Chapter 15 #3
“So, that’s it then? We’ll just never get to exist together?”
For a long moment, Ava remains quiet. They dab at their mouth with a balled-up napkin. “Ash . . .”
“And now that I’ve said it all out loud, that makes it real and it’s—ugh. Everything is ugh.”
“Basically, you’re wondering if the both of you will ever get the chance to be a normal couple,” Ava summarizes.
Asher nods miserably.
“Your life isn’t going to be normal, Ash,” Ava says, not unkindly.
“Sure, maybe a couple decades from now, when you’re both retired and out of the spotlight, but as long as you remain in this business, you’re going to be under intense scrutiny from virtually every angle imaginable.
That’s the problem with the entertainment industry—it’ll take and take and take from you. ”
“That’s exactly it. I’ve wanted this for so long, and I don’t know how long I can keep doing it.
My whole career—my life—hinges on someone else’s standard of perfection.
The moment I step out of line, I could lose it all.
This dream and . . .” Asher trails off, then swallows. “This boy. What if I mess it up?”
“Have you considered this might be just as hard for Caleb as it is for you?”
Asher blinks. Of course he hasn’t. He’s a rational creature: good at thinking critically, bound by math and objective facts. His brain has yet to lead him astray. It’s how he’s managed to survive for this long in this industry, by putting his emotions aside and doing what’s best for business.
That is why Ava balances him out perfectly. While Asher is the brains, Ava is the heart of the operation. Ava reminds him to give his heart a voice, to listen to it and allow himself to feel what he needs to because it deserves to be felt, no matter how uncomfortable that may be.
And when he really thinks about it, he sees Caleb, young at heart and afraid.
Forced to grow up overnight, long before he was ready, his youth ripped away at too young an age.
This boy, and a want so bad it threatens to burrow into Asher’s bones until they crack.
He sees a boy who had to harden his heart because no one ever stayed.
When Asher pictures Caleb starting his day with a door closed in his face, Asher leaving him again and again, his lungs stop working.
The worst part? Caleb wouldn’t say a thing about it.
He never had anything, so he’d settle for nothing.
He’d bite his tongue and tolerate it just so Asher can live out his dream.
Caleb once told Asher that he would never intentionally hurt him, and that includes this: not dragging Asher down with him.
It’s not just Asher. It’s never just been him.
“Fuck,” Asher says, his voice thick in his throat.
A phantom feeling tugs at him, a vision of an alternate reality that could have been.
Some other life where he can proudly tug Caleb out onto a dance floor and smirk at anyone who looks, because that’s his man.
His, and his alone. Asher exhales shakily. “What now?”
Ava offers Asher an arm. He takes it, wraps a hand around that beautiful godlike bicep, and nestles comfortably into the crook of their neck. “You try to take as much of it back and make it your own,” Ava says simply.
“Okay,” Asher whispers, terrified only because with every passing day, the harder it is to walk away from Caleb. And maybe, maybe if he rebelled a little, they could have something. Not everything, but enough. Maybe it’s time to stop caring so much.
MIAMI, FLORIDA
“Fantastic match, sweetheart,” Sujin Ross says. There’s the sound of faint shuffling and vaguely confused humming noises before Asher’s mom’s face fills the screen of his phone, her grin wide. “There’s our boy.”
“Hi, Ma.” Asher smiles at his mom, but it wobbles.
Seeking confidence, he steals a glance at the bed where Caleb leans against the headboard, peeking out over the book in his hand.
Caleb sets the book face down on his lap and smiles gently.
The corner of his left cheek dimples as he nods as if to say, Take your time.
They discussed it a couple nights ago, Asher telling Caleb that he’d probably come out to his parents soon.
“Maybe I could also tell them we’re”—Asher gestured between them—“you know. Together.”
Caleb’s face did something weird then, a rapid cycling between buoyant and terrified. “Is that what we are?”
“Well . . .” Asher’s hands went cold, panic wringing his neck.
“I mean, um, we don’t have to if you don’t want .
. .” He forced himself to take a steadying breath.
“I know we haven’t talked about it properly, and keeping us a secret will still be hard, but I just thought .
