by Ali Merci
•••
All throughout his fourth period class, Asa’s mind was running at a thousand miles per minute.
He wasn’t much of an overthinker; he’d never been one. Asa had always been the act-now-suffer-the-consequences-later kind of guy. Now, though, all he could do was overanalyse every possible scenario that Carson’s threat could lead to. And it scared Asa, because he’d never felt this way before. If he was half as smart as he usually was, Asa would shrug off Carson’s words and label it as nothing more than an empty threat.
But Asa wasn’t feeling so smart right now. What was logic and reason in light of the girl he loved being used to get back at him?
“I’m not talking to a wall, Mr San Román,” the teacher’s words fell on his ears, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Asa’s eyes widened as he tuned back into his surroundings and registered the fact that every single head in the classroom—except for Hunter’s, of course—was turned towards him.
“Um…” Asa looked past all the amused students and turned his attention to the teacher. “I—I’m sorry, was there a question? I didn’t catch it.”
The teacher muttered something under his breath and shook his head to himself before turning back to the board. “Don’t zone out during class again. I need each and every one of you to focus.”
Asa nodded hastily even though the gesture couldn’t be seen with the teacher’s back now turned to him. “Sorry,” he called out, ignoring the mortified burn creeping up the back of his neck.
The teacher continued with the lesson and all the students shifted their focus back to the task which was given to them. Asa released a breath of relief.
There was a soft tap on his shoulder from his left, and he tilted his head to meet Wyatt’s inquisitive eyes.
“Everything all right?” he mouthed.
Asa started nodding about to falsely reassure him, when he stopped and decided to just let Wyatt know that no, everything was not all right. It was about time Asa started letting someone else in anyway. So he shook his head and gestured with his hand that he’d talk to Wyatt later.
The unabashed honesty from Asa seemed to surprise the other boy, but he just nodded and offered Asa a thumbs-up.
Fifteen minutes later, once the bell rang, Asa found himself walking down the hallway with Wyatt at his side.
“So,” Wyatt started. “What’s up?”
Asa’s mouth curved into a wry smile. “Want me to answer that literally?”
“You could try.” Wyatt shot him a sideways glance. “But I’d have to punch you.” And then, he grinned.
“Yeah,” Asa muttered distractedly. “Wouldn’t want that now.”
“All right, seriously,” Wyatt said, the amusement beginning to fade from his usually cheery voice. “What’s going on?”
“It’s lunch now, right?” Asa nodded towards the school’s main doors. “Let’s head out.”
Wyatt raised a brow. “Don’t want to spend it with Carmen?” He sounded confused.
“Dude, it’s one lunch period. It’s not like I can’t be away from her for thirty whole minutes.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Shut up.”
The light banter between the two lasted ’till the moment they were seated at a table by the window of some fast-food place.
“So, Carson’s back,” Wyatt announced, grabbing the ketchup dispenser and squirting some onto his plate of potato wedges.
Asa’s eyes met his and narrowed in suspicion. “How’d you know I wanted to talk about him?”
Wyatt rolled his eyes. “Do I look like I was born yesterday?” He dipped a wedge into the sauce and chewed off the upper half of it.
“You act like it sometimes,” Asa deadpanned, snatching the other half of the potato wedge and tossing it into his mouth.
Wyatt snorted and leant back in his chair, raising his brow as he regarded Asa. “Stop beating around the bush and tell me what happened.”
Asa mumbled something under his breath and picked up his fork, playing around with the lasagna on his plate. “He blames me for not being allowed into the meet.”
“When has he ever owned up to his own mistakes? Of course he was going to find someone else to pin his loss on.”
“I’m not worried about him blaming me,” Asa explained. “I just can’t help but think about what he’s going to do because he blames me.”
This time, Wyatt frowned. “He didn’t explicitly tell you he was going to do something to you, did he?”
Asa shook his head. “Not to me. He did say that he could get to me another way, though. And then he mentioned Carmen.
Realisation flickered through Wyatt’s eyes, and he chuckled lightly under his breath, which only confused Asa. “So why are you worried?”
Asa blinked, staring at Wyatt as if he’d sprouted another head within the blink of an eye. “What do you mean why I’m worried?” he repeated, wanting to smack his friend on the head. “It’s pretty self-explanatory.”
“Yes.” Wyatt nodded slowly. “He threatened the girl you care about. But why are you worried?
A string of curses left Asa’s mouth in one single breath, impatience flaring up in him. “Maybe because I’d like to put a stop to this whole thing once and for all?” he snapped, unable to understand how Wyatt didn’t find the seriousness in all of this.
Wyatt sighed and looked at Asa like he was dealing with a five-year-old. “Did you ever stop to think that’s what Carson probably wants? For you to make the first move?”
“I don’t care if I’m giving him the upper hand by letting him provoke me into doing something stupid. I’m not standing by as he takes a swing at Carmen just to knock me off.”
“You mean, if he’s going to do that.”
Asa shook his head again, more frantically this time. “You weren’t there, man. He meant whatever he said.”
“No, Asa, it was an empty threat,” Wyatt said firmly. “Just deconstruct the threat using simple logic without letting your feelings for Carmen get in the way.”
