“Hello?” Jaime answered the phone after only one ring. Ainsley knew that they would be on the bus by now. She had finally gotten a hang of the time zone difference.

“Hi,” Ainsley huffed a bit as she blew her hair out of my face. She let out a groan as she turned her key in the ignition of her car for probably the fiftieth time, but nothing happened.

“What’s wrong?” Jaime asked.

“My fucking car is acting up again. I just got off work and now it won’t fucking start. So now I’m stranded in the parking lot. Not to mention it’s pouring down rain.”

“Shit, babe. Is there anyone you can call to pick you up and take you home?” he asked.

“No,” Ainsley groaned. “I don’t know anybody, Jaime. I literally have no friends here. Not even people from work.” She rested her head on the steering wheel and tried not to cry. For the past week Ainsley had felt more alone than ever. Mal was busy modeling in San Diego and had only been able to spend the night once. Ainsley had changed her schedule, giving her more and more hours. She was up to ninety hours this past week, and she was bringing home the books in order to sort out the finances. She was doing exactly what Vic didn’t want her to do – she was over-working herself.

“Call a tow truck and have them drop your car off at the shop and then bring you home. That way first thing in the morning you can call and they can get working on your car.”

“I don’t have money for that,” Ainsley said quickly. “This house is so expensive. I should have stuck with an apartment. I’m barely able to pay my rent, even working Ninety hours a week.”

“Ninety hours? Ains, you told me you were only doing sixty and taking Saturday off…”

“I added more hours this week because I got lonely,” Ainsley said softly.

Jaime huffed a bit. “You know that’s way too much. You’re stressing yourself out.”

“No, my car is the only thing stressing me out right now! I don’t know what to do,” Ainsley whined and let her head fall back against the headrest. She wasn’t just stressed out about her car; she was stressed out about everything. Money was getting tighter and tighter. She was feeling more and more depressed. And she was exhausted.

“I already told you what to do,” Jaime replied.

“I already told you that I can’t do that because I can’t afford it.”

“I’ll pay for it, Ains. Don’t worry about it.”

Ainsley huffed and moved her phone from her right ear to her left. “I can’t let you do that, Jaime. Plus, you’re all the way in South America.”

“I can wire money to your account. Or send you cash or a check or whatever. It’s really no problem. Please let me pay for it,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice, and although she knew that he was just trying to be nice, the entire situation had her pissed off and she couldn’t help but be snappy with him.

“No, Jaime. I don’t want you to do that. I need to figure things out of my own. You’re not going to be there to help me forever.” Ainsley slapped her palm to her forehead. That came out all wrong, she thought to herself.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jaime asked, his voice getting a little louder. “Ainsley, I’m paying for your fucking car to be fixed and that’s that. I don’t like knowing that you have no way of transportation when I’m so far away from you. It worries me.”

“Don’t worry about me, Jaime. I’ve been on my own for a long time now. Just because you’re my boyfriend now doesn’t mean that you need to pay for everything,” Ainsley snapped.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Let me pay for your fucking car to get fixed! It’s no big deal, Ainsley.”

“You don’t need to buy me shit, Jaime! You don’t need to try and buy my love like you did with Jess.”

Jaime was silent for a moment. “What did you just say?”

“I’m pretty sure you could hear me just fine, Jaime,” Ainsley replied with a sour expression on her face. “Tony told me about what Jess did to you. And if you think I’m going to do that, too, then you obviously don’t know me at all. So don’t try to buy my feelings.”

“Wow,” Jaime laughed sarcastically. “I can’t believe you seriously just said that to me. You know what? Fine. Good luck finding a fucking way to work then, because, congratulations, you get your way. Have a good night, Ainsley. I hope you have fun walking home in the rain.”

The line went dead. Ainsley threw her phone into her purse and screamed as she repeatedly hit the steering wheel with the palms of her hands. She took her keys out of the ignition and got out of the car, holding her purse close to her body so the rain wouldn’t get any of her belongings wet. She locked the door and began to make her way across the parking lot and toward the sidewalk.

Her feet were hurting after the first half mile and her tears were making her vision even more blurry than the rain already had. It had to be close to midnight by now and Ainsley was thankful that there weren’t very many cars on the road. She was afraid of an accident happening and a car not seeing her walking with her black coat blending her into the night.

She knew that she shouldn’t have lashed out at Jaime like that, but she was so angry and the fact that Jaime was always buying her things and trying to pay for her bills, but that’s not what she wanted. A few surprises here and there were just fine, but other than that she didn’t want Jaime to treat her like he had treated Jess. She wished that Jaime would realize that he could trust her, but then again she couldn’t really blame him. She was starting to feel really upset and lonely all the time. But that didn’t mean she was just going to go pick up another guy.

