Chapter 19
Asher
Ihad never been more confident in myself than I was at that moment.
Pulling her in for a kiss was not what I had initially planned, but I couldn’t stop myself.
She was perfection, and everything in her eyes told me she needed it just as badly as I did.
My impulse was confirmed the moment I felt her hands grip onto me like a lifeline, begging me not to let me out of her grasp.
It was everything and more. If I had died today, that would have been enough.
Leaning against the car, all I could think about was her. The fury in her eyes. The way her body finally relaxed, even if for a moment with me. The way her pouty lips had felt against mine. Goddamn.
I waited for her to come down the stairs of her apartment so I could take her to check the first item off of our list. A brief shadow of doubt crept its way into my brain.
Maybe she had locked the door and wasn’t coming down at all.
What if she did come down, but once we got there, she decided this was a stupid idea?
Stop overthinking it, Asher, I told myself. I closed my eyes, but the vision of her was still painfully clear. She was allowing me in. It was a slow process, but slow meant progress, and as long as there was progress, I could seep into her thoughts.
Maybe—just maybe—if I could get into her head, I could change everything for her.
The way I felt about her, I could stay in this for as long as it took to make her see that life was beautiful, that it was worth living.
I could show her that love was worth holding on for.
I knew that my life sentence had already been dealt for me, but she still had a choice.
She could stay. She could be loved the way she deserved.
She deserved so much more than she ever believed.
Smiling as the memory of our mouths pressed together danced through my mind, I caught sight of the door swinging open in my peripheral vision. There she was—looking worlds different from how I had just seen her, yet somehow exactly the same.
She had brushed her bleached blonde hair back into a high ponytail, full and messy in a way that felt effortless.
She wore light, baggy jeans and a loose, white shirt, the kind of outfit that made her look like the girl you’d bring home to your parents without a second thought.
She didn’t even look angry. A small, reckless part of me wanted to provoke her, just to see that familiar scowl cross her face once again.
If she was scowling at me, it meant she was fighting back. And fighting meant she was giving herself a semblance of life. I loved seeing that in her.
She approached me cautiously, her hands tucked into her back pocket as she asked, “So, hotshot, where are you taking me on this Tuesday evening that couldn’t wait another minute?”
I could hear it in her tone—there was no anger there. She was playing with me. I smiled. “Now where’s the fun in that, little siren?”
She eyed me, one brow lifting. “Siren?”
I chuckled, knowing it would get a rise out of her. “Yeah. You could lure me in and just take me out of this world, Lennon.”
She pursed her lips, considering my words. They didn’t seem to offend her, which felt like a silent thumbs up to keep using it. Holding the car door open, I didn’t break eye contact. She studied me for a moment, then shrugged and slid herself into the back of the car.
I jogged around to the other side and climbed in beside her. So far, so good. As I settled in, she glanced around, taking in the interior of the car. “Whose car is this?” she asked.
It hit me then—this was a luxury I’d always had, something I’d never thought twice about. Of course, she would. “It’s my parents’. Duke’s the driver. He takes us around when they don’t feel like driving. I don’t have a license, so he drives me everywhere when he’s not tied up with them.”
She rolled her eyes, and I could have sworn she muttered rich boy under her breath. I smirked at the jab.
She kept rummaging through the back seat—the side pouches, the centre console in front of us—like she owned the place. I watched her, a little in awe of the confidence she had to invade someone else’s space so freely. “Looking for something?” I asked jokingly.
She looked at me. “Oh, you don’t like when people touch your shit? Yeah, me either.”
The smile that lit up my face was instant. Touché, Lennon. Touché.
Duke drove us across the city, and once we reached the outskirts, we turned down a dirt road. It wasn’t one of his usual routes, but he didn’t object. I glanced at Lennon, and she seemed off—tense, closed in on herself.
“Are you okay?” I asked. She didn’t answer.
I looked around, trying to understand what shifted in the last twenty minutes. Then it hit me. We’d been driving for twenty minutes, and now we were headed down some dirt road. She was alone with a guy who had taken it upon himself to kiss her in her apartment after barging in.
Goddamnit, I really wasn’t good at this.
“I’m not going to do anything to hurt you, Lennon,” I offered earnestly. She finally turned her head toward me. She appeared on the brink of tears, her eyes bloodshot and strained. Lennon was stressed, and I needed to fix it.
“I promise you. We were just checking some reckless stuff off of our bucket list. And, to be honest, I thought you were going to like this one,” I added reassurance to my last statement.
A subtle smile—the only one Lennon ever gave—appeared on her face. “You think I’m going to like this one? You don’t even know me,” she said flatly.
I pondered her for a moment. “Yeah, I know. But from what I do know, this could be fun for you.”
She scoffed as if I’d made an obscene joke. “Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Finally, as we reached the end of the dirt road, a sign for Dodgey Adventures stood posted ahead. Lennon was looking out the window on the opposite side and didn’t see it, so it remained a surprise to her. I liked that, though.
Duke slid the shifter into park. I hopped out and jogged around the back of the car, feeling particularly good in that very moment.
I grabbed the door handle and opened it for Lennon.
She looked at me with clear confusion. Something told me she wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of chivalry, and I made a mental note to make that our norm.
As she swung her legs out and hoisted herself up from the car, her gaze landed on the station in front of us. It took her a moment before she snapped her head toward me. “Are we doing what I think we’re doing?” she asked.