But that was the problem right there—all that occupied Asa’s mind was the thought of her getting hurt because of his own mistakes.
“Yeah, I’m not sure how to do that right now,” he muttered, looking away from Wyatt and focusing on the few vehicles that passed by the window they were seated at.
“All right, tell me, when do you think the guys got to know about Carmen?”
Asa’s mind immediately flashed back to a particular moment in school and realisation dawned on his face. “The locker room, when Ronnie mentioned it in front of all of them.”
“Exactly.”
“But Carson wasn’t there at that time.” Asa pulled his brows together.
Wyatt only shrugged in response. “Not important, someone would’ve just told him. But that’s not the point here, Asa. If he heard about that, then there’s something else he’d have definitely heard of too.”
Something clicked in Asa’s mind. “Hunter’s threat,” he mumbled, more to himself than to Wyatt.
“Bingo.” Wyatt grinned. “Now Carson can be an idiot with no filter on his mouth sometimes. But I think you and I both know even if he did try to mess with you, there’s no way he’s stupid enough to piss off both you and Hunter.” He popped another one of the potato wedges into his mouth. “Like I said, it was an empty threat. No way in hell he’s actually going to act on it.”
That actually made sense—a lot of sense.
Asa’s relentless worrying seemed utterly nonsensical and stupid now that Wyatt had helped him see past the surface of Carson’s words.
“Why’d he make the stupid threat anyway?” Asa cocked his head to the side. “If he was never going to live up to it?”
“I’m guessing he was counting on your rashness to do the rest of the job,” Wyatt said in a somewhat soft tone. “He must have known you would let it get to your head.”
Asa dropped the fork into the plate and leaned back in his chair, feeling h
is shoulders drop as he ran a hand through his hair. “I need to seriously get my shit together,” he muttered harshly, angry at himself for letting his emotions get the better of him. He wondered if being a heart-over-head kind of guy did more damage than good. “Maybe I should take lessons from Hunter and learn how to become a goddamn robot.”
Wyatt pressed his lips together, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he mulled over something in silence.
“No…,” he finally said, meeting Asa’s eyes with a small smile of his own. “No, you shouldn’t have to change that part of you because people do horrible things sometimes. Besides,” —he took a gulp of his water— “I think it takes a certain kind of courage for someone to wear their heart on their sleeve, the way you do.”
Asa scoffed lightly. “Fat load of good it’s done me.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt replied. “It got you Carmen, didn’t it?”
Asa’s eyes snapped to his with lightning speed, a whole ocean of emotions flooding through him right then as the reality of Wyatt’s words hit him.
Because that part of him—the part that allowed himself to be vulnerable—was what Carmen’s eyes had seen and told him made the world a better place. There couldn’t be anything wrong with him just because he had no qualms about opening up his heart to this world, right?
No, there had to be something wrong with the people who shamed him for it.
An odd sense of calm washed over him gently right then, the sensation being a high contrast to the sudden crashing of emotions just minutes before.
He met Wyatt’s eyes again, grateful that he had someone who could use his mind when Asa himself couldn’t.
“Thanks, man,” he said softly, short and sincere.
Wyatt grinned. “Dude, if you’re going to be thanking me each time I save your ass from doing something stupid, thank you is soon going to become the most frequently used phrase in your vocabulary.”
Asa just rolled his eyes in response, slipping back into their light banter as the seriousness slowly dissipated, and Carson’s threat was no longer hanging over Asa’s head so heavily anymore.
“You just proved there was a reason I kept you around.” Asa grinned, that playful edge in his voice reappearing as they stood up and began to leave. “Good timing too. I was about to give you the papers terminating our friendship.”
“Give me a heads-up next time you want a brovorce so that I can lawyer up.”
“What the heck is a brovorce?” Asa asked in bewilderment as he opened the door of the diner and stepped out into the chilled air.
“Divorce, but, you know, between bros.”
“You’re such a goddamn idiot, Wyatt.”
“Hey, you were the one who mentioned you pulling paperwork terminating our friendship. Might as well put a name on it.”
“Why do I always get stuck with the weird ones?” Asa muttered under his breath.
“Because the weird ones are the best ones.” Wyatt grinned, clapping Asa on the back as the two of them took off down the street to walk back to school.
Asa didn’t say anything to that, but the affectionate smile on his face spoke volumes on its own.
•••
When they reached school, there was still about five minutes of lunch remaining. Wyatt and Asa parted ways, the former heading off towards a different hallway with the latter taking off in the direction to his locker.
Asa was still walking between the rows of lockers when Carmen appeared from the other end, her head bent slightly as she stuffed a textbook into her shoulder bag.
She hadn’t seen him yet as her eyes were focused down on her bag as she zipped it close whilst walking, but Asa didn’t bother calling out her name or alerting her of his presence. He just picked up his pace, taking quick strides towards her as his heart started beating irrationally fast and his breathing faltered.
It was only when he was a few steps away that Carmen looked up and saw him. Her eyes widened, a smile forming on her lips as she opened her mouth to speak. “Hey, we missed you at lu—”
Whatever she was about to say got cut off as Asa wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her flush against his body in a tight, bone-crushing embrace.
