7. Six Days Until Bonding #2
I move to the edge of the balcony, next to the railing, and look up.
Carrson’s on the roof of the hotel.
The roof.
The one that’s above the balcony. Above the seventh floor. Above the ground far enough that falling would involve a trip to the Emergency Room.
His back rests against the shingles, and his feet swing lazily over the edge.
“Please tell me you aren’t part mountain goat?” I say, peeking over the railing to the parking lot below. I’m instantly dizzy.
He chuckles. “Not as far as I know.”
“Then how’d you get up there?”
“Stepped on the railing and pulled myself up,” he answers like that’s something normal people do.
I judge the distance from the balcony to the roof.
From the roof to the pavement below.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m climbing onto the metal railing and rising unsteadily to my feet.
“Laurel, don’t,” Carrson warns, but it’s too late.
I have to jump, but then I’ve got my hands on the edge of the roof and I’m attempting the world’s worst pull-up.
My elbows bend halfway, my feet swing out over empty space, and that’s all I can do because, shockingly, years of carrying books doesn’t translate into upper body strength.
I panic for a moment, but Carrson’s hands are on my forearms, and he’s dragging me over the edge with ridiculous ease. The roof’s edge scrapes my belly and knees as he pulls me up. I tumble forward and collide with him, knocking him onto his back with me sprawled across his chest.
“You do know you’re several feet shorter than me, right?” His voice is a rumble, more vibration than words.
I lift my head. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I can stand on the railing and reach the roof,” he says. “You had to jump.”
I look back at the gap between the railing and the roof, which seems wider from up here.
I think about that. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“In hindsight, that does seem important,” I add, nodding wisely.
“You think?” He pulls me closer. “Don’t do that again, okay?”
“Deal.” I nestle my head into him, listening to his heartbeat. The fast-paced rhythm from hauling me onto the roof changes into something slower. Below us, headlights slide through the parking lot. Somewhere in the distance a child laughs.
“What’re you doing up here anyway?” I ask.
It takes several seconds before he answers, “Thinking.”
“About?” The wind catches a loose strand of my hair and blows it across my face. Carrson reaches up automatically, hooking it behind my ear.
The silence stretches so long I think he won’t answer. Then he says, “You scare me sometimes.”
That makes me push myself up onto an elbow. “You mean when I almost jump to my death?”
“No.” A soft chuckle follows, but it’s tinged with sadness. “Although that was terrifying.”
I don’t like the pensive expression on his face. “Then what could make the mighty Carrson Ashford scared of little ol’ me?” I inject some teasing into the words, trying to lighten the mood.
It doesn’t work.
Carrson exhales a sigh. “You make me dream dangerous dreams. Impossible ones.”
“What do you mean?”
Carrson stares at the stars for so long that I start to wonder if he’s forgotten the question. A gust of air ripples the fabric of my shirt, tosses my hair across my face.
“I used to think everybody’s life was decided for them,” he says eventually.
“Maybe not exactly like mine, but close enough. Your parents pick where you live. Your teachers tell you what matters. I thought that was just how the world worked. The sky is blue. Fire is hot. Carrson Ashford belongs to The Order.”
His laugh isn’t amused. It’s more like he’s surprised by his own ignorance.
Out in the parking lot, the hotel sign flickers red and white, lighting up the darkness. Families sleep in neat rows beneath us. Kids exhausted from baseball. Parents exhausted from kids. Ordinary people living ordinary lives.
“Then I met you. You keep asking questions. You challenge things. Half the time you’re doing it accidentally.” A fond smile crosses his face before fading. “You walk into a room and act like the rules are optional.”
“They usually are.”
That earns me a look.
I blink innocently.
Carrson shakes his head. “See? That’s what I mean.”
I hold my tongue, sensing there’s more, that he’s working out how to say it.
“Every year The Order handed me another piece of my future, and I accepted it because...” He trails off, searching for the words. “I don’t know. Because fighting gravity feels impossible when you’ve never seen anyone fly.”
A car pulls into the lot below us, but up here, removed from the noise of the hotel and the highway, it feels like we’re the only two people awake in the world.
Just me and Carrson and a sky full of stars.
I’ve never liked the idea that fate is written above us. That somewhere out there our futures are already mapped, fixed and waiting. Maybe that’s because my future always felt fragile. Temporary. One wrong choice away from falling apart.
Carrson’s been handed the opposite burden. His path wasn’t uncertain. It was carved in stone before he was old enough to read the words.
Carrson closes his eyes briefly. “Those families downstairs? I’m never going to be them.
According to The Order, I’m meant for greater things,” he pitches his voice high and mocking for those last words, “but sometimes I wonder what’s greater than taking care of your family, raising a kid who sees the world as a place of peace, not as a battleground?
Being gentle with them, like you were with Macie. ”
He rolls onto his side, facing where I sit cross-legged next to him. He takes my hand and holds it in his. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“You had a life before me.” He swallows. “Not an easy one or a fair one. I know that, but it was yours.”
The breeze moves between us. It lifts the edge of his shirt, skims across the bare skin at his waist, and he doesn’t seem to notice. He looks at our hands, at the place where his fingers have threaded through mine like the answer might be there.
“You could’ve hated me forever,” he says, and his mouth pulls up, not quite a smile. “That would’ve made more sense.”
“It was on the table for a while.”
“I know.”
A small laugh escapes me, but it fades quickly because he isn’t looking at me. His thumb drags over my knuckles.
“You could’ve left Ashfordville and never looked back. Transferred somewhere else. Gone anywhere. Done whatever stubborn, reckless thing you decided was right, because that’s what you do.”
“Carrson—”
“You could have.” His eyes lift to mine, and whatever I was about to say disappears. “You still could.” He lets that linger like a door he’s forcing himself to hold open.