Dedicating this chapter to @gracefullygrace3 for coming up with the title of this book. I loved it. It's exactly opposite of Liana's version of story. :)

Enjoy!

*****

Chapter - 1

LOVE ISN'T... PLANNED

"Here you go." I nodded in acknowledgement as I passed the money and grabbed two beers from the bartender. He smiled back, as always, and I turned around. Making my way to the table, where Harry and I usually sat, I looked around the bar and found nothing unusual. An involuntary sigh escaped my lips the moment I reached the table and placed one beer in front of Harry and the other at my side of the table.

"Why are you so gloomy today?" he asked in his ever so cheery tone.

I raised my eyebrows at him as I sat down on the stool. "What are you talking about?"

"Okay, correction – why are you extra gloomy today?" he asked, focusing on 'extra', making me roll my eyes.

"I'm not." I scratched my beard covered chin and thought about getting it trimmed slightly. It had been roughly four months since I was growing it and roughly a week since I had trimmed it.

On queue my phone rang and I glanced at the caller id. With a clenched jaw, I rejected the call of some Mrs. Parker, who had been bugging me since morning. Harry noticed the name and understanding dawned upon his face. "Oh! Your momma dearest is calling you. Is that why you are extra gloomy today, Red?"

"Shut the f*ck up, Harry," I mumbled, focusing all my attention towards the beer.

"Andy, it's Andy!" He whined, getting into his character of the day of Andy from the classic 'The Shawshank Redemption'. "Something is definitely wrong with you today; otherwise you always remain in character, whereas today, you're not." He leaned forward and raised an eyebrow. "What is it, Red?"

With a sigh I looked up at him. Behind his always smiling face, I could see the concern he had for me and it pissed me off. I dragged my phone towards him. He took the hint and picked it up to go through it. "Twenty eight missed calls from your mother. Why the hell did you not answer?" He looked at me like I was crazy and I reciprocated the look.

"Firstly, let's clear it for any future references that she is not my mother. Secondly, why do you think I would answer her calls?" I counter questioned him.

In response, he rolled his eyes at me. "Twenty eight missed calls in the last three hours, Ashton. There might be something wrong because of which she is trying to reach you."

Somehow I managed to roll my eyes and gulp the sip of beer I had just taken after hearing his words. What if something was really wrong? Yes, she had always tried to talk to me in the last few years, but so many missed calls in a day was a first time occurrence. 'What if...' No! I shook my head to clear my mind off of the concern that was trying to come back. It wasn't needed. They didn't care about me and I didn't care about them. It was perfect this way.

As if sensing my inner battle, Harry let out a huge breath and suggested, "Why don't you call Dylan and ask him what the matter is?"

I wanted to pat his back for coming up with a sensible idea for once in his lifetime, but refrained myself and nodded my head. That little action in itself was a reward for him as he grinned and asked, "Is this for real? You're actually acknowledging an advice given by me?"

Choosing not to answer him, I picked up my phone from the table and called Dylan, who didn't take long to answer and greeted me in his usual style, "Lil' brother, how are you?"

I answered in my usual style, "Never been better." I was pissed off. I just wanted to drink and go back to my apartment to catch some sound sleep. Just for the record, I had been a hundred times better, but then again, when was I ever not pissed...?

He laughed at my answer and said, "So, what's the matter? Let's catch up over some drinks?" It was clear from his voice that the reason of the many calls since morning wasn't something to be bothered about; else Dylan wouldn't have been so calm.

Relaxing my slightly tensed shoulders, I tapped the beer bottle on the table and told him, "Some other time." I glanced around the bar and found the regular crowd doing regular things done in this bar. "Why has your mother been calling me since last three hours?"

"Sh*t! I forgot. How could I forget?" He continued cursing himself for a little while during which I concentrated on my beer and the people around me; the concentration that broke when he said something like, "...she'll come down to meet you tomorrow."

"What? Who'll come down to meet me?" I asked.

"Ms. Moore," he answered, leaving me even more confused.

I shook my head, even though he couldn't see me. "Why would some Ms. Moore come and meet me?"

