~Ch. 8~
by: Aimee

~ Dyre pulled into the driveway, shut the car off and went into the house. He went inot the living room and turned on ot see if there was anything interesting on. It was almost 5:00pm so there wasn't much on aside from the news. When he went into the bathroom, into the medicine cabinet to get something for his headache. He had a choice between Tylenol, Advil, Alieve or Asprin; he decided on a mix of Tylenol and Asprin.
~ "This shit better work," he said to himself and swallowed the pills. He then went back into the living room, sat on the couch and opened his cell phone to call Ashley. The phone rang 3 times before she picked up.
~ "Hey Dyre," Ashley answered.
~ "Hey baby. Do you know when you'll be getting home by any chance? I miss you," Dyre said.
~ "Uhm I'm not sure, but I guess I could come home now if you want," Ashley replied, glancing at Kris. Kris simply looked at her without a response.
~ "If you're not too busy then can you do that? If you are busy then finish up whatever it is you're doing and then could you come home?"
~ "Baby are you okay? Is somthing wrong? You sound kinda like you're in pain."
~ "I have a minor headache, that's all. I just really want to see you. I don't mean to sound desperate though."
~ "Okay. Well, no, I'm not really busy. Me and Kris are just kinda wandering in and out of stores. I'll be home soon baby. Is there anything you want me to pick up before I get home?" Ashley asked.
~ "No, all I want is you. Thanks Ash," Dyre replied.
~ "No problem. Love you." Ashley hung up her phone and looked at Kris. "Sorry, but I think I'm gonna cut this short. Dyre sounds almost upset about something and kinda desperate to see me. Do you mind taking me home?"
~ "Naw, I should be getting back home anyway. Make sure Anthony hasn't destroyed anything," Kris laughed, "so I'll drop you off before I go home."
~ "Thanks; I had a pretty good afternoon, under the circumstances."
~ "Me too," Kris agreed. The two girls headed out to Kris's car to head back to their homes. They joked about different things all the way back to Ashley's house. Ashley looked at Dyre's car parked in the driveway.
~ "Huh, Dyre left the top down. Oh well, he probably just forgot again. I'll put it up. Talk to you later Kris. Thanks again," Ashley said as she got out of the car.
~ "No problem. Be good Ash," Kris said. Ashley smiled and turned to walk up to her house. When she opened the door, she saw Dyre in the kitchen. She walked into the kitchen to say hi.
~ "Hey Dyre, what you cookin'?" Ashley said, putting her arms around him and resting her head on his shoulder. He put the spoon he was using to stir the noodles down, turned to face Ashley and kissed her.
~ "I'm just fixing some noodles to go along with the shrimp and sauce that I've already made. Did you have fun?" Dyre replied looking into Ashley's eyes?
~ "Sure, we just wandered around Highland Mall. How about you? D'you have fun too? Hey, who won? You never called and told me who won," Ashley asked, giving Dyre a sarcastic look of slight anger. He smiled.
~ "I know. I'm sorry. My team won. And yeah me and Ricki had fun."
~ "Cool. Hopefully next week they'll win again. So, how soon before its done? I'm gettin kinda hungry."
~ "Couple more minutes."
~ "Alright, I'm gonna go change and I'll be right back out." Dyre nodded and Ashley went back to the master bedroom. When she go in there, she sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands. She still had the headache from last night. It hadn't really bothered her while she was at the mall because she was preoccupied and her mind was not completely focused on Dyre. Now that she was back home with him, her headache was more prominent. After just sitting there for a minute she decided to take a hot shower before dinner; maybe that would at least relax her muscles. She knew that dinner was almost ready, but Dyre could wait 20 minutes.
~ After she got out of the shower, her muscles were slightly less tense before, but her head was still pounding. Ashley decided to take some Alieve and Advil.
~ "Maybe mixing the two will help," she said to herself. She then got a tee-shirt and pajama pants on and went into the dining room to see Dyre had set up the table, including a vase centerpiece and two candles, lit, letting off a vanilla fragrance into the room. Ashley smiled and tryed to look unphased my her throbbing headache. It worked because all Dyre did was smile and tell her that dinner was served. They both sat down to eat what Dyre had made. It was still pretty hot despite the fact that it had been sitting out for almost 15 minutes.
~ "This is good baby. Thank you," Ashley said after she had eaten a few bites.
~ "You're welcome. Hey, how's your head?" Dyre asked, "You had a headache last night, is it better?" he added when Ashley gave him a puzzled look.
~ "Oh, yeah, its gone," she lied, "I guess walking around the mall helped."
