"Stop saying sorry!" I laughed. "Can you just, uh, maybe explain to me what happened? You know, that night.."
"Oh, Murphy, it wasn't even that bad." Ashton sighed. He walked me over to my bed and both of us sat down on the end of it, our hands still laced together.
"Just tell me." I whispered. I wasn't going to be mad at Ashton. I honestly didn't think that him keeping it from me was a big deal, things probably would have turned out way differently if he had just come out and said it when we first met. I was just confused, I wanted to get the whole story straight.
"It was about two months after Kenzie...died, and I wasn't at the party with you, I was walking home from - from her grave. I go there sometimes." Ashton paused. "And Luke and Calum were walking you home because you got yourself so drunk, but they were a little tipsy too and wanted to get back to the party. So we eventually crossed paths and they begged me to take you home, since Luke knew that I lived just down the block from you. Luke just wanted to make sure that you got home safely."
"Is this how you know Luke?" I asked, remembering that at my parents party a little while ago Luke and Ashton had acted like they knew each other.
"We had met a few times before." Ashton coughed awkwardly into his shoulder.
"Oh, okay go on." I said, sitting up straighter.
"So I walked you the rest of the way home and," Ashton laughed, "you were kind of all over me."
"Was I really?" I asked, letting out a quiet laugh. I knew that something like this was going to come up eventually, considering that my parents found me and the boy almost naked on the staircase.
"Yeah. You brought me inside and mentioned something about your parents being out and then said something crazy about a water bed. So I finally gave in and we started kissing and.. I don't know, Dani, do I have to explain the rest?" Ashton asked, a small smile on his lips.
"What happened when we got caught?" I asked, still interested in hearing more.
"Well I guess your parents were home that night, and they heard us coming up the stairs because I tripped - " Ashton stopped talking to chuckle again. "And by the time your parents came and saw us I had no shirt, my pants were unzipped all the way, and I was working on getting you out of your dress."
"Oh." I said, biting at the inside of my cheek. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't upset at all, I honestly thought the whole thing was kind of funny.
"And when I got home I just felt so guilty, because I had gotten you in a ton of trouble and I felt like I was doing something wrong because - because my girlfriend just died a couple of months before." Ashton sighed. "I don't know, I just got so carried away, I guess. I had just lost my girlfriend of three years and my best friend wasn't - and still isn't - speaking to me. I just wanted to feel...loved, by someone, anyone."
I nodded, still trying to find something to say that would actually be useful. I felt more stupid than anything now, knowing that I had let myself get so drunk that I couldn't even remember Ashton's name.
"That's why I had such a hard time opening up to you in the beginning, because I was angry that you didn't even remember who I was. I didn't realize that I didn't mean anything to you in the first place, and I was just mad that you didn't think twice of me." Ashton finished. He let go of my hand and ran his own through his hair.
"So we - we never had sex?" I asked.
"No, no." Ashton shook his head. "I think we would have, if your parents hadn't caught us."
"Oh, good." I let out a sigh of relief. As much as I liked Ashton, I would hate to have lot my virginity to him while I was so drunk. I wanted to remember it.
