Page 44 of Echoes of Us

L ightning split the summer sky as Ashley counted the days in her head. Forty-seven until September. Forty-seven days to change what seemed unchangeable. Thunder rolled across campus, making Yale's spires look strange and ancient against the purple-black clouds.

She felt Cole before she heard him, the heat of his body, as he stepped behind her at the window. His hands settled on her hips, and for a moment, she let herself sink into him, into this, into now.

"Come to bed," he murmured against her neck, but she couldn't look away from the storm. Everything felt charged tonight - with possibility, with fear, with the kind of love that made her believe she could rewrite destiny itself.

When she turned in his arms, lightning caught in his eyes, and her breath hitched at the intensity there. Even now, months after that night in the lab, he still looked at her like she was the only fixed point in his universe. Like she was worth burning for.

"Dance with me," she said suddenly.

His smile turned wicked. "Here?"

"Why not?" She pulled him into the center of their half-unpacked living room, boxes forgotten as thunder shook the windows.

His hands found her hips as she swayed against him, and for a moment, she let herself forget everything but this - the heat of his skin through the thin cotton, the way his breath caught when she pressed closer, how perfectly they still fit together.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, voice rough as his fingers slid under her tank top.

"Us." She traced the sharp line of his jaw. "Time. The future." Her smile turned teasing even as her heart raced. "Physics."

"Quantum mechanics in particular?" His laugh rumbled through her. "Or just the general impossibility of predicting what comes next?"

If he only knew. She kissed him instead of answering, pouring everything she couldn't say into it - her love, her fear, her fierce determination to keep him exactly as he was, burning bright and real and completely himself.

Forty-seven days. The number echoed in her mind like the fading thunder. Forty-seven days to protect everything she loved, to save Dale, to prove that time itself wasn't set in stone.

She turned to look at Cole sleeping beside her, his face peaceful in the storm-lit darkness.

Her past and future collided in this moment - in the way his hand still reached for her even in sleep, in how his breath matched hers without trying.

She didn't know if love alone could change destiny.

But watching him now, she knew she'd spend every one of those forty-seven days trying.