~Esther~
"Ready?" Ash asked, slowly opening the door to his new apartment.
He had mentioned a few days ago that he wanted an apartment so he didn't have to live with his dad anymore and I was surprised at how quickly he found this one. I nodded and my jaw dropped when he opened the door. He moved to the side after stepping into the apartment, letting me in before closing the door behind us.
The place was huge. The first thing I walked into was a large living room with beautiful furniture already in its place. The kitchen connects to the living room but it's not secluded which makes the room look open and inviting. There's two doors on the left side of the living room while there's one on the right and the large sliding glass door on the other side of the living room from me, gave a beautiful view of the patio which overlooks the hills behind the building.
Ash chuckled from beside me as he watched me stare in awe at the beautiful apartment. I didn't even know there were apartments like this anywhere near our town. Let alone only fifteen minutes away. "Do you like it, darling?" He leaned against the wall while he continued to watch me.
"Ash, it's beautiful. How did you find this?" I followed him as he walked towards the door on the right side of the living room. He opened the door to reveal a large bedroom with a king sized bed in the middle of it.
"Luck." He jokingly answered. I walked around the bedroom looking at all the decor already hanging on the walls. Did he do this by himself? "I had an interior designer decorate everything already." He spoke, answering my question before I could ask.
"How did you even know what I was thinking?" I asked in shock as I turned back to him.
"I'm a mind reader, darling. We've talked about this." He chuckled, walking over to the bed and pulling me with him. He let himself fall back onto the bed which made me fall on top of him. I let out a squeal as I landed on his hard chest which causing Ash to laugh.
"That's not funny, I wasn't ready." I tried to glare at him but it failed when I started laughing too. Ash lifted my head off his chest and brought my lips to his, connecting them in a soft sweet kiss.
As the kiss started to turn rougher his hands ran down my back to grab my ass, squeezing slightly. A breathy quiet moan escaped my lips from the feeling and Ash took that as his chance, slipping his tongue into my mouth.
Our tongues tangled together as I reached up and raked my fingers through his hair. His hands rubbed soothingly up and down my sides and I repositioned my body on top of his so now I was straddling him.
Just to tease him I decided to grind on him and immediately I felt him harden beneath me. I smiled against his lips when he groaned.
I continued to grind a bit more before stopping the movement of my hips and sitting up, smiling at him like nothing just happened. "Let's finish the tour, I haven't even seen the other rooms yet."
He raised one eyebrow while he held onto my waist, not letting me get off of his lap yet. "Uh uh." He lightly wrapped his hand around my neck and pulled my face back towards his. "Darling, you can't tease me like that and expect to walk away." He mumbled against my lips, a small smirk on his face.
I let him kiss me once more before pulling away again, adamant to see the rest of his apartment. "So what are in the other rooms? The ones on the other side of the living room?"
Ash sighed, knowing I wasn't going to give up until he showed me them. "Fine, but we're coming back here when we're done." I laughed as he tried to be annoyed but it failed when he kissed me once more and a little smile spread across his face.
"Sure." I agreed. He loosened his grip on my waist, letting me climb off him before he stood up and led me towards the white door on the left side of his bedroom.
"This is the bathroom." He opened the door, and moved to the side so I could see the huge black and white themed room before walking to the door a few feet away on the same wall and opening it too. "And this is our closet."
I stopped him before he could say anything else. "Our?"
He nodded, "It's yours too when you're here. There's no way I'm going to let you sleep in the guest bedroom, darling."
I started imagining what it would be like to live here with Ash. I'd get to wake up in his arms everyday, I'd get to cook dinner with him while we danced in the kitchen to whatever song was playing on the radio. I'd get to have so many little but amazing moments with him.
Before I could daydream anymore I shook myself out of my own thoughts. He's showing me his apartment, not asking me to move in, quit it.
Ash closed the small closet's door and led me out of his room, towards the other side of the living room. He first opened the door on the left, showing me it was another bathroom except this one was mostly white with a few pieces of blue decor sprinkled in to give it some color. It was beautiful, just like every room in this apartment, although it was a bit smaller than Ash's bathroom.
I let him lead me out of the bathroom and towards the last door, I assumed it was the guest bedroom he had mentioned earlier and when he opened the door I saw I was right. The full size bed was covered with a white comforter while a sky blue accent blanket laid on the bottom corner. There were the same color blue and white throw pillows leaning against the headboard while light blue and white decorations were hung around the room.