“Hey!”

She turned her head to see a car that had slowed down next to her, driving in the bike lane with its hazard lights on as it slowly drove beside her.

“Ainsley, right?”

She stopped walking and peered through the cracked window. She saw a man with a slight amount of facial hair, dark, tousled hair, and piercing eyes.

“You probably don’t remember me. I’m Jeric. I met you a while back in that little clothing store?”

She blinked a few times and refocused her eyes to get a better look at him. Then it finally clicked.

“Oh! Right! The guy I plowed into. I remember you now.”

“What are you doing walking in the rain?” he asked. “Do you need a ride?”

Ainsley bit her lip for a minute, unsure of what to do. She didn’t know anything about this guy. But then again she still had another two miles before she got to her house and her clothes were already soaked.

“If it isn’t too much trouble,” she replied with a small smile.

Jeric unlocked the door and Ainsley quickly climbed in. “Tell me where to go,” he said.

“Keep going straight and turn right on Kendrick Avenue,” she said quickly. “Thank you so much. My car broke down after work.”

“You didn’t have anybody to call? What about that blonde friend of yours?”

“She lives in San Diego and I just barely moved here like a day before I ran into you, actually. I still haven’t made any friends or anything,” Ainsley explained after taking a deep breath. Her eyes were still watering just a bit, but for the most part the tears had calmed down. She pulled her phone out of her purse, hoping that she would have a missed call or text from Jaime, but there was still nothing. She shoved her phone back into her purse with a huff as she pulled her hood off her head.

“You okay?” he asked after a moment of silence.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I’ll be okay.”

Jeric nodded and turned on his blinker when the turn came up. He turned the corner and Ainsley pointed him in the right direction of her house.

“Did you want to come inside for a minute? I can make you something to eat if you’re hungry,” Ainsley offered. “I feel bad for soaking your seat. And it’s the least I could do since you gave me a ride home.”

Jeric pulled into her driveway and killed the ignition. “Sure, I guess I could go for a midnight snack,” he laughed.

Ainsley smiled and walked up to the door, quickly unlocking it and flipping on the light. “I’m sorry if it’s a mess. I haven’t had time to clean because of work.”

“It’s all good. I know how it is,” Jeric smiled widely and looked around as Ainsley walked into the kitchen and pulled out some ingredients for a salad and then began to boil some water for some pasta. “You live here alone?”

“Yeah,” Ainsley replied as she bit her lip. She probably shouldn’t have told him that. She didn’t know him and who knew if he was a psycho or something. “But my boyfriend stays here occasionally.” She smiled to herself, hoping that she had made a solid recovery.

“Oh, does he live in San Diego, too?”

“Yeah, but he’s in South America right now.”

Jeric nodded a bit and took a seat at the kitchen table as Ainsley tried to quickly prepare a salad. She was starving and needed to eat before she did anything else. “Do you want something to drink?” Ainsley offered. She pulled open the fridge and looked at its very few contents. “All I have is water and Red Wine.”

Jeric let out a laugh. “Classy,” he commented. “Water is fine, thank you.”

She grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it up with the filtered water from the fridge. She felt insanely guilty for having another man in her house, especially after her last conversation with Jaime hadn’t ended very well. If Jaime found out that Jeric was in the house with Ainsley after their fight, he surely would not approve and would probably be extremely upset.

“So where do you work?” Ainsley asked. She wanted to know more about this guy since he was sitting at her kitchen table. She handed him the water and grabbed herself a glass of wine before sitting down at the table across from him.

“I’m actually a mechanic,” Jeric laughed a bit at the irony. “Fate must have brought us together. Just get a tow truck to bring your car by my shop and I can get it looked at and taken care of by the end of this week.”

“That would be amazing, but I really can’t afford it,” Ainsley sighed and thought about Jaime again. She hated how stubborn she was being, but she really just couldn’t accept the money from him.

“No worries, you can write me an I-owe-you. I know where you live now so I think I’ll be able to get the money one way or another. We also have payment plans at the shop.”

“No freaking way,” Ainsley laughed a bit at how her luck was turning around so quickly. “I promise you I can pay you back. I can probably pay you back by the end of the month. I just need to wait for my rent to go through and then my paycheck-“

“Ainsley, it’s fine, really. You don’t need to explain things to me. I know how it feels to be living on your own and trying to support yourself. I’m in the exact same situation,” Jeric smiled.

