Ashlin & Olivia

By Aster Glenn Gray

Ice queen Ashlin has one passion: art. That shared interest drew Olivia to her for an intense childhood friendship, but after that friendship's disastrous end, Olivia never wanted to see Ashlin again.

 

Years later, when the two women run into each other in Florence, Olivia is shocked to discover that she's just as drawn to Ashlin as ever. They reconnect as they wander the city, discussing art and eating gelato, and Olivia begins to see their past in a new light - and to harbor fragile hopes for a romantic future with Ashlin.

Olivia loves Ashlin. But has cool, reserved Ashlin thawed enough to trust Olivia with her heart?

 

A second chance friends to enemies to lovers f/f romance, set against the drama and beauty of Florence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aster Glenn Gray
• Release date: Aug 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223387350

Aster Glenn Gray

Aster Glenn Gray writes historical romances and fairy tale retellings. (And maybe other things too. She is still a work in progress.) When she is not writing, she spends much of her time haunting libraries and contemplating whether it is time for another hot chocolate.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I first saw Ashlin again standing below the enormous Christmas tree in front of the Duomo in Florence, late on a dark snowy evening. She stood with her head tilted back to look up at the soaring front of the cathedral, her black wool coat nearly absorbed into the shadows, her long wavy golden hair gleaming in the white lights on the Christmas tree. It was snowing, and the snow settled like feathers in her hair.

Her hair had darkened since the last time I’d seen her, on the last day of seventh grade, and I couldn’t see her face, so I didn’t recognize her at first. But she riveted my attention anyway, and I stood looking at her, too jet-lagged and enchanted to remember that it’s rude to stare.

I had flown with my Renaissance Art 101 class from Chicago to Florence that day for this week-long study abroad opportunity. We were all jet-lagged, all except Professor Gabor who seemed as fresh as a daisy, and gathered us all in front of the Duomo to lecture about the Pazzi conspiracy. And they shot Giuliano de’ Medici, she said, in cold blood on the floor of the half-finished Duomo, which was still open to the sky.

I leaned against my suitcase. The snow melted as soon as it touched the ground, and the Piazza del Duomo looked slick beneath the streetlights. Professor Gabor grew loud with enthusiasm, and the girl turned her head to glance at her, just a quick irritated movement. I saw her profile gilded in the light, and then I knew her.

If I had been less surprised, I might not have spoken to her. But the shock punched her name from my lips.

Ashlin!

Time stopped, just for a moment. It felt like only Ashlin and I stood in the Piazza del Duomo, with the snow falling around us and melting on the stones. She turned toward me – it seemed to happen at half speed – till we were looking each other full in the face.

She looked just the same – oh, a few years older, but just the same. Her wavy hair might be darker, but it framed her face the same way. Her heart-shaped face was no longer quite so round in the cheeks, but her nose was the same, the firm slashes of her eyebrows, and the serious expression that I remembered so well.

It didn’t look like she recognized me.

My heart gave a single great thump in my chest and then fell still, and my breath stopped, because it seemed she didn’t know me and that was worse – far worse than the worst thing I’d imagined could happen, if we ever met again, which was that she would still hate me.

I had thought I would still hate her, too. Instead I just felt stunned.

Then Ashlin’s eyes widened. She drew away, half a step, and for a moment I thought she might run. Olivia?

My heart began to beat again. It must have been beating all along; it took her only a moment to recognize me, just the space between two heartbeats, which stretched out to forever.

You look different, she said.

I nearly laughed with relief. No wonder it had taken her some time to recognize me! You don’t, I said. Not much. You look almost just the same.

And for a moment we stared at each other. She had to look up at me. I was half a foot taller now – much taller than Ashlin, who had scarcely grown in the seven years we’d been apart.

But it seemed to me that she had changed, after all. Her hair, her face might be the same, but her clothes had changed almost beyond recognition: that anonymous black wool coat, belted around the waist, so different from the navy blue coat with the gold cord fastenings that used to make people stare.

It’s good to see you again, I said. It was an automatic pleasantry, but I realized with amazement that I really meant it.

Her eyes narrowed. I could almost hear her say, Is it?

But no. It’s good to see you too, she said, and I felt a shock in the pit of my stomach. In the old days, she never lied just to be polite. It had helped rip us apart.

But in that moment, I hoped it was still true. 

Olivia, my classmate Tamara murmured, and I jumped at the feeling of her light touch on my elbow. The class had begun to move, heads down, suitcases thumping over the uneven pavement, Professor Gabor at the head like the proud mama duck of a company of swans who had long since grown taller than her. We’re heading to the hostel, Tamara said.

Oh! I cried; and I cast a desperate glance at Ashlin. We should get coffee, I blurted, and felt a moment of nearly blinding panic, because that phrase could be nearly as polite and meaningless as It’s good to see you again.

But then Ashlin said, Tomorrow?

