Page 111 of Exactly What I Needed
Lifting my chin, I glanced over my shoulder, and there he was.
Standing quietly, looking nearly the same as he had when I’d left. His hands were shoved in his pockets, a pair of black cargo joggers on his legs that were maybe a little thicker than before. He’d definitely filled out a bit, a little more muscled but still as lean as before. His broad shoulders seemed ready to snap out of his black t-shirt with his band’s logo printed on it.
Earrings coated his ears that weren’t quite as hidden. His hair was similar in style, just a little shorter. And his hunter eyes, so intense, were filled with unreadable emotions.
I faced him entirely and wrapped my arms around myself. I definitely didn’t look the same. Weight that I’d put on during that first year after leaving just never seemed to have left. His brows lifted as his body filled with… relief?
“Hey, Princess,” he softly said. (25)
I nearly collapsed.
Tears brimmed at the edge.
What was he doing here? And still calling me princess? I was not that girl. I hadn’t been in too long. Not by choice. But there was something that drummed at the back of my mind.
“How’d you… How’d you find me?” I choked out, fighting the urge to rush toward him and wrap myself in his arms.
“I never stopped looking,” he replied gently and took a hesitant step forward.
“Why?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what I wanted his answer to be, because everything in me was swirling in confusion. My emotions were so wrecked, I just didn’t know. Plus, there was so much more to think about now.
He took a deep breath and looked around my classroom. His eyes draped across the chairs in rows, the whiteboard to his left, even the desk that I was standing in front of. “Are you okay?” he finally asked.
“Am I okay? You spent three years looking for me to ask…that?” I was even more confused and maybe feeling a little something of hurt. A feeling I’d not experienced in a while. Not this kind of ache.
“Well, yes. I mean, no.” He ran a tattooed hand across the back of his neck, stuffed it in his pocket, and then shook his head. “No. But honestly, I’d spent so much time just trying to find you, I never exactly planned what I was going to say when I did.”
I blinked, shocked. “I’m… I’m okay,” I quietly replied, and he sighed.
“That’s good,” he muttered and scanned my classroom again. “So, you finally became a music teacher.”
I furrowed my brows as he pulled his hands out from his pockets and tipped his head. The dimples in his cheeks deepened with a cautious smile. “Is all of your time sucked into this that Duvaldi has been on a break for three years?”
My mouth fell open. He’d been following, waiting. But I hadn’t heard a single note in my head for three years, so no. Duvaldi wasn’t on a break.
Duvaldi died the same day my old life had.
“No,” I whispered.
“Then what?” he asked and took a few more steps toward me.
Every wall flared up, wrapping around my heart that wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be scared that my past was catching up with me or relieved that only Asher was here.
Asher was here.
“You can’t just show up after three years and ask for things like that.” Defensive mode. I wasn’t going to fall putty in his arms that easily. Not again. No matter how much I wanted to. Wasn’t this dangerous?
Or maybe…
“So, three years of searching, three years of wanting nobody but you doesn’t account for anything?” he asked and walked directly up to me. I took in a shaky breath as my butt bumped against my desk, and I blinked rapidly, trying to dam up the tears.
“No one else?” I whispered, and he gave me a pained smile.
“No one else,” he softly replied. “You haven’t been listening to my music, have you?”
I shamefully shook my head.
“That’s fine. I understand why.” His voice was so quiet, I barely heard it.
