The Senior Trip

Chapter 16

ASHER

I watched the small, silver bead swing back and forth from her bikini string as she walked in front of me to the elevator. Her tiny denim shorts barely cover more than her bottoms, and I know for a fact she never wore anything like them at school. I would have noticed—everyone would have noticed.

"Do you think we can order food?" she asks innocently and my brain scrambles to come up with an answer.

"Um, food?" is all I manage.

"Yea, food. Do you think we can order it at the pool or should we hit up a vending machine on the way down? I'm starving."

Her back is surprisingly tan for the colder weather we'd been having at home. It looked smooth and perfect against the bright red of her top.

"You're hungry?" I ask. My brain is finally catching up.

"You OK?" she replies.

"Yes," I cough and look away. "I just have a lot on my mind."

She winces, and I feel bad about lying. At that moment, how she looks in her suit was the only thing I'd been thinking about.

"Let's see what's around here to eat," I tell her. I'm suddenly hungry too. I touch my shorts' pocket to make sure I brought my wallet.

The lobby is still full of kids, but everyone has already been given rooms, so they just wander in and out from the street and the pool area. I hold the door open for Harper as she steps back out into the heat. She pulls the over-sized sunglasses from her head and slips them up onto her nose. Her hair is a mess, but in that way that some girls can pull off and make look entirely intentional.

"What?" she asks, instantly pushing her hand into her hair to check for something I might be looking at.

"Nothing," I say with a small chuckle.

"You would tell me if there were some huge bug in there or something right?" she asks, her voice pitching with fear at the end. She has no idea how pretty she is.

"Yes, I'd tell you if it wasn't too late."

"Too late?" she practically shrieks as I reach for her hand and quickly pull her into the street between cars. I have to let it go quickly. It feels too intimate.

I turn around so I'm walking backward as we step up to a taco shop that has the most fantastic scent pulling us in. "If the giant beast in your hair was already going to get you, then I wouldn't tell you because your last feeling while alive shouldn't be that there's a creature on your head."

"How big of you," she bites out sarcastically.

"I do what I can," I reply with a shrug.

"I'm going to be itchy all day now. Thank you for that." She heaves a big sigh.

I laugh and decide to let her off the hook. "I was just looking at your hair and wondering how you got it up in a huge knot, but managed to make it look intentionally fancy."

"Oh," she answers softly.

I point up to the menu to change the subject. "What are you going to get?"

The man in front of us holds up four fingers. "Quatro tacos de lengua de vaca."

"I'll have the same," she answers proudly.

"Are you sure?" I ask. I didn't ace my two Spanish classes, but I'm pretty sure she just ordered a cow tongue.

"I think so," she answers unsure.

The men behind the counter laugh and shake their heads. The youngest one points up to the menu. "Cow tongue," he says.

"No." She quickly corrects. "That's not what I want."

"Maybe carnitas or carne," he offers. "Pork or beef."

"Carnitas, please. Two," she answers relieved.

"Same," I say.

We both grab a cold coke in a glass bottle from the ice near the register. The young guy removes the tops and rings up our order. I pay for both of us with my card, even though she tries to protest.

"You buy next time," I tell her as I take the two paper plates with our food and my coke over to the small table in the corner. The window overlooks the front of the hotel.

She digs into the tacos like a starving child, and I love that she feels that comfortable with me already.

"Oh, my God. These are so good," she says as she wipes salsa from her lip. I watch her tongue trace the trail from one corner to the other. I look out the window, so I don't stare at her any longer, just in time to watch Jess and her friends leave the hotel. My stomach instantly drops, and I almost let go of the taco in my hand.

I watch as they walk down the street. I hate that I don't know where she's going, but not because I'm a control freak. I hate it because I used to know everything about her. She would let me know what her day looked like and we'd share funny stories about what had happened while we were apart. Tonight she is going to go to sleep, and I will have missed a whole day of her experience. The thing that stings even worse is she never looked back. It's as if where I am and what I'm doing doesn't even matter to her. I guess that's probably because it doesn't anymore. 

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