“So, you’re Asher,” she said, and her stomach tied itself into a knot.
“You remember me then.”
Hailey nodded. “Of course.” How could she not, he was her first kiss. At least, she thought that was real. Biting her lip, she tilted her head down. She could feel herself blushing and hoped he wouldn’t see.
He dipped his head and lured her eyes once again into his.
“Will you tell me what you’re thinking?” he asked.
I want you to kiss me again.
She felt a moment of unnatural courage and seized it. “Did you kiss me, Asher? I mean, was that real, or was it a dream?”
She couldn’t believe she’d said it.
“It was both,” he said.
Hailey waited, holding her breath to see if he would kiss her again, but he made no move to close the gap between them.
“It is good to see you,” was all he said, and Hailey’s face fell. Her pocket…her photo!
“Oh, no—Holly’s picture!” Stepping away from Asher, she cautiously pulled it out. “Oh no…no…” It was wet and ruined and barely holding itself together in Hailey’s hands.
Very carefully, Asher took the picture from her and held it between his hands. When he gave it back, it was—dry. Completely restored.
Hailey smiled. “Would you carry this for me until I dry off?” she asked as she closed his hand on it. If she put it back in her pocket, it would just get ruined again.
“Of course.” He tucked it away and took her hand again. Leading her through the alders and around patches of Jurassic jagger bushes and giant puddles, Asher kept hold of Hailey’s hand, lifting her with ease over downed spruce trees and across rocky streams. Every move he made appeared effortless, and Hailey honestly couldn’t tell if his feet actually made contact with the ground.
She couldn’t say the same for her own feet. At least twice, she had to ask him to stop and help extract her shoe from a mud hole after it got sucked off.
While Asher dug her right sneaker out again, Hailey stood balanced on one foot, though she didn’t know why she bothered—both of her feet were already filthy and water-logged and numb, and she doubted the one pair of shoes she’d brought with her to Alaska would still be wearable in the morning.
“Would you like me to carry you?” Asher asked as she struggled to tie her soggy laces with freezing fingers.
She didn’t know what to say. Of course she wanted him to carry her. But even more so, she didn’t want to be a wimp. “How far is it?” That seemed like a fair question.
“Two hours at this pace. Five minutes if I carry you. Three seconds if I whip you.”
“That sounds…painful?” She was fairly certain she didn’t want to be whipped, but…three seconds. And she wouldn’t arrive on campus in Asher’s arms like a damsel in distress—it sounded like a good compromise, though she wasn’t sure what “whip” meant, and it sure didn’t sound pleasant.
Smiling slightly, Asher removed a mud blob from Hailey’s forehead.
“It won’t hurt you. I can…propel you so that you’ll land close to the others. They’re ahead of us and less than a half mile now from campus.”
“You mean, like,throwme?” Even though it sounded cold, scary, and painful, after surviving a fall from the Luftzeug, Hailey was willing to take Asher’s word for it and try a whip.
She heaved a decisive sigh and said with a shrug, “Okay, Asher. Whip me.”
Asher wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against his side. “I’ll see you soon,” he whispered against her ear, and with a crack that sounded more like thunder than a whip, the air at Hailey’s back pressed in, and a familiar heaviness enveloped her, static electricity, raising her hair.
What happened next felt an awful lot like a gigantic shock—like she’d moonwalked across a winter rug and bumped into a metal shelf. She arched against the jolt of Asher’s throw, squeezing her eyes shut as the foliage rushed past, her body hurtling through the air. Only when her feet hit the ground did she open her eyes again. Sure enough, there she was, holding her arms out as she regained her balance and standing in the middle of a gaggle of students, who looked even soggier and muddier than she did. Several trudged along naked and shoeless, clinging to their sleeping bags, and one of them had a leafy twig tangled in his filthy rainbow hair.
Hailey tried not to laugh, thinking of Holly’s toothbrush.
“You’ve got a twig in your hair,” she told him as she partially weaved it out.
“Don’t touch me,” he snapped, and Hailey started.
