October, 2021:

      "Geez, watch where you're going, dumbass!" Kyra shouted through the open window as she stomped on the brake pedal to avoid hitting the Smart car that had hurtled across three lanes of traffic and nearly clipped the bumper of her Wrangler as it shot toward the offramp on the opposite side of the highway. "Where the hell do these jack-wagons get their licences anyhow, a bubble gum dispenser?"

      "That's assuming they actually have one," Aidan replied. "But it would be helpful if the driver was at least as smart as the car, because if the ass-monkey keeps doing that kind of crap in that little Matchbox car, it won't be long before somebody has to pick him out of the tread of a semi tire, or something equally gross."

      As she carefully eased into the other lane to reach their own exit, Kyra grumbled, "It never fails. The closer you get to the airport, the more crazies you run into. I just always hope that none of them are the actual pilots, cuz if they drive this badly, I wouldn't trust them to fly a damn plane."

      "Gee, thanks so much for that cheery thought," Aidan retorted. "Not exactly something I wanna be thinking about during my very first plane trip."

      "Oops, sorry about that, hon," her roommate apologized. "I wasn't trying to freak you out or anything, I'm sure everything will be fine. And the flight's only, what... a little over an hour, right?"

      She eased the car into the exit that would take them to Kansas City International Airport, then, once they had safely merged back into the flow of traffic, Kyra quickly cast a mischievous glance at her friend before returning her attention to the road, and said, "Besides, you should have plenty of other things to occupy your mind for that short of a time. Like whether or not you might get to see Ashley in just his towel again."

      "Oh, when are you gonna give up on that!? I've already told you, he's not interested in being anything more than friends, he said so himself," Aidan sighed in exasperation. "So I'm not gonna screw that up, and possibly piss off Aerin, by throwing myself at him. I do have a little more self-respect than that, y'know."

      "Yeah, I know. But I can't help it if I think you'd be cute together. Hell, to be honest with you, if I wasn't dating Danny, I might have thrown myself at him when they came to see you back in May. I mean, I knew from pictures and videos that the man was hot, but day-um! And he seems to be such a really, genuinely nice guy, too."

      "You're obviously not gonna hear me argue either point, because you're right on both counts," Aidan replied as they approached the airport. "But Ash is more into the Playboy Playmate types, which I'm obviously not, so I've accepted the fact that I've been pretty decisively friend-zoned. Yeah, I admit that I wouldn't have minded a bit if things had turned out differently, but it is what it is."

      Kyra pulled up to the entrance to the airport, and Aidan got out, grabbing her bag from the backseat and hoisting it onto her shoulder. Before she closed the door, Kyra called out, "Hey, call or shoot me a text when you land in Nashville, so I know you got there okay! Have fun, and I'll see you Monday!"

      "Yeah, see you Monday!" she called back. "I'll talk to you when I get there!" 

      As Kyra pulled away, Aidan darted inside to collect her boarding pass and find the area where she would actually board the plane when it was called. This, along with paying close attention to all of the announcements that were made, out of fear of missing the boarding call, meant that she didn't have time to think further on Kyra's words until she was securely belted into her seat, watching the plane leave the ground. 

      After accepting a Dr. Pepper from the attendant, she leaned back in her seat, thinking back to Ashley's phone call the previous month, where he had explained that he was putting together a surprise party for Aerin's birthday, and since he knew that it wasn't always financially convenient for her to drive down too often, he was willing to pay for her to fly to Nashville and back, as part of Aerin's birthday gift. She had agreed to accept the offer only after some argument, because even though he had made the offer completely unprompted, she was determined not to do anything that would make him think of her as one of the gold-digging fame-whores that he seemed to have developed a blatant distaste for, judging by the conversation they'd had during his and Aerin's visit to Missouri over the Memorial Day weekend. He had been so direct about how happy he was that she wasn't pursuing him, like so many others did, and how glad he was that they had become friends, that any small hope she might have entertained had been snuffed out like a candle flame. 

