He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and I watched the shift happen in real time. His jaw tightened, and the warmth that had been in his eyes only a second ago dimmed like a cloud passing over the sun. He shoved the phone back in his pocket and looked out at the mountains instead of back at me.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He flashed me a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Just my dad being…” He let out a sigh and shrugged his shoulders, still not looking at me. “Just being himself, I guess.”
I nibbled my lip, wanting to ask more, but also not wanting to push when it was clear his dad was a topic he wasn’t interested in talking about.
We stood there a little longer, watching the sky deepen from rose to violet as the sun lowered in the sky. His hand found mine between us, hidden by the railing, and I let myself have this. No one would see.
And I held on to the fact that even when he’d shut down, he’d still reached for me.
“Thank you for helping the last two days,” I said, breaking the silence.
He glanced down at me, his lips lifting subtly at the corners. “Anytime.” He looked around us,but for a moment we seemed to be completely alone. He squeezed my hand and pulled me back until we were tucked against a door, partially hidden if anyone were to come around the corner.
He leaned down, brushing his lips softly against mine. But a sweet kiss wasn’t enough for me. Grabbing the back of his neck, I pulled him closer, deepening the kiss and soaking in the feeling that only he could inspire in me—the one that made me feel reckless and a little invincible at the same time.
When we finally pulled apart, he rested his forehead against mine, his breathing unsteady.
“We should probably head out,” I whispered.
“Probably.” But he didn’t move. Neither did I.
We stayed tucked against the door, hidden away and watching each other, neither of us saying any words, but letting the silence do the talking.
I knew we’d have to have a conversation eventually, but I wasn’t ready to ruin the moment, especially not after today.
It had been a really good day.
I just wished I knew how many more of them we had left.
THIRTY-FIVE
The first week of fall semester felt like stepping into someone else’s life.
Same campus. Same classes. Same roommate who’d already covered every surface of our shared space with her eclectic collection of vintage concert posters. Although, thankfully, this year we had found an apartment off campus to live in, so we got separate rooms.
But while pretty much everything around me felt the same as last year, I wasn’t the same Ava who’d left Dunridge in May with a plan to finish her spicy bucket list with her brother’s best friend/situationship over the summer.
That Ava was gone.
In her place was someone who’d done most of the items on that list. Someone who’d discovered she liked sex—really liked it—and that she wasn’t boring at all. Someone who’d learned exactly what her body was capable of when she was with a man who paid attention.
Someone who’d made the catastrophic mistake of falling in love with said man.
“You’re doing it again,” Sydney said, snapping me out of my spiral.
I blinked at her from my spot on our secondhand couch her brother had let us have when he and his fiancé, Josh, bought a whole new living room set. “Doing what?”
“Staring at nothing with that constipated look on your face.” She tossed a throw pillow at me. “Spill. You’ve been weird since you got back.”
“I’m not weird.”
“Ava. Please. Clearly you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to.”
I pulled the throw pillow she’d tossed at me against my chest. “I’m just adjusting,” I said. “Getting back into the groove.”
“And…”
