Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CALEB
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
When Bailey’s phone chimes for what seems like the thirtieth consecutive time, Caleb starts to get suspicious. Not because her texts are blowing up—they always are—but because she’s being unusually quiet and shifty, swiping away at the screen each time a notification appears.
“Is this a kidnapping?” he asks when Bailey pulls her Jeep—a white Cherokee replacing the Prius following a cross-country flight for the West Coast leg of the tour—into an empty parking lot at the back of a Petco.
“Bitch, please.” The parking lot is just barely lit, but beneath the faint glow of the street lamp a short distance away, he catches the exaggerated roll of Bailey’s eyes. “If I were a kidnapper, I’d pay someone to take you off my hands.”
“Fair,” he concedes.
“There’s the ugly bastard,” a voice to his left says.
Caleb turns, startling when he spots Thea and Alexei approaching in Bailey’s rearview mirror.
“Am I about to get jumped? Are you West Side Story–ing me?”
“For an ice prince, you’re very dramatic,” Bailey says. Her words trail off into the night as she climbs out of the car, leaving Caleb alone in the passenger seat.
There’s a bit of muttering outside followed by the sound of sneakers scuffling against concrete before the driver’s door reopens. The person who slides into the car, however, isn’t Bailey.
It’s Asher, who looks unfairly good in jeans and a maroon T-shirt. The chain around his neck catches a sliver of moonlight that pours through the clouds above.
“I—you—but . . .” Caleb sputters and fumbles with half a dozen ways to end that sentence before landing eloquently on “The rules?”
“Hence the creepy parking lot,” Asher explains.
“Did you . . . huh?” Caleb pats himself on the back for being the most awkward motherfucker on the planet.
Asher reaches over the console and squeezes Caleb’s thigh. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
“Where to?”
“You’ll see.”
As Asher puts the car in reverse, Caleb sticks his head out the window.
The rest of the gang are strolling back to their new rental Kia, Bailey trying to get Alexei to give her a piggyback.
“Hey guys?” he calls out. For the first time, he isn’t thinking about how undeserving he is of their grace and selflessness; he’s thinking about how lucky he is to have their shoulders to lean on. “Thank you. Truly.”
“They like you, you know,” Asher says, swerving onto the main road. Caleb is starting to think Asher charmed some poor examiner into giving him his license. “They roast me like it’s their job, but when it’s a favor for you, they’re raring to go.”
Asher drives and Caleb lets his eyes unfocus, resting his temple against the cool glass window as he basks in the warmth thrumming through the car, the simple act of being together out in the open.
He commits it to memory: the radio put on low, Blondie and Bruce Springsteen pouring out of the speakers, Asher’s hand on his thigh, the other on the steering wheel.
He tells himself, Hold on to this moment.
It always feels like an hourglass looms over them, tension and fear rising as the sands of time fall.
One day, the scales will tip. Their secret will be too much and Asher will finally realize that, with nothing left to offer, Caleb is more trouble than he’s worth.
But instead, Asher had seen right through him and, worst of all, instilled a nagging hope that maybe Caleb is worth fighting for.
That they are worth fighting for. The thought of it sits heavily in his chest, a disquieting thing.
Caleb’s fingertips shake when he presses them to his chest, like he can feel the weight of his affection for this man taking up actual space in his heart. With each passing moment, a groove in the shape of Asher’s name carves itself into ribs he once thought to be forever calcified.
Asher starts taking sharp, winding turns and soon they are pulling up outside a building. On a flickering signage, fluorescent tubes bend into the outline of a cat. In the middle, the text reads, in cursive, CATAPULT TRAMPOLINE PARK.
"Tada," Asher sings with a small bow and a flourish of his hands after he jogs round the front of the car and yanks the passenger door open. He grins expectantly down at Caleb, freckles on his cheeks brightly dusted with the neon light.
It takes all of Caleb's willpower not to reach out and tangle his fingers with Asher's.
“But . . . people?”
“I know. So . . .” With his toe of his sneakers, Asher nudges a potted aloe vera plant aside, reaches under the saucer, and pulls out a small brass key.
With a click, the doors swing open. Overhead, a wind chime jingles merrily.
“I rented out the place for two hours with my adult money and a replica belt signed by The Dragon.”
Asher flips a couple of switches on the wall.
Beams of light flicker on and illuminate a two-story arena filled with multicolored interconnected trampolines and angled trampoline walls.
At the back of the open space, an expansive foam pit forms the base of a large rock wall.
