Ash's Darling | ✔

Chapter 53

~Esther~

"Can you tell me now?" I asked as Ash and I walked into his apartment. He had refused to tell me anything in the car, instead telling me he wanted to wait. The whole ride home I had been trying to figure out if this was good or bad news by the way Ash was acting but his body language gave me no clues. Neither did his face, he looked like nothing was out of the ordinary. He didn't look like someone who would have to deal with Matthew on the loose but he also didn't seem like someone who just got news of Matthew being in prison.

"Yes, darling." He finally answered. I set my bag down on the kitchen counter and leaned my back against it, turning my body towards Ash as I waited for him to finally tell me the news. "We won the trial." He smiled at me. "He was sentence to the death penalty."

Relief flooded my body and tears filled my eyes, not yet falling down my face. "You're serious?" I asked, wanting to know he wasn't joking although part of me knew he wouldn't joke like that.

Seeing Ash nod, I let the tears flow down my face, thanking any god there was for putting the fates in my favor. All of the tension and the worry in my body disappeared and I fell into Ash's arms. He caught me quickly and pulled my body against his. "It's okay," He cooed, running his hands up and down my back. "It's over now, I promise."

Ash held me until my tears dried and my breathing returned to normal. I lifted my head off of his chest, seeing that we were now in our room instead of the living room. He must've moved us without me realizing.

He looked down, giving me a kiss before he pulled back. "If you're up to it I was thinking of inviting the guys over to celebrate, you could invite Josie and Indi too."

I thought about it for a moment before nodding. "That sounds fun." We had never had all of our friends over at the same time before so I knew it would be interesting to see how their personalities went together.

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"Wait no! I wasn't paying attention!" Josie cried. We all laughed as Roy shrugged and moved his piece forward six spaces, leaving the spot Josie owned before she could tell him to pay her for landing on her property.

Everyone had arrived almost an hour ago and after much debating we all finally decided to play Monopoly. Indi couldn't make it since she had a family dinner tonight but everyone else had agreed to come.

After about half an hour of playing only a few people owned any spaces including Josie, Ash, and Tim. The rest of us were saving our money and hoping to land on Boardwalk, so far no one had.

We were all crowded around the island counter in the kitchen as we played. Ash was sitting to the left of me while Josie was on the right. Tim was sitting in front of the short side of the counter straight across from Roy who sat along the other short side next to Ash. Straight across from me was Seth with Kyle on his left, near Tim, and Parker on Seth's right side, near Roy.

Ash took the dice in one hand while keeping his other on my thigh while he rolled. The dice landed on the table, one of them showing a two while the other showed a four. We all silently counted the spaces to see where he would land, all of us realizing it at the same time. "Oh come on!" We collectively groaned.

Ash's piece would land right on Boardwalk. We all knew he was going to buy it and knowing our luck, the rest of us would start landing on it now. Ash smiled, moving his piece to Boardwalk and taking four hundred dollars to buy the property. He set the money in the bank and took the small card which told him how much to charge for rent.

He set the card down in front of him before looking up expectantly, waiting for Roy to take his turn. Roy glared at Ash before picking up the dice and rolling. One of the dice landed with a three facing up while the other landed on six.