Between Hello and Goodbye(57)

I had a million more questions, but I hadn’t seen him in months and felt we were both resettling into each other. He didn’t like me prying in his personal stuff anyway. I had no idea where this visit was going but maybe that was for the best. Maybe we should attempt to maintain some distance.

Yeah, good luck with that.

“How are Morgan and Nalani?” I asked instead. “And little Kal?”

“They’re great. Busy, thanks to you.”

“Definitely not just me. They know what they’re doing. They just needed a little fresh innovation.”

“Maybe. Whatever it is, it’s working. My solution was just to throw money at them until they figured out how to use it.”

“Because you take care of them.” I nudged his arm. “It’s pretty much your thing.”

“I suppose.” Asher looked at me. “I’m sorry I got shitty with you about my childhood stuff.”

“I get it. It’s hard to imagine, but we haven’t known each other all that long. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. And I should never have made you feel weird about keeping your privacy.”

“You didn’t.” Asher’s gaze held me intently. “I was trying to keep you at a distance but that’s fucking impossible.”

I swallowed to hear my thoughts in his voice.

“I guess I felt weird about it,” he continued, “because it’s some shit that he and I went through, and I want it to be over, but it never is.”

“What do you mean?”

“You asked me why I became a firefighter. I think it’s because that’s how it started for Morgan and me. With a fire.”

I sat, rapt, while he took a sip of water and began to talk, erasing whatever lingering distance remained between us with every word.

“Our mom got hooked on pain killers, and pain killers became heroin faster than you’d believe. The next thing we knew, she wasn’t there anymore. She and her sleazy boyfriend—one in a chain of many—set our trailer on fire. If Morgan hadn’t woken up to use the bathroom…” Asher shook his head. “He was eleven. I was about seventeen. I knew if he got put in the foster system, he’d be taken away from me. Maybe put somewhere I couldn’t get to him. That wasn’t about to fucking happen, so I got us out of there.”

“To New York,” I said when he took more water.

He nodded. “I had four hundred bucks to my name. I got us in a cheap hotel, got Morgan enrolled in school, took the GED, and got a job while applying for any college scholarship I could find.”

At Columbia flipping University, I thought, waiting for Asher to mention that part, but of course he didn’t.

“For a stretch, I lived in constant fear the authorities would come busting down the door and take Morgan away from me.”

“How did they not?”

“I don’t think they looked for us,” he said, his expression dark. “If they did, they didn’t look very hard. Don’t know what happened to my mom. For all I know, she thinks we didn’t make it out of that fire. She’s probably dead by now or in jail if she’s lucky.”

I waited, watching the bitterness and pain wash over his face.

“But I had help,” he said after a minute and another sip of water. “The secretary at Morgan’s school caught on pretty quick that I was the one signing papers and making excuses for parent-teacher conferences that were never going to happen. I think she protected us as best she could. When I was eighteen, out of the hotel and in an apartment, I applied to be his legal guardian.” He shrugged, his gaze distant. “The image of Morgan standing there, in that smoke-filled room, looking scared… It was the beginning of the end of a normal childhood, not that it was all that great to begin with. And since then, I guess I’m always putting out fires.” He gave a rueful laugh. “I’m a walking psych cliché.”

I rested my cheek against his shoulder. “I think it’s beautiful what you did for him. How hard you worked to stay together.”

“I’d do it a million times over, but the upshot is that part of me is always on high alert, waiting for the next shoe to drop—a phone call in the night, an alarm. At least when they come at the fire station, I go and fight.”

“No more fighting,” I said softly. “At least for the next five days.” I leaned in to kiss him, but he turned away again. “Asher…”

“I want to kiss you so fucking badly I can hardly breathe,” he said. “But—”

“Then do it,” I said. “You aren’t sick and even if you were, it’s worth it. You are worth it.”

His eyes flared at that, then darkened with want. He kissed me, then. Finally. I felt it in every corner of my body, lighting little flares that rocketed all through me and making my heart swell ten sizes. With that kiss, I knew, without a doubt, that whatever we had, it wasn’t a fling or an infatuation. The depth of it was real and scared me to death because no matter how close we were in that moment, we lived thousands of miles apart.

Not now. Right now, he’s right here…

Our kisses became more heated and urgent, and we moved to the bed, leaving a trail of discarded clothing behind. When we were naked, he rolled us onto our sides, the wall of his chest warm and hard against my back. He kissed the arch of my neck, my shoulder, his tongue flickering, teeth grazing.