Sign Your Name Across My Heart

Chapter twenty-four

My party was fun and to my surprise, I spent most of it sitting with Hawthe and chatting. Ivy was presumably off somewhere with Bram because she was very hard to find. I snuck away from Hawth and went to the bathroom at some point during the night to call Ash, but he never answered. I felt angry at him, betrayed. Perhaps betrayed was an intense word to use, but I couldn't believe his actions. He didn't show up for me on my birthday. What was supposedly a joke, part of the plan - cancelling on me earlier in the night, ended up becoming a reality and it made me heartbroken.

Hawthe is a gentleman, that wasn't hard to see. He never stepped any boundaries, he never said anything that made me uncomfortable or turned off from the conversation. I got to know him on a deeper level than just the surface, than just the things that I've been told by Ash. He's sweet and he has a softer side to him than what he shows on the outside when you first meet him.

At the end of the night, he asked me if I wanted to finish the party off at his place with Bram and Ivy. I denied, as I wasn't sure what his motives were - but I knew nothing good would come out of it. I wasn't even sure why he did that. He knows I'm with Ash and it would be wildly inappropriate to go to his place, especially considering what happened with him. Just because Ash wasn't answering me, it didn't mean that our relationship was just magically over and I was free to do anything I wanted with anyone else, especially his boss.

I think even if he hadn't crossed any boundaries and he was respecting Ash and I's relationship, at the end of the day he's still a man and he's going to try whatever he can.

Despite denying his request to go over to his house, he still drove me home. He hadn't had much to drink and said it was the least he could do for me on my birthday. I told him it was fine and that I would just take a taxi but he insisted and I eventually gave in. I had a feeling he wasn't going to take no for an answer. He didn't seem like the kind of man that would ever take no for an answer, which I didn't know how I felt about that.

The ride home was nice, nonetheless. We spoke about a wide variety of things, like how long he's lived in his house and all of the renovations that have been made since then. He asked me about my childhood and what growing up was like for me and the one thing I did enjoy was that he didn't once bring up anything about drugs, selling or anything to do with his line of work. It was a breath of fresh air honestly, because I thought it was absolutely going to be his favourite topic of interest to talk about with me, to gloat and show off how successful he is and how much money he has, kind of like what Bram does.

Something else he never brought up was Ash, which I was also glad about. I didn't want to talk about him, funny enough. I was so upset at the circumstances that he wasn't someone I wanted to chat about and I think he understood that. He was even quite surprised that Ash never showed up.

He dropped me off and I gave him a happy smile. I thanked him for the night and for booking the venue, and he told me words that stuck with me for the rest of the night. He said, "You're welcome. You deserve the world." It had come out of nowhere and I didn't even respond, because I didn't know how to. I had just gulped and shut the door, hurrying to my door - practically running there. Why did he say that? Is that truly how he feels? Why does he feel that way? I had so many questions but none of them could be answered, because that would have resulted in me asking all of them and I didn't think I really even wanted the answers.

I called Ash one more time before I went to bed and again, there was never a reply. I felt annoying, clingy, and desperate. I've never had a boyfriend before until him and this was the first time something like this has ever happened - so I wasn't sure how to react. Blowing up his phone seemed both appropriate and inappropriate. I didn't want to come off as too intense but I also just wanted to hear his voice and hear a damn good reason why he couldn't have at least sent me a message to explain. That's all I wanted.

It was hard to fall asleep that night, my mind was spinning and going over a million hypothetical reasons. None of them seemed worth him blowing me off.