Heron High School’s salutatorian and valedictorian were required to sit on stage for most of the graduation ceremony, which meant Ash and I sat together, secretly holding hands, only letting go when I gave the opening remarks and when he gave the commencement address.
After the principal made her closing remarks, the choir sang something inspirational, and the sixty-five seniors who made it this far screamed and threw their mortarboards into the air.
In the chaos that followed, Ash pulled me into a dark spot backstage and kissed me until I couldn’t think straight.
“Our families will be looking for us soon,” he said.
“That was hot.”
“Focus, Eden.”
“I am focused.” I wrapped my fingers around his neck and brought his mouth back to mine.
“Eden, Ash, really.” Mrs. Barber laughed as she walked by us.
He pushed away, caught my hand, and drew me with him to the stage. His family stood on the other side, craning to see where he’d gone.
I tugged my hand from his. “You go on. I’ll find my guests.” Marnie, Boone, the Fremonts, and Heidi Fremont’s fiancé were probably looking for me. Not my father, though. He’d come to the graduation ceremony but would’ve left by now, to head back to the hardware store. Dad had reached a place where he could take Ash in small doses, but he couldn’t be polite to the Guptas. Not yet.
Ash placed a gentle but firm hand at my back. “You must meet my aunt,” he said, urging me forward.
“I don’t know.” I got along well with Ash’s sisters, but his parents remained somewhere in the vicinity of barely tolerant. In my opinion, the only reason we stayed civil was because his parents expected our relationship to die once we lived on opposite sides of the country.
“It’ll be fine. Come on. They’ve spotted us now.” As we approached, Ash nodded respectfully at the adults in his family and turned to an older woman standing beside his dad. “Aunt Ria, this is Eden Moore.”
I gave her a nervous smile. Aunt Ria had a strong resemblance to Mr. Dr. Gupta. “Hello,” I said.
“It is nice to meet you,” she said. “My brother tells me of your wonderful scholarship to the University of North Carolina.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I glanced at Dr. Gupta, surprised and pleased that he’d mentioned it. “Being a Peyton Scholar is a great honor.”
“I know it is.” She looked from me to Ash. “You will be far apart from each other. It will be hard to stay friends.”
Everyone in the Gupta family stilled. Aunt Ria had broached the topic that all of them must be curious about. With Ash in California and me here, would our relationship die? I gave him a go ahead look, as interested in his response as they were.
“I don’t think it’ll be hard, Aunt Ria. When you want something badly enough, you make it happen.” He gazed down at me with sweet promise. “I want to stay in touch with Eden.”
This was as close as he could get to claiming me. For months, to keep the peace, we’d all pretended politely that Ash and I were only friends. No PDA. Extra effort on keeping grades in the A-plus range. He’d finally hinted that what he felt went beyond friendship. It was huge for us.
“Hey,” Ash said with a smile. “Your mom’s headed this way.”
“Okay.” It was time to go. Ash and I had plans for much later tonight, but he had obligations for now that didn’t include me. I understood. Sending a vague smile toward his family, I said, “It was nice to see you.”
“Eden?” his father said. “Would you introduce your mother to us?”
I exchanged a hopeful glance with Ash. “Yes, sir. I’ll go and get her.”
“Who is that young lady walking beside your mother?” Mrs. Gupta asked, her face studiously calm.
I spun around. “Mundy?”
She waved with one hand, her other hand clutched in Sawyer’s.
Ash touched my back. When I looked at him, he was smiling widely.
“Did you know she was coming?”
He nodded. “It’s been hard to keep the surprise.”
I gave his arm a light squeeze and took off to see my best friend.
This day had just gone from great to amazing.
* * *
It was a gorgeous autumn day on the campus of Stanford University. I sat next to Ash on the grass, feeling a bit overwhelmed, particularly from the people-watching. “There seems to be an unusually high percentage of hot girls in California.”
“Uh-huh.”
I glanced sideways. He was bent over his iPad. “Come on, Ash. Don’t you find it distracting?”
