Chapter 18: The stars in my eyes
Chapter 18: The stars in my eyes
Pepper wanted nothing more than to be far away from him but the alternative was freezing to death. She opened the car door and she entered.
"How does this work?" Pepper asked him. This was awkward and uncomfortable. She had never slept in a car before.
Asher was wearing a thick bogus winter Jacket. He unzipped it, revealing that he was wearing a white screw neck shirt.
"You are shaking. Come here" Asher pulled her into his body.
At first Pepper was uncomfortable lying on his chest but with time it became less weird as she started feeling warm again. Without thinking twice, she burrowed deeper into him.
He was warm and comfortable and…safe. Pepper couldn't remember the last time she felt that way with someone.
"My hands are still freezing" she complained to him.
"What do you want me to do? I have already offered 80% of my body to keep you warm. I can't do anything about your palms…"
Asher didn't finish talking when he felt Pepper lift his shirt and then he felt her icy palms on his bare stomach.
"Ahh! Ahh! Cold! Cold!" He closed his eyes as he felt the chills run down his spine.
"That feels so much better now" Pepper smiled and ignored his protests.
She relaxed into him and for a moment she didn't think of him as the annoying stranger that she married by mistake.
She was just a girl with cold hands and he was just a boy offering her heat, even though technically she took it by force.
Soon, even their heartbeat synced and their chest rose and fell at the same time.
They must have stayed like that for a while before Asher spoke.
"What are you thinking about?"
"I am thinking about how to punish your brat without being hauled off to jail for child abuse" Pepper answered him.
Asher was quiet. He didn't make any comments on Pepper's statement.
After a moment, Pepper spoke again.
At first, her voice was a bare whisper like she was about to reveal a huge secret that would potentially blow Asher's mind.
"Before thinking about ways to kill your daughter for making me sleep in a car…on your semi naked chest…I was thinking of the stars"
"That's not weird at all" Asher murmured sarcastically.
Asher was a tad disappointed, it wasn't an earth shattering revelation after all.
Pepper was quiet again. Random memories of her childhood with her parents flashed through her head.
"Why are you smiling?" Asher asked her
"I am not smiling-"
"Yes, you were. You thought of something and it made you smile, I want to know" Asher demanded.
"When I was a little girl, my mom and Dad would occasionally take me to the back of my grandparents' house and we would stare at the stars while lying on a water bed. We would stay for as long as we could and make up love stories about the stars" Pepper answered with a bittersweet look on her face.
She could almost see it. She could almost see her father and mother telling her stories about Orion and Artemis.
"How old were you when they died?" Asher asked her.
He was still surprised that Pepper was telling him something personal about her life.
"10. I was 10 years old"
"I am sorry" Asher murmured
"Do you know they were high school sweethearts? Mom was just fifteen and Dad was sixteen when they had me. I-it feels weird" Pepper blinked.
She had no idea why she was feeling like this all of a sudden. She was feeling like a blanket of sadness was thrust on her and now she couldn't get it off.
"What feels weird?" Asher asked her
"Tomorrow I will officially be 26 years old…"
"Tomorrow is your birthday?" Asher sounded surprised.
"Hmmm…yes, by tomorrow…I will officially have out-lived my parents. I will officially be a year older than my Dad when he died…weird right?"
Asher held on to her tightly like he was telling her that she wasn't alone.
"You don't have to comfort me, it's not your Job. Remember, I locked you out of the apartment" Pepper was awkward about the whole thing but if she was being sincere with herself, she kind of needed it.
"Just shut up and let me hold you…just for tonight" Asher's voice was filled with warmth even though he wanted to sound nonchalant.
"Okay" Pepper murmured and closed her eyes. "Just for tonight"
In the morning when Pepper woke up, she was still safely tucked away in his arms.
She jumped up when she saw the sun rays, there by waking Asher in the process.
"Good lord! It's morning. Come on, we can't let our neighbors think that we slept in the car, Asher. Stand up" Pepper told him as she ran her fingers through her hair. She knew she must be a mess.
As they walked back to their apartment, Asher asked a question.
"Are you alright?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Pepper asked him.
"About last night, I am really…"
Asher was interrupted by Pepper.
"Last night was a mistake. Forget it happened. I will never bother you with my…anyway just forget it, it won't happen again"
Asher nodded. He knew now that with Pepper it was like a bad dance. One step forward and three thousand steps backwards but he just couldn't forget the woman that spoke from her heart last night. That Pepper had stars in her eyes.