Until the Stars Fade

Chapter 7

The summer is flying by. I'm working at House to Home, Gogo has registered me at the high school and I'm working on summer reading, catching up for missing the first half of the summer. Asher and I still see each other practically every day. He's even been invited to a few Thursday lunches with Gogo. Her friends all fawned all over him like he was already a star when he told them he was going to be filming a television show. It was rather embarrassing.

Asher has met the few friends I have, which mostly consists of Hazel and her boyfriend, Finn. They're both going to the same school as me, so at least I already have two friends. Hazel has promised to introduce me to everyone, but I'm still a little anxious.

As we get closer to school starting, we also get closer to Asher starting filming. I can tell he's getting a little anxious himself because he constantly is drifting off in conversation or getting distracted.

"And then, Kim told the crazy lady that she couldn't return the towels she bought last year. She wanted to return them because she said the color faded after a year. A year. Do you believe that?" I'm recounting a story about a crazy customer from today while Asher and I sit on Gogo's balcony. When I see that Asher isn't paying attention to anything, I say "And then, aliens landed and Jean was abducted. Her poor husband will be so sad now that Jean has gone to live with aliens, don't you think Ash?"

Hearing his name, his head pops up and he looks at me blankly. "I'm sorry babe, what did you say? Something about Jean's husband? I got distracted," he says sheepishly, giving me his sweetest smile.

"Yeah, I noticed. It's ok. You're nervous about starting work?"

He reaches out and takes my hand, "I'm sorry. I've been a crappy boyfriend to you lately. I'm so distracted thinking about the show and everything that comes with that. I've been living in this blissful bubble with you for months now and that's all about to change." He leans down and kisses me softly and I sigh into him.

I love kissing Asher. It's like eating my favorite ice cream or listening to the ocean or opening a present. It's pure happiness. I could kiss Asher James all day. Some days, when Gogo goes out, we do just that, kiss for hours. He's right, it's totally blissful.

"Everything's about to change," I tell him as I scoot closer to him. "I'm going to be starting at a new school and you're starting filming. But don't worry, we can figure it out, we'll make time to see each other. And we can text and stuff. And just think about if I wasn't staying in Jacksonville, we'd be having whole different conversations." As I say these things, I get a little anxious too. I'm going to miss this little bubble we have.

"You're right, thank goodness you won't be 5 hours away. I couldn't handle it. I've grown rather fond of you Kinsley Rose Davis," he says as he rubs my nose with his.

I snuggle into his side and we stare out over the river. I don't know how I got so lucky as to have Asher in my life, but I'm going to do everything in my power to keep him in it. I've never been so happy, in fact, I didn't know this kind of happiness was possible.