Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Morgan
There was something going on with Asad’s family, though Morgan couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She hadn’t noticed at first, but as the evening went on, it became more and more obvious to her that he was very tense, and she couldn’t understand why.
His mother was lovely and welcoming, his father was quiet but friendly, and his brother had bounded into the house with boisterous energy and a huge smile when he saw his brother.
Anna was also very friendly, though clearly nervous and a little distracted.
Asad had seemed glad to see Cyrus, they’d shared a huge hug, but during dinner, she’d realized he wasn’t behaving like himself.
He wasn’t behaving like the confident Master Asad she knew, with his flirtations and jokes.
Did he still joke? Yes, but there was an edge to it, an undercurrent rather than the lighthearted jokester he often was.
He was being more sarcastic than funny, and the laughter that followed was more uncomfortable than truly amused.
And she had no idea how to fix any of it.
“So, how did you two meet?” she asked Cyrus and Anna as they all started dessert.
The baklava was very sweet, which Morgan wasn’t usually a fan of, but she liked honey better than most sugars.
Combined with the nuts and pastry, it turned into something she liked rather than being too sugary for her palate.
Conversation had hit another lull while everyone dug in, and she figured that at least should be something they’d enjoy talking about.
“Asad didn’t tell you?” Cyrus raised his eyebrows and shrugged at the same time, hinting that maybe it wasn’t as innocuous a point of conversation as she’d thought.
Asad shrugged as well, looking unconcerned as he leaned back in his chair and took another sip of wine.
“We spend more time talking about me than you, as unusual as that might seem.” Asad smirked, turning the words into something teasing, but it didn’t feel like a very nice tease.
Then again, Morgan hadn’t had siblings. It was her understanding that siblings did tease each other a lot.
Maybe she just didn’t understand the relationship because she didn’t have any experience with it. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Afraid she’d be more interested in the better brother?” Cyrus puffed his chest out, grinning as he teased Asad back, at the same time that Lena frowned at her eldest son.
“Asad, be nice to your brother,” she chided over the top of Cyrus’ retort, which she didn’t give any sign of hearing. At the other end of the table, Darius sighed. He seemed to do that a lot.
Morgan had absolutely no idea what to do, and she felt like she’d blundered into dangerous waters. Thankfully, Anna rescued her. The pretty blonde looked as uncomfortable as Morgan felt and as if she was relieved to have a topic to grab on to.
“Cyrus and I met in high school, though we were just friends back then.” She glanced to her right and smiled at him.
His gaze softened as he looked back at her, and the atmosphere around the table relaxed.
Morgan could have sighed at how romantic it looked, like a moment straight out of a movie.
“We met again a few years ago through mutual friends at a party, and… well, things just worked out.”
“Yeah, it did.” Cyrus leaned over to give her a kiss.
“Wow, that’s wonderful. I didn’t realize after Asad said he’d only met Anna a few times.” It wasn’t until after she’d said it that Morgan realized she maybe should have kept that to herself, even though he had said it.
“Yeah, well, Asad wasn’t around much when I was in high school, so that’s true,” Cyrus said mildly.
“He went off to get his engineering degree,” Lena added. “Which we were very proud of, even though it meant we didn’t get to see him very much.”
“I’m surprised you noticed,” Asad said dryly as he glared at his plate, pushing the pieces of baklava around rather than eating it.
“Of course, we noticed.” Lena pressed her lips together.
Her eyes darted back and forth between Morgan and Anna, as if she wanted to say more but wasn’t sure she should with them there.
Morgan was already regretting asking her question.
It might be better not to introduce any new topics of conversation during the rest of the week.
Darius cleared his throat.
“Morgan, you said you’re a makeup artist?” he asked.
Asad’s head snapped up, and he glared at his dad.
“Yes, and I also do ASMR videos,” she said, setting down her fork and reaching out with her free hand to place it on Asad’s leg.
Something about the way his posture had shifted made her think of a predator about to pounce, and she really didn’t want to be the cause of an argument in his family.
