Page 53 of Winging It with You

Asher

Denpasar International Airport

Bali, Indonesia

Jo and I barely spoke as we sped off in the van toward the airport.

She’d thrown her phone on the dash as she haggled with the airline representative, playing every card and pulling every string she had in her arsenal to get me where I needed to go.

When we got to the international terminal, we shot out like two human cannonballs at the circus.

Ripping my bag from the back seat, I turned to Jo, searching for the right words—sincere words for the kindness she’d shown me.

But despite the variations of thank you I’d strung together in my head, I said nothing.

Instead, Jo, sensing my mental fumble, silently pulled me in for a forced but welcome hug.

“Go get him,” she said, kissing me on the cheek before practically shoving me toward the ticket counter.

I sprinted through the automatic doors, breathless and running on fumes, making a note of all the things I still needed to say to her. How this competition changed my life, how she’d always been in my corner.

How thankful I am for her friendship.

Racing through multiple airports and across multiple time zones, only one thought kept me going—

Theo.

But after hours and hours of travel, when I see him standing there at the end of the driveway, I suddenly have no idea what to say.

“Hi.”

He puts his hands in his pockets. The evening light makes it difficult to read his expression, but he seems neither ecstatic nor enraged to see me, so I guess that’s a win.

Before Theo can say anything and the two of us are swept up in the breathtaking reunion I’d been fantasizing about since the moment he left, a tiny human comes running up behind him, screaming from the shadows.

“ Stranger danger! Stranger danger! Stranger danger! ” His stature is small, but his warning isn’t anything to scoff at, because one second, I’m standing in front of the man I’m dying to kiss, and the next, I’m shot.

“What the fu…dge ,” I yell, clutching my forehead.

Somehow, I manage to choke back a string of obscenities I’d love nothing more than to lob at my assailant, but given the fact that he’s, what, three—four?

—I keep my words G-rated. The little sharpshooter standing before me could quite literally be Theo’s mini-me with his thick, wavy dark hair and devilish grin.

He stands there locked and loaded, ready to protect his family against intruders.

Theo nearly doubles over in laughter as I peel off the suction-cup dart that basically got me right between the eyes and throw it to the ground. Nice shot, kid.

“This is my nephew, Frankie…” he says, his voice trailing off when he realizes Frankie didn’t stick around long enough for an introduction. He’s instead gone running back up the driveway. “Sorry about that. Did it hurt?”

Truthfully, it didn’t feel great, but if anything, I think it just surprised me. “I’m fine,” I say, rubbing my forehead and reminding myself not to let Frankie out of my sight.

“Good…good.” Theo crosses his arms and all I want to do is wrap myself in him. “So, what are you doing here, Asher?” he asks quietly, like he’s afraid to know the answer.

“Theo, I—I had no idea…I need you to know…” But before I can tell him how my heart ached for him as soon as he’d left me or how on the plane ride here I’d replayed each and every moment we’d shared—a continuous loop of some of the happiest moments of my life—I realize we are once again very much not alone.

“Mijo, don’t be rude…I didn’t raise you to allow our guests to just awkwardly stand outside,” says a woman who I can only assume is Theo’s mother. “Especially when they’ve clearly been traveling.” She loops her arm through Theo’s and rests her head against his shoulder.

“Mom, this is Asher,” Theo says, his gaze still anywhere but on mine, the hurt in his voice more prevalent than it was just moments ago.

“It’s…um, lovely to meet you, Mrs. Fernandez,” I say, extending my hand in her direction.

“Please,” she says, taking my hand in hers, “call me Carla. You must be starving, Asher. Come on, I’ll make you a plate,” she says, leading me toward the house.

“One sec…I need to grab my bags.”

“Nonsense,” she says. “Theo can do that, right, sweetie?” He doesn’t respond, but I can hear him trailing behind us, the wheels of my beat-up roller bag—which is officially on its last leg—screeching against the asphalt with every step.

Carla guides me up the long, curved driveway.

I knew little of Theo’s family home, but somehow, this is exactly how I pictured it—wildflowers and larger-than-life trees framing the understated but beautiful two-story lake house, and fireflies dancing in the distance, softly illuminating the night in the most fleeting of moments.