Ainsley let out a loud sigh and gave him a genuine smile that she hoped would show how much appreciation she had for his help. For some reason, Ainsley could feel hot tears burning behind her eyes. She stared into Jeric’s eyes and couldn’t help but miss Jaime. This was the most human interaction she had had with anyone since the boys had left for tour. Mal only spent the night once, and even then all they did was watch a movie and go to sleep. Ainsley felt guilty for snapping at Jaime and wanted nothing more than to call him in that exact moment and apologize.

“Are you okay?” Jeric asked, noticing how Ainsley’s eyes had glazed over and water had begun to pool around the brim of her eyes.

Ainsley blinked away the water and took in a deep breath. “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Sorry, I was just thinking about how hard things are right now.”

“It’s okay,” Jeric said softly. “You don’t need to be sorry.” He gave her a warm smile, flashing his pearly white teeth in the process. Jeric continued to stare into Ainsley’s eyes, and she couldn’t help but smile back. His left hand slowly inched toward hers, trying to make contact.

Ainsley noticed this and pulled herself away slowly, trying not to be too obvious about how she noticed, but just enough so he could get the hint. She walked over to the kitchen to finish cooking up their food.

“Right…boyfriend…” Jeric mumbled, hoping that Ainsley didn’t hear him. She ignored his comment and continued to toss the salad before returning to the table so the two of them could eat while the pasta continued to cook.

“So tell me about him,” Jeric said. “Why is your boyfriend in South America?”

Ainsley smiled at the thought of Jaime, glad that Jeric had gotten the hint about her rejection. “Work,” she said simply. She didn’t know if she should be telling random people that her boyfriend was in a rather successful band. She wasn’t sure about how people would react to that news.

“What does he do?” Jeric pressed on as he took a bite of his salad. “This salad is delicious,” he gushed as he forced another fork-ful into his mouth.

“He’s in a band,” Ainsley replied with a shrug. “I’m glad you like the salad. The pasta should be done soon.” Ainsley finished the last of her small helping and got up to make sure the noodles were done cooking. As she paced around the kitchen, she really hoped that Jeric wouldn’t ask more questions about Jaime.

“Oh, a band? That’s cool. What kind of band?”

“Um, I guess rock. I don’t really know how to describe their sound. He usually calls it mexicore,” Ainsley laughed a bit. “He plays bass.”

“Mexicore? Sounds…interesting,” Jeric paused to laugh. “What are they called?”

Ainsley hesitated to answer. “Pierce the Veil,” she finally said after running the noodles through the strainer.

“I think I’ve heard of them!” Jeric exclaimed with a slightly bounce in his seat. “Yeah, I think my daughter likes them.”

Ainsley nearly dropped her spoon into the sauce she was stirring. “You have a daughter? How old is she?”

Jeric laughed a little bit. “She’s fifteen,” he explained with a laugh.

“Wait…so how old are you?”

“I’m thirty-two. I know I’m kind of young to have a fifteen-year old. She was a prom-night baby. Junior prom. Sixteen years old, knocked up my girlfriend.” He shrugged his shoulders. “She lives with my sister though. I don’t have enough money to support the two of us, so I give her some spending money when I can, but my little sister and her husband care for her beside that.”

“Wow,” Ainsley said softly. Jeric was basically spilling his life story out to her, and she didn’t know what to say. “Where’s her mother?”

Jeric bit his lip and looked down. “Um…she passed away a few years back. She uh…took her own life.”

Ainsley set down two bowls of the pasta she had served up on the table, gently sliding Jeric’s over toward him. She took a seat and looked down at her hands. She knew exactly why Jeric was feeling sad. Ainsley’s mother had just taken her own life a couple of years ago, and the pain was still evident – weighing down on Ainsley’s mind every day that passed. Everything reminded her of her mother, and that was partially her fault since she refused to get rid of most of her belongings. She didn’t want to get over her mother’s death just yet.

“I’m so sorry. I know what you’re going through. My mom took her life two and half years ago. I still think about her every day. We were really close,” Ainsley admitted. She looked at her pasta, but suddenly wasn’t feeling all that hungry.

“It’s been four years since Crystal took her life. We had just celebrated our two year wedding anniversary when she found out she was pregnant again. Something went wrong in the pregnancy and the baby didn’t make it…she went through the labor and everything…little guy got wrapped up in his umbilical cord and was gone before he could even see the world. She blamed herself for the longest time and she just couldn’t take it anymore so she decided to take herself out like the baby…she h-hung herself a year later on the day that would have been his birthday.”

