“Fine,” she finally said. “I don’t want to hear it when you find out I was right about all of this. When you start to fall behind in your classes or when the stress starts to get to you because you weren’t prepared. Because that day will come, Avery. And you won’t have anyone to blame but yourself.” She walked to her car and left without another word.
Danny shifted beside me, reminding me of how annoyed I was with him.
“Damn. I’ve never heard you talk to her like that. Thanks for saying those things about me.”
“Screw you.” I gave him the worst death stare I could muster before we both climbed into my car and rode home in silence.
I got two migraines in a three-day time span, but I was lucky enough to catch one of them and take some medication before it got too bad. The other one crippled me to the point where I was lying on my floor in the fetal position. They didn’t used to be this bad, but as I’d dived deeper into studying over the last few years, the migraines worsened.
The band left me alone in the house for a few days as they traveled up to Sacramento for a show. I tried to make good use of my time in the silence of the house, but it wasn’t as helpful as I’d thought it would be. I thought I got more work done when all four of my roommates were creating havoc outside my door.
Mom didn’t call the rest of the week to check up on me or to share any of her surgery stories, and I doubted it was because she hadn’t had any successful ones. She was avoiding me. I didn’t know how far she was going to go with it until I showed up for our usual Sunday breakfast and she wasn’t there.
Danny had apologized to me again, but I couldn’t stay mad at him. I was the one who’d kept something from her. He might’ve told her out of selfish entertainment, but I was glad I said the things I did. It was time I got them off my chest. I just wished the guilt that had come with speaking my mind would eventually go away.
21
Liam
Iloved waking up before the rest of the house. It was the only real quiet I got for the day. But lately, having that much peace to myself gave me too much time to think abouther.
I’d managed to keep my distance from Avery, but there was only so much I could do when we lived together. The band had slowly been putting together the new album in between wrapping up the end of our tour, which took up a lot of my time.
Avery kept her head in her books most days. The other night, we’d invited a bunch of our friends over, and she never left her room. Not once. That was something I was beginning to realize—I was hyperaware of where she was when she wasn’t in the room with me. When I was out with the band, I’d be wondering what she was doing, alone at the house. If I was in the studio, I could feel her above me, and I couldn’t focus like I used to. When she left with Nina, I wanted to know where she was going and if there’d be other guys there.
I was trying so hard not to care that it became all I could think about instead. She’d started from consuming the back of my brain to every corner of it. I thought about her every night, like an addict on a high. And I’d only had a taste of her. I wanted to know what it felt like to have all of her.
I was filling my coffee mug when I heard a door fly open and footsteps thudding through the living room.
“Crap. Crap. Crap,” Avery muttered under her breath as she ran out the front door.
I was pretty sure she’d just thrown on a sweater over her pajamas.
I didn’t even turn back around before she charged back in.
She spotted me, her eyes crazy. “Liam! Oh, Liam, can you please give me a ride to class? I’ll owe you forever! Please!”
I slowly sipped my coffee. Hearing her beg made my dick twitch, and I was hoping she’d do it again. “Why can’t you drive yourself?”
“My front tire is flat. Please! I’m so late, and my teacher locks the door on the hour. I have to gonow!”
I sighed and set my coffee down, and she jumped up and down, as if she thought that would make me go faster. I swiped my keys off the counter and was about to walk out the door when she stopped me.
“You’re not going to put clothes on?”
I looked down at my boxer briefs and naked chest. “What do you mean? I’m covering everything.”
Her eyes scrolled up and down my body like she was studying it, and, dammit, I wanted to take her to a different kind of class.
“You’re wearing tiny little bottoms too,” I teased.
Her fingers pulled at the bottom of her silk pajama shorts. “What happens if you get pulled over?”
I shrugged. “This has actually gotten me out of tickets in the past, so…”
She rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”
I grabbed my jacket off the back of the couch and walked past her. “There. Better? I thought you were in a hurry?”
