Asher #2
“Get on my back.” I step down onto her porch stairs.
“What?”
“I’ll carry you to higher ground, and we can run to the truck.”
“Asher—”
“Now, Jocelyn.”
A fun fact I wish I hadn’t learned the hard way—trying to beat rising floods is like racing a cheetah. The water is at my
ribs by the time I make it to the street. Joss’s arms around me hold tight, her limbs trembling. It’s approximately seventeen
times harder to walk with her weight on me, but these waters would take her shaking body for their own.
Won’t let her go. Not sure I’ll ever be able to let her go again.
Once the road starts to rise, she says she can walk, but I wait until I’m in a mere foot of water. She slides down my back
to unsteady legs, and we race toward the mouth of her neighborhood. My truck still sits at the entrance, though it slid several
feet backward. Again, the wind tries its best to tear the door away, but I get both of us settled in our seats without injuring
anything.
And then I breathe. My heart slams painfully in my throat, clogging my airway, but I suck in oxygen and stare unseeingly through
the windshield. It’s only in this moment—the moment after—that I realize I didn’t think I’d make it. Such an absurd thing to do. Life-threatening. Suicidal, even. I could have died.
She could have died.
But I did it. I saved her.
Holy shit.
With shaking hands, I peel off my sopping, freezing, bloody-armed shirt and throw it in the back. “Put your seat belt on,
please.”
She obeys, still shivering, her stare riveted to my face.
I start the engine. “I can’t believe you stayed there. You don’t even have hurricane shutters.”
“I can’t believe you came for me,” she whispers.
I keep a towel somewhere . . . Oh. I grab it from the back floorboard and hand it to her, then blast the heat. As I start
onto the street, grip tight on the steering wheel, she dries herself. The center console keeps us separated, but when she
finishes with the towel, her body leans as far toward me as possible. Cold hands slide over my shoulder and stomach.
Not suggestive. Giving reassurance. Taking comfort.
I spare a moment to squeeze her arm. “We’re almost done.”
She touches the gash in my arm. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine. It’s not even bleeding.”
The streets are worse now. Streetlights and power lines clutter the roadway, far more dangerous than before. Wind slides the
vehicle all over the road, but we arrive at my house alive and unharmed. My neighborhood roads aren’t even flooded.
At the click of a button, the garage door shuts behind us, muting the violent winds outside.
And it’s over.
The steering wheel is a good object to clench, apparently. Don’t think I can remove my hands. They’re glued here forever,
I guess, so I take a moment to simply sit in the silence.
This was both the smartest and most foolish thing I’ve ever done. I leapt into a hurricane and survived. I’m fucking Superman.
She’s alive and so am I.
My hands tremble when they finally release. Adrenaline and cortisol for the win. My gaze drifts to Jocelyn, but she’s already
staring at me, expression dazed, almost awestruck. She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t speak.
She just . . . stares.
Okay, then. She’s gone catatonic.
With my phone and keys secure in my pocket, I jog to her side and slide her trembling form from the truck. She clings to me
like a child, arms and legs wrapped tight around me. I carry her through the laundry room and into the kitchen. Outside, wind
whips debris and rain through the air, but the impact windows will protect us. With the elevation of my house, it’s unlikely—not
impossible per se, but unlikely—that the floods will reach us.
“You’re safe,” I whisper as I set her on the closest piece of furniture—the kitchen table. Her legs remain clamped around
me, but her arms loosen.
“You’re freezing.” I rub her shoulders. “Let me get you some dry clothes.”
But when I try to move away, her legs hold firm, locking me in place. Her skin is ashen, her eyes dilated. Wild. Ravaged.
She stares at me like I’m a wonder. An impossible miracle she’s privileged to witness.
That’s not doing great things to my heart. Has it ever beat this loud? Can’t keep looking at her. Might kiss her or do something
equally stupid. When I avert my gaze, she grabs my face and turns it back, forcing me to confront the storm head-on.
Five seconds pass. Ten volatile heartbeats.
Then her cold lips crush mine in a hungry, savage kiss.
Skrrrrrt. What?
What is happening? Is this some culmination of realized fear and pent-up energy? Her fingernails dig into the skin of my neck, and her legs squeeze tighter around me, wringing water from her sweatpants that drips down my calves.
“Joss—” I say against her mouth, trying to pull away.
“Please don’t stop.” Her voice wobbles over the words. Hands sink into my wet hair. Her tongue brushes my lower lip.
Easy to give in, really. Probably too easy. She can erase her anxiety in my kiss if she wants. It’s bad for me, sure, but
what’s one more kiss? I grip her neck and surrender. Just . . . sink deep into it. She tastes of ocean salt and the bare hint
of some cherry lip gloss she must have applied hours ago. Every luxurious, inflammatory second poisons my willpower further.
