“Hey,” I said.
She stiffened and then whipped her head at me. “So that’s it? You just walk in the door without knocking? Like we live together or something?”
“No,” I said in a low voice.
“Because we don’t live together, Asher. Do we?”
I sighed. “No, we don’t live together. But I always just walk in. Because you leave the door unlocked. For me.”
“Well, that’s…stupid,” she said, her eyes filling. “And unsafe. To let anyone bust in and…and hurt me.”
“I’m not anyone,” I said. “And I’m hurting too.”
Her eyes widened, and then she quickly looked away. I moved across the patio and sat beside her. I rested my elbows on my thighs and rubbed my face with both hands.
“We need to talk. We’re overdue—”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“What are you doing, Faith? No, I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to push me away, and it won’t work.” I tried for a smile. “It’s not even subtle.”
Faith opened her mouth as if to snap back at me and then shut it again. She turned her green gaze back to the ocean. “Do you know what I did today?”
“Tell me.”
“I meditated for the first time. Not just sitting there with my eyes closed, fidgeting and wishing I was doing anything else. I really mediated. I let my thoughts wander away and do what they wanted, and then everything felt so peaceful. Serene. Have you ever felt serene?”
Yes. The morning after we first slept together.
“I opened my eyes feeling so happy except my cheeks were wet,” she continued. “I’d been crying the entire time and hadn’t even known it.” She looked at me tearfully. “Because I’ve been so happy with you. And it’s ending.”
“We can figure something out,” I said. “I don’t want whatever is happening between us to end either, baby. I don’t.”
“What are we going to do?” she cried. “Because, to make things worse, it’s working. Being here…I feel different now. I don’t want to leave you, but I actually miss my job. I want to go back and do it better. I’m really good at advertising, you know.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m really good at making people want things.”
“I’m living proof.” I took her hands in mine. “Tonight is your last night. Let’s make it something incredible. And the rest…”
“The rest will just fall into place?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But I know that I want to take you out tonight to that luau.”
She sniffed and smiled, her tears making her green eyes look like emeralds. “I think I would love that.”
• • •
I drove back to my place so I could shower and change into a short sleeve, linen button-down and dark jeans. I picked up Faith at her condo and my goddamn heart clenched like a fist at the sight of her. A bright blue sleeveless dress with white and yellow plumeria flowers over it draped her lithe body and accentuated her curves. She’d tucked a red hibiscus flower behind one ear as her only accessory.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
She smiled. “You didn’t have to.”
We drove to a plantation farm where people were filing into a huge pavilion to the sounds of ukulele music and the scent of plumeria on the wind. We were signed in, and I helped Faith—still limping slightly—past wood carvers, jewelry makers, and dancers teaching hapless tourists to do the hula.
We joined a table with three other couples, all older, under the pavilion roof laced with lights and lush greenery. The emcee, a dark-haired Polynesian woman in a white dress, took the stage.
“Before you are called to the dinner, we’d like to invite all the lovebirds to come to the stage and dance while our lovely Miko sings ‘The Sand and the Sea.’”
Asher leaned in. “Dance with me.”
“What? Noooo. I can’t hobble up to the stage in front of everyone.”
“No stage. Right here.” I stood up and offered my hand.
The others at our table smiled and shared knowing looks as I helped Faith to her feet. I pulled her close, and she laid her cheek on my chest, her head tucked perfectly under my chin as we swayed to the Hawaiian love song.
“Do you know what she’s saying?” Faith asked.
“Yes,” I said. “She’s saying, stay in my arms for a moment more.”
Faith raised her head. “Really?” she asked, her voice quavering and her eyes filling.
I nodded, smiled, though my heart ached as a tear escaped and spilled down her cheek. “Now she’s saying, a tear rushes down to the sand.”
“She is not,” Faith said, sniffing.
“Scout’s honor.”
“And now?”
“Now she’s saying if she’s patient, the sea will bring her love to her.”
“You’re making this up.”
“It’s true.” I held her face with both hands. “I promise you, Faith. This is not our last night together.”
I leaned in and her eyes shut tight as I kissed her, as if she were making a wish. The deepest wish of her heart—and mine—and I vowed, then and there, I’d find a way to make it come true.
FIVE
“AND THAT,” I said with a flourish, “is how we met.”
Max and Silas, both being smart-asses, applauded.