"Ashton, weren't you listening?" Of course, I wasn't, but I didn't say it out loud. He knew me enough to know the answer. "I said that there is an assignment that Ms. Moore has to handle and it involves you."

"What the f*ck are you talking about?" I asked, not hiding the incredulousness from my voice.

He found my question funny as he laughed and answered, "I'm talking about an assignment that involves Ms. Moore, twenty days, twenty girls, twenty dates, love, and you, lil' brother."

It was probably my turn to laugh, but I turned around to look at Kevin, the bartender. "Kevin," I shouted over the noises in the bar. He looked my way and tipped his chin, silently asking what the matter was. I asked again, "Did you mix something in my drink?" In response, he looked at me like I had just lost my mind and got back to his work.

Dylan found this funnier as he laughed harder, which I found plain irritating. And that irritation made me cancel the call and smack my phone back on the table.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked with an amused smile. I smacked his head for finding my irritation amusing.

"Ow! What is wrong with you? What did he say?" he asked with a frown and I felt instantly better after hitting him.

Before I could tell him anything, my phone rang. Both Harry and I bent forward to see the caller id which flashed 'Dylan' constantly. When I didn't pick the call for a few seconds, Harry raised his eyebrows at me. Rolling my eyes, I told him the truth, "He is talking gibberish."

He laughed and said, "Well, there's nothing unusual though. You think everyone is always talking gibberish." The glare from me that followed his words, made him sink back in his chair with an innocent smile on his face. Much to my annoyance, my phone rang again, and much to my pleasure, Harry noticed my annoyed mood and answered the call.

The change of expressions on his face during the next few moments, showed that there was definitely nothing mixed up in my drink, and Dylan was truly talking sh*t.

****

"Who the f*ck does she think I am? Some f*cking subject for an article in her magazine?" I shouted over the phone, feeling my blood boil with pure rage.

"Ashton, calm down." Dylan was trying his best to stop me from shouting. Sometimes, I actually appreciated him for being patient with me and bearing me, but I was never going to tell him that. It wasn't easy to talk to me, let alone trying to calm me down when I was in my Hulk mode. But the news of getting involved in a f*cking stupid project, which involved me and falling in sh*t was so not a way to calm me down and it definitely put a full stop on my rational thinking.

"Calm down, my a*s!" I ran my fingers through my hair, messing them even further. "Who does she think she is by trying to run my life for the next twenty days? And sending some Moore as a matchmaker? What does she think my life is? A movie like that... um... what's that movie called..." I trailed off, looking at Harry to complete the sentence.

"How to lose a guy in 10 days!" Harry exclaimed, looking all excited and proud.

"Yes, that!" I nodded my head at him and focused back on Dylan, who was listening to everything I had to say on the other side of the phone. "What does she think I am? A f*cking project with a deadline?"

I heard him sigh at the other end after which he started, "Look, Ashton, I don't know what she was thinking as you know I can't question her decisions when it comes to business. But all I can do is make you understand that just go with it. It might help in making things fine between Mom, and you."

A snort escaped my throat. "Why do you think I want to make things fine between us? I'm perfectly fine the way I am. Just ask her to not interfere in my life."

"C'mon, man! Just meet Liana once. This article is very important for her and the magazine. The concept is unique and I'm sure you'll be fine with it."

"You know what's fine in all this? My a*s! Nothing, but my a*s," I told him with a clenched jaw.

"Hey, my a*s too." Harry butted in the conversation and I shot him another glare. "Just saying." He sank back in his chair with an innocent look.

Dylan let out a breath on the other end while I took a huge gulp of my beer. "Meet her once. She is really nice and hot."

I snorted again. As if Ms. Moore being hot mattered to me. "You know what, Dylan, I'll make sure that she is the one who backs out of this f*cking project tomorrow itself." With that I cancelled the call and smirked in victory as I thought about my plans of making sure that this woman gets as pissed off tomorrow as I was right now.

"What happened? Will you go with it?" Harry started firing questions at me, which I, ignored by getting up and going towards the bar to order yet another round of drinks.