Would it be incredibly silly of me to say there’s magic in the air? Because that’s how being here makes me feel. Like at any given moment, something beautiful and entirely out of the ordinary could happen.

I look back at Theo, silently praying it’s not too late for our magic.

“Alright, mis amores…We have a visitor!” Carla says when I step onto a massive brick patio where I’ve clearly interrupted what appears to be a very lovely family dinner. “Please make Asher feel welcome while I heat him up a plate,” Carla says before turning toward the glow of the house.

“Oh…you don’t have to do th—”

“It’s nothing. Please, sit and get comfortable, carino,” Theo’s father says, waving to an empty chair.

“Um, hi,” I say, giving a rigid wave as I take a seat in between Theo and his father.

“It’s nice to meet you, Asher,” he says warmly, offering a hand to me, which I shake. “I’m Alejandro. And this is my daughter, Dr. Elise Mariana Fernandez-Perez, pediatric medicine,” he says like any proud father would, “and her husband, Stefan.”

“Jeez, dad,” Elise scolds her father. “Shall I hand him over my résumé and socials as well?”

“What!” Alejandro retorts, laughing loudly with his full body. “Can you blame a father for being proud of his daughter, a doctor?”

She ignores him. “Glad you could make it, Asher,” she says, winking at me. I have to find a way to thank her for tagging Theo in that photo and responding to my last-ditch message.

Because without her, I wouldn’t be here.

Amid the friendly introductions, Theo abruptly gets up from the table and walks off, hands back in his pockets, shoulders raised. Alejandro watches his son disappear from view, and Elise shoots me a sympathetic look.

“Excuse me,” I say, rising from my own chair. I sense each pair of eyes follow me as I briskly attempt to catch up to him.

Theo unknowingly leads me down toward the lake, past a worn pair of Adirondack chairs, until he reaches the far end of the wooden dock. The night sky is void of any stars. A slight breeze sends goose bumps rippling across my exposed skin.

“I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.” Theo’s back is to me now, but his tone has a little more bite to it than when we met in the driveway. “And now you’re here, of all places.”

“Did you really think I was just going to disappear from your life forever? After everything we’ve been through?

” I take a hesitant step forward, desperately wanting to close the icy distance between us.

We’ve spent too much time apart as it is, but I also know Theo’s hurt.

I knew coming here was a risk. But judging by Theo’s rigidity, I’m beginning to fear I miscalculated exactly how this reunion would go down.

It’s not like I was expecting to be met with fireworks and an All is forgiven, Asher banner, but this? I’ve never seen Theo like this.

Hurt. Sullen, even.

Broken.

“I don’t know, Asher. Maybe I don’t think anything anymore.” There’s an indifference in his tone that stills the blood coursing through my veins. He hasn’t moved, but I can see the tension building in his shoulders, like a teakettle just moments away from piercing the silence with its whistle.

“Please, Theo. Look at me—”

He turns, shaking his head, and when our eyes finally meet, my heart shatters into a million pieces. He’s blinking back tears. “What are you doing here, Ash? Truly. What do you want?” He’s staring at me so intensely, the hurt and confusion behind his eyes is impossible to ignore.

I want you.

It sounds too simple of a statement, but it’s the truth. I want him and us and everything that comes with that.

“You have to understand—” I say, my voice breaking, my own tears now streaming down my face.

“But that’s the problem,” he says, cutting me off.

“I don’t understand. I don’t know that I ever will.

You said it yourself… after everything we’ve been through.

La Tomatina. The ice cream, the stupid seaweed, and the elephants.

Fuck, Asher. The elephants .” His voice cracks.

“Even after all that, you just stood there.”

“What was I supposed to do, Theo?” I feel my own bubble of frustration rising from my throat.

“I didn’t know all that was going to happen.

There was no way in hell I could have predicted anything like that ever happening to me.

And my family?” The fury I felt when Dalton and Clint videoconferenced them comes raging to the surface.

“You told me this was real for you,” he says after a moment. “You made me feel like this was real and not just some detour in your life. I’m a human being, Asher. Fuck, I’m not just some layover you get to take when you’re figuring everything in your life out.”

“Theo, of course I know—” I start, but he cuts me off.