He cupped her sex warmly through the canvas pants she wore. A small puff of air left her lips.
“It felt like you haven’t done this in a while,” he said. “Am I wrong?”
She shook her head.
“Are you too sore?”
“No.” The sound of her soft laughter made him smile widely. “I’m just amazed at your potency.”
He matter-of-factly pushed back her hood and unzipped the sweatshirt she wore. He slipped it off her chest and then cupped her sex again. Gently stroking her, he tried to focus on their conversation. “Maybe it’s not a surprise.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we were young, back there in Crescent Bay, we never had this. The freedom.”
“Just to be with each other,” she agreed quietly.
“For as long as we wanted. As much as we wanted.”
He leaned down and kissed her mouth deliberately, savoring her.
“So . . . how are you, Asher Gaites-Granville?” she whispered when their lips parted a moment later. “Have you been happy for the past eight years?”
“I’ve lived. I’ve seen a lot.”
“I’ll bet you have.” She reached up and touched his forehead. “Some of it was really hard to witness, wasn’t it?” His eyebrows arched in a query. “I can see it on your face. Your experiences have changed you. Matured you. Maybe hardened you,” she added softly. “Has there been room for happiness? Do you like your life?”
He paused for a moment, considering. “I wouldn’t have changed anything, given what life has thrown me.”
He wondered what she thought of his answer in the brief silence that followed.
“How are you, Laila Barek? Have you been happy for the past eight years?”
“I’ve lived.”
She looked so beautiful to him in that moment, her face luminous even in the dim light. He’d forgotten how she shone in his eyes. Or maybe it had hurt him too much to remember. She stroked his jaw. “I’ve learned how to make myself happy. As happy as I can be.”
He hesitated for a few seconds, but then he pushed past it. He’d worried about it for years, and then cursed himself just as many times for being stupid enough to anguish over it.
“Did they give you a hard time? After that night? Your family?”
Her stroking hand paused on his cheek. Had she heard the dread in his tone?
“No, Asher. It wasn’t horrible. I mean . . . it was difficult, of course. Stressful. I won’t lie. There were some epic yelling matches, especially between my mom and me. She was very hurt by my dishonesty. But my mom’s emotions operate in explosion mode versus low boil. That situation may have taken longer to get out of her system than most, but she got to a point where she could forget it more easily. My dad was more . . .” She shrugged slightly, her expression a little sad. “Things were strained between him and me for a while, but we sort of reached an equilibrium. That is, until . . .” Something flickered across her expression.
“What?” he asked.
“Zara left,” she said after a pause.
“Your cousin? Where’d she go? Her leaving didn’t have anything to do with Eric, did it?” he said, frowning when she didn’t immediately respond. He hadn’t had to say his cousin’s name for years while he’d worked in the Middle East, and it had been great. Since returning to Chicago, he’d been forced to say it way more often than he’d like.
“No. Not directly, anyway. But that summer in Crescent Bay was behind her leaving. The start of it all. But as for actual contact, I think Zara and Eric only texted for a few weeks after we went home to Detroit that summer, before he—”
“Dropped her like a hot brick.”
“Yeah,” Laila said. “Things didn’t go as well for Zara and the family after that summer as they did for me. Not that they went smoothly for me, by any means. But Zara has always been more rebellious than me.”
His hand shifted off her sex. He cupped her hip instead. “You mean she resisted her parents’ attempts to bring her into line?”