Or maybe the near-death experience has me forgetting about consequences. It’s sort of . . . intoxicating.
I should stop. This will only end in pain. But her hands slide down my bare chest, over the sopping elastic of my shorts,
and I can’t find the will. Long, excruciating moments when I feared she might have died tortured me today. I might have lost
her.
She’s here. Alive. Kissing me. Why overthink it?
But . . .
She isn’t in a good headspace right now. She’s overloaded and drunk on adrenaline. Keep going now, and we’ll both regret it.
I turn my face away, but she only peppers kisses down my cheek and throat. Words weave between them.
“Thank you . . . God . . . Thank you . . . I want you.”
Don’t know what to do. Can’t keep going in good conscience. Can’t stop, either. Stuck in the in-between.
“Please . . . I need you . . . Love you . . .”
Love you?
Did . . . Did that word just come out of her mouth? The L word. From Jocelyn’s lips?
Love you.
Sounds like music. Feels like silk. Tastes like candy.
Can’t be real.
“You what?” I ask, trying hard to extract myself from her death grip. Don’t get far. She’s a ball and chain, holding me in place, but
she finally detaches her face from my neck and looks up with entranced eyes.
“What did you just say, Jocelyn?”
She blinks twice. “I’m an idiot.”
Yeah. To that, I can agree. But that isn’t what she said, and a profound disappointment descends on my shoulders. Should never
take declarations of love made in the heat of the moment seriously. What am I? Some sort of n00b? This is Relationships 101.
“I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening,” she says. Her voice is trembling. Actually trembling. “You—you just, like . . . spilled yourself out for me that night over FaceTime, and it totally unlocked me. Before
that, I knew you were attractive. Objectively. After that, I could feel it—your pretty face and your beautiful soul.”
I almost laugh. “Oh, no. Not feelings.”
She scoffs, still all trembly. Should I get her out of these soaked clothes? She has to be freezing. But I don’t want her
to stop talking. Need her to keep talking until she says the words. The ones that matter.
“And then we had that stupid photoshoot.” Her scowl is quite ferocious. Must still be really pissed at that photoshoot.
I get it. That day was eye-opening in the worst of ways. “Yeah, that was rough,” I say.
Her expression softens. “I knew what was happening. I tried to convince myself I could make it stop.”
“Make what stop?”
Her icy fingers rise to rest gently on my cheek. “Falling in love with you.”
Someone’s turning down the oxygen again. Or maybe I’ve just forgotten how to breathe. I can’t move. Can’t look away. Can’t speak. I just . . . stare.
“That night, after the wedding, you dismantled all my walls. But then the next morning—I panicked.”
“I remember.” Don’t particularly want to think about that. Makes the lack of oxygen a touch painful. Must breathe at some
point, though. Requirement for ongoing life.
Her eyes flutter shut. “I’m an idiot. I thought we could just ignore it. That I could rebuild my walls, and things would go
back to normal, but it just—”
“Doesn’t work like that.” Air finally enters my lungs as I realize what’s happening. I’m getting a romantic speech. This is
Jocelyn Mattox’s version of a loving confession. She’s Pride & Prejudice-ing me, and her hands are cold.
This is fantastic. Like . . . truly phenomenal. Today has been a terrible shit show of a day, but this. This is some sort of miracle. Akin to facing down a hurricane and surviving. I should play the lottery or something. The odds
are ever in my favor.
She shakes her head. “I kept thinking I couldn’t love you because if I loved you and lost you, I wouldn’t survive it. But
my heart didn’t really care about that dumbass logic. It just sort of tiptoed into your hand while I wasn’t looking. Flipped
me the bird on its way out, too.”
I move a couple fingers to her chin, lifting it so she’ll open her eyes.
She exhales and matches my gaze. “It’s yours now. So . . . maybe, like . . . don’t break it, or whatever.”
Endearing woman. Look at her, being all vulnerable.
Then her eyes harden. “And don’t you dare fucking die.”
A snort makes the salt still coating my sinuses burn all the way into my brain.
“I mean it, Asher.” She grabs my face with both hands. “You are now immortal.”
That’s a lot of pressure. Won’t be able to go diving into hurricanes all willy-nilly anymore—isn’t great for longevity. Hesitant
to make unkeepable promises, I settle on, “I’ll try my best.”
That makes her happy enough. Her grip on my cheeks loosens. “I love you.” She shakes herself. “I mean . . . I’ve always loved
you, but now I’m also in love with you.”
There it is.