Dedicated to xCelestialSkiesfor the beautiful cover above. :)

CHAPTER – 37 (Unedited as always)

LOVE IS... BLISS

'Love is meeting of two souls, fully accepting the dark and the light within each other, bound by the courage to grow through struggle into bliss.'

Day - 15

"I don't understand why you have given me this piece of crap?" Ashton scowled.

I looked up from my cup of coffee and saw him adjusting his shades. It was the first time that I saw him wearing sunglasses and dare I say that he looked like the definition of 'hot'. It suited his handsome face perfectly well, but I loved his grey eyes more and I didn't like that I couldn't see them because of this barrier.

"You're drooling with a frown," he informed me with a smirk.

"That's not possible, you know? I'm just thinking," I told him, taking another sip of the black goodness. "And that piece of crap contains information about your date."

Rolling his eyes, he looked down at the email on his phone. I had mailed him the details of Jennifer, the next candidate we were to meet in this café in a while as I didn't want to repeat every other information about her again and again when I very well knew that he never paid attention to anything I told him about the candidates.

"But there is nothing written about you," he replied with an innocent face, and all I wanted to do was hug the life out of him and kiss him. I didn't bother replying and looked away with an evident smile on my face. "I like your blush. You're too cute, Liana." He laughed, keeping his phone away.

"Shut up," I grumbled, making him laugh again.

We were interrupted when someone placed a handbag on our table. We looked up and saw a pretty brunette with hazel eyes, looking at us with a little frown on her face. "You are Ashton Parker, right?" she asked him, but didn't give a chance for him to reply as she sat down and continued, "I'm Jennifer. With tightly closed lips, I looked towards Ashton, who was looking at the girl with nothing but confusion. "Oh, and you must be Liana Moore. I'm sorry; I'm just in a very crappy mood today." She smiled, scratching the back of her head with creases on her forehead.

"Oh, would you like to have something? Maybe a coffee to make you feel better?" Coffee always worked for me, so I assumed that it was something global.

"Or a beer?" Ashton interrupted me with a roll of his eyes, making me pout slightly.

She looked between us and said, "A lemonade actually."

I grinned at her and called a waiter immediately to place her order. Once that was done, I opened my mouth to say something to start this meeting, but she beat me at it.

"I just want to make it clear that I'm not interested in you so don't even think about falling for me," she told Ashton with complete seriousness, making me gasp in surprise. What was she talking about?

"F*ck yes!" Ashton chuckled, looking relieved. She smiled in an instant, looking relieved too.

But I was way too confused at the turn of events. Not that I wasn't happy with both of theirs disinterest in each other, I just wanted to know what she was talking about. "What?" I voiced out my confusion.

She grinned at me and leaned towards us on the table. "Okay, so here is the situation. I broke up with my boyfriend about twenty days back, and that's when I accepted meeting you in complete rage. Now, my boyfriend is trying to win me back and I'm here to make him jealous."

So, she had a boyfriend. I liked her immediately. She was not a threat at all.

"That's a great," Ashton mumbled nonchalantly. He was obviously not interested in her or her story.

But I was quite the opposite. "Your boyfriend knows you are on a date?"

She nodded in an instant. The waiter came back with the lemonade and she thanked him for that. She took her time in replying to me as she took a huge sip of her drink, during which I felt Ashton hold my hand that was on my lap. My head snapped towards him and I looked at him with wide eyes. His expressions were the complete opposite of mine as he looked as nonchalant as before while looking towards Jennifer.

"Yeah, he knows," she replied, diverting my attention away from Ashton to her. Probably Ashton didn't like it as he started rubbing circles on my palm with his thumb, making it impossible for me to understand whatever Jennifer was saying. "He owns this café."

Her words settled in my head and I asked in disbelief, "What? Are you serious?"

Ashton covered his heart with his hand in mock hurt and mumbled "I feel used."

I tried to control my laughter at his sarcasm, while she grinned at him. "You're funny." Ashton nodded in acknowledgement while she continued, "He is looking at us through the window right across me. No, please don't turn and look at him. You'll spoil everything," she said with the grin intact on her face, just as we were about to turn around and look at him.

I couldn't help but grin back. However, my grin faltered when I felt Ashton leave my hand from under the table to rest on my thigh. I held his hand with mine and tried to remove his hand, but his hold tightened and the butterflies in my stomach started creating a chaos. "Stop it!" I tried to whisper, but it came out loud when he started massaging my thigh.

"What?" Jennifer asked, holding her glass of lemonade that she was about to drink.

I opened my mouth to say something and Ashton chose that moment to remove his hand from my thigh. That gave me my senses back and I replied with a made up answer, "Stop trying to make him jealous. He must be trying really hard to win you back."

