Redemption Read online

My mouth parted, warmth pulsing from her fingertips onto my skin. It was the smallest touch, given in compassion, but still it made me want her more than I’d ever wanted one more drink.

  It made me want her more than I’d ever wanted one more breath.

  I told myself I had to be imagining it—the way her head dipped toward mine. I breathed her in—lemon and honey, so crisp and pure. So hopeful. And the need to taste her was stronger than any addiction burning through my blood—the need to cling to her and never let go.

  “Taylor…” I rasped her name, and it might’ve been the first prayer I ever prayed.

  But I was too far gone for forgiveness.

  She pulled back with a start, her hands jumping to my arms and her face a safe several inches away.

  “Bedtime,” she informed me as she tugged me up.

  I stumbled slightly over my own feet. Just because my mind was clear didn’t mean I was magically coordinated again. She didn’t tighten her hold, instead her arms came around me and she reacted by pressing her entire body against me, like she thought David could hold up Goliath.

  Maybe it was in slow-motion or maybe my clarity fucking faltered, but I felt her chin against my chest as she slowly tipped her head up to mine, feeling how we fit together.

  I groaned. We were both completely clothed and yet, I’d never been so fucking hard.

  All those moments, all the times I tried to get close to this woman and she’d pushed me away collected in the heavy breaths between us. But it was when she licked those perfect fucking lips, I knew she hadn’t been immune all this time. I heard her unsteady breaths. I felt the ragged tumbling of her heart. I saw the pink stain on her cheeks.

  She wanted me.

  She saw me at my lowest and still wanted the man underneath.

  And with her arms wrapped around me, there was nothing else left but to hope.

  Hope it would stop the suffocating sense of inadequacy which chauffeured me right to the door of my favorite bottle—which was Belvidere, by the way.

  For most, inadequacy is handcuffed to the green god of jealousy; I wasn’t most. I wasn’t jealous of the success around me. I’d done everything to help my sister reach the mind-numbing level of stardom where she sat, and I was doing everything to help my friend’s band do the same. I followed along in their shadows and made their stars shine brighter all the while letting my own flicker out.

  I gave them everything and left nothing for myself.

  And it was the little things, day after day, which built the insurmountable wall of inadequacy around me until I drank to forget that I was drowning.

  I wasn’t good enough for my own success.

  I wasn’t good enough for my own story.

  And I certainly wasn’t good enough for Taylor Hastings—a deeply-rooted fact I’d tried to ignore for a long, long time.

  But the alcohol blacked out those notions… it also managed to black out everything else along with it.

  “Come with me,” I pleaded, slowly dropping my forehead to hers as my arms pulled her tighter. “Stay with me…”

  Just once, I wanted feel like I was enough… enough for her.

  “I can’t,” she whispered softly even though she didn’t move.

  “Can’t or won’t?” I pressed. “Don’t lie to me now.”

  I felt her nervous breath against my cheek.

  “Both.”

  What the fuck was I doing?

  She was never going to stay with me, let alone give in to what lay dormant between us all these years.

  I’d already been betrayed today, no reason to beg for more misery.

  I dropped my arms to my sides, their weight heavier from all the things I wasn’t good enough to hold.

  “Then go,” I advised, accepting the inevitability. Until more of my own words invaded the space between us.

  “I want to be better, Tay,” I confessed like the bruised and broken man I was. “I want to be fucking better so I can be good enough for you. I don’t care about the world. I don’t care if I never hear a crowd chant my name or if I’m never more than Blake’s brother. I just want to hear my name from your lips. Just once. Just once to know I wasn’t alone in this… all this time… all this aching… Just once…”

  Thank fuck I wouldn’t remember this in the morning. Desperation made even my good looks turn sour.

  She didn’t let go, but I expected it any moment. The loneliness, the door shutting behind her, the cold bed… I was ready for it all because it was always the same.

  Until it wasn’t.