Beside it, ladders and padded beams create a parkour zone.
“Welcome, your majesty.” Asher curls a finger around Caleb’s belt loop, and Caleb, still stunned, allows himself to be tugged toward the nearest trampoline.
Balanced on the ledge, Caleb glances pointedly at the brace strapped around Asher’s knee. “I beg you to be careful.”
“Your concern is duly noted,” Asher says and hops off, pulling Caleb with him. Beneath their feet, the springy mat sinks under their combined weight and Asher lets out a surprised squeak. His arms windmill as he tumbles over.
Caleb chokes back a laugh, letting Asher drag him down with an ungraceful flail of his own.
He falls with his knees bracketing Asher’s waist, springs wheezing beneath them.
He blinks down at Asher, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Asher did all of this for him.
For them. He rests his forehead against Asher’s. “You are something else.”
Asher holds his gaze for a long time. Caleb wants to kiss him, but holds back. Instead, he cups Asher’s cheek and drags his thumb along the splash of freckles right under his eye.
Then Asher springs to his feet, motioning for Caleb to follow. “Come on,” he calls over his shoulder, bouncing across the room from one square to another. “I did say you had to let loose, didn’t I?”
“Or I could repress all my emotions until I develop chronic reflux like Alexei,” Caleb shouts back.
Asher snickers. “Sure, because you're the poster child of stability.” He whoops and flings himself into the foam pit and, well, Caleb never stood a chance. He’s helpless beneath Asher’s warm laughter, wanting it so bad he’d shoot the sunshine into his veins.
He hops across the room, feeling the rise and fall of springs beneath his feet and thinks, Wherever you go, I’ll follow.
They spend an hour laughing and chasing each other around the trampoline park, and somewhere along the way, Caleb stops battling his mind and just lets himself play.
Allows himself to have fun. As he joins Asher in throwing himself off a diving board and cannonballing into the pit of huge foam cubes below, or cartwheeling across the spongy mats, or letting himself giggle over the air that feels like champagne bubbles fizzing between them, he’s a kid again. And that kid feels safe. Unafraid.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat?” Caleb asks when they settle down by a wooden bench in the corner of the arena, sweaty and breathless. Asher’s top knot has come undone with all the bouncing. It falls in messy waves around his shoulder.
Asher lifts up a finger as if to say, Hold that thought. Rifling through his backpack, he makes a satisfied noise when he pulls out a container filled with snacks.
“Seriously?” Caleb deadpans. Chopped prawns and turnips have been wrapped in rice paper and deep fried. “Spring rolls?”
“What? I’m a sucker for a theme and wordplay. Sue me.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Yeah yeah. You know you love me.” Asher pokes his tongue out, and Caleb’s face heats up, twitching behind the quiet truth in those words. “Back to my startlingly good looks, Ava calls it the discount Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior aesthetic.”
“Really?” Caleb crinkles his nose. “I might be willing to accept dollar store Warren Peace.”
Asher’s eyes light up. “He’s cute.” He pauses and shakes his head. “Whoa! How did I beat the bisexual allegations for this long? Anyway, so, concept: Warren and Will, Layla—”
“—and Magenta.” Caleb finishes.
“I am immensely turned on by your secret wealth of Sky High knowledge right now.”
Caleb takes another bite of a spring roll. The crispy skin crunches noisily beneath his teeth, breaks apart, and falls onto his lap in a scatter of little golden-brown flakes. “Sky High walked so The Avengers could stumble.”
“Oh my God.” Asher jabs Caleb’s shoulder repeatedly. “You literally look like Will Stronghold.”
“That twink? Couldn’t be me.”
“But, like, conceptually.”
“Nice. Perfect. Happy to fulfill your childhood shipping desires.”
Asher takes the half-empty container from Caleb’s hands and places it down on the bench.
“No. If I were to fulfill my childhood shipping desires, it’d go a little more like this.
” Asher curls his hands around Caleb’s hip, fingers loosely toying with the hem of Caleb’s shirt.
His gaze flickers down to Caleb’s lips for a split second before surging forward, the kiss fierce, desperate, and eagerly messy.
They fit together like puzzle pieces done right, Caleb’s right thigh slotting between Asher’s legs, palm of his left hand pressing against the small of Asher’s back.
Asher cups his face, tender, then rakes his nails down Caleb’s jaw, coaxing him into oblivion.
Caleb can feel himself go lightheaded with need.
He wants to drown in Asher’s touch and thank him for it.