"Two beers," I ordered as my mind wandered to the messed up project, of which I was apparently going to be a part of. 'Yeah, right!' I snorted and waited for my beers.

"One s*x with the bartender, please."

My head snapped at the speed of light towards the woman who had just placed the order, and utter disappointment flooded me faster than that when I saw that it wasn't her. A chuckle escaped my lips at how foolish I was being by thinking about that night again. "Why the hell does these drinks does not sound as appealing as they did that night?" I questioned myself as an involuntary smile made its way to my face.

After about an hour, which involved me silently brooding over the guts of Mrs. Parker and n' number of beers that we drank with Harry joking around, we decided to leave the bar. Despite of the loud music and people shouting in joy and anger at each other, we could hear the squeaking noise that our stools made when we stood up. Harry grimaced at the noise while I looked around the bar one last time before exiting. Again, upon not finding anything unusual, I started walking towards the exit and he followed me.

Once we were out, he commented, "I don't understand why you like this crappy place so much. The crowd and the ambience, both are weird, but still we end up coming here every week since last four months. If it wasn't for the free alcohol that you bribe me with every week, I would have never come here."

And as always, I chuckled and replied, "They give alcohol at cheaper rates." He mumbled something along the lines of calling me a stingy a*shole to which I laughed and started walking towards my apartment but not before turning around and looking at the entrance of the bar one last time tonight.

**

The emptiness of my apartment brought back the anger and frustration that Harry had somehow helped in fading away. I scoffed at how ironic it was that Mrs. Parker wanted me to be involved in something related to love. Did she even know the meaning of the word? Not that I was an expert or something, but at least I didn't pretend like she did, and I definitely didn't abandon the person who trusted me with life.

I looked around the living room and decided to not get bothered by the mess that my living room was at the moment. The mess in my mind was of priority. Locking the main door behind, I took a bottle of water from the kitchen and made my way towards my room. After changing into my pajamas, I tried to bring an end to this awful night by sleeping. But, unfortunately, everything that Dylan had said kept replaying in my head like a stuck up reel. After turning and twisting in my bed for what seemed like hours, I got up with a frustrated groan and a curse.

I wanted to go straight to Mrs. Parker and argue with her, tell her not to interfere in my life and mind her own f*cking business. But, I decided against doing so, as I still didn't want to talk to her and entertain her. Maybe showing that her latest marvelous idea had no impact on me, would help my cause of making her stay away. After all, wasn't there a great saying like 'ignorance is a bliss'.

Ignore - that's exactly what I was going to do with Mrs. Parker. Her writer would a different story, though. "I'll make sure that you run away the moment you reach here, Ms. Moore," I mumbled with determination.

The lack of sleep pushed me to the room attached to my bedroom; the only room where I could vent out my anger without anybody's glaring and judging eyes on me; the only room where I could feel calm, and the only room where I could be myself.

Almost instantly, I started working on the latest painting in the room. Throwing colors exactly where I wanted them to be, stroking the points with exactly the details I wanted to highlight, I let my hands wander with the mind of their own, effectively pulling me out of the mess that Mrs. Parker was trying to throw me into. After what seemed like a few minutes, I stepped away from the half finished painting, and stared at it.

Something was missing, definitely missing. Had I forgotten about the exact shade of her hair, or her eyes, or the mole just below her ear? No matter how hard I tried to recall, I couldn't place what exactly it was that was missing from the painting. Maybe, not seeing her for four months had blurred my memory of her. But I couldn't afford that. I had two unfinished paintings of her. And that was the sole reason that I frequented that pathetic bar so often - just to get a glimpse of her face.

She was just a muse for me. We, artists, get kind of possessive and creepy for their muses, don't we? Yup, that's exactly what she was - a muse. And I was definitely not a stalker, if I had been, I would have frequented her friend's apartment where I had dropped her off that night. But, I never did, despite of clearly remembering her address. I was definitely not a stalker. I was just an artist and she was my muse. A muse that I wanted to see again; just to see her face, her eyes, her lips, that mole below her ear, her hair, her beautiful smile, to see if she was alright, whether she had moved on from that a*shole who had cheated on her, and to ask her whether she still believed in bullsh*t.