“No.”
“Not even their long blond hair or their dark tans or their big breasts?”
He grunted without looking up. “I’m being distracted all right, although I can hardly blame it on the girls from California.”
I snatched the tablet away and tossed it into his backpack.
He raised his head. “What?”
“I didn’t fly all the way across the country to be ignored.” I smiled with satisfaction at the succinctness of my argument.
“The assignment is due Monday.”
“I leave Sunday morning.”
“Good point.” He shifted toward me. “What did you have in mind?”
Excellent. I had his undivided attention, which had been my goal. “Lots of physical contact.”
His eyes lit up happily. “Works for me.”
“But conversation first.”
“If we must.” He got to his feet, slung his backpack over a shoulder, hauled me up, and started out across the lawn, our hands firmly clasped. “How is Mundy?”
“She had her friend Manny with her.” Manny and Mundy had picked me up from the San Jose airport and brought me to Stanford. In the usual circumstances surrounding my friend, she did most of the talking while Manny worshiped in silence.
“Are they dating?”
“No, he might be interested, but she’s not ready.”
“Sawyer?”
“Yeah.” Mundy and Sawyer had hung in there long-distance for a while, but they’d finally broken it off this summer.
Sawyer was at Carolina too, on a baseball scholarship. I tutored him every now and then. He wasn’t over Mundy yet. Maybe soon.
Ash and I walked in silence, wandering in and out of the fading sunshine. He moved his arm to my shoulders while I hung on to one of his belt loops. He matched his strides to mine, our hips bumping with each step. This was more PDA than we would’ve ever attempted back home and less than what I was seeing around us.
“Ash?”
“Yeah?”
“Is what we have enough?”
He changed directions without warning and headed for a low wall. In one smooth movement, he dropped the backpack, grasped me by the waist, and lifted me onto the top of the wall.
“Eden.” He threaded the fingers of both hands through my loose hair, cradling my head. “No matter how I answer your question, I lose. Yes, Skype makes a long-distance relationship tolerable enough that I can barely stand our separation. And no, there will never be enough e-mail or texts or phone calls to fill my need for you.”
“Actually, you’re scoring major points.” I pressed my mouth to his and discovered that kissing from a superior height was fun. And completely delicious. “Ash?”
He sighed. “More talking?”
“I said physical contact and conversation.”
“Can we negotiate the percentages?”
“When you’re visiting me, you may take the lead.”
“Uh-huh.” He leaned back. “Talk then. I’m listening.”
“Peyton Scholars spend a semester at a sister college during their sophomore years. Cal State Monterey Bay has an autism program that’s worth checking out.” I watched him closely to gauge his reaction. “Would it bother you if I was nearby?”
“Is this a trick question?” He grinned in what I had to admit looked like genuine delight. “I would love it if you came to school out here. Why would I mind?”
All right. I was shameless. “You could be interested in sampling what California has to offer and not know how to tell me.”
“You could too.”
“Please, Ash. Your options are endless. Mine are not.”
“I would love it if you came to school out here.”
I wasn’t ready to be convinced. “My friends at Carolina think it’s crazy to keep a high school relationship going during college.”
“I’ve heard something similar.”
“We have an existing relationship. Maybe you want some space.” I understood such things about people getting on with their lives. It would be better for him to figure it out now than a year or two down the road.
He wrapped his arms more snugly about me and studied my face, but he didn’t say a word. Just watched me. His expression was seriously sexy and patient.
We stayed in the embrace for a long moment. His confidence seeped into me, and I began to relax. “You would love it if I came to school out here,” I repeated.
He nodded as if he were proud of me. “I’m not like your bio mom, Eden. I left a forwarding address. I want you to know where I am.”
It was the perfect thing to say. The worries fled, replaced with the need to be alone with him. “Has your roommate left for the weekend?”
“He should have.”
“I think the time has come for privacy.”
“Will it involve lots of physical contact?”
I kissed him. “Damn straight.”
He laughed with anticipation. “Works for me.”