      She couldn't deny that she found him attractive, and even if she had been foolish enough to do so, Aerin knew better, and would undoubtedly call her on it. But other than his remarkable looks, she had discovered that he possessed a number of other qualities that made him even more desirable - he was intelligent, creative, and possessed a keen, and often raunchy, sense of humor, along with an unshakable loyalty to those he cared about, a remarkably strong work ethic, and an undeniably soft heart. In other words, the man of her dreams, with his fondness for alcohol and partying being the only real drawbacks she could think of. But since she had resigned herself to the fact that this particular dream would never be realized, she simply hoped that he would eventually find someone who would appreciate him for more than his looks or the trappings of his fame.

      Almost before she knew it, the pilot was on the intercom telling everyone to prepare for landing, so she quickly finished her drink and removed her phone from her purse so she could text Ashley as soon as she stepped off of the plane. He had apologetically asked her to do this so he could send an Uber to pick her up, as there were some other guests arriving at different times and he had to be home to meet them. So as soon as she stepped out onto the tarmac, she messaged him to let him know that she was there, then sent similar texts to her mother and Kyra, so they wouldn't worry. 

      A few minutes later, as she exited the terminal, she received a text from Ashley giving her the information that she needed to find her Uber ride, and informing her that he'd already paid the fare, so she needn't worry about anything except a tip, if she felt that the driver had earned it. Glancing around, she spotted the vehicle, and after confirming that it was indeed the right one, she climbed in for the drive to Ashley's house. Fortunately, since it was a Thursday evening, the traffic wasn't too snarled, so they arrived fairly quickly, and she tipped the driver and made her way to the front door, where she could already hear several people talking inside the house.

      She rang the bell, and Ashley opened the door almost instantly, greeting her with "Hey there! Glad you could make it, Aidan."

      Aerin dashed from the kitchen into the foyer to greet her, surprised because it had been understood that Aidan wouldn't be able to visit again until after the first of the year, when she'd had the time to save up for another trip. And after Aerin commented on the fact that she hadn't expected to see her or "her man", Aidan made a teasing remark about how her friend consistently praised said "man", but wasn't willing to share any details, which prompted Aerin to take her by the hand and lead her toward the kitchen, with Ashley following along behind, chuckling.

      This reaction was a bit confusing until they actually entered the room and she was confronted with the sight of all the past and present members of Poison gathered in the room, along with a couple of others who she didn't recognize. Then, when Aerin moved to embrace one of them, she finally realized that the "Rob" who her friend spoke so glowingly of was none other than Bobby Dall. Finding herself in a room full of celebrities took her a bit off guard for a few seconds, but the tension was quickly broken when Aerin startled Bobby by taking advantage of the fact that no one could see her hands, and basically copping a feel, sending the others into a fit of laughter when they caught on to what had happened. 

      After Ashley and Aerin formally introduced Aidan to Bobby's bandmates, as well as the unknown pair, who turned out to be his son and daughter, they decided to get the party underway. Ashley brought out a cake that he had picked up earlier in the day and stored in the extra refrigerator that he kept on the back deck for parties, which made Aerin go wide-eyed and declare, "Damn it, Ash, this is almost too pretty to cut up, but I bet it tastes too good not to!"

      "It damn well better, if they want a good review," Ashley laughed. "It's chocolate, of course, since we all know that's your favorite. So are we gonna cut it, or just stand here and stare at it all night?"

      After having several pictures taken, Aerin finally cut the cake, and Aidan helped her plate the slices for everyone. Then, when there was nothing left on the platter but crumbs, Bobby proclaimed it time for gifts, and Aerin was soon surrounded by brightly colored bags and boxes, which she dug into like an excited child. She squealed delightedly as she revealed vinyl records, some of them actually vintage, along with figurines and wall art for her room, a few gift cards, and Aidan's gift, which was a bundle of paperback novels, the first six books in an urban-fantasy series that she had previously recommended to Aerin, who had somehow never managed to find the time to seek them out.

