Page 90 of Born in the Spring

“I knew something was going to happen between you two, if it hadn’t already, when I saw how you were holding each other right out there,” Amie tells us when she and I are drying our hands, making another motion toward the outside, and myheart skips another beat as I remember that hug out at that railing, and Jasper’s knowing.

You never had to say you like being in my arms.

I didn’t need to use words for him to hear me.

We share looks between his checks on the meatballs, through each new uninterrupted regard from Amie.

“Both my sons being in love with you. Watching you fall for them back. . .” She trails with another nod at me, her non-blaming words bittersweet to swallow. “This was going to happen regardless, wasn’t it?” Her voice breaks a little, putting a break in my next breath and pulling Jasper closer to her. “I got that now,” she tells him as she takes over at the pot, waving Jasper on, and he steps over to me, tucking me under his arm with a long pressed kiss to my head.

“I’ve just been waiting,” Amie goes on, giving Jasper a playful side stare. “I know my son.” My chuckle is soft, her eyes softer when they drift to mine. “And I know my Elara.”

“My Elara.” Jasper says the lighthearted correction with emotion thick in his throat, and I give him a light elbow to the ribs.

“I’ve been seeing the two of you together for years,” Amie adds, the words carrying a sense of comforting normalcy that brings a fresh sting to my lids. “The only difference is Jasper will be wearing lipstick now,” she jokes, and a noise escapes my mouth at my fluster as Jasper laughs into my hair.

She starts spooning the meatballs that have cooked onto a plate. “I love you both so much. Life is fleeting,” she says low. “Too fleeting to not be happy.” She gives us a side smile as she drizzles some extra sauce over the meatballs. “So grab your happiness when and where you can.”

“We love you too,” I tell her, finding my voice, as Jaspermoves half out of our hug to give his mom one. She squeezes him as I reach out to squeeze her arm, then spins back to the food to add some jalapeno and parsley.

“Take these out there while I wait for the rest, and enjoy your night together,” she orders us both as she passes off the plate to me.

I don’t want to leave her, but I also don’t want to wait another minute doing exactly what she wants and enjoying my night with Jasper.

And neither does he, as he tugs the plate from my hand, then tugs me along with whispered words that sound like the best promise in my ear.

“Let’s go be us.”

Thirty-Eight

Jasper

Istill haven’t decided if I want to be a snowboarder for the rest of my life, but for today, I’m a snowboarder again.

The slackened string between my heart and my time on the slopes has pulled tight since the night Elara became mine. And I’ve realized just how much the two are tied together.

I quit snowboarding because of everything surrounding Shepherd’s death, but it’s Elara that’s gotten me past halfway and right up to the lift leading to Cyrus’s Bow. It’s Elara that has me focusing less on who’s around me and who they’re giving their attention to, and focusing more onmyselfand who I’m givingmyattention to.

Because I’mnotmy brother. I’m me. And I can be loved too.

Elara’s hand is in mine as we skate—our front feet strapped to our boards and our back feet pushing at the snow—to the lift line and stop at the gate. I waggle my board, sinking into and feeling its weight. Almost like it’s been close to a year sinceI’ve stood on one.

I laugh at myself, my smile sticking to my face even longer than the last one, and growing wider when I meet Elara’s. Her cheeks are cold kissed and strands of her hair flit across her face from the wind.

“Happiness looks so good on you,” she says as she tugs me closer, in that same breathy and achy tone she used in my kitchen—and many times since—just before I tasted her for the first time. Her clouded exhales touching mine, with that tone, makes me want to wrap my entire body around her, feel her skin pebble from my heat and not the winter’s chill.

“You look so good on me,” I flirt, close to her mouth, the rasp in my voice all from the effect of her, then steal a kiss before we’re forced to skate forward.

We’re picked up by our chair, and we set our helmets to the side as Elara slides flush against me. I wrap my arm around her and lower the safety bar with my other. We rest our boards on the footrest, and settle in for the climb.

Every hill is blanketed in snow. Skiers and boarders cruise below us, and though my eyes have been trained to watch for any accidents when I’m up here, right now, they’re trained to enjoy the sights. The most beautiful one right beside me.

“I love this view,” Elara says as she lays her hand on my thigh, her voice dream-like. She blinks up at me, seeing my view isher, and as her face shifts in knowing, she tries to pull off an unamused stare, but she can’t tame the curve in her lips.

“You know what I’m gonna say, right?” I laugh out.

“So say it.” Her brow lifts with a deepening crease in her cheek, and I angle my mouth to her ear.

“I love this view too.”

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