Unknown Beauty | ✔️

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Front Aerial

[There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs]
-Unknown

Do you know that feeling of complete ignorance? Like when you read the beginning of a book and then skip to the last page? Or go on holiday and when you get back, your friends are all talking about this epic event that happened while you were away?

Fallon really felt like she was missing something. Girlfriend? In the 82 days they had known each other (and no, she was not counting) not once had Asher ever clarified that they were girlfriend and boyfriend.

The terms were like freaking aliens to Fallon.

"Girlfriend? Excuse me, young man, this girl is a ticking time bomb of incoordination and vulgar language!"

Fallon felt her lips part as Asher's grip around her waist tightened. For the first time in her eighteen years of life, she felt infuriated: full on snarling and icy eyes with smoke escaping her ears. She wasn't a 'ticking time bomb' but she was definitely an erupting volcano.

She stood up to angrily counter Asher's mother's words, but found herself being pulled back down as if by a rubber band as Asher held her back. Calbee was about to respond with an insulting comment but Asher cut her off.

"My girlfriend isn't a ticking time bomb, mother, " he spat, his eyes formed into sharp blades, "I suggest you stop judging her or I'm afraid - screw it, I will ask you to leave."

Fallon's jaw was looser than untied hair from all the dropping it had been doing that morning. So Asher clearly didn't have a great relationship with his parents. Or at least that's what Fallon told herself to convince her worried mind that she didn't just break a mother-son relationship by cursing.

Asher's father looked up from his newspaper, his oblong glasses perched on the tip of his thin nose. Smartly, he didn't interfere. Squirming on Asher's lap, Fallon tried to get up and sit in her own seat as he poked her waist. She turned her head around to see him staring at her with unreadable eyes.

"Stop. Moving," he murmured in her ear, muscles clenched as she disregarded him.

"Can I get my own seat?" she fired back, moving around again and narrowing her eyes as he shook his head stubbornly.

He looked up from her as his mother spoke, "Asher, I recommend you rethink your... choices," she allowed the venomous silence to dwell before polishing off her breakfast and slipping on her peacoat.

"Thank you for the place to stay, son," his father smiled warmly as Asher returned the gesture.

He seemed to be the more civil of the married couple.

Soon, his parents were leaving, probably to get as far away from the time bomb as possible. Fallon almost wanted to say good riddance for a sense of finality, but resisted. Immediately after the door closed, she got out of Asher's vice-like grip and plopped down into her own chair, piercing several pieces of bacon and shoving them in her mouth.

"Polite," Asher noted, amusement painted onto his face as Calbee stabbed a sausage and bit into it, watching the two converse as if they were a movie.

"Says the guy who announces our nonexistent relationship when one of the parties had no idea they were even friends," Fallon quickly countered.

Asher looked over at her, the humour wiped clean off his face. She smiled sweetly.

"For your information, my parents weren't even supposed to be here. Their car got towed and they were nearby so they thought they could stay for the night."

"Well they weren't welcome," Fallon said immediately before regret overtook her features, "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"Don't be. They certainly weren't," Asher laughed a little before inhaling the last of his toast like Kirby.