. . I thought we could try to make it work. ”
When Caleb smiled, he held himself like a piece of stained glass by a pew—beautiful and fragile. “Oh,” he said, finally. The word comes out in a tremble, and Asher can hear everything from longing to disbelief packed within. “I absolutely want that.”
Asher reached for Caleb’s hand and kissed his palm. “Me too.”
“How was Orlando?” Asher’s mom asks. “Did you go back to your apartment? How’s Ava?”
Asher mentally runs through a handful of openings.
Hey, you know how Ava is super gay? Well, surprise!
So, funny story: I’m kind of sort of maybe dating the guy who happens to be my on-screen rival, and my entire career could go up in flames if people found out about us. Sorry for besmirching the family name!
While he spirals, his mom goes off on some anxious tangent about a video she saw on Facebook about how a fan broke into an indie wrestler’s home.
“So, um, remember when I was concussed and Caleb helped to update you and Pa?”
His mom nods. “Yes. He texts much more normally than you do.”
Asher would roll his eyes if he wasn’t on the verge of throwing up. He sucks in a shaky breath. “We’re kind of a thing.”
“A . . . thing?” His mom says it like he’s speaking some foreign language.
“As in, um, he’s my boyfriend. I . . . I’m bi.” He casts his eyes downward. “Is that . . . okay?”
No one says anything for a moment. His mom chews on her thumbnail the way she does when she’s trying to string a proper line of English words together instead of code-switching back and forth between Singlish and Mandarin.
“Ashy,” his mom begins. “You don’t need our permission to be who you are. Besides, your dad and I both suspected that you might not be . . . you know.”
“You thought I wasn’t straight? Am I literally the last person to figure it out?”
“Well, we weren’t certain about it. Either way, we wanted to give you time.
You used to always look at your uncle. I don’t think you were even conscious of it.
It felt like you were reaching for answers to a question you didn’t yet know the words to.
” She gives him a tiny, sad smile. “Nothing will ever change the way we feel about you. You’ll always be our kid.
” She pauses to brush her bangs out of her eye.
“We might love you a smidge more if you called us more often though. We worry about you.”
“I know, but—”
“No,” his mom interrupts. “No ifs, ands, or buts. You need to take care of yourself. We know we push you to succeed. As immigrants, our survival depends on it. And I’m sorry if that has put an unnecessary weight on your shoulders.
We may not say it as often as we should, but our love for you isn’t contingent on what you achieve or who you are.
Above all else, we just want you to be healthy. ”
Asher presses his lips together and glances out the window. In the distance, city lights blur as he wills the sting of tears behind his eyelids away. “I can do that.”
“So . . . Caleb.” His mom returns to her sewing project, pulling a set of needles, threads, and embroidery hoops out of a dark blue tin that once contained Danish biscuits. “When did this happen?”
“A little after the concussion.”
“Cute. No wonder he’s been smiling more on TV.”
“Really? Let’s hope Mr. Prichard hasn’t noticed that.” Asher glances across the room, arching a brow when Caleb buries his face into the crook of his elbow. “You wanna say hi?”
A needle clatters onto the table. “Excuse me?”
Asher turns the camera, laughing when Caleb flies off the bed, scrambling to pull on a sweatshirt. “Don’t be shy, my parents watch you wrestle weekly. Ma thinks you’re handsome.”
“Asher,” his mom hisses. “Manners. You cannot just let someone hover in a room without making introductions.” She clucks noisily. “Honestly, I thought I raised you better than this.”
Asher rolls his eyes. Typical.
“Hi, I’m Asher’s mom.” She waves aggressively, sending her bangs askew when Caleb joins Asher by the couch. They squish together to fit in the small frame, thighs pressing against one another. “Sorry about my son. He can be so rude.”
“Just the worst,” Caleb agrees, smiling awkwardly as he runs a hand through his hair.
His mom points her hoop at the screen. “This is so exciting. Did you know that Asher used to be a huge fan? We still have DVD recordings of your matches.”
The phone is sent soaring across the room. It thuds against the bathroom door as Asher shrieks, “That’s private!”
Beside him, Caleb looks torn between either dying of mortification or wanting to immediately jump Asher’s bones.