“You’ve definitely got us beat,” Max said, laughing. He looked to Asher. “Silas and I met an NA meeting. Not the stuff of romance.”
“Oh hush,” I said. “Your love story is epic. I’ve always envied it, but now…” My silly throat got choked up, and I leveled a finger at Silas. “Do not say a word.”
He held up his hands innocently, laughing. “I say nothing. I think it’s great. I’m so happy for you.” He held up his glass. “Congrats, Asher. The one man on the planet able to break through Faith’s unromantic outer shell to her mushy center.”
“Hypocrisy!” I cried, throwing a cashew from the bowl on the coffee table at Silas. “You just described you and Max to a T.”
Max chuckled. “Now that’s not fair, Faith.” He looked to Asher. “Silas is very romantic. He told all the major news outlets he was in love with me before finally getting around to telling me.”
“Shut up.” Silas rolled his eyes but couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he leaned in to kiss his husband.
They exchanged the kind of loving smiles that I used to envy. Now I had my own love to share little looks and touches with. I never thought those little things could mean so much. My gaze went to Asher.
But they’re everything.
Especially since they weren’t permanent.
“And so now you guys trade flights back and forth between Hawaii and Seattle?” Silas asked, as if reading my mind. He whistled. “That’s a lot of frequent flier miles.”
“Faith calls it our long-distance relationshit,” Asher said, grinning over his beer.
“That’s because it sucks being apart. But we’re making it work,” I said. “It’s hard, but it’d be harder not to have him at all.”
My eyes threatened tears at the heaviness in my heart that seemed to grow heavier every time I had to say goodbye to Asher. Each time was harder than the last.
I glanced up to see the room had gone silent, and all three men were watching me with soft gazes.
“God, puppy-eyes overload. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said, fanning my eyes and avoiding looking at Max’s sweet, compassionate face or else I’d lose it completely. “Let’s talk about something else. Quick, someone change the subject.”
Asher cleared his throat. “I’ll change the subject.”
I glanced over as his deep voice had a strange tremor to it. He set down his beer and moved off the floor, as if to stand up. But he got halfway and stayed there.
My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. “Oh my God. Wait. What? Are you down on one knee?”
Somewhere, behind the rushing o
f blood in my ears, I heard Max gasp and Silas mutter, “Holy shit.”
Asher cleared his throat and took my hand in his. “You’re right. The long distance is too fucking hard and I don’t want to do it anymore.” He reached into his slacks pocket and pulled out a black velvet box.
My heart was thumping so loud, I could hardly hear his next words.
“Faith.” He opened the box to reveal a square-cut solitaire diamond on a band of white gold. “Will you marry me?”
Max sniffed, and from the corner of my eye I saw him reach for Silas’s hand. Then my world telescoped to just Asher, a thousand thoughts clamoring for attention.
I’d have to move to Kauai?
I can’t leave my life here.
What about my job?
What about Silas and Max? I’d miss them so much.
I’d miss the city. I’d miss fancy restaurants and shopping and cocktail hour at the Four Seasons…
“Yes,” I whispered, because for every question in my heart, Asher was the only answer. “Yes. Yes, of course, I’ll marry you.”
The expression on his face—my stoic, brave man—nearly undid me. He slipped the ring on my finger, and I held his face as he kissed me, kissed my tears, because my own stoicism faded away in the face of the pure, naked love I had for him. I let them fall because I was brave too. I just hadn’t known it.
For a few seconds, forehead to forehead, we were alone in the world, smiling into our kisses. Asher held my face in his hands as if it were the most precious thing he’d ever touched.
“I’ll love you always, Faith. Always.”
I nodded, tears spilling. “I love you, Asher. So much. You have my heart. It’s yours. God, look at me. I’ve never even considered loaning it out to anyone and here I am giving it away to you, forever.”
He smiled and kissed me again, gently. “I’m honored, baby. And I swear to you, I’ll protect it with my life.”
My firefighter.
I cried and we kissed some more and then pure elation found me, making me a little hysterical with laughter. I pulled away to see Max and Silas had retreated to the kitchen to give us space.
“Did you hear?” I pointed at Asher. “I get to have sex with this man for the rest of my life!”
Max laughed and wiped his eyes while Silas inhaled stiffly through his nose and fixed Asher—my fiancé—with a stern look that barely masked the sadness. “Kauai, eh? That’s pretty far away.”