  The warmest, softest lips pressed to mine. I’d gone from clarity, skipped over blackout, went straight through hallucinations, and onto pure insanity.

  A raw groan broke in my chest as the tip of her velvet tongue pressed against the seam of my lips. I wasn’t insane. I was kissing Taylor-fucking-Hastings. And, so help me God, if I could remember the lemon-honey taste of her innocent intoxication, I knew I’d never drink again.

  Slanting my mouth over hers, I teased it open and gave her what she was searching for.

  I worshipped her body like I was the sinner and she was the Samaritan.

  I was a drunk. I was an asshole—bitter and self-destructive. But tonight, I was shown mercy—whether by God or by her.

  I didn’t deserve her. I didn’t deserve what she was giving me. But I took it.

  Because who wouldn’t take grace? Who wouldn’t take mercy? Especially when it was so beautifully given…

  In the morning, I wouldn’t remember any of this. Not her touch. Not her kiss.

  In the morning, I’d go back to my life… my job… back to the high-functioning alcoholic no one realized I was.

  But I wouldn’t be the same.

  Something had changed inside me tonight. She’d broken through the angry, shattered, scarred, and stitched together pieces of my soul and saw the wounded heart underneath.

  I see you, and you’re a good man.

  I groaned against her lips, giving in to the baptism of her kiss.

  The water of my sins had swallowed me whole, but it was her touch that pulled me gasping from the depths. And even though I was still drenched in the consequences of my past choices, I could breathe again. I could break free from my watery grave.

  I could redeem myself.

  Taylor

  Five months ago

  Denver, Colorado

  Ashton Tyler was a Pandora’s box.

  Beautiful on the outside, begging to be opened, begging to be known. But inside, there were troves of troubles itching to be released. And the only thing he fought harder for than to keep himself locked up tight, was to help everyone around him follow their dreams.

  In high school, he encouraged the dreams of his friends on the football team. Even though she’d been the one to ask for it, he convinced his parents to get Blake a guitar for her birthday; he was the one who gave her the charm bracelet she always wore and told her to never stop reaching for her star.

  And look at her now… the biggest popstar in the world.

  He was the one who got his best friend, Zach, and his band to play at every possible gig in town during high school even though Zach tried to pretend he was all about the football life. And it was Ash who encouraged and supported Zach when he left Alabama’s Crimson Tide after sophomore year to focus on the Zach Parker Project—now one of the most popular country bands in the country.

  If Zach Parker was George Washington—the leader everyone knew—then Ash Tyler would be Alexander Hamilton, the man responsible for so much behind-the-scenes that there wouldn’t have been a country to lead, or a career to be had, if it weren’t for him.

  But Ash’s dreams? They were a little harder to find.

  He was like an unmarried wedding planner—too happy, too eager to help everyone else find their happily ever after, he had no time to find his own.

  And everyone assumed because he was happy to help, it must mean it was his dream.

  No one saw how he put aside his dreams t
o focus on those of his sister and his best friend. He never mentioned it. He never spoke about what he would do with his life if it wasn’t for them.

  No one but me.

  It wasn’t their fault; Ash was good at hiding the demons that plagued him. But I’d known the boy whose ambitions would let him conquer the world, the boy who believed every dream was within reach, and I’d watched him become the man who gave up his identity to be Blake Tyler’s brother, and gave up everything else to be Zach Parker’s manager.

  He’d done everything for them because he was loyal to a fault—and that fault, that loyalty, meant sacrificing a future he could have created for himself.

  But how do you regret giving up pieces of your life for someone you love?

  You don’t.

  But the toll it takes on your life comes with a hidden interest collected from your soul, until the price becomes too much. Until you have nothing left to give.

  Over the past few weeks, while on tour, I saw his edges begin to fray. Worried about his sister, his emotions began to destabilize like a kite in the sky, sailing smoothly one minute and the next, whipped and torn asunder by the wind. Normally, the carefree go-getter, I watched Ash’s distorted anger claw away at the edges of his life.

