Life After That - Chapter 12

Kirstin didn't want Ashley to start talking about their personal lives in front of everybody, she then shot him a look, so he'd understand what she was about to do and would go along with her:

“Hi Ashley. I'm Kirstin, nice to meet you.” She held her hand out to him. He got the hint and shook her hand with a incredulous look:

Jacob, Erik, Dan and Trevor, watching that scene, realized that was THE Kirstin. Ashley's Kirstin. Andrew and the Mikes didn't know a thing, so seeing Ashley there, staring incredulous at Kirstin, and still holding her hand, was a weird picture for them. There was an awkward silence for a moment and Erik decided to end it:

“Hi Kirstin. I'm Erik. Nice to meet you.” he held his hand out to her. Kirstin unlocked her eyes from Ashley's and let go of his hand.

“Hi Erik. Nice to meet you too.” she replied, shaking Erik's hand, the latin guy she remembered from 'Inferno'.

“You two, please sit.” Morin motioned for Erik and Ashley to sit. Erik took the sit between Trevor and Andrew.

“You are gonna have to get a chair in the kitchen. There's no chair for you to sit in here. Go get one in the kitchen.”

When Ashley was off to the kitchen, Kirstin felt 4 sets of eyes on her. She noticed that all Ashley's band mates were glancing at her. ‘He must have told them about me’ she thought. That was awkward for her. She was not comfortable with all those 8 eyes on her. So she glanced down and waited. Ashley got back in the dinning room and placed his chair between Mike Morin and Andrew, at the corner of the table. Kirstin felt worse. That way Ashley was right in front of her, and the minute he sat, she felt his eyes on her. Mike Morin then spoke up:

The meeting continued with Andrew and Morin doing most of the talking and sometimes Jacob would interfere telling that he didn't want his girlfriend to be exposed too much and asking a lot of questions to Andrew. Kirstin spent the entire meeting trying to avoid Ashley's staring. Sometimes, she would look his way just to see if he was still staring and when she would see that he was, she would just look away. Several times Andrew would look at Kirstin like saying ‘Say something!’ and Kirstin would give her opinion on some issues debated. But other than that, she would remain quiet. She didn't have a lot to say anyway. This was her first time doing something like that and she had never done editing before, so what would she say?

When the meeting was officially over and everybody was getting up to say their goodbyes, Ashley spoke up:

“Kirstin, can I talk to you for a second?” a sudden silence fell over the room after that question.

“Hm, I don't know... Andrew and I must go back to the hotel and we're leaving tomorrow morning and…”

“Yes!” she said without even thinking. That way she would get away from there.

“Well, you have to talk to him, I don't care about what. If he wants to talk to you, you go and talk to him. We can't get these people mad. By the way the meeting was, I can see that this job is gonna be a lot tougher than I thought it would be. So we gotta give these guys everything they want, so they can leave us alone and we can have our job done our way. So, please, talk to him. Do you think it would take too long?”

“Hm…” she didn't know what to say to her boss “We had 2 years of high school together.”

“Really?” Kirstin just shook her head “Well, so talk to him. That's good! You know him! That's a plus to us! Maybe they will get easier on us. So go, talk to him. I'll be on my way to the hotel. When you are done, call a cab. Ok?”

She couldn't say no to her boss. Especially because he thought the conversation would be about the job. And she couldn't tell the whole story to him either.

“Great. Let's go. I'll go back there to say the proper goodbye and then I'll leave you there, alright?”

When they got back to the dinning room, Andrew spoke for Kirstin, facing Ashley:

“She's staying. I'm going back to the hotel. It was a pleasure meeting you guys, if you need anything, please, just call me.” he then shook everyone's hand and the Mikes went to open the door to him.

Kirstin was left there, totally uncomfortable with the 5 band members there, in silence. Dan talked first:

“Hey, so you are the girl that went to high school with Ashley?” he didn't find anything better to say. He just wanted to break the ice.

“Oh, I bet he did.” she still had that grin on her face when she turned to look at Ashley. He had his eyes glued on her and a serious look on his face.

“Yes, how ironic is this? You, a girl Ashley knows from way back is working on our TV show!” Erik wanted to make the conversation a bit more interested, but failed that mission.

“Yes. Well, everything happens for a reason. I guess, maybe, we were suppose to meet again.” she had her eyes locked on Ashley's when she said that. The other guys got the hint and excused themselves.

“Now can we talk ?” he had this sweet look on his face when he asked her that.

Ashley led them out to the pool area. Kirstin sat in a chair near the pool. Ashley got another one and placed it right in front of Kirstin's. He held his head down and took a deep breath. Then looked up to stare at her eyes, took her hands in his, closed his eyes for a second and was about to start talking when he felt Kirstin's warm lips on his.