Limbo

DAWN:

Ash leads me into the house, with everyone following along behind us like a flock of ducks or something, sort of whispering amongst themselves. When we get inside, Amy walks up beside me and says, "Come with me, and I'll show you where you can wash your face, hon."

I let go of his hand, and suggest, "Why don't you go ahead and start looking at my sketches while I'm cleaning up? I'll be right back, and then you can tell me what you think."

"Okay, yeah, I can do that," he agrees, giving me a dazzling smile. "But hurry up, okay? We've got some catching up to do."

I follow Amy down the hall to a bathroom, and she gives me a washcloth and a bottle of soap to wash my face. "I guess it's a good thing I didn't decide to wear a lot of makeup today," I comment as I dry myself off. "At least I don't have to worry about mascara on my blouse."

"Yeah, about that..." she says hesitantly. "What they were telling us outside... That can't be for real, can it?"

I look her directly in the eye and tell her, "Depends on what exactly they told you. If you're referring to the 'ghost' thing, then, yeah, it was most definitely real. I know it might be kind of hard to believe, but they were telling you the absolute truth."

She's quiet for a couple of minutes, and seems to be having some difficulty processing my answer. So when she opens her mouth to respond, I'm pretty much expecting her to proclaim that we're all nuts, but what I hear instead is, "Do Gwen and Jed know about this?"

"Most of it, yes. They had a little trouble believing it, too, until I was able to tell them things that I shouldn't have known about, since I was in a coma for over a year. Then they kind of had to."

We go back out to where the others are waiting, and before anyone else gets a chance to say anything, Alice has basically enveloped me in a huge hug. "Thank you so much for letting me have my Jinxx back," she murmurs into my ear. "You didn't have to give them that awful necklace, but you did, even though you knew that you'd be putting yourself back in that maniacs grasp, and I'll always be grateful for that."

"You're welcome," I reply. "Knowing him as well as I do, there was no way I'd just leave anyone in that situation, especially someone I think of as a friend."

Then, when she finally lets go of me, CC swoops in and whirls me up off the floor, and ends up handing me off to Andy. After that, I basically wind up getting passed around like a baby bunny at a petting zoo before I finally make my way over to the love seat where Ash is sprawled out with my sketchbook propped up on his lap. He pats the cushion next to him, inviting me to sit, and inquires, "You okay there, hon? Looks like they got you a little mussed here."

"Yeah, I'm good now. And I don't mind a bit, I'm just glad to be able to see everyone again. Up until I got here, I didn't think I ever would again. Outside of music videos and that sort of thing, that is."

"And I had myself convinced that I'd never see you again at all," he admits. "I honestly figured that you hated my guts, since I was such an asshole to you that day. I was just stupid enough to let myself believe that Jimmy actually knew what he was talking about. Or Wade, or whatever the fuck his name is."

I'm a bit confused as to what he's talking about, so the guys explain how Wade was passing himself as some sort of "ghost hunter" down at the cafe, trying to get himself into the house, and how he'd been trying to convince everybody that ghosts are dangerous, and would take advantage of people whenever they got the chance. Ash sort of hangs his head, looking utterly ashamed, and says, "And when some of our personal talks seemed to kind of line up with the things he was saying, I guess I just got paranoid, and jumped to a stupid conclusion."

"More like you leapt on it, put it in a wrestling hold, and beat it into an unrecognizable mess," Jinxx retorts, and Ash just nods in agreement. Then as he turns his gaze back to me, something catches his attention and reaches over to run his finger along the sleeve of my blouse.

"Is this one of yours?" he asks. "I definitely like this look. Sort of... gypsy Victorian Oriental, is the best description I can come up with."

I'm kind of surprised by how well he's picked up on the inspiration for this particular design, because the main part of the blouse is based on an old-fashioned corset pattern, but fastened with black velvet frog closures instead of being laced. It's made with peacock-blue Chinese brocade, with billowy, sheer black sleeves that are open at the top from the shoulder down to the cuff, which is also made of the blue fabric. There is also boning sewn into the front seams to support my bust, and the edges are bound in black velvet that matches the frogs.

"I was going through the drawings, and between them, and your shirt, and the dress you put Amy in last night, I'm having a little bit of a dilemma," he informs me.