She didn’t mind talking about what she did. She loved her work.
“What’s ASMR?” Anna’s question was full of simple curiosity, and maybe because it was her asking and not one of Asad’s family members, Morgan felt Asad relax. His hand covered hers.
She was only half finished with her baklava, but she kept holding his hand. She couldn’t eat while she was talking, anyway.
“It stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, which is when something makes your scalp tingle—in a pleasant way—and the sensation can move down your neck and to the rest of your body. I’ve heard some people describe it as ‘having their brain tickled.’ Basically, I post videos on social media and video streaming sites of various techniques to create that sensation for people. ”
Everyone stared at her for a long moment, and Morgan smiled proudly.
Sam had helped her work on that description to explain what she did.
Not everyone was familiar with ASMR, and Morgan had found herself frustrated when she tried to tell them what it was.
Sam helped her make it sound impressive, which she was especially grateful for right now.
When Morgan had tried to explain it to people, somehow, they’d always gotten the impression that she didn’t make much money or that she did make money but without doing much work.
She made money, but it was a lot of work to keep up with.
For this week, she’d let her followers know she wouldn’t be going live, but she’d batched a lot of content for them on her various channels.
“Wow… that’s pretty cool. Can we follow you?” Anna asked.
“Of course.” Morgan gave them her handle. Asad squeezed her fingers, and when she looked at him, he smiled encouragingly. He seemed pleased and more relaxed than he had been before.
Talking about the kind of ‘triggers’ she used for her work—and explaining what a trigger was—took the rest of dessert, then it was time to go. Asad insisted they needed to go and rest up since they were tired from the drive earlier.
Morgan wasn’t, but she understood that he was saying it because he wanted to leave, and it was more polite than baldly stating he wanted to go. She didn’t mind leaving, ending the evening on a pleasant note rather than risking conversation going awry again.
When they got into the car, Asad let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Are you okay?” she asked, reaching over to put her hand on his thigh again as they pulled away from the house.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He covered her hand with his own.
She bit her lip to keep from pointing out that he wasn’t fine. If he wanted to pretend he was fine, she was supposed to let him.
Asad
He wasn’t fine.
That was the worst dinner he’d had with his family in a while.
He didn’t know why. He wasn’t going to blame Morgan, but he also wasn’t sure if her presence had made him more sensitive.
He’d gotten used to letting comments slide off his back, yet tonight, it was as though he hadn’t been able to let a single one go by without saying something about it.
And he didn’t know why.
Or maybe it was because Cyrus was getting married, and his parents were glowing with approval for him.
Or maybe it was because they’d been glowing with approval over Morgan because having a suitable girlfriend was the only way he could get their approval.
Though he would pay good money to watch his dad’s expression when he checked out Morgan’s ASMR channel.
Imagining Darius Khan having his brain tickled… he couldn’t even imagine.
Personally, Asad didn’t love having his brain tickled, he’d found.
He’d checked out Morgan’s channels out of curiosity and could see how many followers she had and how much love she got.
A lot of them said she helped them fall asleep or that they found her relaxing or soothing.
For Asad, it made him shiver in a way he didn’t particularly like.
His brain was either too ticklish or not enough.
“I’m sorry about my behavior this evening,” he said finally into the silence, rubbing his thumb over Morgan’s fingers.
He didn’t want her to think she’d done anything wrong.
She hadn’t. She’d been trying so hard, despite her discomfort with social situations, to make the evening a success, and he was really grateful.
“I know that was… not the best family dinner, and I wasn’t helping. ”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t really understand regular family dynamics, so…” She shrugged. “I could tell you were uncomfortable and angry, but I wasn’t sure what was going on.”
There was that bluntness. As much as Asad wanted to say he wasn’t angry, he couldn’t honestly deny it. Still, he didn’t like Morgan thinking she didn’t understand regular family dynamics.
“My family isn’t exactly regular. My brother’s leukemia…
well, it made everything harder.” Somehow, it was easier to talk about this in the darkness when she’d already met his family, met his brother, and seen how things were.