      But the gift that basically stole the evening was the customized acoustic bass that Bobby presented her with, based on comments she had made regarding individual features that she liked on several different guitars, which he had managed to have combined into one. This gift actually brought Aerin to tears, prompting CC to jokingly exclaim, "Jeez, girl! Don't tell me you're getting so emotional cuz you're pregnant!" 

      She vehemently denied this possibility, and after explaining her feelings on the matter to everyone, the subject was dropped and the party continued into the early hours of the morning, until several of the guests couldn't hide their yawns and drooping eyes any longer, and began excusing themselves to their assigned sleeping quarters. Ashley had explained to Aidan earlier in the evening that the others had claimed all of the guest rooms before her arrival, and had insisted that she take his bed, while he slept on the couch. She had tried to argue the point with him, not wanting to force him out of his own room, but he had insisted, so she had finally given in and allowed him to deposit her duffel bag in the room.

      So, after everyone had said their goodnights, she found herself in Ashley's room, changing into her nightclothes before climbing into his neatly-made king-sized bed. She then went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth before going to bed, and when she came out, something on the opposite wall caught her eye, and she padded across the carpet for a closer inspection.

      It was a medium-sized framed photograph of a young couple, probably in their mid to late twenties, seated on a couch with a small boy of around two or three years old standing up between them, with a wide, delighted smile on his face, who Aidan recognized instantly as a very young Ashley. "Must be his parents," she murmured to herself.

      "Yeah, that's the last picture of us together," Ashley's voice replied from the doorway, causing her to nearly teleport away from the picture, to the side of the bed. "It was the Thanksgiving before my third birthday, at Nan and Pop's house." 

      "Sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy," she apologized, after taking a few seconds to catch her breath.

      "Don't worry about it, hon, it's not like I had it hidden away somewhere," he replied. "And I'm sorry I startled you, I just came to grab my phone charger and an extra blanket."

      "Are you sure you wouldn't rather I sleep on the couch? I feel bad about pushing you out of your own room." Then, as she noticed him rubbing the back of his neck, she inquired, "Are you okay there, Ash? Did you hurt yourself?"

      "You didn't push me anywhere, I offered," he said. "And I've just been a bit stiff for a couple of days. Jeremiah and I spent the last couple of days gutting out a couple of bathrooms, and those old porcelain fixtures aren't exactly light."

      "And yet you're planning to try to sleep on the couch," Aidan muttered. "Well, if you won't be reasonable and sleep in your own bed, then the least I can do in return is give you a backrub, and see if that'll help work some of the stiffness out."

      Ashley's eyes fairly lit up, and he replied, "If you're sure you don't mind, I'll gladly take you up on that. I can't even remember the last time I've had a really good backrub."

      "Consider it done, then. Hang on, and I'll be back in a sec," Aidan told him. She dashed out of the bedroom, returning a couple of minutes later with one of the wooden chairs from the breakfast nook, placing it near the edge of the bed. "Here you go. Sit here, facing the back of the chair, so you can lean forward on it if you need to support yourself."

      He started to straddle the chair, then paused, asking, "Should I leave my shirt on, or take it off?"

      "You'll definitely wanna get rid of the flannel, cuz it's just gonna be in my way. But the tank is entirely up to you, whatever you're comfortable with."

      He walked across the room and deposited the flannel button-down into the laundry hamper, then, after a slight hesitation, threw his black tank in after it before moving back to take his place on the chair. Aidan seated herself on the bed behind him, and as she gazed at his star-covered back, she unthinkingly blurted, "Dude, this had to hurt!" 

      This drew a full-throated laugh from Ashley, and he said, "A bit, but not as much as you seem to think." Lifting his arm, he gestured toward several of his tattoos, then waved his hand toward her. "These on my fingers and around my elbows were actually worse, because the closer to the bone you get, the more it hurts. Unless you're one of those really odd people who want to get their, ummm... fun parts tattooed. I've never inked anyone there, but I've seen it done, and that shit can actually fucking make people cry. Too damn many nerve endings there, y'know."