  He reminded me of a Jenga tower—but one near the end of the game. With so many holes, so many teetering layers, it wouldn’t take much to send him crashing down.

  Because that’s what happens when who you need to be to support the ones you love means sacrificing who you’d hoped to become… the real you becomes locked inside.

  In Ash’s case, drowning in his party lifestyle.

  In mine, buried under so many rules and regulations that all the lawyers in Tennessee couldn’t argue to set my soul free.

  I’d always wanted him in the ways which made my gaze linger and my body warm when he was near. But, I’d been raised a certain way.

  Catholic. Composed. Chaste.

  High necklines, low hems. Church on Sundays. Choir. Missions. Charity. Santa Claus had nothing on the religious requirements to keep you on the nice list.

  Don’t harm. Don’t covet. Don’t touch. Don’t sin. The list of do’s and don’ts was longer than the Bible itself. Especially in my parent’s house.

  And everything about Ash was definitely a don’t. I knew the second I let him touch even the smallest part of me, I wouldn’t be able to say no—not to him, but to myself and the way I’d always been drawn to him.

  I’d lived my teenage years buried under the guilt that my body wanted something sinful, something against the rules—something that would turn me into a ‘whore,’ as my mother would caution.

  I thought the guilt would go away when they moved to Florida. I knew they were disappointed when I began to run PR for Blake—‘The entertainment industry is too depraved for even the Devil himself.’

  Unsuitable for a good, Catholic girl.

  Maybe that was why I strived even harder to maintain the proper, unimpeachable appearance I’d been raised with.

  And Ash…

  Ash was the apple from the tree of temptation.

  And I was Eve, finally too tempted to taste, to sin, to care how one bite… one touch… would make me fall.

  But it was his heart-wrenching plea that stripped away the last reservations from my chaste self—the confession torn from his chest which I couldn’t turn down because I didn’t want to.

  I kissed him even though I knew it wouldn’t fix him.

  I kissed him even though I knew he may not remember it in the morning.

  I kissed him because, for just once, I didn’t want to feel alone in this either.

  And what I was told would be a sin, instead felt sacred.

  His lips were soft where hurt had made him hard and his touch freed the parts of me buried under shame… the parts that always desired him.

  And that desire quashed the guilt I should have felt when I wrapped my arms around his neck silently urging him on. It stifled the guilt I should have felt when I whispered for him to hurry as he first removed my clothes and then stripped of his own. It obliterated every shame I’d been taught to feel when I moaned and writhed as his mouth claimed every square inch of my skin before I begged him for more.

  And finally, when I was breathless and panting, I reached for his hot arousal and positioned him against my slick and swollen core. And when the tip of his hard length pushed inside my entrance, stretching my unused muscles, the pain I felt only made the pleasure burn that much brighter.

  I felt the moment he took the piece of me I’d been told to save, and I knew I’d been saving it for him. All this time, I’d been his.

  And as he moved inside me, I became lost in so many sensations I never knew existed. I savored the fullness. I savored the pleasure-drunk words he murmured against my lips about how good I felt, how this must be heaven. I savored it all.

  He tried to go slow like I tried to be good. Unsuccessfully. He took me savagely like the apple took Eve. It ripped her from pure and chaste Eden. But the knowledge of being one with someone who held as much turmoil inside as I did was worth the fall.

  And when my body exploded with a pleasure that felt so unearthly it either had to be completely divine or completely devilish, I screamed his name like it was a Halleluiah as he jerked inside me, filling me with his hot release.

  And my desire smothered my rationality because it was only one time…

  Maybe I wasn’t made for a guilt-free life. Maybe, for one night, I wanted to be a sinner just like everyone else… for one night, I wanted to be human so that I wouldn’t be alone.

  But one night is where my story’s similarity to any fairytale would end.