"The whole apartment is beautiful, Ash." I turned around to look at him as I spoke. Before he could speak, my phone started ringing. I pulled it out and saw it was Josie calling me, I quickly answered, knowing how impatient she is. "Hey, Josie. What's up?"
"Hey, mom wants to know if you'll be home in time for dinner tonight or if you're going to have dinner at Ashton's place." As Josie spoke Ash grabbed my hand and tugged me towards his bedroom.
I sighed. "I told mom I wasn't going to be home in time before I left, I'll either eat with Ash or I'll grab something on my way home." Ash walked into his room and I followed. He sat on his bed, leaning his back against the headboard and pulling me into him so his chest was against my back.
He rested his head on my shoulder while his arms went around my waist. "Alright, I'll tell her that, see you when you get home." She ended the call, not waiting for my response and I laid the phone down on the bed next to me. I leaned my head back, resting it on Ash's shoulder as he lifted his head off mine.
"Everything okay, darling?" He softly asked.
"Yeah, it's fine, it's just my mother not listening again." I explained.
-------
I turned my head to look at Ash. We had been laying in his bed and talking for the past few hours about everything and anything, although mostly it was about the trial date that was in a little less than two weeks. The trial wasn't supposed to be for another three weeks but it got moved up a week because the judge had something come up and her only available spot was September 19th. Twelve days from now.
Ash is worried about me not being ready for it but I'm still confident that I'll be fine. I don't think it's hit me yet that I'll have to stand in front of almost a hundred people and remember everything that happened to me.
I shook off the thought, I could worry about it some other time. Right now I was spending time with Ash and I didn't want to ruin that from being emotional about the trial.
Randomly, I started thinking about before we were dating, somehow he knew my middle name before I even got the chance to tell him. I'd always wondered how he knew but I'd always forget to ask when I had the chance. "Ash?"
He looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. "Yes, darling?"
"How did you know my middle name even before we started dating?" I finally asked the question that I had wanted to ask for years, since he started calling me Mae instead of Esther like everyone else does.
He looked puzzled at my random question but soon a smile tugged at his lips. "Do you really want to know the answer?"
I paused. How bad is the answer? It can't be that bad. I hesitantly nodded. "I seriously hope it isn't anything embarrassing, but yes."
Ash chuckled and started to explain. "One day during class in sixth grade I couldn't focus so I started looking around the room and I saw you. You were writing something on a piece of paper and it didn't look like notes for the class, it looked like a letter. You were writing that letter the whole class so, naturally, my curiosity took over and I started wondering what it said."
It took me a second but I soon remembered that note he was talking about. It was a note confessing my love – or what I thought was love – for my crush at the time. I didn't remember who it was about, the only thing I remember was that it was the most embarrassing thing I've ever written.
"So, when you forgot it on your desk when you went to lunch," Ash continued. "I went over to see what you wrote. I only got to see your name at the bottom before the teacher ushered me out of the room and to lunch. You signed that letter with your full name and when I read your middle name I thought it was beautiful so that's what I started calling you."
I mentally sighed a breath of relief when he said he didn't have time to read it. I would've buried myself in the comforter underneath me and never come out if he had.
"You seemed relieved when I said I didn't read the letter, darling. Is there something I should know about what was in that letter?" Ash teased.
I shook my head with a smile on my face from his teasing. "I only remember bits of it but from what I remember it was embarrassing and I'm just glad you didn't read it."
"Mhm. Now I'm thinking I should've." He joked, pulling me on top of him. He lightly grabbed my neck and pulled my face down to him so he could connect our lips in a sweet but also demanding kiss, picking up where we left off earlier.
------------------------------------------
Author notes:
I apologize if this chapter isn't as great as some of the others, I haven't been feeling the greatest since Friday and I haven't been writing much so I know not everything I write will be perfect right now.
It's hard to explain but right now I feel like I've got writer's block but at the same time, I don't. I've got all the ideas of what I want to write and I've got the motivation to write but I can't seem to figure out how to write it all. I can't figure out how to word it so it sounds like Esther or Ash is talking if you know what I mean. (I'm sorry if I confused you with all that, to be honest I confuse myself too.)
Anywho, thank y'all for coming to my Ted Talk.
xoxo ~ Alex