"What sort of a dilemma?"

"Well, part of me wants to just jump right in and hire you to work for APFI right here and now," he says. "But, the other part is telling me that you should have the chance to make it on your own, without having to have my name, or anyone else's attached to it, because you definitely have the talent to pull it off. So I guess the question is, what do you want to do?"

I pause to consider it for a couple of minutes, looking at it from both sides of the argument, and finally decide: "I think, for right now, at least, that I should probably work for you. There are a lot of things that I haven't quite figured out on the business end, so I should probably learn more about those before I even think about trying to go out on my own. And I know you, so I'm pretty sure I can trust you not to try to steal my designs, or any of the other awful things that you hear about people doing. So if you're sure, then I'd very much like to come and work for you."

He smiles from ear to ear, wraps his arm around me, and gives me a squeeze. "That's terrific!" he enthuses. "The best of both worlds; I get a kick-ass designer for my company, and the cherry on the sundae is that I get to see you more often, too."

"Well, I was kind of hoping to see you fairly regularly anyway," I tease.

"Oh, trust me, you will," he responds. "But now we won't have to wait until after work to hang out together."

We spend a few minutes talking about it, and finally decide that while I'm working for him, I'll mostly concentrate on accessories, like purses and hats, and maybe collaborate with him on glamming up a few of the more contemporary clothing articles. Then, on my own time, I can work on building up inventory for my retro-themed stuff, and be a bit more ready to have my own label a bit later on, when people are more familiar with my name, and I have some buzz going.

Once we get that worked out, we order out for Chinese food, and just hang out for awhile and talk, which gives me a chance to get acquainted with the other girls, who are all very nice and welcoming. Then, when I finally get up to go home, Ash pulls me off to the side, and says, "The only thing that sucks about this right now is that we start the first leg of the tour in just over two weeks, which means that I'll be on the other side of the country for nearly a month and a half, and we won't get to see much of each other. So I was wondering... Would you like to finally go on an actual date with me? We couldn't do that before, since there wasn't any way to know if people were aware of you or not. Maybe we could go out to dinner, or catch a movie or something?"

"Yes, I'd love to go out with you," I assure him. "When would you like to go?"

"Anytime you're free, darlin'."

"I'm free right now, so we could do it tonight, if you want. But before we do, I'd kind of like to take you to meet my family. They know about me meeting you guys, and hanging out at the house, but I didn't tell them everything, obviously. So it might kind of weird them out a little bit if I just suddenly announce that I'm going out with some guy that they haven't even gotten to meet yet."

"That sounds good to me," he responds enthusiastically. "How about you give me your address, I'll go home and get cleaned up and changed, and pick you up about six. Does that sound good?"

I agree to the plan, then say goodbye to everybody and walk out to my car. He comes out with me, carrying my sketchbook, handing it to me when I open my door. Before I get in the car, I finally get up the nerve to say something that's been on my mind for most of the afternoon. "Ummm, Ash... I was kind of wondering if you might be okay with it if we... just kind of...? If we don't... you know... right away?"

He puts his arms around me, kisses my forehead, and looks into my eyes, saying, "Yeah, I'm okay with that, hon. I know that I need to work on getting your trust back, and while I can't lie nearly well enough to tell you that the thought of... 'you know'... with you isn't incredibly tempting, I won't ever try to push you. Whenever you decide that you're ready, it's entirely your decision. But, before you go, would it be all right for me to kiss you?"

"For real, this time," I remind him with a grin. "Yeah, I think I might be okay with that."

He cups my face in his hands and brings his lips down to mine, kissing me softly at first, but becoming a bit more passionate when I let him know it's okay by winding my fingers into his hair. When we finally have to stop for breath, all I can say is, "Wow! Just... wow!"

"You can say that again," he agrees. "It was good before, but I have to say that it's much better now that we're both flesh and blood."

I finally get into the car, and after another kiss, he says goodbye and heads back toward the house. I tap the horn to let them know to open the gate, and as I drive out onto the street, I can only think of one thing; We're supposed to just be getting to know each other better before we take things to another level, but when I react like that to one kiss, how long am I actually going to be able to hold out?

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