  The truth was that guilt had been built into my genes and the more minutes that passed, the more I knew I needed to go and pretend like this had never happened.

  And not just for my sake.

  Ash wasn’t okay. He was battling things I didn’t understand, things I didn’t know the full scope of. But most of all, he was struggling with loyalty. His to others. Theirs to him. And his to himself.

  I didn’t want tonight to add more weight to his chains—not now when it seemed like one more burden might break him. He wasn’t obligated to me. We were both adults. We’d both made a willing choice. And my choice was to walk away without the expectation of more.

  So, I waited until I was sure he wasn’t going to be sick… and until I was strong enough to let him go.

  Pulling on my clothes, I wished the growing sunlight could wipe my memories along with his. Instead, I stepped into the hallway and walked away from the apple in a worse predicament than Adam and Eve.

  I’d tasted the knowledge of good and evil—the knowledge of relativity. It taught me good because it let me taste bad; it taught me light because it showed me darkness. And it taught me pain by having me shun such pleasure.

  I’d tasted the emotions which allowed you to live fully.

  And now, I had to pretend I knew nothing.

  Ash

  Present

  Carmel Cove, California

  “Hello. My name is Ash. I’m an alcoholic and it’s been one-hundred and forty-nine days since my last drink.”

  “Hello, Ash,” the rest of the Tuesday afternoon Alcoholics Anonymous group responded in unharmonized chorus from the circle where we sat inside Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.

  This was my Tuesday lunch—and it had been for the past four or so months. I sent a tight smile over to Larry, my sponsor. My savior. He sat in front of the small table which served coffee from his coffee shop, Ocean Roasters. And next to him stood the proud banner that symbolized the battle cry of our congregation.

  Recovery is the gift you give yourself.

  There wasn’t a week that went by where I didn’t need the reminder. It was the first gift—the first thing—I’d given myself in a very, very long time.

  Larry Ocean was the unofficial king of Carmel Cove, a small town about two hours south of San Francisco, famous f
or its breathtaking cliffs, world-renown golfing, and, of course, Roaster’s rich and addicting coffee.

  But he wasn’t King like Caesar; he was King like Cincinnatus—the dictator who ruled Rome to save it from defeat and when the war ended, instead of keeping power for himself, went back to his farm and his normal life.

  Willing to stand up when needed. Knowing to step down when necessary.

  I kept speaking, choosing to tell my tale as though it were a weekly confessional.

  “I know a lot of you have heard my story, but I thought about having a drink last night, so I hope you don’t mind if I share again.”

  Here, I felt safe in my failures and my weakness. Here, I wasn’t alone because the rest of the people in the room saw me for more than my mistakes, just like I did for them.

  “Last night, my sister called to tell me she’s engaged. For those who don’t know, my alcoholism almost cost my sister her career and the love of her life.”

  My hands folded in my lap. It never got easier to speak about what I’d done. I hoped it never did.

  “Five months ago, I found out she and my best friend were in a relationship and had kept it from me. I drank so much… I got so drunk—which is saying a lot for an alcoholic.” There was a small rumble of laughter through the group. “Because of my addiction, it felt like the ultimate betrayal. Because of my addiction, my hurt became hate. And I drank so much that what should’ve been fixed with a conversation, instead awoke a monster of rage who lied and threatened to hurt them like they’d hurt me.”

  I paused and let my gaze scan the room, making sure I looked each and every person in the eyes because there was no hiding from this; there was no hiding from the truth.

  “I threatened to ruin my sister’s reputation—a reputation I’d given so much of my life to help her build—if my best friend didn’t break her heart.”

  Bile still rose in my throat every time I said those words because I didn’t recognize the man who’d done that and yet, that man was me.

  I felt like a real-life Jekyll and Hyde—only it was either the Alcoholic or Ash.

  “Five months ago, I realized my alcohol addiction turned me into a man I still don’t recognize, and that man did things I never would have imagined.”