Title: When She Cries
Book: II
Chapter: Twenty-Two
Chapter Title: Where Tomorrow Ends
Rating: R.
Characters: Chuck, Ashley and Devon.
Disclaimer: Aye, captain. I hold no
deeds to Gilmore Girls. And I don’t own matchbox twenty’s All I Need.
Author’s Note: I’d like to give Priya the proper credit, because she
wrote Ashley for me in this chapter. She rules, and deserves to be worshiped.
Author’s
Note 2: I
know it’s shorter than most of my other chapters. Get over it.
*
Talking about the dream/Like the dream is over/
Talk like that/Won't get you nowhere/
Everybody's trusting in the heart/
Like the heart don't lie.
Neutral ground. That’s what Best
Buy was. Just because she was ignoring Devon didn’t mean she couldn’t see
Chuck. It just meant that she couldn’t stop by to see him or call him ever.
Ashley was sad to say that she hadn’t considered going to see him at work until
her friend, Maxine, had suggested the night before. Man, she was dense.
However seeing him at work did work
out perfectly, since she had been meaning to buy Love, Be Still ever
since it had come out on DVD five weeks ago. It worked out especially well
since it was the DVD section where she found him.
“Hey Chuck,” Ashley greeted him.
Chuck’s head snapped up from the box
of DVDs that he was stocking the shelves with. “Leese, long time no see.”
“Sorry about that,” She apologized.
She did feel bad about shutting Chuck out; it was all Devon Mariano’s fault.
“It’s alright,” Chuck just shook his
head. Well, that explained his roommate’s moping.
"So," she started off a
bit uncomfortable, "how've you been?"
“Good,” he replied, as he finished
up the section of comedies. “You?”
"Fine," she answered
stiffly, "if you don't count my melodramatic melt-downs." Or longing
after the person that probably least deserved it.
From now on no one could say that Chuck
Logan had ever been proving wrong about Devon Mariano. “So that’s what the
wallowing has been about over in Mariano-land.”
She cringed from inside, but didn't
show it. At least, she hoped she had hid it well. "And I thought the
Concord was fast."
He chuckled. “Don’t worry, I just
know it because I have to live with the guy.”
That had totally escaped her mind in
her moment of embarrassment. And now she felt that even more of that
spectacular feeling. "Oh, right," she mumbled.
Chuck shrugged, “It’s okay.” He
wheeled the box down to the dramas, and then almost hit someone. Right, the
boss would have liked that one. Then he saw who it was. “Hey Devon.”
“Hey,” Devon replied, but his eyes
were focused solely on Ashley. “Hey, uh, Ash…ley.”
Great. She sighed. Now she had to
face Devon Mariano. She had never understood why she behaved the way she did
towards him. When he wasn't near her, all she could do is think about him and
pine. And now that he was standing right in front of her, she wished him to
disappear. "Um, hi."
He had come for a movie, which one
he could no longer remember, but now that he had run into Ashley, only one
thing was on his mind. “Can I talk to you? Somewhere else?”
She gulped, carefully weighing options. She could, A, adapt into sadism for a while, run out on him, see the torturous look on his face, and make him work harder to get her. But wait-he never said that he wanted to "get" her. He just wanted to talk to her. When the rational side of her took over, she nodded choosing her second option, and followed him out. "Be glad I'm not a sadist," she muttered under her breath.
Chuck, who had over heard her comment, snorted,
while Devon just looked confused. Then he looked like he was going to ask her a
question, but instead just lead her outside to parking lot.
“So,” Devon looked down at his feet. Even if he
weren’t a communications major, he’d know this was not good body language for
when talking to another person. “I should start of by apologizing.”
She wanted to be stubborn so she was.
"Okay."
He started to run his hand through his blonde
hair, but ended up just pulling it up due to frustration. “I really am sorry. I
shouldn’t have brought you down to Hartford and then kept abandoning you to
people you don’t know. And probably don’t want to.”
She needed stubbornness and bitchiness lessons
from Lola DuGrey. But she wouldn't let him off easily. "No, you shouldn't
have."
Devon was going to make himself bald before this
conversation was over, so he stuffed his hands into the pocket of his jeans.
There, that was much better than losing hair. “But…um…in the future, if you
could just let me know if anything’s wrong. I mean, sometimes you look like
you’re having fun. But then later, you just seem all pissed off about something
that happened. It’s just confusing, you know?”
Ah! She couldn't handle it anymore. Why did he
have to be so cute? Why did he have to be so sincere? "Dammit, Devon," she pounded her fist on a car's hood.
Thank God, she wasn't as strong as the fire in her eyes. "I was doing that
to make you jealous!"
Devon got a startled, deer in headlights look
about him. “You we-Why?” He was sounding dense even to himself. What was it
about Ashley Leese that made him not think straight or rational? It was
something he knew that he should know, but just didn’t.
Why?!" she yelled out loudly enough for
people in the parking lot to stop what they were doing and stare for a second.
"Because-" she stuttered, trying to formulate words, but failing. She
looked up at him, he was struck dumb, his mouth hanging open, she wasn't even
sure if he was breathing. And then Ashley did something that she would've
thought imaginable the night before.
She had dreamt of this moment-planned it out-she
would be clad in a flowing, adorned with many diamonds, and he would be in a
tux, handing her a rose. She would kiss him, and her foot would pop up, like in
the Princess Diaries. That fantasy sure as hell would never come true. But, at
the spur of the moment, she did ignite a something greater, when she used all
of her might to push Devon down onto the side of the car, and kissed him. Just
like that.