Page 39 of Winging It with You

He’s facing off against Jackson, whose arms are crossed against his chest. “I don’tneedyou to buy it. That’s what happened,” he scoffs back, a smirk forming at the corner of his thin lips.

I don’t know how, but I instantly know he’s lying.

“It’s fine, Asher. Really. All that matters is…” she says, riffling through the bag’s pockets and visibly relaxing when shewithdraws what she’d been worried about, “these.” She holds the two passports up.

Jenn and I take a step closer, hoping to defuse the escalating situation. “She’s right, Ash,” I say, reaching out to put a supportive hand on his back. “Let’s just go meet Arthur at the van.”

“No, we all agreed to the same rules on day one,” Asher says, shrugging away from me and taking a step closer to Jackson, who’s now rolling his eyes and looking entirely bored. “I want him to admit he was trying to mess with her and got caught.”

But the elevator doors ping open and Russell, Dalton’s executive assistant and right-hand man, comes strolling into the lobby, his eyes both annoyed and entirely bored by the spectacle he’s just walked into.

“I’m sorry, is there a problem here?” he asks like he’s just been entirely inconvenienced by our presence.

“You’re sweet as sugar to ask,” Jenn quickly says, laying on what I’m learning is her signature charm. “But we’re all good here, aren’t we, boys?”

Asher shakes his head, clearly disappointed he didn’t get Jackson to admit to any wrongdoing, but turns and leads Ellie away from the redheaded menace. “We’re fine,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Good,” Russell says pointedly, and proceeds to walk directly through us. “Let’s remember our surroundings going forward.”

My intrusive thoughts really want me to stick out my leg to trip him, but he speed walks straight out the front door before I get the chance, leaving us in his wake. Jackson follows without another word, which is for the best, and Jenn, Ellie, Asher, and I start collecting our bags to begin loading them outside.

“You good?” I ask Asher, placing a hand on his back.

He rakes his fingers through his blond hair, nodding as he does, and the four of us make our way to the parking lot where our various vans wait for us.

“I’m proud of you,” I say, and I really mean it. Watching him stand up for Ellie reminded me of times when I wished someone had stood up for me. Someone in your corner like that, regardless of how trivial the situation, changes everything.

“It was nothing,” he says, a slight blush spreading beneath his glasses.

But it wasn’t nothing. Instead of telling him so or that I hope all this is helping him stand up for himself with the same passion, I just smile and climb into the back of the van with him.

12

Asher

Ria Formosa Natural Park

Algarve, Portugal

“You boys alright back there?” Arthur shouts over the thunderous sound of the wind from a van full of rolled-down windows. Before we can respond—not that it would matter, because based on the massive grin on his face, Arthur is loving this—he takes a sharp right turn and continues speeding down the barely there path, while our bodies play bumper cars in the back seat.

“I think he’s trying to kill us,” I whisper to Theo.

“That, or we are currently being held captive during his audition for the next movie in the Fast & Furious franchise.”

Theo may be sitting upright, but he’s got his arm around me and there’s no point in lying about how much I like that. When we’re not being told to get close like this for the cameras, I’m itching to get close to him like this. The way I’m able to fit neatly into the natural crooks of his body or the way his lips might feel against mine.

Full and sweet and not a trace of weirdness in sight.

It’s been ages since I’ve felt this level of…frustration. Or infatuation. Or better yet, confusion, because everything I now do with Theo for the show twists my rational thinking around like a pretzel, and everything wedon’tdo behind closed doors is just…worse.

It’s maddening.

Logically, thiscrush—the word itself makes me cringe—makes sense. Theo’s undeniably attractive, and he’s got that whole savior complex thing going for him. But I never felt whatever I’m feeling now for Clint. Not once. I fit myself into his world and wanted to build a life with a partner. The difference? I can’t recall a single instance where my stomach waited in knots just to hear his voice or catch a glimpse of his smile.

And now that I’ve somehow found someone who’s forced me to think and feel and fucking fantasize about all these infuriating things, I’ve ripped my own rug out from under myself by stupidly suggesting a set of rules that all but guarantee nothing will ever happen between us.

Arthur takes yet another unannounced sharp turn and the familiar reality-television-show branding comes into view. Jo reaches forward to turn the van camera off before twisting around to speak to us. “For today’s challenge, each team has been assigned a task voted on by our audience. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the individual tasks are,” she says, craning her neck into the back seat. “Dalton’s been keeping that one under wraps. But Idoknow that they are meant to be competed individually, and I hate to say it”—Jo now officially dons her production-handler hat as Arthur parks the van—“but Asher, this challenge is all yours.”

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