Max put his arm around his husband. “That’s Silas Speak for: I’m going to miss my best friend, don’t take her away from me.”
Asher moved to sit beside me on the couch. “She’s not going anywhere.”
My head whipped to him. “What do you mean?”
“I know you, Faith,” Asher said. “Taking you out of the city would be selfish and wrong.” He shot me a sly smile. “You can’t cut island life, and you know it.”
My eyes widened even as my happiness expanded until I thought I’d burst. “That is so not true. I love Kauai.”
“But you don’t have to live there,” Asher said. “I’ll move here and apply at a firehouse in the city. We can spend summers and winters at my place.”
I stared. “You’d do that? For me?”
“I told you, baby. Give and take. You’ve given me more than I can ever repay.” Asher’s gaze softened as he cupped my cheek in his hand. “I’d move across a thousand oceans for you.”
Somewhere behind me, Max made a choking sound—or maybe it was Silas, that big softy—but all I knew at that moment was Asher’s beautiful eyes and the way they held mine.
And in them, I saw our future that stretched into forever.
THE END
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SOMETHING LIKE KISMET
* * *
GINGER SCOTT
ONE
ONE MORE STEP would mean certain death.
Okay, so not literal death. More like social death. But really, when you’re seventeen and face-to-face with the boy whose last name you’ve practiced writing as if it were your own more times than you’ve written your actual last name, proximity can really hyperbolize the definition of death.
“Frankie, go!” My best friend Shay nudges my shoulder with what feels like her forearm. My feet stay glued to the gym floor, inches shy of the invisible line that defines the dancefloor from the safety of the folding chairs and tables littered with punch cups and cookie crumbs.
Everything I’ve done over the last two weeks has been for this moment. Caleb Walsh knows my name. He knows about the crush—my crush…on him. He knows that I’m here and that I’m not the shy girl in the background anymore. All those things balanced with the fact that he is not running for an exit right now meant I should take that step. The last dance of my senior year of high school.
“Fran!” Shay grits out the shortened version of my name, which I hate, and leans into me forcefully, trying to goad me into action. I dig in and push back.
“I’m going!” I growl out the lie. She calls me on it with the kind of laugh that accompanies rolling eyes. I don’t need to see them to know her pupils dashed up under her eyelids.
As ready as I thought I was for this, now that I’m here, the foundation of this plan feels incredibly shaky. This entire thing is inspired by some cookie fortune I read on a Friday the thirteenth at my favorite Chinese restaurant, Lee’s of Muncie.
TAKE YOUR SHOTS. P.S. HE LIKES YOU TOO.
I mean … that’s awfully prophetic and detailed for a fortune cookie. Shay and I passed it back and forth, interpreting the meaning to the point of wearing away
the last O printed on the small strip of paper. The end result was this plan I’ve followed religiously for the last two weeks—when I might normally say no, I say yes instead. There are safety exceptions, of course. Like, I won’t take a hit off the joint at a party, but actually going to a party? That’s a big change for me. And I did go—I went big, and I drank an entire Solo cup of beer. And I danced. And Caleb—he noticed. It may have been the blue streaks I let Shay bleach and dye in my dark brown hair at first, but he noticed the rest of me too. I felt his eyes on me.
My high school life up until now has been practically momentless. I’m not in a single photo in my yearbooks other than the small square headshots for each class. My senior bio is filled with academic stats, but my Most likely to line is just a set of ellipsis. That’s who I am. I’m…
But I’m done stopping just before I do things. I’m going to ask Caleb to dance. I can do it!
I bounce on my toes and shake out my fingertips as if I’m about to head down the twelve feet of a high-dive board to plunge into a freezing cold pool. I’m suddenly glad I opted to wear jeans tonight. I feel more confident somehow in my Nike Airs and blue halter top. Shay pushed for the mini dress, but this is more me. I like to be prepared for battle. And I’m battling, alright—with my nerves.
“He’s going to say yes,” Shay encourages. She has no idea if that’s true, but she’s an optimist. It’s easy for her to be one. She’s had the same boyfriend since we were nine. She and Beckett will get married. They’ll probably have three kids and a two-story house with a green yard and one of those doodle-type dogs. Meanwhile, I’ll still be here, paralyzed by a life full of ellipsis.
One More Step Page 5
