Late summer in Forks, the sky tinted a rare rose-gold as the sun prepares to slip beneath the thick horizon of pine and fog. The rain has finally held off for the evening, and a low warmth clings to the asphalt of the long-abandoned logging road. The forest hums with life—crickets in the underbrush, wind through the treetops, the distant rush of a stream.

Two bikes cut through the stillness. One large and sleek, modified to handle Jasper’s supernatural speed. The other—yours—bright and battered, trailing a colorful streamer from one handlebar, the other torn off during a recent experiment with bunny-hopping over fallen trees.

You ride ahead, legs pumping fast, breath short, face lit up by the sun sinking low beyond the treetops. Jasper trails just behind you, his golden eyes fixed not on the road, but on you.

Not a word passes between you, and none is needed. Jasper feels everything. Your giddy joy, spiking like firecrackers with every gust of wind in your face. Your excitement, open and bubbling as you stand up on the pedals, lean into the curve, and shoot forward. You don’t know he’s watching so closely—how your warmth brushes across his cold skin like a memory of being human.

Eventually, you glance back, grinning wide. “Slowpoke.”

Jasper lifts an eyebrow and speeds up, overtaking you in a blink and then circling back around, laughing quietly. “You were saying?”

You fake a pout, trying to catch your breath. “I’m just warming up.”

The road flattens out into a bluff overlooking the water. A perfect place to stop. You pull your bike over, skidding with dramatic flair. Jasper parks his beside yours and joins you at the edge of the bluff, where moss and sun-warmed stone make a natural seat.

The sun is halfway sunk behind the trees, painting the clouds with tangerine and coral. You flop back onto the grass, hands folded behind your head. Jasper settles beside you, cross-legged, his posture soldier-straight even when relaxed.

Neither of you speaks for a long while. The breeze pulls at your hair. Jasper watches the way your eyes reflect the sky, wide and awestruck, like you’ve never seen a sunset before—even though he knows you’ve seen hundreds. It’s just who you are. Childlike and grand. You marvel at the mundane. And somehow, he marvels at you.

You tilt your head toward him. “You feel all my feelings, huh?”

He nods once. “Every flicker.”

“So you know I’m…” you grin, cheeks round with mischief, “happy.”

His face softens, almost painfully so. “I do. It feels like… sunlight after war.”

You reach over and thread your fingers into his—warm skin to cold marble. “I like riding bikes with you. It feels normal.”

“It is,” he murmurs, “with you, it is.”

He studies the way the sun casts light across your red-brown skin, how your blue eyes shine brighter than the sky above. A strange ache wells in his chest—an ache not of hunger, but of awe.

You look back at him. “You’re staring.”

“I always am,” he answers quietly.

You nudge his arm with a playful elbow. “If you weren’t so pretty, I’d punch you for being so sappy.”

He chuckles. “You could punch through steel.”

You grin. “Exactly.”

As the sky shifts to dusk, he pulls you closer, your head resting against his shoulder. Your fingers remain twined, unmoving, as the silence stretches long—but never empty.

Even without words, the message is clear:

I found you. I’ll never lose you.