Yup, just a muse... nothing, but a muse, who I wanted to see just once for purely artistic purposes.

"Ana..." A sigh escaped my lips and a smile graced them, remembering her once again.

But what was the use? Four months and I had been nothing but a failure in finding her and completing my paintings. The word failure brought back everything that I had been trying to bury deep inside my head and I groaned in frustration. "What the f*ck is my problem?" I grumbled, feeling angry, frustrated and tired once again. I walked away from the painting to wash my brushes with utmost care and placed them back in the case.

Locking the door behind me, I stepped inside my bedroom and my eyes fell on the wall clock which showed that it was six in the morning. "Great, just great." Running my hands through my hair, I threw myself on the bed. Some sound sleep could probably help me.

My sleep was rudely interrupted by the loud rings of the doorbell which my half asleep mind decided to peacefully ignore. The loud and continued ringing that followed my decision made my hungover and already stressed out head hurt like hell. I threw the sheet away, making it my current target and got up from the bed. I glanced at the clock to see that it was thirty minutes past eleven in the morning and my frustration just increased. Hours of drinking beer and hours of painting had exhausted me last night, but as soon as I had laid in bed, sleep was gone. It took another two hours for my disturbed and messed up thoughts of my past to settle a bit and sleep to overpower my mind.

And now, when I was finally in deep sleep, some f*cker had decided to disturb me. The noise rang louder and louder in my ears, making me run towards the buzzer as fast as I could in my sleep deprived situation. I pressed the buzzer and heard a woman's voice from the other end muttering words like, "...jerk, idiot, stupid..."

"What the f*ck?" I ran my hand over my face in frustration as I immediately recalled that some Ms. Moore was going to come over today from Mrs. Parker's office for some futile purposes like trying to make me fall in love.

"H... hi. I...I'm..." the woman stuttered terribly and I rolled my eyes, opening the door for her to come upstairs.

On cue, my phone rang and I went to my bedroom to fetch it. It was Dylan who calling me, I bet to piss me off some more. "What?" I answered, moving towards the apartment door.

"She must have reached your place by now. Be nice to her, okay? She is genuinely a nice girl and she is already sh*t scared to meet you, so just be nice, okay?" he ranted and a chuckle escaped my lips.

"That's great," I commented with a smirk. "This will be fun. Goodbye, brother." With that I cancelled the call, stopping him from saying anything else that he was about to say. Keeping my phone in my pocket, I opened the door to scare Ms. Moore some more and make her run away.

But what I saw baffled my senses like never before. My eyes widened, but I willed them to come back to normal. This couldn't be true. No, of course it wasn't. She couldn't be here at my doorstep. 'This must be a f*cking dream.'

I looked at her carefully, staring at her face, staring at her from head to toe and then toe to head, making sure that she was the same person that I had once met... four months ago. And she was the same person that Mrs. Parker had sent to meet me today.

That hit me like a f*cking truck hits a street dog.

I watched as she opened her mouth to say something, but I beat her at it and said the first thing that came to my mind to get rid of her and the situation, "I need to put a board on my door saying, 'Bears are not allowed inside'." I, once again, looked at her from head to toe with a frown, concentrating as hard as I could in my sleep deprived and shocked mind, to remember her as much as I could. At last, I looked at her eyes... 'Damn these eyes...'

Before I could say anything stupid or unwanted, I stepped back and shut the door at her face, feeling guilty at what an a*shole I was being to her. How ironic was it that the person that I was searching for, ended up coming up at my apartment? Resting my forehead against the door, I muttered one word that summed up the entire situation and my state of mind, "F*ck!"

******

A/N

There you go with Ashton's pov. :) Hope you all enjoyed it. Tell me! How was it? I had missed writing in male pov, it felt good after such a long time. :D

How is the title? Love isn't... I love it! :D

I'll post the new story of an old character soon. Stay tuned.

Thanks!

Richa :)