Internally, I gloat. She liked it, alright. She just doesn’t want to admit it.
She lowers herself enough to slink underneath one of my arms and clears her throat. “How about I help you make up the sofa bed?”
When I don’t follow, she looks back over her shoulder.
“Do you, um, need help with your things?”
I shrug a backpack off my shoulder and hold it up. It’s not even very heavy, I haven’t accumulated much in the way of clothing or personal items. “This is it. I don’t have anythingsto bring, Ava. I livehere, remember? All my stuff is between these walls.” I stride toward her and come within an inch of her back. Then I whisper, “I got the sofa as a backup. Maybe we should sleep in the same bed.”
She spins, looking more than a little surprised. “What happened to baby steps, Trevor?”
“I think baby steps flew out the window after what we did earlier.”
She scoffs. “And you’re thinking now that we’ve slept together you can just get it whenever you want it? Trevor, what we did this morning wasn’t some well-thought-out escapade. It was spontaneous, and maybe a little reckless considering… well, considering we barely even know each other anymore.”
I want to remind her of the two orgasms I gave her earlier. But again, I’m biting my tongue. Because apparently, my spontaneous jackass remarks are also one of the things I never did before. I was actually trying to be romantic or whatever, but she took it completely the wrong way. Or maybe I said it the wrong way. Either way, I can tell by the look on her face there’s not a chance in hell I’ll be joining her in bed tonight.
I back away. “How about you just show me where to find the sheets. I can make up the sofa bed myself.”
She points to a closet in the hallway. “I keep the spare sheets there. They should fit.” She disappears into the master and comes back with a pillow, shoving it at me. “You can use this. Goodnight, Trevor.”
Before I can say a single word, the door to her bedroom closes.
Fuck.
I open the hallway closet and get out the spare sheets. Then I make up the bed and sit on the edge, slumped over, elbows on my knees, thinking of how badly I screwed this up. It didn’t go at all as I’d planned. I should have just told her I wasn’t expecting sex. That it was great, and I had fun, but that I shouldn’t have left that way and can we please start over and maybe go out to dinner or something. But I didn’t. Because apparentlynewTrevor is shit at saying things in a way women understand.
My phone pings with a text from Jaxon.
Jaxon
The media is at it again.
There’s a link to a news article. The headline reads: Amnesia Doctor in Calloway Creek, NY performs emergency tracheotomy on coffee shop floor.
For fuck’s sake, won’t they ever get tired of writing about me?
I haven’t seen any reporters in over a week. Got my hopes up that they were leaving me alone. Apparently, they were still lingering in the shadows. Either that, or someone at the coffee house blabbed.
Not bothering to read the article, I go to plug my phone in. When I set it on the desk, something next to it gets my attention. It’s the box of letters Ava had under the tree that day. And next to it, her diary.
Is this where she sits and reads them? Does she even know they’re in here?
Or did she leave them here deliberately, hoping I’d go on a trip down memory lane?
Deciding them being here is an invitation, I pick up the diary and open it to a random page. And then I start reading.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dear Diary,
I know you’re getting tired of me saying the same things over and over, but I can’t help it. I love him, and I want to shout it to the whole world. My friends know, of course, but I’m sure they think it’s just like any other teenage romance. New and exciting and will surely fizzle out when the next interesting person catches one of our eyes.
But they’d be wrong. I may only be 14, and I know we’ve only been together for about 6 months, but somehow I know… I just KNOW that this isn’t like any other teenage romance.
Diary, when he kissed me for the first time, it was like fireworks and a tornado and an earthquake were happening all at the same time. My entire world changed. Colors were brighter. Music was more meaningful. Everything was different. Everything was better.
I wasn’t even nervous when it happened. I know you know this already, because I told you about it before. We’d been secretly seeing each other for 2 months. Secretly because Mom won’t allow me to date until I’m 16. We’d study at the coffee house at least three days a week. And on weekends, we’d meet in the park when I was supposed to be going to a friend’s house. He picked a spot, well out of the way, where nobody would see us. It was a large tree in the middle of a clearing that sits way back from the park.
