His lips were on my throat, his hands up the side of my ribs, my fingers knotted in his thick hair—knuckles clenched as his mouth traced my shoulder, moving all the way down to my breast. I arched my neck back—eyes closed, heart racing. We’d been here before, many times the last summer, but sex was off the table.
I could feel him throbbing against me, and my hand moved down his chiseled stomach, settling around the belt loop on his jeans. He hovered over me, arms stretched past either side of my face as my finger grazed his leather belt, as if it were a question.
“Hey. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said softly.
I could feel his brother’s cold necklace dangling on my chest—an antique gold medallion with a lion etched onto it. Asher wore it like a scarlet letter, so that the scar on his heart wasn’t just buried underneath his skin. I knew almost everything about the guy I loved. I wanted to know absolutely everything. I opened my mouth to say three words, but his golden eyes pierced through me, and those words tightened like a knot in my throat. I was too in love to speak. I wasn’t sure what made someone ready, but I wanted every inch of his body to understand mine, the same way our souls already felt like extensions of each other, and if that wasn’t ready, I’d never be ready.
“I want to,” I finally whispered.
He exhaled, a smile on his face. “Me, too.”
A short while later, the setting sun poured in through his window, painting our salt-soaked bodies in a blood-orange hue. My flushed cheek lay on his racing heart, and I was bathed in peace that I didn’t know my body could find. I felt my eyes getting heavier, as he pulled me tighter to his naked body.
“What’s your mom going to do when she finds out your dad let you go off to California?” Asher asked. His fingers traced aimless lines up and down my spine.
“I mean, they live in two different states and she can’t tell him what to do anymore. So she’ll probably take it out on me.”
“I’m sorry that she doesn’t understand you,” he said, kissing my hair.
“She knows exactly who I am. The problem is: I’m not her. I think it’s upsetting to her that I’m so much more like my dad.”
I shifted my body, so my chin was on his chest. He ran his hands through my hair, mouth searching for the words.
“Do you think maybe—maybe you expect your mom to be a little more like you, and she expects you to be a lot like her—and neither of you have gotten your way?” Asher asked.
I shrugged, even though the question made my insides feel heavy. Leave it to Asher Reyes to walk around in everyone’s shoes. My mother was nineteen when she fell in love with my father. She was only a couple years older when she closed her heart off from ever letting another man in. She got swept away by my father’s charm and was devastated by the outcome. The added weight in my chest swirled, knowing that I had also been left heartbroken by my father. But I kept going back for more, hoping the next time would be different. I was filled with hope, because the opposite was too dark and lonely. It’s not the heartbreak that defines who we are, it’s how we react to it. My father left scars on my mother’s heart, but my mother let the pain keep her from making new ones. Norah put up thick walls—walls that made her appear like a tower of strength, when really, she was too weak to allow herself to give up an ounce of control.
Love was her kryptonite. Love was my cherry on top.
“What are you thinking about?” Asher asked, scanning my faraway eyes.
I traced the tiny white scar on his chin with my finger as I felt his hold tighten around my body. I closed my eyes, as if the admission was embarrassing.
“I’ve never seen a man hold my mom. Or kiss her. My whole life, I’ve never seen someone else love my mom. She’s thirty-five, she’s the youngest of anyone’s mom that I know, and she’s made her mind up: her future is set in stone. She’s better off on her own. She doesn’t want this. And I’m—” I went silent, thoughts strangling my throat. My mom knew how to love once. My dad told me sweeping, heart-bursting stories of the way they loved each other. Big. Epic. I could tell by the way my mom met his eyes whenever he came into the city, how she looked away all too quickly, that she was afraid of loving him ever again. How could a young woman bathe in bright sunlight, only to find her thirty-five-year-old self content with partly cloudy for the rest of her days?
I felt Asher sit up under me, bringing me up with him. I held the crisp blue sheet above my breasts as I looked away from him. He turned my face toward his.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his hand cupping my cheek, his eyes wide.
“I’m…I’m scared,” I cracked. “I love you so much, and I’m terrified that you’re going to break my heart, and then I’ll decide never to do this again. I don’t want to become her. I don’t want to be thirty-five, with real love existing only in the rearview mirror.” I felt the hot tears run down my cheek. He wiped them away instantly.
“Come here.” He cupped the back of my head, pulling me toward his chest. I exhaled tears into the curve of his neck, gripping on to the back of his head, as if holding on to something that I would one day long for.
“Love will never be in the rearview for you, ever,” Asher whispered. “I’ll always be sitting next to you.”
“You can’t promise that,” I said, real small, like it scared me to challenge the brightest future anyone had ever presented to me.
Asher shifted my body so my eyes were right in front of his, with his hands on both of my cheeks.
“You plan on breaking my heart?” he asked.
I shook my head effusively. “I could never.”
“I couldn’t ever break yours,” he said.
I inhaled, wiping away tears and shaking off the panic. My forehead pressed against his, and I let a smile find my face, like an exhale.
“Promise me again?”
He gripped his hand on the back of my head, holding on to me as tightly as I was holding on to him. “You, Maggie Vine, will never be thirty-five and alone. On midnight before your thirty-fifth birthday, I’ll be next to you.”
“And I’ll be next to you,” I said, exhaling relief.
“You promise?” he asked, his lips against mine.
I opened my mouth, whispering, “I promise.”
His eyes searched my lips, and then his mouth followed.
27
THIRTY-FIVE
“AND THEN…I’d very much like to kiss you?” said Summer, repeating my words to Asher back to me as she aggressively honked her Range Rover’s horn.
“Was that necessary?” I asked, looking at Summer’s hand, which rested on the center of the steering wheel, ready to honk again.
“That shithead fucking cut me off.”
“Summer, we’re going five miles an hour. He just switched lanes.”
We were on our way to Garrett’s engagement party, and stuck in horrible traffic on Route 27.
“Why have I seen no paparazzi photos of you and Asher since that dinner? I’m getting bored. Give me something to work with, Vine.”
“I’ve been camped out at your house, which thankfully the paparazzi haven’t found, and my manager wants me to lie low.”