I pick up Danger and start climbing the rocks, carefully moving from one to the other. It’s an easy walk around if you know the path, and I’ve had it mapped out since I was a kid.
We get around the end of the cove where the rocks plunge into deeper, more dangerous waters. I’m careful as we round that point. The water rushes up but stops just short of the edge of my shoes.
When we get around, there’s a massive cliff and a small rocky beach. I keep going. Passing this beach and the next. It’s on the third that I stop and let Danger down. The beach itself is completely enclosed by ocean and cliff, but in the back far corner is a cave that is carved deep into the side of the rock. The beach itself has no sand and just millions of tiny stones. It’s a beautiful spot for snorkeling and swimming, but most people don’t bother coming out here.
I sit down and wrap my arms around my knees. The sky is as blue as it promised to be. I’m so distracted by my thoughts that I don’t register the person until they sit next to me.
“Hey.”
I lean on Asher’s shoulder. “Hey.”
“You skipped out early.”
“I needed some time to think. Who tattled on me?”
She chuckles easily and ties her hair in a pony tail.
“Devon.”
I sigh. “He knows me too well.”
“Yeah, he does. Have they done something to upset you? Because I am not above putting jalapeños in their coffee.”
“No, yes. I mean.” I grab my hair and pull. With a look at her, I groan in defeat. “I don’t know. They are perfect, and they are saying all the right things, but I wanted them for so long, and I gave up. I walked away, and here they are, sitting with their hands out offering me…” I stop.
“Offering you what?”
“Everything I ever dreamed. Friendship, conversation, their attention. Just, sometimes the way they look at me makes me feel like a teenager again.”
“Those diabolical assholes. So, why aren’t you taking it with a happy smile? You were kind of crazy about them.”
I wince, remembering just how insane I was.
“Because things changed. I changed, and I can’t want that life anymore. It doesn’t fit.”
“Ah.”
The silence between us is comfortable, but Asher, Felix, and I were always close after our family adopted them. Sebastian was the odd alpha out. I’m glad that nothing has changed between us, though; I was afraid it might.
“Why didn’t you leave? You won that scholarship, I thought you were heading out, too?”
Asher frowns, glaring out at the ocean. “I mean, it seemed like a great idea until it came to leaving, and I realised I could leave, I would go out into the world, become some bigshot at whatever I choose to do, and I knew I could make it.”
“But?”
“But I just didn't want to leave,” she says simply. “I am happy here. I love our life. There is no part of me that wants to go.”
“Uh huh.”
Asher sighs. “Okay, so maybe it’s a bit lonely, and I look at Felix and think that maybe we might end up together forever. I know he wants someone to share his life with. He’s never going to find that here. I can’t imagine leaving him right now.”
“And you don’t want anyone?”
“Me? No. Who would be able to put up with me? I’m grumpy most of the time, and when I’m not, I’m so deep in my cave or the ocean that I’d forget to eat if I didn’t have a nagging mum.”
“She is the best.”
Danger toddles back and climbs up in my lap, falling asleep with his head in the crook of my arm.
