18. Asher #3
He took my hands and pulled me in a few inches.
“Asher, I thought a lot about this.” His deep voice burned with fiery passion now.
“You are my everything. You are all I want and can’t have.
You’re the dreams I dream and the song I hear in total silence.
You’re my happy place and I can finally tell you that. ”
His beautiful face blurred when tears brimmed in my eyes.
“There was a time when I had to push you away because my own feelings terrified me. You have no idea how much I regret that,” he said, the distance between us closing with every word that left his lips.
“I regret missing out on you. We should have been friends all these years, not strangers. I should have been there to support you, not push you as far as I could. Because I love you, Ash. I love you so much that I don’t know where to put all these feelings. ”
I didn’t feel any shame when tears spilled from my eyes. I blinked fast and looked at him, my vision clearing up. Then I realized I wore the silliest smile ever. My teeth clamped around the lower lip to keep my mouth from tearing apart and I couldn’t stop grinning.
“I should have let myself love you so much sooner,” he said. “And if you feel the same, then I promise to make up for all the time we could have had already.”
The perpetual sense of melancholy that had accompanied all my feelings this summer lifted away.
I hadn’t been sad for the years we could have had, I realized.
No. I had been afraid that we wouldn’t last. But how could I be afraid of that now?
How could I ever think Jordan and I wouldn’t stand the test of time after this?
“I love you too, Jordan,” I said. “I fell for you when I was thirteen and I only loved you more the older I got.”
His face was filled with relief. His hands released mine. Before I knew it, he was holding my hips and lifting me off the ground. I wasn’t small by any means, except when compared to Jordan, so he took my breath away when he lifted me so seamlessly and brought our bodies together.
I must have laughed. The sound of my voice cut through the night as I wrapped my legs around his waist, arms flung around his neck, and my head leaning down. For once, Jordan had to look up if he wanted to kiss me, and I loved the view from up here.
My butt rested against his abdomen as I leaned in. Jordan’s arms were securely around my waist. Our lips slammed together in a moment of brilliant passion.
I kissed him deeply, whimpering once shortly with all this need for our souls to touch, to mingle. I wanted all of him for myself and until the end of time.
As I kissed him, all the other things made a little more sense.
In my heart, I knew we would find a way to work it all out.
I could see a glimmer of a chance to forgive my mom for the things she’d made me feel in these last few days.
I could see our friends discovering about us and being as ready and supportive as they had ever been.
I could see us back by the lake, making love until our souls left our bodies, traversed the galaxies, and returned to us.
I could see a life with Jordan so clearly that I knew it wasn’t a mere fantasy.
We kissed deeper and slower. Jordan let me slide back to Earth and rested his big, strong hands on my face, kissing me from above, pressing his body against mine. I held him around his torso, not wanting to ever let go.
And when the kiss passed, Jordan pulled away from me by a couple of inches, looking into my eyes lovingly.
“And George?” I asked.
Jordan nodded. His eyes were shining as if they were brimming with tears. “He gave me the courage to come after you.”
I hugged Jordan and lowered my head on his shoulder. My hands rested firmly on his shoulder blades, his upper back rising and falling with each breath.
We were incredibly lucky. For all that had gone down in the last few days, this could have ended in a million terrible ways.
I had been so sure that Jordan and I were destined to never consider giving us another chance, but he bet on us.
He had promised to fight the whole world for me, and he had.
He magicked us a second shot, and I wouldn’t gamble it away.
“I love you,” I whispered, tasting the words and memorizing what they felt like. “I love you. I’ll be yours for the rest of my life.”
“And I’ll be yours,” Jordan said.
The stars glimmered against the dark, moonless sky when he moved a little further away from me, tipping my chin up with a gentle pinch, making me look at his beautiful face.
“I am yours,” he said, leaning in again. And when his lips touched mine, my heart was whole. The cracks healed, welded together by the heat of his love. It gave me hope. It gave me life. It gave me a purpose.
We had traveled this road for a long time, crossing paths blindly in the dark and taking all the wrong turns. But now I saw the light we had been looking for. I saw the end of wandering and the start of an adventure.
I was ready for it. As I kissed him, my soul met his, and they merged together so finely that I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. I didn’t need to, either. We were simply us, and nothing else mattered.