A smile spread across my face, and without a word, I nodded, already walking toward the base and tipping my head for her to follow.
“Is this place even open?” she called after me.
Turning around and walking backwards, I said, “I called in a favour. One of my friend’s parents owns the place, so he came out to give us the instructions, hook us up, and let us jump tandem.”
Her jaw dropped, and I thought this might have been the first time I’ve truly stumped Lennon. And I loved it. “You’re insane. Isn’t it dangerous to bungee jump at night?” she asked.
The question had me smirking to myself. “Not so much dangerous as reckless,” I said with a wink.
It was dark out, but she rolled her eyes so hard I saw the whites shine brightly. Even so, she wasn’t arguing, which meant I had her attention. That had been my goal all along—keep her interested, keep her learning to trust me, keep her on her toes the same way she kept me on mine every day.
I reached the door and opened it for Lennon.
She stepped cautiously inside the small building.
Off in the corner stood Allan, my buddy, the thrill-seeker himself.
This had become his summer job between school, and every now and then he picked up extra shifts when they were short.
I figured he kept coming back solely for the experience himself.
It was also a bonus that he didn’t know much about my health condition, so I was able to play things off without raising any red flags.
Allan ran us through the spiel—how to get suited up, the process of what we were doing, the safety measures that were in place, blah, blah, blah.
I was interested, sure, but my eyes stayed fixated on Lennon, who was soaking it all in.
She looked enamoured as she stepped into her harness and Allan tightened the straps around her.
After a triple check of our gear, Allan locked us into the cord secured to the bridge we were now walking out onto from the base. My heart picked up its pace as fear began to swirl inside of me.
I didn’t let myself think about what would happen if I died on the tandem with her. That would freak her the fuck out. Jesus—I couldn’t have thoughts like that running through my mind.
No, I had to think great thoughts. Happy thoughts. What if she wanted to live after this? What if she had fun? What if she smiled the biggest smile? What if she wanted to be with me someday in the future, all because we took this leap together?
I was going to be just fine—mainly because I was doing this with her.
I looked over at her in the dark as the spotlights barely missed us, casting light overhead instead.
She looked calm, almost at peace. It felt eerie, standing there in the darkness suspended over a gaping valley hundreds of feet below.
Allan directed us toward an opening up ahead.
My legs began to shake as we approached the ledge, the unknown waiting just beyond the drop.
I knew it was high, and I knew it was safe, but there was something about jumping into the abyss that felt dangerous.
My fight or flight response kicked into high gear, screaming at me to stop—to retreat.
I inhaled a deep breath and looked over at Lennon. She was a vision of perfection. A fragile kind of beauty I’d never seen in a person. She was a mystery, a puzzle missing pieces, a riddle I needed to solve.
As we stood there, connected side by side, she laid her palm out, upright. I looked down at it, almost confused, unsure if she really wanted me to hold her hand when we were already so tightly bound together.
“Come on, Asher, let’s get fucking reckless together.”
The devilish grin on her face was one I adored so deeply, so I laced my fingers through hers and smiled down at her.
Allan gave us a thumbs up as he checked our equipment once more. He informed us he was going to count down from three, and when he hit one, we’d jump together.
“Three!”
I looked over at Lennon. “Let’s do this, little siren.” She grinned again.
“Two!”
“See you at the bottom,” she said confidently.
“One!”
And with that, we both leapt forward off the ledge into the pitch black.
It felt like we’d stepped off the edge of the Earth and into the deep, dark unknown.
Air rushed past us as we screamed at the top of our lungs.
I wasn’t sure if I was screaming from fear or if it was purely involuntary.
The experience was life-changing, something I’d never known existed on this planet.
Lennon screamed in what sounded like pure joy. Pure excitement. It was as if someone had breathed life into her the moment she fell.
When the cord rebounded and sprung us back up into the air, I’d never felt adrenaline ease out of my body as quickly as it did in that moment. My body finally realized we were safe, and I was able to look at Lennon fully.
She looked back at me with the greatest smile I’d ever seen. Earlier, I’d told myself that if I died, then it would have been enough. But seeing the look painted on her face, I realized I wanted to stay alive to experience as many different things with her as I could.
As the bungee began to settle, we were left suspended in the air together, the only sound filling the space our panting breaths.
Out of nowhere, she began to laugh—a deep, guttural laugh that had me chuckling right along with her.
She laughed so hard she couldn’t catch her breath, and I couldn’t stop admiring her. She was so fucking brave.
I made another mental note to add this to the growing list of things I adored about her.
After we were lowered down to the ground, Allan met us there and asked how everything had gone. Lennon did all the talking, excitedly telling him it was her first time and that it had been the greatest experience of her life. I smiled to myself.
Walking toward the vehicle, I pulled a folded piece of paper from my back pocket. Lennon, walking beside me, eyed what I was doing. I had grabbed a pen from Allan’s desk earlier, noting I’d need it for the car ride home.
Lennon let me open the car door for her and got in with ease this time. As I slid into my side of the car and Duke started driving off, I unfolded the paper that housed our bucket list items, each with a checkbox next to it.
Next to do something reckless, I checked the box with enthusiasm.
I looked up at her, admiring the beautiful afterglow lighting up her face, and my eyes fell to her lips, craving to kiss them again.
“So, Asher Graves,” she said, her voice teasing, “what’s next on the list?”