a lifetime ’cause that’s the way he felt about you. He didn’t get a lifetime. But, I’m tellin’ you now, I want a lifetime.”

I felt a stinging in my eyes as I admitted, “Shy, I don’t know what to do with that.”

He kept holding my hand tight when he replied gently, “Nothin’ to do with it. We don’t always get what we want, Tabby, and life goes on. I know you’ll always love him. I know you’ll always feel his loss. I gotta live with that. But luckily, love doesn’t have limits and you’re you, you got a lot of love to give. So I’ll take what I got since it’s everything. But, Tabby, baby, the point I’m making is, this is the only conversation we have where to me, that guy is Jason. He’s that guy. I am not bein’ a dick. I’m giving this to you real. I need that and I need you to give it to me ’cause he has a piece of you I’ll never have, so let me take what I need from him.” His voice dropped to low and sweet. “Do you get me, baby?”

“I get you, honey.”

He squeezed my hand, released the pressure and murmured, “Good.”

I looked to the windshield.

Shy drove in silence.

Then he broke it by declaring, “Settled. Three kids and a big shindig.”

“Settled,” I whispered.

“We’re not doin’ any of that ring-shoppin’-together bullshit. I’ll take care of you and you get the question and the time it’s asked as a surprise.”

I liked that. Something to look forward to.

All of it.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Though I know the answer,” he went on, his voice soft but there was a smile in it.

“Yeah.”

He knew the answer. He so totally did.

“Yeah,” he repeated.

We went quiet.

Time passed, we hit Denver and I called, “Shy?”

“Right here, sugar.”

“Love you.”

He lifted my hand, touched his lips to my fingers, and then dropped my hand to his thigh.

Then he drove us home in silence.

There it was.

He loved me too.

Stuck with Me

Early the next morning…

I heard my cell ringing, my eyes blinked open as I felt Shy’s hand on my behind give a reflexive squeeze.

I sleepily noticed it was still dark.

My cell kept ringing and Shy growled, “What the fuck? Who’s callin’ at three in the fuckin’ morning?”

I didn’t know but to find out, I had to get my cell, and I also had to get my cell because any call at three in the morning was a call you had to take. Unfortunately, this meant I had to roll off him and away, which I did, reaching toward the nightstand. He rolled with me so his front was pressed to my side, his thigh between my legs. I grabbed my phone, looked groggily at the display, and, at what I saw, sleep left me completely.

I slid my finger on the screen and put it to my ear.

“Natalie,” I greeted.

It was the first time I’d heard from her since we had our big fight.

“Tabby,” she replied, her voice small, scared, a way she never sounded and it sent shivers crawling over my skin. “I’m in trouble.”

Oh no.

I knew Shy felt my panic because I was no longer holding my phone to my ear. Shy had taken my phone and he was pressed into me in order to reach out and switch on the light.

I winced in the sudden brightness as Shy spoke.

“You got Shy. What’s goin’ on?” he said into the phone.

I blinked to adjust my eyes then stared at his face which was scary hard.

“Right, where are you?” he asked and his tone sent my hand shooting up to curl around his jaw. His eyes came to me, they were scary hard too, and I held my breath. He kept talking. “How many are there with you?”

Oh no.

No!

“Firepower?” he asked.

Firepower? God!

“Okay, hang tight,” Shy ordered as he rolled over me and got to his feet. I rolled to my side as he kept ordering. “Do not say anything stupid. Do not do anything stupid. But stall ’em. I’m makin’ the calls, the brothers are rollin’ out. It could be thirty, it’ll probably be forty-five.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and searched the floor frantically for my nightie even as Shy wound things up with Natalie.

“Woman, hear me. This phone is comin’ with me so you can’t call and freak Tab any more than she’s already freaked. Be smart, for fuckin’ once in your life. I’m takin’ care of your shit once. This is the only chance you get. Don’t blow it now and know you won’t get the chance to blow it later. You fuck up again, even somethin’ not this big, you’re done for Tabby. Hear me?”

This big?

She must have heard him for he touched his thumb to my screen and commenced dressing.

I had my nightie on, and since he didn’t say anything to me, just started tugging on clothes, I called, “Uh… hello? Freaking out here, Shy.”

He looked at me and did the worst thing he could do at that moment.

He took two long strides to me, lifted his hands and cupped my jaws, one hand still holding my phone. Then he dipped his face so he was all I could see.

Okay, I knew this was serious.

Now I knew it was serious.

“She’s hit bottom, and I’m seein’ from your girl that when she does somethin’, she goes big,” he explained.

“Wh… what? What’s she done?” I stammered.

“Not a lot of time. You need to get dressed and to the Compound, which is where I’ll be takin’ her after I get her ass. It’s also the safest place for you if there’s blowback.”

Blowback! I freaking hated that word.

“Shy—”

He cut me off to lay it out for me. “She got in deep with a dealer. She owes him big. He’s takin’ his money back from her in pussy and when I say that I mean, her eating it, hers getting fucked, and all of this happening on camera. She’s right now dolled up and ready to give her first performance on a porno set.”

“They film pornos in Denver at three in the morning?” I breathed stupidly, focusing on that rather than the fact my best friend was preparing to make her film debut and not in a good way, and Shy stared at me.

Then he said, “Babe, pisses me off fuckin’ more than I am already that you didn’t know that and now you do. This bitch of yours, she’s not teachin’ you any more of these lessons. She shared with me she doesn’t feel like girl on girl or takin’ cock from a guy she doesn’t know and havin’ all that on film. She wants an extraction which means, she’s your girl, she gets one.” His hands pressed gently into my jaws as he emphasized, “One, Tab. I know these assholes, and Chaos is gonna buy a shitload of trouble for intervening.”

Suddenly, I had scores of worries and one was my mind suddenly dredging up the word firepower.

“What do you mean, Chaos is gonna buy trouble?” I asked but I knew.

Crap, I knew.

I was going to kill Natalie.

“That, I’m not gonna take the time to explain,” he replied, yanked me to him, kissed the top of my hair, let me go, turned, nabbed his boots, his tee, and prowled out the bedroom door.

I stared at the opened door. In order not to focus on the matter at hand which had my heart racing, I took in something that never failed to calm me.