Page 184 of Masters of Control

“It stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, which is when something makes your scalp tingle—in a pleasant way—and the sensation can move down your neck and to the rest of your body. I’ve heard some people describe it as ‘having their brain tickled.’ Basically, I post videos on social media and video streaming sites of various techniques to create that sensation for people.”

Everyone stared at her for a long moment, and Morgan smiled proudly. Sam had helped her work on that description to explain what she did. Not everyone was familiar with ASMR, and Morgan had found herself frustrated when she tried to tell them what it was. Sam helped her make it sound impressive, which she was especially grateful for right now.

When Morgan had tried to explain it to people, somehow, they’d always gotten the impression that she didn’t make much money or that she did make money but without doing much work. She made money, but it was a lot of work to keep up with. For this week, she’d let her followers know she wouldn’t be going live, but she’d batched a lot of content for them on her various channels.

“Wow… that’s pretty cool. Can we follow you?” Anna asked.

“Of course.” Morgan gave them her handle. Asad squeezed her fingers, and when she looked at him, he smiled encouragingly. He seemed pleased and more relaxed than he had been before.

Talking about the kind of ‘triggers’ she used for her work—and explaining what a trigger was—took the rest of dessert, then it was time to go. Asad insisted they needed to go and rest up since they were tired from the drive earlier.

Morgan wasn’t, but she understood that he was saying it because he wanted to leave, and it was more polite than baldly stating he wanted to go. She didn’t mind leaving, ending the evening on a pleasant note rather than risking conversation going awry again.

When they got into the car, Asad let out a huge sigh of relief.

“Are you okay?” she asked, reaching over to put her hand on his thigh again as they pulled away from the house.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He covered her hand with his own.

She bit her lip to keep from pointing out that he wasn’t fine. If he wanted to pretend he was fine, she was supposed to let him.

Asad

He wasn’t fine.

That was the worst dinner he’d had with his family in a while. He didn’t know why. He wasn’t going to blame Morgan, but he also wasn’t sure if her presence had made him more sensitive. He’d gotten used to letting comments slide off his back, yet tonight, it was as though he hadn’t been able to let a single one go by without saying something about it.

And he didn’t know why.

Or maybe it was because Cyrus was getting married, and his parents were glowing with approval for him.

Or maybe it was because they’d been glowing with approval over Morgan because having a suitable girlfriend was the only way he could get their approval. Though he would pay good money to watch his dad’s expression when he checked out Morgan’s ASMR channel. Imagining Darius Khan having his brain tickled… he couldn’t even imagine.

Personally, Asad didn’t love having his brain tickled, he’d found. He’d checked out Morgan’s channels out of curiosity and could see how many followers she had and how much love she got. A lot of them said she helped them fall asleep or that they found her relaxing or soothing. For Asad, it made him shiver in a way he didn’t particularly like.

His brain was either too ticklish or not enough.

“I’m sorry about my behavior this evening,” he said finally into the silence, rubbing his thumb over Morgan’s fingers. He didn’t want her to think she’d done anything wrong. She hadn’t. She’d been trying so hard, despite her discomfort with social situations, to make the evening a success, and he was really grateful. “I know that was… not the best family dinner, and I wasn’t helping.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t really understand regular family dynamics, so…” She shrugged. “I could tell you were uncomfortable and angry, but I wasn’t sure what was going on.”

There was that bluntness. As much as Asad wanted to say he wasn’t angry, he couldn’t honestly deny it. Still, he didn’t like Morgan thinking she didn’t understand regular family dynamics.

“My family isn’t exactly regular. My brother’s leukemia… well, it made everything harder.” Somehow, it was easier to talk about this in the darkness when she’d already met his family, met his brother, and seen how things were. “Growing up, I was always the good older brother, watching out for him, doing what I could to make things easier for my parents. But then… he got better. I was really happy about that, don’t get me wrong, but I thought they would start showing up for some of my stuff once that happened.”

His stuff that he finally got to do because he’d had friends who could drive him there. During elementary and middle school, his parents hadn’t been able to take him anywhere regularly enough to join any teams or group activities. Once he’d gotten to high school, though, he’d had friends with cars, and as long as he did the same things they were, they were happy to take him.

He’d understood when his parents couldn’t show up to anything his freshman year. He’d even understood during his sophomore year when Cyrus was officially in remission because that was Cyrus’ first year of being able to do anything. Of course, his parents had wanted to be there to watch Cyrus. Asad had gone to Cyrus’ first baseball and basketball games, too, as a supportive big brother.

“They didn’t show up?” Morgan asked tentatively, breaking the silence that filled the car.

Asad sighed.

“My junior year, they said they were going to come to a science fair I had entered. Unfortunately, one of Cyrus’ baseball games fell on the same day. It was his second year playing baseball, but it was the first time they’d made the playoffs, and well…” Asad shrugged, but he still remembered the bitter hurt. The realization that he’d been pushed off the side again.

His mother’s apology was quickly followed by, ‘But it’s his first playoff game, and there will be another science fair next year.’

Except there hadn’t been because upon winning first prize at the fair, with no one there except his friends, while his parents and grandparents cheered Cyrus on at his first playoff game, he’d decided he was done. He’d finished his junior year, then announced he was dropping out of school.