“Wait. Are you not coming? Harry—” He tried to sit up and regretted it immediately, crying out in pain as his ribs protested.
Harry helped him lay back down. “Just relax. You okay?”
Asher nodded but it was far from the truth. He had to breathe through the pain and Harry waited until he was settled before he spoke.
“Of course I’m coming with you,” Harry said. He took Asher’s hand, looking at it rather than at Asher’s eyes. “Asher, I don’t know what we are. You and me. I don’t know the first thing about...thator where to even start, really. But I’ll stick with you until you tell me you don’t want me around anymore. If that’s okay with you.”
Asher could have cried. He certainly couldn’t speak right then, so instead, he nodded. “Yeah,” he mumbled, his bottom lip trembling. “I’ll stick with you too, if that’s okay with you.”
Harry grinned, squeezing Asher’s hand. “That’s very okay with me.” He just about vibrated with happiness, and it made Asher smile. Harry leaned down and kissed him softly. “Get some rest. Tomorrow’s a big day.”
* * *
Asher sleptfor a few hours and the sound of Harry’s laughter stirred him from sleep. Not just Harry, but children too, and a man yelling out for someone to run, run, run.
Asher wondered if he’d dreamed it until he heard more laughter.
His body ached from lying down for too long, and he needed to move. Even if just for a little while. Like Harry had said, tomorrow would be a big day of travelling, and that would involve walking to some degree.
Asher got himself upright and walked slowly to follow the sound of voices. This was his first time seeing the outside. It was late afternoon, the low-setting sun was bright enough to hurt Asher’s eyes. It was a desert village, homes built of wood and clay. It seemed they were on the edge of town because from where Asher stood in the doorway, he could see a few homes either side of the one he was in, but across from them was some agricultural plots and what appeared to be a whole cricket game going on.
Harry stood in the middle with the cricket bat, and about six small kids spotted around him. One of the bigger kids bowled to him and he tapped the ball gently to one of the smaller kids. They all cheered and Harry laughed as he ran down the dusty pitch. It wasn’t a real pitch, just a flat area with a set of cricket stumps at one end and an old tin pot at the bowler’s end. Harry made the run easily and it was another kid’s turn to bowl.
Not before another kid spotted Asher and pointed him out. Harry turned to see Asher, his cricket game forgotten, and the kid bowled at him hitting the stumps.
The cheers were loud, and an older man from the next house clapped and hollered. Harry laughed. “That’s not fair! I was distracted!”
Asher found himself smiling. Smiling at the remarkable man Harry was. Sure, he could be brutal and unforgiving if he had to be... but there he was, playing a game of cricket with a bunch of kids, laughing in the dusty sunset. He handed the bat over to the kid that bowled him out and he came running over to Asher.
“Hey. You’re up and walking.”
“Sick of lying down, and I heard the laughter.”
He grinned, looking back at the kids. “I don’t speak Urdu and they don’t speak much English, but we all speak cricket.”
Asher was still smiling, his heart feeling two times too big for his chest. “You should get back to it,” Asher said, nodding to where the kids were waiting for him.
Harry let his head fall back with a groan. “Relentless, I tell ya.”
But he ran back over, and their game recommenced until the last of the sunlight called an end to the match. Asher stood for as long as he could, then he leaned against the wall.
He didn’t want to miss watching this.
This innocent joy that had been missing from Harry’s life—and Asher’s—for far too long. Having fun for the sake of it, laughing freely, bringing joy to the kids’ afternoon for no other reason than to just bring joy.
This is what Asher meant when he said a normal life.
Not with kids. Hell no. That was not a life for him.
But to exist without fear, without looking over his shoulder.
Would he ever get that? Did he deserve to have that after all he’d done? Asher wasn’t sure, but if he could just have a taste of it...
Harry walked back over to him, the grin wide on his dusty face. “You stayed out here to watch?”
“Wouldn’t have missed it.”
“Those kids all ganged up to beat me.”