“You kids have fun on Friday?” There’s a twinkle in his eye when he asks it, and every paranoid alarm and radar inside my head isblaring.
“What?” My voice sounds panicked, but there’s no helping that. Stealth, secrecy, these are not my strong suits.
“At TopGolf,” my dad clarifies.
My eyes widen. How does he know? Did the picture we took get out there? Why do I feel the need to explain myself, like I’m still a child somehow?Thisis why I never snuck out as a teen, never rebelled. I don’t have it in me.
Asher collects himself—or maybe he never lost his wits to begin with—and so smoothly I envy him, he smiles at Thomas and tells him, “It was a great day, sir. Thank you for treating us all to it. I’ve never worked somewhere we got to do something like that, it was awesome.”
Right. Right. That wholly innocent afternoon, the company outing. Not me losing my tongue after not even half a drink right after it and lusting after the young man next to me, wishing he’d make a move on me in the hallway of the bar afterward.
I plaster on a convincing smile and nod, trying not to let my guilt show on my face.
“Great, great,” Thomas says, smiling at us both. “Okay kids, are we up for another excellent week, then?”
I give him a thumbs up, because I’m a fucking nerd, and Asher nods at him decisively. “You got it,” he tells my dad.
“Fantastic.” My dad taps the doorframe on his way out and I breathe out.
Asher turns to face me, chuckling, his tongue to that tooth in the way he does when he’s thinking, processing, and I don’t know why it looks so sexy, but it really does.
I’m pretty sure if logic doesn’t return back home, if emotion wins out and stays in control, he’ll convince me to give in, give this a shot, despite how inane, how impractical it is. And I already know I won’t stand a chance against whatever his actual moves are, considering how I apparently now melt at the smallest of things he does after this accursed update and unwelcome change to my core operating system.
EIGHTEEN
ASHER
She’s wearing this dress I haven’t seen before. She looks insane in it. It’s sleek, dark blue, with sleeves to her elbows. It goes up to her neck but there’s this ribbon that makes a thin, long bow tied up at the base of her throat and I want to undo it, find out what’s beneath. It has these little cloth buttons all the way down her front, down to her waist, and then it hangs down in lines, I—think they’re called pleats?—this swishy little skirt that kicks up by her knees as she moves. What it does to her hips, that ass? I’d bite my knuckle if it wouldn’t give me away in a heartbeat. She looks delectable in anything I’ve seen her in, those dresses, the pants she wears sometimes, and, God, those shorts she was wearing the other day, but this is a special torture.
Staying patient, keeping my hands to myself, was never going to be easy, but when she looks likethat? And when she was about to give in? Admit this interest—attraction seems like too small of a word—isn’t one-sided. Fuck, that’s when Thomas had to knock, isn’t it? Just my luck.
How nervous she was in front of him when he asked about Friday would’ve made me laugh if he wasn’t standing there, watching.
She’s not much of a deceiver, my Ellie.
Doesn’t have the stomach for lying, secrets and sneaking around, evidently. Looked like she was about to have her mugshot taken when he asked if we had fun. Definitely gonna tease her about that later.
The moment Thomas is out of sight, I turn back toward her, still chuckling over that interaction, tip of my tongue to my tooth in thought. Her walls are already forming, so I close in on her before she gets them all the way up. Find a nook in there I can squeeze through. Hide out with her where it’s safe, behind her defenses.
I want to get back to the task at hand. Get her to admit that she wants to see what’s between us. That wecanbe friends, can work up to more. That she feels something here, too.
I already know she does. I see it. I feel it, like a sixth sense, like an extension of my perceptions of my own body and self. I need her to stop hiding from it, stop lying to herself—that’sherjob in all of this. Then I need to keep her from freaking out about it—that’s my job.
“Hey,” I whisper, with as much care as I can convey put into that single syllable.
My left hand reaches out, pulls hers from where it’s clutching her other elbow in a death grip. I interlace our fingers, hold 'em low between us, our bodies blocking how they’re joined from any nosy eyes that might pass by. Run my thumb across hers, soothe her with one finger how I wish I could with my whole body.
She stands frozen for a moment before meeting my eyes. Those dark blue eyes of hers are all big right now, like she’s in over her head here. Like maybe she’s coming to grips with the fact she doesn’t want to keep resisting this.
In this moment, for whatever reason, it strikes me howinnocentshe is. I realize I’m two-thirds her age, but she’s so innately good, I’d be willing to bet everything I have that she hasn’t done a quarter of the shit I have, if that. There’s this surge inside me I’ve never felt before, this driving need to protect her. Keep her safe from any potential risk she’d be facing for me and my dumb ass. Protect that innocence, that purity in her, so her light doesn’t dim.
I think that might be my top priority in all of this. Keep her shining as bright as I know she can. The way her ex failed to.
“Just don’t lock me out,” I ask her, thumb still trailing across her skin lightly.
I get a movement of her head so small you probably couldn’t even call it a nod, but I recognize it for the victory it is.
“We can go as slow as you want.” I lean in closer, until I can inhale her scent that drives me fucking mad, and speak right into her ear. “Take all the time you need to get comfortable with the idea. I’ll still be here.”
