Chapter 11 #2
They stood there, two statues under the dying light. He wanted to say something that would change her mind, or his, but nothing came.
She tucked her hands into her pockets, like she was keeping herself from reaching out to him. “What do you want me to say, Gavin?”
He thought about it. The right answer, the clever line. He couldn’t find it. “I don’t know. Just wanted you to know.”
She nodded, slow and even. “Okay.”
He should have turned and walked away. But he didn’t. He stayed, just breathing, watching her face for any sign that she’d break. “Are you going to take the job in Colorado?”
“Is there any reason for me not to go?”
“Come on, Asha. You know I didn’t want to leave like this. We need to talk about what happens next. But you know my home isn’t here. It never was, no matter how much I enjoy taking this time away. My business, my life, will always pull me back to Virginia.”
She sighed, nodding her head. “I knew that. It’s just… Nevermind. Your life in Virginia’s important. I understand that you have to leave.”
“I don’t leave until tomorrow. We still have a bit of time.” He didn’t want them to part like this. Nothing about this moment was going the way he wanted.
Asha looked down at the ground before lifting her eyes back to him. “You don’t have to try to hold on to something that may not last beyond this moment.”
He felt something tear open in his chest, but he kept it off his face. “I want to. I need to.”
She nodded again, this time softer. “We’ll see.”
***
Just over an hour later, Gavin found her at the fence again, same as before. He stopped a few feet away, the cold air stinging his face, every word he’d rehearsed feeling too small.
Asha didn’t move to look at him. Her arms crossed, shoulders hunched like she was bracing for impact.
He cleared his throat. “I leave in the morning. Early.”
She nodded, just once. Didn’t look at him.
He set his hands on the top rail, the wood biting into his palms. “Asha, I don’t know how else to say it. They need me back in Virginia. The project’s a disaster.”
“I figured it was something important or you wouldn’t need to leave,” she said.
He looked at the side of her face, searching for any crack in the wall she’d thrown up. “I want you to come with me.” The words tumbled from his mouth, like if he hesitated the moment would vanish, and he’d never get this chance again.
She turned, the movement slow, deliberate. “That’s a hell of an ask, Gavin.”
“I know.” He flexed his grip on the rail. “But I’m not going to pretend I don’t want you there with me. I’m not willing to lose what we’ve just started to build.”
Asha threw up her hands and took a step back. “It’s not that simple. You don’t get to do that to me.” She stopped herself, jaw clenching. “We’ve been together less than a month. Hell, only a few weeks if you think about it. You can’t be serious.”
He held her gaze and took a step closer.
“As a fucking heart attack. I didn’t say it earlier, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
I know what I feel for you. Even when I tried to hide it, you got under my skin.
If I leave Ironhaven and I don’t ask you to come with me, I might lose you. I’m not willing to risk that.”
“Why me?”
He started to answer, but the words jammed up behind his teeth. He hated that he couldn’t be clear, that every emotion felt like a foreign language.
She filled the silence, her tone getting softer. “I’m not good at chasing behind people. Never have been. What if it doesn’t work out? What if you decide I’m not really what you want after I’ve changed my entire life for you?”
He shifted, searching for the right angle. “You wouldn’t be chasing. You’d be… with me. By my side. You and I, sweetheart. We would do this together. Come with me.”
Asha stood there frozen. Everything in her was telling her to say yes to him. To take the leap and go all in with Gavin. But she was afraid.
“You don’t have to decide now.”
“But you want me to.” Her eyes darted past him, out to the open sky.
He tried to close the gap, but she sidestepped, putting the full width of the fence between them.
“I don’t want to depend on anybody. Especially not someone who could leave me behind at any second when their world begins to take precedence and life gets too hard.”
He felt the punch of it, sharp and low.
Her next words came out in a rush. “Maybe this was just a short-term thing that happened between us. It doesn’t have to mean more than that.”
He shook his head, not believing it. “You don’t mean that.”
She held his stare. “Maybe I do.”
They stood there, nothing moving but the wind and the pulse in his neck.
“I don’t know how to prove it to you.”
“Maybe you can’t,” she responded.
Silence again, painful and wide.
Asha started to turn, then stopped. “Safe travels back to your home.” Her voice almost broke, but she recovered, spine straight as she walked away, boots crunching the gravel with every step.
He watched her go. He wanted to call her back, to yell at her, to do anything except let her vanish. He stood there longer than necessary. Until the only thing left was the memory of how she felt in his arms and the question in his mind of how did it all go so fucking wrong.