Tomorrow! I agreed. We should get coffee tomorrow, tomorrow morning. If that works for you. Professor Gabor knew we’d all be jetlagged so she didn’t schedule anything till 10:30. We could meet here. Couldn’t we? Nine o’clock? Ashlin didn’t answer immediately, and I added, I’d say ten but I just don’t think there would be –

Nine is fine, Ashlin said. I’ll meet you here. And she put tapped the toe of her boot on the pavement, as if to mark the spot, and I saw that she wore pirate boots.

Tamara! Olivia! Professor Gabor called.

Tomorrow at nine in the morning! I cried, and grabbed up my suitcase, and hurried with Tamara to catch up with the rest of the class.

We paused at the edge of the Piazza so Professor Gabor could get a headcount. I looked behind us, hoping for one last sight of Ashlin, framed by the lights of the Christmas tree as she look up at the cathedral, her hair gleaming like a halo.

But she was gone.

I felt a sudden trickling horror that she would not be there, either, the next morning: that she’d agreed to meet for coffee only because that was the easiest way to make me go away, and really she never wanted to see me again.

Maybe she still wished that she had never met me. 

Who was that girl? Tamara asked.

I shook my head. An old friend, I said, and goose bumps rose on my skin as I said it. It’s been years since I last saw her.

Chapter 2

What the hell was I thinking?

Exhausted as I was, I lay awake in my stiff hostel bunk for some time, memories of Ashlin ricocheting like pinballs through my mind.

Those terrible lunches when she wouldn’t even speak to Calliope.

The night of the Drama Club play, when the whole club came out afterwards flushed and buoyant with our success, and Ashlin told me that my acting was terrible. She had never liked my involvement with drama club – the fact that I had any friends aside from her.

Her face on the last day of our friendship, still and cold. I wish I’d never met you, she said; and then she walked off, and left me standing beneath the wilting magnolia blossoms, their limp brown petals rotting on the sidewalk beneath my feet. 

These were the memories I had turned over and over in my head for nearly a year after Ashlin left, till they were as hard and smooth as pebbles in a stream. I had complained to Calliope at a sleepover, I can’t remember why I was friends with that girl in the first place!

I no longer called her by name at that point; she was just that girl.

And now that girl was back and I had practically flung myself at her, insisted that we meet again, and not with the intention of telling her all the ways that she’d wronged me, as my younger self would have wanted. No. I just wanted to see her again.

I was so tired that soon my thoughts begin to disintegrate on the edge of sleep, and my list of wrongs dissolved. I drifted into another memory: the first time I had seen her, in the autumn of seventh grade.

I was in art class, I remember, by the windows, where the sunlight streamed through the red and gold leaves of a row of maple trees so that the windows looked like stained glass. I was wishing that I could paint that instead of the still life Mrs. Marks had laid out for us. A collection of vases, I remember, in the center of a circle of easels. We were drawing them with charcoal.

Or, at least, we were supposed to, but I had finished mine and I was working on a drawing of Natasha Romanov. But it wasn’t coming out well, so I was glad of the distraction when the door opened.

The door to the art room was way on the other side of the room from the windows, so I don’t think Ashlin could have walked into the room and stood in a pool of sunlight. But that’s how I remember it happening. She wore a white dress, her long wavy blonde hair hung loose down her back, and the hair and the dress and her soft heart-shaped face seemed to have their own glow to them, their own light.

There were some murmurs in the class. People just didn’t wear dresses to school, certainly not pure white dresses with a ruffle around the hem. She stopped perhaps halfway between the door and the easels and looked us over, steady and calm and – not unfriendly, but not friendly either. She had a red zit on her chin.

She wore a hat, a dark blue broad-brimmed hat with a white ribbon, and as Mrs. Marks approached her she took the hat off, and held it in both hands. She looked younger then, and I noticed that she wore blue canvas sneakers, the exact same color as her eyes, and she rubbed the back of her leg with the top of one shoe, the way I did when I was nervous.

Are you Ashlin? Mrs. Marks asked, and I thought, Ashlin. That’s the perfect name.

Yes, Ashlin said, and maybe she wasn’t nervous after all, because her voice was clear and calm. She gave her hat a quarter turn in her hands. I’m sorry I’m late.

Oh, it’s all right, Mrs. Marks assured her – Mrs. Marks, who was a fiend on tardiness. After all, it is your first day. Class, this is Ashlin Peel, who is joining us from... She paused, and cleared her throat, and said, Where did you move here from, Ashlin?

Germany.

Germany! I had never even been out of the country, and this girl had been to – had lived in Germany.

Well, said Mrs. Marks. It’s a bit late in the day for you to get started on a still life; the first lunch bell will ring in just a few minutes. Why don’t you look around the room and get acquainted, Ashlin?

I still held my charcoal in my hand, but I didn’t even try to draw anymore. I just watched Ashlin walk around the circle of the easels, moving behind us like a ghost. She walked slowly, gracefully, even with those big clunky blue shoes on her feet. They seemed too big for her, but I learned later that she simply had big feet for her size. She paused often to look at the pictures, and a few of the girls said hi to her (most of the boys were still terrified of girls), but Ashlin never smiled or stopped to chat.

I couldn’t imagine walking through a room full of strangers with that much self-possession. And wearing those clothes, too! I had once, on