She looked at me with a frown and her eyes shifted towards the window at my back. She looked there for a while and sighed. "I think you're right. He looks really hurt."

"Of course, he must be. You're rubbing in his face that you're on a date with someone else when you clearly said that he is trying to win you back. I know I'm not the one to judge about what happened between you guys, but it's clear from your face that you've forgiven him and now, you're just trying to have some fun at his expense. Low move." Much to my surprise, it was Ashton,who had said all this to her as I stared at him with surprise.

Ashton Parker giving away relationship advice was gold!

She took his words seriously as she rubbed her face with her hands once and muttered, "Thank you." With that, she got up and went inside the café, most probably to talk to her boyfriend.

"Wow," I whispered, making Ashton look at me with raised eyebrows. "Did you just give relationship advice?"

He frowned at me. "What? No!"

"Oh yes, you just did. This is surreal. Am I rubbing off on you, Ashton?" I teased him. "Next I know, you'll be writing articles of relationship and love advice in 'We are the Divas'." He grabbed my thigh again, making me shut up. "Ashton!" I hissed as blood rushed to my cheeks.

"What?" he asked with an innocent smile on his face.

With narrowed eyes, I held his hand and tried to remove it from my thigh, but his grip was strong. "We are in a freaking café for God's sake, Ashton. What if someone sees us and make inappropriate comments?"

He frowned at me as if I was disturbing him and said, "You talk too much." The next moment, his lips were on mine effectively shutting me up from telling him the various cons of public display of affection.

*****

Day - 16

"This place is way too noisy," I yelled as Ashton guided me towards a private booth in the club that we were in. Noisy was a lenient adjective for this club. It looked like there were people more than double the capacity of the club and the dance floor was not exactly a dance floor. People were dancing anywhere they wanted to – near the bar, on the tables, on the dance floor, near the DJ who looked like he was having the time of his life in this messy party. "It looks like a high school or college party," I yelled again with a frown in hopes of making him hear what I was saying.

"It's much more awful." He laughed, looking at me over his shoulder. I smiled at him. I liked his laughs, a lot.

Somebody bumped into my side, taking me off guard and pushing me to the side. Ashton turned instantly, holding my shoulders. "Careful, Liana," he told me and glared at the person who had pushed me by mistake. That person was so high that he was not fazed by Ashton's glare. I doubt he even realized that he had pushed someone.

"I'm fine." I interrupted his glaring.

His eyes fell on me. In an instant change of mood, he eyed me from head to toe and toe to head. "Oh, you're more than 'fine'." I blushed lightly and swatted his hand from my shoulder, making him laugh. I was just okay in my blue mid thigh skirt teamed with a light blue lace top. The professional in me had rebuked for dressing up for someone else's date, but my heart immediately blocked the professional's voice and made me dress up in one of the prettiest but decent outfit I owned.

Smirking at me, Ashton pulled me and brought me in front of himself, so that my back touched his chest. After that, he started walking amidst the crowds up to our booth. "Now it doesn't seem as awful," he mumbled in my ear, nipping my ear lightly, taking me by surprise. Well, I agreed on that part.

Much to my disappointment, the way from the entrance of the club to our booth that had seemed like miles away just a few minutes back, seemed like merely steps away as we reached our booth way too soon. And with that we were back to reality; the reality of his date with another girl with me being nothing but a wingman.

I stepped away as soon as we reached there, making Ashton frown at me. "You have a date," I reminded him with a hiss.

Snorting, he said, "As if."

Ignoring his sarcasm, I told him, "You remember what I told you about Makayla, right?"

Ashton raised his eyebrows, and asked, "Her name is Makayla?"

Even though I wanted to smile at how uninterested he was about his date, as always, I shot him a serious look. "Be serious!"

He held up his hands in surrender and I motioned for him to enter inside the booth. Before entering, he stopped in front of me and mumbled, "I've the timer set for one hour. Just one hour." Not giving a chance for me to reply to his sweet words, he bent down, pecked me on lips as if it was a normal routine and went inside the booth. But I . . . I was still not used to it, as a result of which a blush crept up my cheeks and a smile spread on my lips not so discreetly.

I took about a minute or two to calm down my fluttering heart and entered the booth. Immediately, I spotted Ashton, who had his back to me. He was seated on the couch and opposite him was Makayla. I recognized her from the picture I had seen of her. Other than her nose piercing and three piercings on each ear, there was one on her left eyebrow. I guessed that it was quite recent. Her smoky eyes were fixed on Ashton as he was saying something and her lips were stretched in a smile.

