Dude...Thats Not a Guy

34. Piece of Cake

Ashton's POV:

"This seems like the soul searching part of your journey, so I am going to go. Okay? Good luck. I will hear all about it however this goes so tread carefully." Ezekiel told me before abandoning me in the Kingston's lounge room.

I guess him leaving me here was probably for the best. I didn't really know how to respond to him anyway, and maybe he was right.

Soul-searching part of your journey.

I froze when Soraya told me how she felt, for a few reasons. First, was that there was much going on that I didn't know when we had the time to develop any of those feelings. Second, I wasn't sure if she wanted to feel that way, not with her past. Third, the thought honestly terrified me, not that she liked me in that way, but that I cared about her.

I fucked up relationships, ended them before I got too involved, and risked being in pain from heartbreak. I stuck around for the chase, got what I wanted, and left. There was no way I could do that to Soraya, which meant I had to choose right now between risking everything for whatever we could be or lying to her and saving myself from future pain.

It would be a lie to end it before it began, to say that I don't feel that way about her, because I do. I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it happened, nor did I want to. My feet took me to the stairs, but I froze at the bottom of them. It was only a few hours ago I was telling Sora I only wanted a relationship if I thought it would last, all the while briefly looking at her so she wouldn't be able to tell that the person I thought about being with was her.

I didn't really remember when I first thought that either, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it was when she punched Luke Pierce in the jaw after he lightly threatened me at that stupid baseball game. The same day she got angry at me because of my risk of re-injuring my ankle. When she refused to pitch what I was calling to avoid putting me in pain, which pissed me off to no end but made me realise how much she cared about me. When she went to field the ball on the third base line and I saw Pierce running towards her like a fucking bull and all it caused was panic to hit my veins, forcing me to get to her first and get her out of the way. When I first called her petite colombe. My dove. A nickname I hoped she still hadn't figured out.

This would be it if I went up these stairs. There would be no way that I could turn back, no way to take back what I say and no way back to being friends. Not like we have been, anyway. If this doesn't work out, and if we did somehow stay friends, it wouldn't be as comfortable or as close. It would be an echo of what we have. But she had probably already thought about that, which would explain why she had been so quiet on the way back home.

She had thought about that and still told me how she felt.

Well, if she would risk it, what was stopping me?

I took the first step, and when it didn't cave in, I took it as a sign that this was a good idea, so I took the next one. And the next one. It was probably the slowest that I had walked, but I needed to stretch out the time just a little longer.

I needed to work out exactly what I was going to say.

Hey, I know I didn't get to respond to you down there when you told me you liked me, so... I like you too, Soraya. If you want to see where this will go, I want to go there with you.

Okay, that's not too bad. We could go with that. With each step closer to her room, I felt confidence return to my body. This was something I could do. I had gone through this routine with other girls plenty of times. I'm well practiced. Yeah, but you never actually really liked them, did you?

Shit. My subconscious was right. While I did like them all, I liked their bodies more than who they were as people – and that was definitely shitty on my part. This was different, severely so. From when I first saw her, I knew I was attracted to her, but becoming friends with her, learning who she was and everything about her, how strong she was, how determined and caring and protective...