Bittersweet Sundown

“How did we get back so fast?” Brian asked when they crossed the state line to California. He didn’t seem happy at all. Looking at his serious face, Ash knew that he didn’t want to go home yet. He had been quiet all day and it was almost sundown now.

“Hey, we don’t have to drive to Huntington today. It’s late and we have few more hours to go. We could stay somewhere for a night. Or two,” Ash said, feeling a bit unsure about the last part. For some reason, she wanted to do this for Brian, to give him few more days he seemed to be in need. On the other hand, she was afraid of making a mistake, afraid that Brian would hide his good side and everything would shatter again.

“You would do that for me? You’d stay with me for a couple of days because I don’t wanna go back yet?” Brian was stunned. He couldn’t understand why this girl was so nice to him after all he’d done and said to her.

“You seem like you need it. And I’m not in a hurry. So if you promise to behave then why not,” she heard herself saying. It was too late to back up now. “Besides, thanks to your airplane trick we’re way ahead of time, no one is expecting us yet. Or me at least.”

“I don’t get you,” Brian confessed, still looking at the girl behind the wheel.

”Sorry to disappoint you then,” she muttered, not sure what Brian meant with this.

“You’re not disappointing me. You’re interesting,” he said, smirking now. Ash glanced a look at Brian, unable to keep the smile off her own lips.

“If you really wanna do this, then we could rent a cabin at the Big Bear Lake for a few days,” Brian offered after some silence. Ash had to admit that he had kept his promise and been nice to her. She could test her luck for a few more days. Worst thing that would happen was Brian’s evil side returning and making her mad again. But she knew it would happen eventually anyway. She could at least take advantage of the few days he was actually civil towards her.

It was almost midnight when they reached Big Bear Lake. Brian instructed her to stop in front of some building.

“I’ll go see if I can get us a cabin. Wait here, okay?” he said, opening the car door only after Ash gave him a nod.

Feeling really tired, Ash climbed to the passenger seat and leaned her head against the cool window. Brian came back five minutes later, some papers in his hand.

“Okay, I got us a Tree Top Lodge, two bedrooms, a fireplace and an amazing view to the mountains,” Brian said, looking at a paper with some map on it. After scanning the map for a minute, he drove out from the parking lot, soon turning to some narrow, unlit dirt road. At some point, a deer jumped on the road, right in front of them. Luckily Brian drove slow enough that he managed to stop before hitting the poor animal.

“This should be it,” Brian said at last, stopping in front of a cabin, buried in darkness. No lights were on and even the moon was behind a cloud. Only source of light came from her car lights. Until Brian turned off the engine, then everything disappeared into pitch black darkness.

“And you think I’ll find the way inside in this blackness? I can’t even see the damn house,” Ash asked, hiding her nervousness with laughter. Without saying a word, Brian got out of the car and took their bags. Then he walked to the other side of the car and held out his hand for Ash.

“Come on princess, I’ll protect you,” he snickered. Sighing, Ash reached out her hand and grabbed the first thing her fingers touched. It happened to be Brian’s shirt, down on his waist, almost near his groin. She was glad that all this darkness would hide her blushing. Laughing now, Brian took her hand in his and they started to walk towards the house. She stumbled a couple of times and almost screamed once when her leg got stuck behind a small branch, thinking it was a snake or some monster. She was unbelievably thankful when they reached the door at last and Brian led her inside.

Brian found the light switch and Ash was blinded for a moment. When she opened her eyes again, she was looking at a beautiful living room, with a dark brick fireplace and two beige couches.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, not wanting to disturb the silence around them.

“Come on, lets find the bedrooms. I don’t know about you, but I’m beat,” Brian said, walking away from her, turning the lights on. Ash followed him quietly to the first bedroom, it was small and had a regular bed in it.

“It must be the smaller one,” Brian muttered, looking around.

“I’ll take it,” Ash said, walking to the bed and throwing herself on it. The mattress was firm but she could handle it.

“You sure? You can take the bigger one if you want,” Brian offered, looking at her, stretching across the bed with her hands over her head.

“Yep, I’m fine here. But I still wanna see the other bedroom too,” she jumped up, smiling. She was so tired that she knew, if she wouldn’t get up right now, she would wake up in the morning like she was now, across the bed and clothes on.

She followed Brian out of the room and in to the next one. This one was a bit bigger and had a slightly wider bed.

“Nice,” she said, looking around. Brian tossed his bag to the floor and tried to hide his yawn.

“Good night, Brian,” Ash wished, smiling at him again. He looked like a tired kid, rubbing his eyes and wishing to be in bed already.

“Night, Ash,” he wished back and watched her walk away. She didn’t close the door behind her and Brian thought about it for a moment. When he didn’t hear the other door closing either, he decided to leave it open. Maybe Ash would feel a bit safer this way.

May 30, 2010

I went to swimming yesterday. Yep, you heard right. Well, it wasn’t actually swimming, more of just floating in the pool with Brian. But it was awesome after I got over my first shock. I might do it again sometimes.

Brian has been behaving unbelievably good. I’m truly amazed. He’s like a whole different person. I really like him now. Of course, it makes suppressing my feelings for him a lot harder. But I can’t hope yet, this all we have now, it’s too good to be true. I know something has to go wrong. I just know it.

On the next day, Ash was up early, as usual. She moved around, trying to be as quiet as possible. After taking a shower and changing into new clothes, she looked around in the kitchen. There was no coffee of course. She remembered that she had slipped a can of NesCafe Gold to the box with kitchen stuff, since Sean didn’t drink instant coffee, there was no point in leaving it behind. She wanted to go search for it but she couldn’t find her car keys. Realizing that Brian probably has them, she sat down on the couch, not wanting to wake him up yet.

Brian got up three hours later. He pulled his jeans on and stomped out of his room. He stopped at the corner of the living room, seeing Ash on the couch, laughing at Tom and Jerry, running on the TV. She looked cute, laying there on her stomach with her legs up and chin propped on her arms. He finally stepped forward, going to sit on the other couch.

“Morning. Did I wake you up?” Ash asked, taking in his messed up, just out of bed appearance. He looked still sleepy.

“No. I usually wake up around this time,” Brian shrugged, looking at the cartoon. Ash turned her gaze back to TV also. Now there was Tom, wearing a Chinese kimono, trying to meditate, when Jerry was blowing up fireworks outside and scaring Tom so, he jumped up to the ceiling. When he fell down with the big stone block from the ceiling Brian started to laugh.

“This is so ridiculous,” he said while standing up. He looked around the kitchen too.

“There’s no coffee if you’re looking for it. I have a can of instant coffee in the car but I don’t have the keys,” Ash smirked, sitting up on the couch.

“Oh, sorry. I believe I have them,” he said, fishing through his pockets. He held out the keys with a victorious grin on his face.