Chapter 6: Clay and Ashley

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Ashley set down her notebook, reminding herself to take several deep breaths, before aiming a forced smile in the direction of her boyfriend. "Clay, darling, why don't you head down to the Taylor house and find out what the plan is for tonight?"

"They'll text," Clay replied absently, continuing to pace the path between the bathroom and the door to their hotel room, just like he had been doing for the past, Ashley checked her watch, forty-two minutes. She could feel her teeth grinding. Between the foot shuffling, the sighing, and the muttering, there was simply no way that she was going to get any work done. Which was a problem, because she needed to submit her thesis less than a month after they returned from Australia if she wanted to graduate on time and she didn't have the luxury of blowing this off until they got home. A fact that Clay did not seem to appreciate, given his constant suggestions that they go do something. Clay's head shot up suddenly. "Although a walk sounds good. We could go to the beach."

"The beach is more than five miles away," Ashley noted, looking longingly at her notebook.

Still, she conceded, a swim did sound good and perhaps getting out for a few hours would make Clay more willing to hang out with someone else while she worked. Ashley understood that Clay was still slightly uncomfortable socializing with her family and friends given that almost all of them outranked him — significantly. Still, she was hoping this trip would let Clay see them as regular people who he might actually enjoy spending time around. After all, with Ashley graduating with her master's degree this spring, this was a natural time to make their relationship formal. Ashley hadn't been in a rush to settle down when they first started dating, not wanting to make the same mistake as too many of her friends, who rushed into marriage only to end up divorced at twenty. But now she was twenty-four, being in a long-distance relationship with a man who seemed perfectly happy with the status quo was no longer quite as appealing. While she did plan to finish her Ph.D., Ashley deliberately applied only to schools located near Naval bases, assuming Clay would get the hint.

Unfortunately, he hadn't.

Still, she refused to follow Clay around the country — or the world — unless they were married. Ray might have been willing to dance to Kat's tune for years, following her to California for flight school and then back to Mayport, but they were certainly the exception and Ashley was no fool. Even Sasha agreed that building a life around a man without getting married was asking for trouble, laughing as she said it, given that Sasha and Dad didn't bother making things official until after the War for America. Truthfully, Ashley never understood why her Dad didn't marry Sasha earlier. He was clearly in love with her, and Ashley would have always said her father was the kind of guy who did things the right way, which meant getting married. Still, Dad was such a mess back then that maybe it was better he waited. He probably would have done something totally stupid and chased Sasha off for good.

Now that she was thinking about it, Ashley wondered if Dad had asked Sasha to marry him earlier and Sasha said no because of the whole stupid running-off-to-Greece-and-hooking-up-with-Cali thing.

Deciding that there was no point sitting here not getting any research done, Ashley stood. "A swim does sound good though. Let me get my suit and I'll see if I can borrow the car."

Almost an hour passed before they actually reached St. Kilda Beach, but Ashley didn't mind. Clay seemed much calmer once they were on their way, and she was pleased to see that the beach wasn't overly crowded. That was probably because the locals were smart enough to stay indoors during the middle of the afternoon, when the sun was beating down on them, but Ashley didn't care. She pointed at the building in the distance. "I think that's the Pavilion. It was burned down a while back, arson I believe, and then rebuilt exactly like the original."

Clay chuckled. "You sound like a tour guide."

Ashley flashed him her best saucy grin. "Well, who knows if I'll ever be back. I need to take advantage of this trip to do all that tourist-y stuff."

"We could come back together," Clay offered. "Just the two of us."

Setting down her bag and grabbing the blanket she brought to spread on the hot sand, Ashely considered the idea. "Maybe. But it's a long flight and you rarely get more than a few days' leave at a time. I don't know quite how you managed to get two full weeks off."

"A couple of Admirals I know put in a good word for me," Clay teased. Ashley leaned back on the blanket, gazing out at the water for a moment before realizing that Clay was still standing, hand stuffed in his pockets. She looked up, shading her eyes with her hand. "What are you doing?"

Clay blew out a breath, so obviously uncomfortable that Ashley sat up. "What's going on with you? If you're still feeling weird about being around my Dad and Mike..."

"I told you that I'm not nervous about them!" Clay snapped.

Ashley scowled, scrambling to her feet. There were limits to her patience and Clay had just hit the point of no return. Hands on hips, she turned to face him. "Look, I don't know what's going on. You've been insufferable since the moment we got here and I've put up with it because I knew you were nervous. But if you're going to yell at me, I'm out of here."

"Ashley, please, wait. That isn't... I didn't mean ... Let me explain. Please."

Ignoring the pleading note in his voice, Ashley bent to gather the blanket and slung her bag over her shoulder, turning to give Clay another piece of her mind, only to find him on his knee, holding up ...

"Is that a ring?" she blurted.

Clay's mouth opened, then closed, and then they were both laughing. Dropping the blanket, Ashley sank onto her own knees, barely noticing how hot the sand was. Actually, scratch that, the sand was really hot. "Um, how about we stand up?"

"Yeah, good idea," Clay replied, scrambling to his feet, before reaching for Ashley's hand, not letting it go once she was on her feet. He held his other hand, the one holding the ring, out in front of him. "This isn't how I planned to do this but ... Ashley Darien Chandler, I love you. You are the most amazing person I have ever met. Will you do me the honor of marrying me and spending the rest of your life with me?"

Ashley stared, and then she started giggling, and then she was laughing so hard that she could barely stand. Finally, she wiped away the tears, joy spreading through her as she looked up into Clay's confused face. Pulling her hand free, she wrapped her arms around his waist. "Yes."