      "I can only imagine," Aidan agreed, as she started working her thumbs into the base of his neck. "Never had the nerve to get one myself. I've heard too many horror stories about sloppy operators and dirty conditions to convince myself to chance it. Besides, I'm not all that fond of needles."

      "Completely different setup from a hypodermic needle or anything like that," Ashley informed her. "But I'll tell you what. If you ever find something you really want inked on you, let me know, and I'll do it for you myself. We'll call it a birthday gift, or Christmas, whichever it ends up being closest too." Then he let out a huge sigh and practically went limp in the chair, groaning, "Ohh, fuck, that feels good!"

      "Glad to help," Aidan chuckled. " What are friends for, after all? Now maybe you'll be able to sleep a bit more comfortably tonight."

      Then Ashley abruptly raised up from the back of the chair and maneuvered himself around to face her, confusing her by asking, "Is that what we are?"

      "Aren't we?" she queried, with a completely bewildered expression. "I thought that we..."

      "Yes, of course we are," Ashley assured her. "But what I meant... What I'm trying to say is... Are we just friends?"

      "Ash, I'm honestly not sure I have a clue what you're asking me," she said.

      She was confused even further when he face-palmed and mumbled, "Shit, Bobby was right. I am an idiot!" Then he let out a sigh and leaned forward to look her in the eye before continuing with, "I think I've done a really piss-poor job of expressing myself over the last few months, and I'm reasonably sure that there's a pretty strong possibility that you may have misunderstood some things that I've said."

      "Such as?"

      "Such as me opening my big mouth and rattling on about how glad I was that you weren't like most of the other chicks I've met. I mean, yeah, I am, but I think I may have given you the wrong idea about why. And I'm obviously not doing much better now, judging by the way you're looking at me, so I guess I'll just put myself in the line of fire and ask you straight out: Do you think that there's any possibility that you might, at some point, be able to think of me as something more than just a friend?"

      For several seconds, she was incapable of doing anything more than blink at him, with her mouth hanging open, until she saw the hopeful look begin to fade from his face. This allowed her to finally find her words and say, "Do you really even have to ask? To be honest with you, I've actually been thinking about cutting back on my visits, just to make sure I didn't say or do something that would ruin our friendship, and maybe even mine and Aerin's. I thought that when we had that talk at my place, that it was basically your polite way of saying, 'I'm not interested, so don't even bother.' So I didn't."

      "Damn, I screwed up even worse than I thought I did, then," he groaned. "I thought that you were just worried that I'd lump you in with the fame-chasers and the money-grabbers, I never even considered that you might think that I wasn't attracted to you. Because if that's what you've been thinking, you were wrong. And now that I've said that, we might want to table this until morning, because I'd like nothing more than to kiss you right now, but I don't want to rush you into anything."

      Aidan offered him a brilliant smile, and it was his turn to be taken off guard when she reached out, cupped his face in both hands, and whispered, "That sounds like the best idea I've heard all evening. So if you're not going to do it, I guess I'll have to." 

      She leaned in closer and placed a soft, hesitant kiss on his lips, and this was all it took to break his restraint. He pulled her into his arms, bringing her onto the chair with him, so that she was straddling his lap as they kissed until they had to stop for air. Her position allowed her to feel Ashley's arousal, and she surprised him yet again by rolling her hips in an attempt to get even closer, instead of moving away as he had expected.

      "Darlin' you might want to stop," he practically growled. "I'm trying very hard to control myself, and you're making it extremely difficult right now."

      She dipped her head to nibble at his neck instead, and softly inquired, "Do you have protection? I haven't been active for awhile, so I'm not taking anything right now."

      He nearly forgot to breathe for a moment, though he wasn't sure if it was due to her words, or the feel of her lips on the sensitive flesh of his neck. But then he replied, "I always have protection, so that's not a worry. But are you sure you want this?"

      She replied with another roll of her hips, so he grasped the bottom of her nightshirt and lifted it over her head, leaving her clad in only a pair of peacock-blue bikini panties, which he moved aside, slipping his hand between their bodies as his mouth sought out her breasts, nibbling and sucking at first one, then the other as his fingers stroked her more sensitive areas.