Ainsley blinked back tears. “I-I’m so sorry, Jeric. That’s horrible.”

Jeric wiped at his left eye before letting out an uneasy chuckle. “Wow, I’m so sorry for telling you all of this. I’ve never opened up to anybody like this before.”

“Please don’t apologize,” Ainsley said softly. “My brother, Evan, was kidnapped at six years old. We didn’t find his body until three years later. I was seventeen at the time and didn’t really grieve as much as I should have. I started to go out a lot, and my family kind of fell apart after that. My father drank himself to death, leaving just my mom and me. It was the two of us for a long time, but when I started to work a lot more to try and establish my life, she started to feel overly lonely, and I had no idea that she was feeling that way. The lonelieness finally got to her. She drowned herself in her medication and alcohol. I um…found her on the couch. They said she had been dead for about three days by the time I found her.”

Jeric’s hand stretched out and this time Ainsley let him take ahold of it. “Don’t blame yourself for that, Ainsley.” Ainsley looked up to him and gave him a half-smile through her tears. She did blame herself, there was no way she couldn’t blame herself. She had left her mother at home to rot – quite literally – when she should have been there to help her through the loss of her family members. Loneliness killed her mother, and because of that, Ainsley had been battling loneliness for her whole life. I deserve to be alone, Ainsley thought to herself, I deserve loneliness after leaving my mom alone.

Ainsley could hear her phone ringing from her purse in the kitchen, but she decided to ignore it. She knew that I was either Jaime or Malorie calling her, but she didn’t care. She wanted to be there for Jeric even though she hardly knew him. They had each lost people that were very important to them, and Ainsley could feel a connection to Jeric because of this. Nothing romantic, but more like family. Like Jeric was meant to be her brother.

Jeric stayed for another thirty minutes, eating his food and taking part in light conversation about their work-life before he gave her his business card and cell phone number. Ainsley gave him a tight hug as a goodbye and watched him pull out of her driveway before she shut and locked the door behind her. She heard her phone beep from within the kitchen and decided that she could finally check her missed calls.

She had a text message from Malorie saying a brief hello and short summary of her day before announcing that she was exhausted and would call in the morning. She decided not to reply and would just wait for her call in the morning.

She had a missed call and a new voicemail from Jaime. She smiled a bit, but also felt bad at the same time. She should have been the one calling him to apologize because she was the one who had caused this little fight.

She put her phone to her ear to listen to his voicemail.

“Ainsley...babe, I’m sorry for hanging up on you. I know that you’re just stressed out and all but what you said really upset me. Tony told me that he told you about Jess. I had no idea he told you, and I’m sorry I wasn’t the one to tell you. Call me or text me when you listen to this and I’ll call you back when I’m free. Goodnight, Ains. I miss you.”

Ainsley let out a long sigh and quickly opened up her text messages.

I got your message. I’m sorry for snapping at you. I was way out of line. I’ll be looking forward to your call, babe. I miss you, too. So much.

She hit send before placing her phone on the charger and changing into something more comfortable. When she climbed into bed, she created a body made of pillows beside her and pushed herself up against it, hoping to feel less alone.

The truth was that Ainsley just wanted to have Jaime’s arms wrapped around her every night before bed. She wanted him comfort. She wanted to smell his fresh cologne instead of the remnants of his sleep on her sheets. She was lonely, and she wasn’t sure how much loneliness she could take before it really started to hurt her.

The tears fell from her eyes in a steady stream. Her body shook the bed with every sob she let out. Her house filled with her cries as her pillowcase caught the tears that cascaded down her cheeks and off her chin. Her right hand reached up to clutch her shirt as she wrapped her arms around her own body, hoping to feel less alone by providing herself with some sort of comfort. The reality hit her, and it hit her hard. She had no family. No family was left on her father’s side since before she was born. No cousins or distant aunts and uncles. She never knew her mother’s side of the family was just as non-existent because her mother grew up in foster homes until she was sixteen and met her father. Ainsley was alone. Painfully, but rightfully, alone.

Notes

I'm so sorry it took so long for me to update this! I was visiting family for a week and I thought I was going to be able to update, but I actually ended up being busy the entire week. It was a very fun trip, but I am very glad to be back home in southern California. I don't like northern California too much. Sad, but true.

This chapter is a bit on the shorter side, and kind of filler-ish, but still has a lot of important information. What do you guys think about Ainsley's state of mind? and what about Jeric? What do you guys think about him? I have big plans for this story, and I'm excited to start letting them unfold.

I will be updating my other stories sometime this week! Again, sorry for the wait! :) love you all xoxo.