He couldn’t care about being gentle, not right now. The hug was sudden and rough and hard enough to knock the breath out of both of them, but all that mattered was that she was here.
Carmen was here, safe and sound, in his arms, and that was all that he needed to steady the insane thumpity-thump of his heart.
His other hand slipped into the long strands of her hair, his fingers running through the silky locks in a soothing manner.
She was here. She was here.
“You’re okay,” he breathed into her hair, his voice hoarse. “Estás bien, estás bien.”
Asa could hear her say something against his chest but her voice was muffled due to how tightly he was holding her to him.
He didn’t let her go for several more heartbeats, before he realised that he was probably cutting off her air supply. He loosened his hold on her, but not pulling away or removing his arm from around her small waist.
“You were saying something?” he murmured, looking down at her with such intensity in his eyes. His heart felt like it could explode from all the overwhelming emotions right then.
For a moment, it looked like he’d rendered Carmen speechless. Her head was slightly tipped back to look up at him, her chin was still grazing his chest, and her eyes were wide and bright, so many conflicting emotions flickering through them.
He didn’t think he’d ever found her more beautiful than he did in that very moment, in another one of their tiny infinites.
I love you.
“What was that for?” she asked him softly, her tone awestruck and…happy.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled, “I just—I just needed to—to—oh, I don’t know, Carmen.” He pressed his forehead against hers and let his eyes flutter shut. “I just don’t want to ever let go of you.”
“Asa?”
“Mm?”
“We’re standing near the lockers,” she told him. “People might stare at us.”
“I don’t care.” He shook his head against hers. “I don’t care about anything but you and you and only you right now.”
“Asa?” she called after another beat of silence had passed.
“Yeah?” His voice was only audible to her ears.
“One of these days you’re going to tell me you love me again,” she whispered, and he felt cold fingertips touch his jawline, leaving nothing but a burning sensation in its wake. “And I’m going to say it back.”
Asa’s eyes flew open, meeting a pair of silvery ones that reminded him time and time again of the calm before the storm. Right now, he felt it stir up a whirlwind of emotions in the pit of his stomach.
“You do that.” He smiled, his voice rough and thick with emotion. “And I’m going to kiss you ’till you forget how to breathe.”
45.
Sexy Is An Attitude
He didn’t know how it happened, but when the last bell for the day had rung, Asa found himself standing by the main doors of the school along with Wyatt, Carmen, Hayden, Willa, Joyce and Lyra.
It was the weirdest bunch. That, he had to admit. A group of completely mismatched people, and yet somehow, complemented each other perfectly.
“Hey, there.” Lyra grinned as her eyes fell on Carmen, before shooting Asa a discreet smirk to which he just rolled his eyes. “I’ve been dying to bug Asa about you, but now that you’re here, I might as well get to know you directly.”
“Hey back.” Carmen smiled, her voice strong and clear as always.
It never failed to amaze Asa how Carmen’s appearance was so deceiving. She looked like someone who was very withdrawn from society—but whenever she spoke, it was always with such confidence and pleasantness. He admired that about her, how she was bold in her own soft, gentle way.
“Tell me Asa’s bringing you along tonight,” Lyra gushed. “W
e could—”
“Wait wait,” Carmen interrupted, furrowing her brows. “What’s happening tonight?”
“Nothing,” Asa answered. “Just some party. That I haven’t even made up my mind about, by the way.” He directed the last part to Lyra.
“I’m going.” Willa shrugged. “Joyce is and there’s no way I’m letting her go by herself. Like, who even knew she’d like parties? All she does is blush every time someone speaks to her.”
“I’m standing right here.” Joyce huffed, eyes darting around the entire place while her cheeks reddened.
“I know, sweetheart.” Willa rolled her eyes. “Would you rather I say that behind your back?”
Asa smiled, shaking his head subtly. From the number of times he’d interacted with Willa, he’d come to realise she was quite protective of the ones she cared about. It made sense then that she would attend the party Joyce wanted to go to.
“I don’t need to talk to people in parties,” Joyce explained, uttering more than just the usual three or four words Asa was accustomed to hear from her. “Everyone’s too drunk to pay attention to me—or too busy dancing and having a good time themselves.”
“So, you like dancing?” Asa grinned, which seemed to cause Joyce’s eyes to widen and hesitate in her reply.
“Um…Yeah,” she muttered. “Both Carmen and I do, actually.”
Surprise flickered through Asa’s eyes, his lips twitching in amusement at the new piece of information. Carmen just kept surprising him.
“Hey, Asa!” Lyra called from his side, making him turn away from Joyce and look at her instead.
“So, Carmen’s coming.” She winked, slipping an arm through Carmen’s as if they’d been close friends for a handful of years rather than having met just minutes ago.
Asa frowned. “The party?”
“Yeah.” It was Carmen who spoke this time. “I remember going to one, like, last year or something. I kind of liked it, actually. Dancing is always so liberating.” She smiled wide at that last part, her eyes creasing at the corners—a sign that she was genuinely happy about the idea of going out tonight and letting loose.
