I glance away, my heart hammering in my chest. He rubs his thumb along my jaw as he waits for me to sort my thoughts.
“Tell me, Avery. Tell me what happened.”
“With what?” I ask, feigning innocence.
He tilts my head back to his. “Tell me about what happened with your ex.”
“I can’t.”
He searches my eyes. “You can.”
“Why do you want to know so bad? If my past is my past, and we all have one, can’t we just pretend it doesn’t exist?”
He rests his forehead against mine again. “But your past is very present. It’s stopping us from beingus.Tell me; let me help you.”
I clear my throat from the lump that’s forming there. “Ivy and Dustin could walk in at any time.”
He shakes his head. “He took her to the diner for pancakes. It’s just you and me.”
Tears gather in my eyes. “It’s too painful.”
“Then tell me what you can. Start from the beginning and tell me what you can about the rest.”
The understanding in his voice is my undoing. Before I know it, the story is being told. “Neil and I met in high school. We were high school sweethearts, and he was kind and attractive to me at first, the nerdy girl and the jock. A dream come true, a fairy tale, right?”
He nods, encouraging me to continue.
“But that changed. I didn’t realize it changed until it was too late and I had moved across the country to be with him and attend the same college. We didn’t share a dorm because it wasn’t allowed. Instead, I had a roommate, Vanessa, that I gotreally close to. Neil would come over and hang out with us, and looking back…I should have known…”
He brushes a tear from my cheek. “Should have known what?”
I swallow thickly. “One night, he proposed, which came as a huge surprise to me because we’d hardly been intimate for months. We started drifting apart, and I thought we were falling apart, but when he proposed, I thought it’d fix everything. Until I saw a used pregnancy test in Vanessa’s drawer. I was happy for her…until I realized she wasn’t dating anyone and hadn’t gone out in weeks due to finals. Neil came over as I was questioning her with my suspicions, and I saw the look they shared. The baby was theirs. While I was in class, he was cheating on me.”
He wipes away more tears and pulls me in close. “The worst part of it is Vanessa said I could have him still. That we could raise the baby as our own because she didn’t want kids.”
“I’m guessing you said no,” he says into my hair.
I nod against him, sniffling. “I gave the ring back, and when I did, he…he…he called me fat. Boring. Said he’d never imagine himself being stuck with someone like me and how I wasn’t what he signed up for.”
He squeezes me and rocks me back and forth, and we’re silent for a moment, me reliving my past and him digesting it. It was like it was yesterday for me, and saying it all out loud leaves me raw and vulnerable. But in his arms, I realize it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.
Eventually, he breaks the silence. “He should have never said things that aren’t true.”
“They aren’t?”
He tips my chin until it’s resting on his collarbone. Through my unshed tears, I see him give me a sad smile and shake his head. “I’ve seen what you used to look like and what you look like now. I mean it when I tell you how gorgeous you are. Howstunning. I’d never lie to you, Avery, but he would. Hedidlie to you, in more ways than one.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
He presses a kiss to my lips. “No guessing. I’m right this time. You once said that I reminded you of him. Is that still true?”
I think about it for a moment, blinking back the tears. Eventually, I come to a conclusion. “You’re nothing like him.”
“Good,” he says right before he takes my mouth.
The kiss is passionate, heated, and filled with all the things the English language can’t describe. I melt into him, my wet tears mixing with the kiss. My hands skirt under his shirt until I find skin and dig my nails in, holding on with everything I have.
He must understand that I need his skin because he breaks the kiss, takes off the shirt, and then takes off mine. They plop to the floor, and his lips find mine again as our skin meets in the middle. I can feel his erection through his sweatpants when he presses me against the door once more, holding me in place as he does what he wants to my mouth.