"Hi!" I greeted them in order to catch their attention. Ashton's head snapped towards me and he smirked in greeting. I looked at Makayla, but she was still looking at Ashton, not bothering to respond to my greeting. I went and sat beside Ashton. "I'm Liana Moore. I hope you both are through with the introductions." I looked between them with a hopeful smile on my face, but Makayla still didn't bother to even spare me a glance. I realized how similar she was to Ashton and a chuckle escaped my lips. Ashton raised his eyebrows at me, which made me laugh a bit more.

"What?" he asked with an amused expression.

Controlling my laughter, I shared my observation with him. "She is your female version."

Ashton shot me a look that said 'what the heck?' to which I replied with a nod. "She is not someone who greets," I clarified with a teasing grin, making Ashton roll his eyes at me.

Biting my lips, I looked back to her and watched as she picked up a drink from the table between us and drank it one go. Once she was done, she kept the glass back on the table and giggled for a while; during which I stared at her with wide eyes. "So..." she slurred with a huge smile on her pale face as she looked at Ashton. "If you want to marry me, you should know that I party every night."

While I stared at her drunken state in complete shock, Ashton snickered. "Marry? Yeah, right!"

I frowned a bit as I tried to understand whether his snicker was for marrying her or marrying anyone in general. She continued saying something or the other, half of her words were way too slurred to understand and the other half were covered in hiccups. Ashton wasn't surprised by her behavior as he picked up a beer and opened it to take a sip. "Want something?" he asked.

"You're such a gentleman, Ashton," I said with complete sarcasm and a genuine smile on my face. The gentleman Ashton had his moments and this was not one of them. I spotted a closed Coke can on the other end of the table and asked Ashton, "Pass me with Coke can, will you?"

"Sure."

He bent forward to pick it up, but a loud squeal made both of us jump in shock. Our heads snapped towards the source of the noise who was Makayla. "Coke? You have coke? I want coke." Her eyes were wide with joy and that made me notice that her pupils were dilated.

In a low voice, I asked Ashton in complete shock, "Is she . . . is she stoned?"

Ashton let out a low chuckle and answered me, "No shit, Sherlock!"

"Oh crap!" I muttered.

"I guess I can erase the timer now." He laughed and I couldn't help but smile at him.

The song 'Down' started playing and in an instant, Makayla jumped and started swaying on the table while Ashton and I watched her with our jaws dropped open. "I'm not down. I'm high!" she yelled and giggled some more, making us laugh. This date was an utter waste.

I felt a hand grip my arm and from the tingles, I knew whose hand it was. I let him make me stand with him. He slipped his hand around my waist, making my heart flutter with joy. "We're at a club. I didn't need to try too hard to get rid if this candidate, thankfully. And you're with me. So why not make the best use of this place?" A slow grin spread on his handsome face as he said these words and like the love struck girl that I was, I did what my heart asked me to do. I nodded with a huge smile on my face. He kissed me telling me that he liked my answer.

We were brought from the reverie that we had gone into by yet another squeal from Makayla. Our heads snapped towards her and she cooed, "Aww. You two are so cute. Let's party together!"

Laughed we looked at each other again with the same intensity as earlier. Ashton dragged me out of the private booth to the little place that we managed to find on the dance floor to dance to the rocking tunes of Jay Sean. The loud music that we had found to be annoying and noisy just a few minutes earlier, the sweaty bodies dancing around us didn't bother us anymore. In fact, we gladly welcomed the pushes we received from the people around us as that gave us an excuse to dance much closer to each other. Contrary to our comments when we had entered the club, we weren't complaining anymore as we lived the moment in each other's arms.

"Love is bliss," I whispered in his ear as he his hands caressed my back.

He laughed at me, shook his head and continued dancing with me in his arms without saying a word. I took that as a sign of disagreement, but I didn't mind. I knew what I had stepped into. I had just a few days with him. Why would he wait for me to come back after a year? Of course, he wouldn't. The bitter realization didn't feel as bitter though, as I had accepted what he had to offer – some blissful moments, but no love, and I was fine with it. I had accepted him with a smile on my face as he made me feel loved even though he didn't actually love me. It might not be a bliss for him, but it was for me.

***

A/N

Wishing you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR. :) May God bless you all! <3

See, I updated so quick this time. I'm trying to finish this story asap. So, I'll update soon again, but please don't ask me to update. :D I'll do it when I'm done writing the next chapter.

Like it? Love it? Hate it? It was not a filler. I want to show you guys how amazing Ashton and Liana are together. I mean, I love them together, and writing their scenes is pure joy for me. :)

Love Is... crossed 1 Million reads & 40K Votes. Yayy! Thank you so much, my wonderful readers & voters. I really appreciate every single comment & vote. And trust me, I read all comments. Someone had commented two chapters back to say that I love my readers. I thought that was obvious, so didn't say it. But I guess, there is nothing wrong in declaration of love, right? I LOVE YOU ALL! :D <3

Thanks,

Raima <3