He waves off the driver and opens the door for me. It takes a second to move, but then I slide into the back before he drops in behind me. Once the car pulls from the curb, I turn to Asher and ask, “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Not yet,” he says with a coy smile and intertwines his fingers with mine. “But I will tell you we’re heading to what you say is your favorite place.”
“We’re going into the city?” I ask as excitement floods my veins. I miss New York so freaking much.
“We are,” he says, grinning. “But the rest, you have to wait for.”
I lean over and kiss him. Probably a little too enthusiastically, but he cups my cheeks and kisses me back with as much vigor. We spend the journey into the city talking about not much at all. He tells me funny little stories about him and Sawyer as kids. I tend to just laugh and encourage him to talk because I don’t have stories like that and I am absolutely not telling him about my childhood right now.
Once we’re in the city, I feel like a kid again. I’ve only been in Serenity for about a month, but since I was in California for the summer, it feels like forever since I’ve been back.
It takes almost as long to drive through the city as it did to get here, but when the car pulls to a stop, my jaw drops.
“Shut up.”
“You like?” Asher asks as the car crawls forward, and I just blink at the sight outside the window. The red carpet. The paparazzi. The glamor of it all.
We’re at the opening of the new Demi Hawke installation at the Gagosian Gallery.
Holy shit.
“How did you know?” I ask, trying not to sound as emotional as I feel right now.
“I saw your sketchbook on your desk in your room. You had a ton of Demi’s work and when I saw the invite in the mail at Mom and Dad’s, I snagged it because I had a feeling you’d like it.” He squeezes my hand and I turn to face him, trying to put everything inside of me into words.
But I can’t find them, so I settle for, “Thank you.”
“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give you,” he says, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I thought after this, we could go for a ride through the park. I’ve never done it, and I know you like horses.”
Holy shit, this guy actually fucking listens.
“This is all incredible,” I say wistfully as the car pulls to a stop and the driver jumps from the car. “It’s almost unreal.”
“Oh, it’s real, Briar,” he whispers as the car door opens and the shouts flood my ears. “And this is only the beginning.”
* * *
We enter the darkened house and Asher takes my blazer from me, hanging it up on the coat hook, though how he can navigate in the darkness is beyond me. He takes my hand again and kisses me softly. I hear the puppies in the back room and half want to go to them, but Asher tugs me along with him and there's no way I’m not going to follow.
He leads me up to the second floor and to the end of the hall, to his room, before pausing.
“You okay with this?” he asks, and I squeeze his hand.
“Yeah,” I say softly. I kinda love how he keeps making sure I’m okay. Sure, we had a rocky start, what with him being Travis’s go-between, but we’ve come a long way since then. Especially after last weekend. Waking up to him wrapped around me the morning after everything happened was the safest and most content I’ve felt in forever.
So I think we’ve come pretty far from our first meeting. Or at least it feels like it. Even if we have only known each other about a month, it almost feels like I’ve known him my entire life. I still can’t get over this whole night. Especially since his ‘ride in the park’ was actually pre-planned, and we even had a starlight picnic.
Everything about tonight was just perfection, and everything he’s done up to this point is exactly why I’m not doubting this decision. We’ll work out the finer details later.
He ushers me into the room, closing the door behind him as I try to take in the details from the dim lighting from the lamp in the corner of the room. I spot his guitars on their stands in the corner, smiling at the thought of him looking like a rock god, strumming away on his acoustic guitar. It’s an easy vision to have of him.
He spins me and pulls me toward him, kissing me softly as he pushes his hands into my hair and holds me in place like he’s worried I’m going to run away. I slide my hands around his waist and under the hem of his shirt, unable to stop the smile as he shivers beneath my touch. “You keep doing that, you’re going to learn that you shouldn’t play with fire.”
“Maybe a girl likes to get burned every now and then,” I murmur back against his lips, and he nips my bottom one, making me jump, his hands still firmly in my hair.
“You sure about that?” he asks, and I nod, my breathing increasing in tempo. I move my hands to his fly and pop the button on his jeans before undoing his zipper. His breath hitches and I drop down to my knees, his hands staying in my hair.
I look up at him and smile when I see the look on his face. Like I’m the only thing he’s ever seen. Like nothing else exists.