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“You visited her,” I said.
Jordan blinked slowly. “So she called.” He shook his head in disappointment. “I’m sorry, Asher. I didn’t mean to add oil to this wildfire.”
“She wants forgiveness,” I blurted. Jordan didn’t know. He didn’t know what he’d done. He thought it had failed. And the surprise that painted his face only confirmed what I knew. “What did you say to her?”
Jordan shook his head slowly, then took a step toward me. “I said I knew that we hurt her.”
I wanted to snort at it, but I knew it was true. We had hurt the people we loved.
“I said we didn’t mean to hurt anyone but that I understood what it must have felt like. She didn’t like that. Not right away, but she listened.” Every word he said was carefully chosen and deliberately used. He spoke slowly, taking another step toward me.
“You said she broke my heart,” I whispered.
“Yes.” Jordan’s gaze locked onto my eyes, his head held low, his shoulders slouching. “And I said it wasn’t too late to fix it if she wanted to. When you love someone, getting hurt shouldn’t make you give them up. It shouldn’t make a difference. If you really care about them, you love their flaws just like you love everything else about them.”
“You said that?” My voice quivered as I took a small step toward him.
The corners of his lips ticked ever so slightly upward. He leaned his head deeper down and nodded.
“I’m sorry I left,” I said.
He took my hands and pulled me in a few inches. “Asher, I thought a lot about this.” His deep voice burned with fiery passion now. “You are my everything. You are all I want and can’t have. You’re the dreams I dream and the song I hear in total silence. You’re my happy place and I can finally tell you that.”
His beautiful face blurred when tears brimmed in my eyes.
“There was a time when I had to push you away because my own feelings terrified me. You have no idea how much I regret that,” he said, the distance between us closing with every word that left his lips. “I regret missing out on you. We should have been friends all these years, not strangers. I should have been there to support you, not push you as far as I could. Because I love you, Ash. I love you so much that I don’t know where to put all these feelings.”
I didn’t feel any shame when tears spilled from my eyes. I blinked fast and looked at him, my vision clearing up. Then I realized I wore the silliest smile ever. My teeth clamped around the lower lip to keep my mouth from tearing apart and I couldn’t stop grinning.
“I should have let myself love you so much sooner,” he said. “And if you feel the same, then I promise to make up for all the time we could have had already.”
The perpetual sense of melancholy that had accompanied all my feelings this summer lifted away. I hadn’t been sad for the years we could have had, I realized. No. I had been afraid that we wouldn’t last. But how could I be afraid of that now? How could I ever think Jordan and I wouldn’t stand the test of time after this?
“I love you too, Jordan,” I said. “I fell for you when I was thirteen and I only loved you more the older I got.”
His face was filled with relief. His hands released mine. Before I knew it, he was holding my hips and lifting me off the ground. I wasn’t small by any means, except when compared to Jordan, so he took my breath away when he lifted me so seamlessly and brought our bodies together.
I must have laughed. The sound of my voice cut through the night as I wrapped my legs around his waist, arms flung around his neck, and my head leaning down. For once, Jordan had to look up if he wanted to kiss me, and I loved the view from up here.
My butt rested against his abdomen as I leaned in. Jordan’s arms were securely around my waist. Our lips slammed together in a moment of brilliant passion.
I kissed him deeply, whimpering once shortly with all this need for our souls to touch, to mingle. I wanted all of him for myself and until the end of time.
As I kissed him, all the other things made a little more sense. In my heart, I knew we would find a way to work it all out. I could see a glimmer of a chance to forgive my mom for the things she’d made me feel in these last few days. I could see our friends discovering about us and being as ready and supportive as they had ever been. I could see us back by the lake, making love until our souls left our bodies, traversed the galaxies, and returned to us.
I could see a life with Jordan so clearly that I knew it wasn’t a mere fantasy.
We kissed deeper and slower. Jordan let me slide back to Earth and rested his big, strong hands on my face, kissing me from above, pressing his body against mine. I held him around his torso, not wanting to ever let go.
And when the kiss passed, Jordan pulled away from me by a couple of inches, looking into my eyes lovingly.
“And George?” I asked.
Jordan nodded. His eyes were shining as if they were brimming with tears. “He gave me the courage to come after you.”
I hugged Jordan and lowered my head on his shoulder. My hands rested firmly on his shoulder blades, his upper back rising and falling with each breath.
We were incredibly lucky. For all that had gone down in the last few days, this could have ended in a million terrible ways. I had been so sure that Jordan and I were destined to never consider giving us another chance, but he bet on us. He had promised to fight the whole world for me, and he had. He magicked us a second shot, and I wouldn’t gamble it away.
