I tell Jasper what Walter said as best as I can remember. That whole moment is a bit of a panicked blur. Adrenaline was thumping through me, not to mention the noise in my head and how distracted I was by what happened with Aisha.
When I’m done, Jasper leans forward so our foreheads are pressed together. “I’m sorry, Max. I’m sorry he said that to you.”
“Is it enough?” I ask. “To do something?”
He sighs, big and heavy, like the world on his shoulders is starting to wear him down. “Maybe. I—I don’t know. I’ll speak to my father.”
“Okay. And what about—” I’m hesitant to ask. If this is the last time I’ll see Jasper until the summer break I don’t want to taint it with awkward conversations, but sadly that’s all we seem capable of. “What about Aisha? Have you spoken to her?”
Jasper leans back onto the car once more. “I called her this morning before I left the city.”
“Is everything—okay?”
He scoffs. “She’s not so happy with me.”
I chew my bottom lip, wanting to console Jasper but also feeling like Aisha is completely in the right here.
“But I think—I know she’ll come around. Aisha knows how things work and she knows my hands are tied in a lot of ways.”
The thought of Jasper with his hands tied flashes into my mind and my cheeks heat up instantly. I need to force that thought out before I can refocus on the conversation.
“Sometimes, I wish—” Jasper starts saying something and then stops. I step a little closer and wrap my arms around him. “I wish I had more freedom to be the—the sort of friend, the sort of partner I want to be.”
It’s obvious from his clipped, forced way of speaking that this is a hard thing for him to talk about. To admit that he, even sometimes, wishes not to be burdened with the responsibility of being the future alpha is antithetical to everything he’s been taught and believed his entire life. To him it’s a betrayal. Something tells me that he wouldn’t say this sort of thing to anyone else on the planet, and my cheeks warm again as I focus on that thought instead.
“I know—we know you’re trying,” I say, holding his face in one palm. He leans his head into me and I run a finger over his ear.
“It’s only two more months then I’ll be back for the summer,” Jasper says.
“Manageable,” I say with a laugh. “I want to…try the mind-link again.”
“Max, no. It hurts you.”
“That’s just because I haven’t figured out how to control my abilities yet. If I work on it I can—figure it out. I know it.”
He exhales, blowing air through his lips, and I want so badly to kiss him, but I need his answer first.
“Okay,” he says. “We can try. But I want you to make sure it’s not too much.”
“Scout’s honor,” I say, making the appropriate hand signal.
He laughs a little, the tension that had built up during our conversation expelled, then he turns to look at the road. “I should get going.”
“You sure? My dad’s making steak sandwiches. First time he’s cracked out the barbecue since winter.”
Jasper eyes me like I’m the steak sandwich. “That does sound delicious.” Then his shoulders droop. “But I told Alpha Jackson I’d be there by midafternoon.”
“Baah, okay. I know you have to go.”
“We’ll speak soon.” Jasper rests his forehead on mine once more.
“Speak soon.”
He kisses me hard and long, imbuing his lips with all the words he can’t say, as if he’s trying to fill me up with enough passion to last until we see each other again.
When we break apart, Jasper moves swiftly to the driver’s side and ducks into the car, like he won’t be able to leave if he says one more word, if he doesn’t go this second.
I wave and wait until the car is gone.