~ "That's good," he said and continued eating. They both finished eating in silence because neither of them could think of what to say. When they had finished Dyre took both his plate and Ashley's into the kitchen. Ashley got up and followed.
~ "You don't have to do the dishes. You cooked."
~ "So? I don't mind."
~ "Okay, if you insist." Ashley brought the left over food into the kitchen to put it away. She put the dirty dishes in the sink so that Dyre could wash them. On her way into the living room, she noticed Dyre's cell phone on one of the small tables in the hall. She looked back into the kitchen to see if Dyre was paying attention to anything but the dishes; when she saw he wasn't, Ashley picked it up and took it with her into the living room. She sat down on the couch, turned the TV on and opened the phone. She went into his phonebook to see if he had any names in there that she didn't recognize. No such luck. She then went into his outgoing calls record. Nothing there either. Ashley glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Dyre was still doing the dishes. He was, so she proceeded on checking his incoming and missed call records. Nothing out of the ordinary in the incoming, but in the missed calls there was a strange number that she didn't recognize. It was local; that was all she knew. Just as she got the last number written down, the water shut off. Dyre had finished the dishes. Ashley closed the phone and placed it on the coffee table next to hers.
~ "Ashley, what do you want for dessert tonight? Freshe-baked brownies or fresh-baked cookies?" Dyre asked when he came into the living room. Ashley looked at him for a minute then replied, "whichever one you want." Dyre smiled.
~ "I don't care, that's why I'm asking you."
~ "Oh," Ashley said and though about it before saying, "brownies. They're double fudge ones right?" Dyre nodded, "Okay, brownies it is." He went back into the kitchen to prepare them. She took Dyre's phone and went into the bathroom. She dialed the number just to see who would answer. After 2 rings, an answering machine picked up and Ashley heard a female voice.
~ "Hey guys, you've reached Desirae. I'm unable to answer the phone so leave amessage and I'll get back to you A.S.A.P." Ashley hung up the phone and thought to herself, 'Desirae? Was that the girl who he had been with at the restaurant?'
~ Dyre had erased her number from his phonebook and from the outgoing and incoming call records, but had forgotten about the missed calls. And since her name was no longer in his phone, only the number showed up on the list of missed calls. Ashley went into the bedroom and put the small piece of paper she had written the number on in one of her bedside table drawers under her book. She then went back into the living room and put Dyre's phone back on the coffee table. Dyre, who was still in the kitchen, had not even realized Ashley had gotten up, left and come back.
~ "Baby, yu want to lick the bowl or the spoon?" Dyre asked as he walked into the living room with the bowl he had used to mix the batter.
~ "I'll help lick the bowl," Ashley said taking the bowl from him and sticking her finger in so that she could get the last of the better in the bowl. "How long until they're done?" she asked.
~ "40 minutes till they come out and another 10, 15 until I can cut them and we can eat them," Dyre replied as he scooped out more batter with the spoon.
~ "Okay, so around 10:30 they'll be ready to eat?"
~ "Yeah, that sounds about right." Dyre sat down on the couch next to Ashley. She started flipping through the channels and after about 10 channels, she hit the guide button deciding it would be quicker and easier to see exactly what was on. She came to the movie channels before seeing anything appealing on.
~ "Hmm, we have a big choice between Gladiator, Cold Creek Manor and Dreamcatcher," Ashley said when she was though looking. "Or we could watch a DVD."
~ "I think we'd be better off watching a DVD. Which one you want to watch?"
~ "Hell if I know, we have so many. Tell ya what; I chose which dessert we're gonna be having, you choose which movie we watch, deal?"
~ "Okay, that works." Dyre got up and went over to the rack holding the DVDs, looked for a minute and pulled out 'The Ninth Gate.'
~ "This okay?" he said holding it up for Ashley to see. She nodded her head and Dyre placed it in the DVD player. About an hour later the brownies had been taken out and were ready to eat. Dyre brought in two for Ashley and two for himself as well as two glasses of milk. The two of them sat watching the movie and drinking their milk. When the movie ended, Ashley got up and stretched.
~ "I think I'm gonna get some sleep. I have to work tomorrow. Thank you for the brownies baby. I love you." Ashley said. She then leaned down, kissed Dyre and went into the bedroom. She took her pants off and got under the covers. Ashley layed there in her drawer and the answering machine message she had gotten when she had called the number. After about 20 minutes of laying there, Dyre came in to join her. He stripped down to his boxers, got under the covers, kissed Ashley's forehead and turned over to go to sleep. Dyre fell asleep almost immediately and Ashley fell asleep shortly afterwards. The next day was their anniversary and neither of them knew what the other one was going to do for them. They'd soon find out.