Bastiana has a loving family, two amazing best friends, and a secret.
Over summer vacation, Bastiana and her besties do their best to focus on their bucket list in order to distract them from all the secrets they're keeping from one another. When a...
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"Oh my god, no! I can't breathe!" Tears are streaming down my face and I'm gasping for breath as I beg Asher to make it stop. "Please! You have to pause it! I can't! Oh my god." I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.
After the second movie, we decided celebrity roasts from Comedy Central would be a much better viewing option for tonight. And we were absolutely right. Asher and I have been having fits of uncontrollable laughter for the last three hours. My sides are painfully throbbing in the best way. My face hurts from smiling and my lungs are desperately trying to bring more oxygen into my body. I don't know if I've ever laughed this hard.
Asher finally grabs the remote and pauses the video playing on the tv as we both try to control our giggles.
As our laughter finally begins to calm down, there's a knock at the door.
Finally!
Ryker's here! That's the only thing that could make this night better. Ryker's laughter is one of my favorite things about him, because it's not easily earned. Sure, he often scoffs a laugh or chuckles quietly. But his real laughter? It's the most amazing thing I've ever heard. It begins with a deep rumble in his chest that bursts through his throat and out of his mouth. It's throaty and so full of... mirth. Ryker's laughter is a hard sound to describe, but I know exactly how it makes me feel.
When Ryker laughs like that, it fills my body with a warmth that radiates from the very core of my being until it's tingling in my fingertips. It's an intoxicating sound and one that's more rare than a solar eclipse.
"Ry's here!" I jump up and run to the door. I'm so excited to see him that I'm chattering excitedly before I can even pull the door open. "Oh my God, I'm so glad you're here, Ry! We just started the one with Justin Bieber and I nearly peed my pa-" As Ryker steps into the light of the front hallway and his face comes into view my words get caught in my throat. "Holy shit." I say quietly.
"What happened, Doll?" Asher asks as he rounds the corner to join us in the entryway. "Oh fuck." he gasps when he sees Ryker's face.
"Ry, what happened? Are you okay? Here, come in and sit down." I close the door and grab his hand, pulling him into the living room before he can respond. When we get to the couch I push him down onto the cushions. "Ry, what happened? I thought you were at a family thing?" I ask gently as I kneel on the floor in front of him, examining the damage to his face.
He's got a cut under his eye on his cheek bone and a deep purple bruise blooming on his jawline below it. It looks like he's already cleaned it up a bit because the blood has been wiped away from the cut and there's a small bandage on it.
I reach up and gently cup the uninjured side of his face with my hand, resting my other hand on his shoulder as I look at his face. "Ryker." I breathe his name so quietly it's almost inaudible.
