My arm flops to the mattress. The need flares, but I don’t finish. How could it be enough?
My head is on a pillow that isn’t mine. I’m in a house full of people who have absorbed me into their cosy madness, and the person I crave is two doors down.
So close.
This is reckless and insane. His family is here. You just left Nevin.
Except I didn’t leave him two days ago. I left him a hundred times – and the night I saved Scottie’s number under ‘Bear’. The night with the bathroom door was the last formality.
The thrum in my veins turns thick and feverish.
Fuck the box.
I throw off the duvet, get up, and plant my feet. The air in the room is cool, but my skin is too hot to care. I kick off my briefs and leave them on the rug. The draught against my bare thighs immediately triggers a spike of panic – exposure, vulnerability, danger – my nervous system screaming at me to armour up. I ignore it. If I’m doing this, I’m leaping without a parachute.
The hallway is dark. Every creak of the floorboards makes my shoulders flinch, bracing for a reprimand that isn’t coming.
His door is closed, but a thin strip of light bleeds underneath.
He’s awake.
Any other door, and my body would lock. But this isn’t any old door. It’s the only safe place in a world that’s spinning off its axis. I’ve been walking toward it since November.
If I take this step, there is no returning to the friend zone.
I knock and turn the door handle. Every nerve in my body goes taut as I slip inside. The light from the hallway cuts a golden slice across the floor before I close the door.
Scottie sits up, and a book slides off his chest. ‘What the fuck are you doing here? We said…the box.’
I don’t hover by the door. No, I walk straight to the bed. ‘Burn the silly box.’
‘Ava—’
‘I don’t just want the friend, Scottie.’ My knees bump against the mattress. ‘I want the man. I want both. I want you to be my friend, and I want to sleep with you. A lot, actually.’
Every rational objection – timing, consequences, the smouldering wreckage of my life – goes up in flames.
But he tries one last time. ‘For fuck’s sake. Ava, think about this.’ He catches my hands, trying to create distance, but all it does is tether me to him. ‘We’re friends.’
‘We are. And as it turns out, I want to sleep with my friend.’ I lean forward. ‘I’m extremely sure about that.’
He’s losing the argument with himself. I notice the shift in his eyes. There’s a sudden, dark intensity.
‘If you climb into this bed right now, I’m going to put my mouth on every inch of you. You understand that?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll have to mean it. All of it. I can’t do halfway. I can’t touch you and then pretend it didn’t happen.’
‘Neither can I.’ I swing one leg over his hips, settle into his lap, and cradle his chiselled jaw. ‘Now stop blethering and kiss me.’
He surges up and crushes my mouth to his, pulling me down against him, and the sound he makes – a soft groan – sets fire to everything that kept us apart.
The box is ash. There’s only him.
His mouth slants over mine, and I melt down into him, knees bracketing his hips. He sweeps his palms up bare skin, and seats me flush against his impressive bulge. The thin cotton of his boxers soaks through. If he can’t feel how desperate I am for him, he is not paying attention.
‘Fuck.’ He pulls away enough for his eyes to clash with mine. ‘You’re not wearing anything under that shirt, are you?’
