Without You

Chapter 59

When we get back home I try and find Ashton looking in the kitchen seeing he's not there I go up to his room knocking on the door I get no response so I open the door and sure enough he's not there either I walk downstairs to the den and only find Josh 

"Hey" I say 

"hey" 

"so your gonna talk to me now" 

"Yeah why wouldn't I" 

"I don't know you haven't since I got here" 

"I'm sorry about that" 

"thank you for the apology" I say sitting down next to him on the couch "what's so wrong with me dating Ashton" I ask

 "nothing I guess" he says 

"So why are you upset" 

"it's just that he's my best friend and your my sister and if something were to go wrong" 

"nothings gonna go wrong" I interrupt him 

"that's what you both say but you don't know that" 

"I guess you're right I don't know that but I can hope wish and pray that it doesn't I can believe that it will work forever" 

"But you don't know" he says again 

"Yeah I don't know but as I said" 

"do you love him?" Josh interrupts 

"what" I ask caught off guard by his question

"do you love him" 

I take a second to think about the question It's the one thing that I had been asking myself since I'd been with him. Do I love him? I knew that I liked him I knew that I wanted to be with him as long as I could but did I actually truly love him with no more than 2 seconds of thinking I blurt out my answer my truth the truth 

"yes I do love him" 

I pause for a moment to take in the words that left my mouth before I could finish processing the thought I love Ashton Baylor I am hopelessly irrevocably in love with Ashton Kendrick Baylor 

"where is he" I ask Josh breaking the moment of silence 

"on the deck" he tells me

 I get up taking one last look at Josh before I leave seeing he's in a similar state of shock as I am I guess he wasn't expecting me to actually say it either. Opening the sliding glass door to the deck I see Ashton looking out to the ocean with a cigarette in his hand smoke rising out into the air I walk up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist and lay my head on his back not saying a word 

"Hey you" he says softly 

"hey love" I say 

"you have fun shopping" 

"I told her" 

"you what" he says flipping around to face me I look to the ground and repeat myself 

"I told her" I feel Ashton's pinky finger on my chin leading my eyes to meet his 

"that's great baby" he says with a smile as I reciprocate 

"you know you shouldn't do that" I say directing my eyes to his cigarette dropping the smile 

"I'm stressed" he says 

"tell me about it" I say rolling my eyes taking the cig from him and taking a drag of my own while he watches me in awe then putting it out in the ashtray 

"your hot" he says 

"I know" I say then walking away down the deck to the sand knowing Ashtons not far behind me 

"where are you going" he asks grabbing my hand to walk with me 

"to finish last night's festivities" 

"which would be" Ashton questions me 

"a walk on the beach and a talk" 

"what do you wanna talk about" 

"the thing you don't" 

"I talked to him and he said" 

"that he doesn't want to lose you" I interrupt 

"Yeah how did you know that" 

"I talked to him and he said something similar to me" 

"he's not going to lose either of us" 

"yeah- nevermind" 

"no what were you gonna say" 

"nothing" I say directing my eyes away from him 

"no baby you can tell me" 

"even if we don't stay together, he won't lose us even if we don't stay together" Ashton doesn't say anything for a second processing the words that I said the hurt that he must be feeling by them 

"you know baby I once had a dream that we were walking on this same beach" 

"what happened" I ask 

"We were talking then two girls ran up to us twins ours" 

"oh" I say speechless we stop walking and Ashton turns to me 

"I guess what I'm trying to say is Blake Marie Stone" he says taking out a small box and getting down on one knee "will you marry me...when were 25" 

"yes" I say choking back tears Ashton gets up off the ground and picks me up spinning placing me down he takes the ring out of the box and places it on my ring finger 

"it's a placeholder for the real thing a promise that I will love you forever and always a promise that josh will never lose us" I look down at the shiny dainty ring that's placed on my wedding finger 

"it's a star" I say 

"yeah so you can have a piece of me with you always" 

"my star" I say as I rise up and kiss him 

"Merry Christmas my love" he says to me "Merry Christmas"