      "Oh, fuck, that feels so good," she whimpered. "Please don't stop."

      "I don't plan to. Not yet, at least," he declared, as he slipped two of his fingers inside her, making her gasp and buck against his hand as he sped up his movements, quickly bringing her to a shuddering orgasm. After giving her a brief recovery time, he rose from the chair and laid her on the bed, sliding her panties down her legs and dropping them to the floor before removing his pajama pants, giving Aidan her first glimpse of his completely exposed form. This gave her a moment of concern as she realized that though his length was not outside of the norm, the girth was most definitely more ample than anything she'd previously dealt with.

      "Christ on a sidecar, how do you manage to fit that into those tight jeans you wear!?" she blurted, causing Ashley to flush slightly.

      "Very carefully," he responded, with a slight chuckle. "But that's not what I'm worried about right now. I've got somewhere much more interesting in mind to put it right now. If you still want to, that is."

      "Oh, I most certainly do. But like I said, I'm a bit out of practice, so let's start out slow, okay?"

      Looking at her curiously, he queried, "You said it's 'been awhile'. Can I ask how long of a while?"

      "A little over two years, since my last ex and I split," she admitted. "I've never been much for the casual hookup thing. I tried it a couple of times in college, but it just always felt weird to me. I guess I'm picky, I have to at least like someone before I feel comfortable getting intimate with them. Sorry if that sounds silly or anything, but that's how it works for me." 

      "It doesn't sound silly at all, and you have nothing to be sorry for," he told her. "I think I'm actually gonna take it as a compliment of sorts, because if you're 'picky', as you put it, that actually makes me sort of special, because I've made the grade when other guys haven't."

      He crawled onto the bed beside her, opening a drawer in the nightstand and removing a condom, which he rolled on before lying back against the pillows. Offering her a suggestive smile, he said, "And I think I'm gonna let you be in charge this time, so you can pace things however you like. So why don't you come up here and ride me, beautiful?"

      She eagerly accepted the invitation, lowering herself slowly, to allow time to adjust to the unaccustomed thickness, but once that was done, they both tossed away what little restraint they'd previously had and went at it with complete abandon, until they were both lying breathless and quivering across the bed. Once Aidan's breathing evened out enough for her to speak, she looked into Ashley's eyes and said, "Damn, you're good!"

      "Right back atcha, babe," he replied with a soft laugh and a kiss on the tip of her nose. "I haven't been this wiped out from a... romp, in a very long time. So what do you say we get some sleep now, and maybe try this again in the morning?"

      "Umm, sounds good to me," was the sleepy-sounding reply he received as he turned on his side to cradle her to his chest, spoon-style, which earned him a contented sigh before she murmured, "Goodnight, Ash."

      "Goodnight, Aidan. Sweet dreams, darlin'."

      They both fell into a peaceful slumber, which lasted until something woke Ashley shortly after six in the morning. He raised his head, trying to determine if the noise that he had heard had been real, or simply a fragment of an unremembered dream, and as he propped himself on one elbow, he heard it again: a faint thudding sound, as if someone had dropped something onto a hard surface. "Shit, I hope somebody didn't fall down the basement stairs or something," he mumbled, which cause Aidan to lift her head off of the pillow.

      "Whassat?" she questioned sleepily.

      "Don't worry, it sounded like somebody dropped something. Go back to sleep, sweetheart."

       They both laid back down, but before they had the chance to close their eyes, another, more alarming sound reached their ears, one that drove all thoughts of sleep from their minds: A sharp, agonized scream, the kind that came only from someone who was in excruciating pain.

      "What the hell was that!?" Aidan shouted, sitting straight up in the bed.

       Ashley, who had already leapt up and started pulling on his pajamas, replied, "I have no fucking idea, but I'm sure as shit gonna find out!" 

      And before Aidan could say another word, Ashley flung open the door and bolted out of the room, determined to find out what sort of disaster seemed to be taking place in his home.