“Growing up, I was always the good older brother, watching out for him, doing what I could to make things easier for my parents. But then… he got better. I was really happy about that, don’t get me wrong, but I thought they would start showing up for some of my stuff once that happened. ”
His stuff that he finally got to do because he’d had friends who could drive him there.
During elementary and middle school, his parents hadn’t been able to take him anywhere regularly enough to join any teams or group activities.
Once he’d gotten to high school, though, he’d had friends with cars, and as long as he did the same things they were, they were happy to take him.
He’d understood when his parents couldn’t show up to anything his freshman year.
He’d even understood during his sophomore year when Cyrus was officially in remission because that was Cyrus’ first year of being able to do anything.
Of course, his parents had wanted to be there to watch Cyrus.
Asad had gone to Cyrus’ first baseball and basketball games, too, as a supportive big brother.
“They didn’t show up?” Morgan asked tentatively, breaking the silence that filled the car.
Asad sighed.
“My junior year, they said they were going to come to a science fair I had entered. Unfortunately, one of Cyrus’ baseball games fell on the same day.
It was his second year playing baseball, but it was the first time they’d made the playoffs, and well…
” Asad shrugged, but he still remembered the bitter hurt.
The realization that he’d been pushed off the side again.
His mother’s apology was quickly followed by, ‘But it’s his first playoff game, and there will be another science fair next year.’
Except there hadn’t been because upon winning first prize at the fair, with no one there except his friends, while his parents and grandparents cheered Cyrus on at his first playoff game, he’d decided he was done. He’d finished his junior year, then announced he was dropping out of school.
Turned out his parents did care what he was doing, as long as he wasn’t doing what he was ‘supposed’ to do, but it was already too late.
“I’m sorry,” Morgan said quietly.
“It turned out for the best. I ended up getting my GED, then going to MIT a semester earlier than I would have otherwise, and I’m very happy with where my life is now.
It probably wouldn’t have gone that way if I’d stayed.
” He’d spent the fall semester of his ‘senior’ year couch surfing between his friends’ houses and working in fast food before heading to MIT.
His parents had paid for his degree, likely guilt money on their part or maybe because they’d been afraid he wouldn’t get a degree at all after he’d dropped out of high school.
There had been a moment when he’d thought about rejecting their money, but he’d gotten over that pretty quickly.
At that point, he figured they owed him something, and he wasn’t so stupid as to start his life with a mountain of debt when he didn’t have to.
Pride wasn’t one of his vices, at least not when it came to being financially stable.
“It’s still hard.” Morgan leaned over, resting her head against his shoulder while they sat at the red light.
Considering her family life, the fact she was now offering him comfort wasn’t lost on him.
He leaned his head against hers, before lifting it again, acknowledging her compassion and desire to soothe him.
Strangely… he actually did feel soothed.
Or, at least, the edges of his emotions felt less raw as she focused on him.
It didn’t feel like pity, coming from Morgan.
She’d been through worse, so why would she pity him?
But the sympathy was there, the acknowledgment that what he’d gone through had sucked, and that helped a lot.
He found he couldn’t stop talking. The words spilled out of him like they’d been bubbling under the surface for far too long, and now that he’d started, he couldn’t hold them back anymore.
“I still love them. I do want to fix things. But when I’m around them, it feels like I just kind of revert back to high school.
I’m glad my mom and dad like you, and I’m annoyed that part of me still wants their approval.
I’m even more annoyed that the approval comes from a relationship with someone else and not just… me. I don’t know how to change it.”
The light turned green, and Morgan lifted her head. They sat in silence for a few long moments before she finally responded.
“Maybe it’s not up to you to change it,” she said. “Maybe it’s up to your parents.”
Maybe.
But Asad still felt a little guilty. Even if it was, he wasn’t exactly making it easy on them.
It didn’t help his mood that now he had to go back to his hotel room and sleep in the same bed as a beautiful woman without touching her rather than losing himself in her body and fucking her until he could forget why they were there.
This week was going to suck.