Crazy fucking in love with her.

It was a fact I’d been denying for a long time. Telling myself the distance between us was because we’d grown apart. That wasn’t true. I’d put that distance between us. Pulled away from her because I thought my feelings for her were too dangerous.

I’d been wrong. Loving her wasn’t dangerous. Letting her go would be.

Feeling suddenly better than I had in a long time, I took a bite of pie, my eyes still on Grace. I wasn’t going to kiss her right now. Not here or on the back porch. Not yet.

I could, and a big part of me wanted to. But I didn’t want to leave any room for her to doubt me, or to doubt us.

She’d be going back to school in the fall. The longer she spent away from home, the more likely it was that she wouldn’t just date someone else, she’d meet the someone else. The guy who’d take her away from me forever.

Which meant I had to do this right. I couldn’t just kiss her and hope she felt something for me too. I couldn’t leave it up to chance. I had to work for it. Show her how great we’d be together.

I had to chase her.

Grace didn’t know it yet, but she was mine. Long before the end of summer, she’d know. And she’d know I was hers, too.

5

Grace

Something tapped against my bedroom window and I spun around to look. Nothing. I was on the second story, and the tree branch that had once grown close enough to scrape against it in the wind had long since been trimmed. I hoped a bird hadn’t flown into the glass, although that would have made a thud, not a tap.

I heard it again and my eyes caught movement this time. I went over to the window and looked down. Asher stood below, looking up, his arm cocked like he was about to throw something.

What was he doing down there?

I opened the window and leaned out. “Are you throwing rocks at my window?”

Grinning, he lowered his arm. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Do you have to work today?”

I was returning to my summer job at the local coffee shop, the Steaming Mug. “Nope. I don’t start until tomorrow.”

“Wanna sneak out with me?”

Sneak out? What was he talking about? “Asher, my mom isn’t even home. And I’m twenty. I don’t need to sneak out of my house.”

He smiled again, making his dimples pucker. “I thought it would be fun. Come on.”

“You want me to climb out my window?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

This wouldn’t have been the first time I’d climbed out my window to meet Asher. But it had been years. I’d been smaller, and more nimble, the last time I’d done this.

But he was right—it would be fun.

“If I fall, you better catch me.”

He smiled again and held his arms out. “You know I will, Gracie Bear.”

Hearing him use my nickname sent a flutter through my stomach. He hadn’t called me that in a long time.

“Okay, hold on.”

I put on a pair of shoes and climbed out onto the ledge below my window. Plastering myself against the siding, I inched my way across, until I was close to the porch roof.

The first time I’d done this, it had been my idea. Asher had crept along below, whispering words of encouragement in the dark. The sun was still up this time, but my heart beat against my ribs. I stretched my toe toward the porch roof, then eased my body weight toward that foot. When I felt secure, I pushed off and landed on the sloped surface with bent knees.

“Nice one,” Asher said below me.

I crept down the edge of the roof and turned around, getting on my stomach. Sliding down, I let my legs dangle over the side.

“I’ve got you.”

The ground sloped upward on this side of the house just enough that he could reach me as I dropped from the porch roof. I felt his hands on my calves, then my thighs as I slid lower. His arms wrapped around the tops of my legs and the next thing I knew, I was sliding down the front of his body.

My feet hit the ground and he kept his arms around me. I froze, my body stiffening. For a second, the world seemed to pause. The breeze stilled and the birds quieted. Warmth spread through me, and it wasn’t just the heat of Asher’s body pressed so close to mine. With his arms wrapped around me, I could feel him, smell him. It was overwhelming.

Confusing.

Arousing.

He let go and the breath rushed from my lungs. I stepped away, keeping my back to him, and fixed my ponytail to give myself a second to recover.

What the heck had just happened?

I didn’t want to let this sudden rush of feelings show, especially since Asher wanted to hang out, and we hadn’t done that in a long time. Not just the two of us. I didn’t want to ruin it.

So I took a deep breath to clear my head and turned around. “Where are we sneaking off to?”

“I have a few ideas.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”

And now he was holding my hand.

He led me around the back of Gram’s house, like we really were trying to sneak away without being seen. When we got near the front, he put his fingers to his lips, prompting me to be quiet. Stifling a laugh, I nodded. He was so funny.

We tiptoed to his car—he still drove the old black Cutlass he’d bought from one of his uncles. He let me in the passenger’s side, then shut the door. With an exaggerated gait, he walked around to the other side and got in. Put his fingers to his lips again and winked.

I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. He was being so ridiculous. He made a show of looking around, then turned on the car.

As soon as the engine kicked over, he tore out of the driveway like we’d just robbed a bank. He looked in the rear-view mirror, as if expecting to be followed. I had no idea why that was so funny, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

“I think we made a clean getaway,” I said.

He glanced over his shoulder. “I think you’re right. Nice work.”

We only lived about a mile outside the main part of town. As kids, we’d walked everywhere. To the Sugar Shack, our pockets stuffed with change to buy gum and penny-candy. To the library or the community pool. Tilikum was still the sort of place where kids could roam free. It made me glad my mom had stayed and was raising my brother here. It was a good place for a kid to grow up.

Asher parked near City Hall, on a flat street just before the hill sloped down toward the river. We got out and stepped up onto the sidewalk. It could get hot on the eastern slopes of the Cascades during the summer, but today was comfortably warm. A few clouds hung in the blue sky and the air was still.

“So what did you have in mind?”

“I thought we could ruin our dinner with ice cream from the Zany Zebra, then go hang out at the Caboose. Shoot some pool.”

“Ruin our dinner? You sound like Gram.”

“It rubs off on you.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I just figured it might be nice to get out of the house for a while.”

He was right—getting out of the house was nice. My mom was at work and Elijah was with the babysitter. I didn’t have much of a Tilikum social life anymore. Most of the people I’d been friends with in high school had left—seeds scattered in the wind, off to find their way to the surface in new places.