★ Warning Mature Content ★
Asher Kells is a Rock Star and Rapper, complete with tattoos on nearly every inch of his thickly muscled body. He has a badass ability to play the guitar, and he sang like crush diamonds, amber whiskey, and smoke. While I...
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The smooth mahogany from my grandmother's guitar was cool on my lap. But even with the coolness comfort radiated from it. Asher's car door opened with and closed with a thud. I cracked open my eyes to him sitting next to me. Everything about him changed, and the wrongness is back in full force. He starts up the engine with a roar driving back onto the highway. I extend my hand to him and it hangs in the air between us. He doesn't take it and I don't know why it hurt but it hurt. I curled it around my grandmother's guitar pulling her instrument tight. The world race by me. Never felt so alone sitting so close to someone else. This time though he drove carefully.
On the highway as the miles stretch out the stars I so love to see in his nebulous eyes return one blinking light at a time. The wrongness slips away from him. Asher gave me a brief glance as if making sure I was still there while I kept listening to my music on my headphones. I had nowhere else to go. We were on the highway he was driving. It was like he didn't want me to know he was looking and it was a little funny. Maybe he thought I was sleeping?I wasn't. His hand touched mine while it was on my guitar. I didn't move it away, and I kept listening to my music. His shoulders got less stiff, and he kept his hand in place as we drove the night.
Sacramento to Los Angeles is about 6 hour's drive. So, fake sleeping through the rest of the 2 hours wasn't an option. I open my eyes catching Asher looking at me again. He removed his hand against mine and kept driving. I wish he'd have kept it there. At that moment I was like fuck it. I took his hand back and put it next to my guitar with me. He smiled and kept driving. We were slowly getting back to the happy place we were before the call and weirdness drained out into the wind.
"Is that guitar a Gibson L5?" Asher asks.
"Yep, I see the lust in your eyes," I say with a laugh. It's always that way with guitar people. The older a guitar is the better it sounds. Wood dries out and improves the tone giving it more of a character sound. "Harriet was my grandmother's, it's my pride and joy. It came in a set. One was my grandfather's that got passed to my mother. The other one is Harriet who belonged to my grandmother. But my brother sold it to help pay for our college. I want to repurchase it for my brother someday." The sad thought of it owned by my college professor but well-loved always made my heart ache.
"Harriet's beautiful," he said.
As the hours kept going, I remember something. Greedy as always I wanted my shit.
"What's the surprise?" I asked him.
"You didn't use up all your guesses." He replied.
I wasn't really in the mode for more of a guessing game. The muscle car turns onto a street just outside of LA proper. We drove through the night streets before the rest of the city woke up again at dawn. What was the surprise? I gave him my patented don't fuck me with my glare.
Unfortunately, it only made him grin wider. The mischievous baddie was back in full force in the car. That feeling that tugged at my chest tugs again.
Asher pulls into a long driveway in the hills. The night still hasn't broken, pitch black with a golden haze cast by the LA city lights. Stars could barely be seen from the hills. Unlike the long drive where it was like the sky was dipped in glitter and you could run your hands through the stars. It was beyond pitch black, I could barely read the sign Deronda Dr. as we went by. Then we drove up to a gate where a guy was standing by who waved us through.
