Twisted Up (Taking Chances #1) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,98
she almost broke his nose.
“Jake!” She scrambled off the bed and ran for the bathroom.
“Holy crap, Avery, calm down.” He’d never seen anyone wake up so fast.
“They’re back? They’re downstairs now?” she asked from the doorway where she was already jerking on her shorts and pulling on her bra.
“Yes. But—”
“You’ll have to distract them while I slip out. Tell them I left. Like an hour ago.”
“No way,” he said, getting out of bed and pulling on his jeans. “If they think you left, they’ll think I did or said something to piss you off.”
“So?” She pulled her shirt over her bra.
“I don’t want them to think that.”
She propped her hands on her hips. “Why not?”
“Because I like people knowing I—” Was she ready to hear that he loved her? Was he ready to say it?
She raised an eyebrow. “You like people knowing you got me into bed?”
He didn’t mind people thinking that, of course, but there was more to it now.
“I want my parents to know you’re still here.”
“That’s creepy,” she told him. “Even if we are adults, we don’t need to be obvious about doing it in their house.”
He blew out a breath. He wasn’t doing this right. “What I mean is, I want my parents to know how I feel about you. How we feel about each other.”
At least, he hoped like hell she had some of the same feelings.
It seemed he’d spent ten years thinking about how Avery felt about him. In the beginning, he’d loved that she’d chosen him to be her first, the boy she’d trusted and liked enough to give her virginity to. Then he’d spent years driven nuts by the idea she didn’t feel more for him, that she’d let her feelings for his family influence her feelings for him.
Now . . . he’d never been in love before. Not really. And it didn’t surprise him in the least that he’d fallen for Avery.
Nor did it surprise him that he was still hoping and wondering about her feelings.
Avery pulled herself up straight and focused on his left earlobe instead of his eyes. “What do you mean? Your parents think, know, we’re . . . doing this . . . for the town during the cleanup.”
“Avery,” he said quietly, crossing the room to where she stood, “I told you, my parents are very intelligent people.” He took her hand. “Look at me.”
She did, slowly.
“You said you came over tonight because it mattered to me.”
She swallowed and nodded.
“Why do you care if it was important to me?”
“Because you need this. You need to make everything better for people around you. You need to fix things.”
He tugged on her hand, bringing her close. “I need you to be happy. And I need to be part of that.” He looked into her eyes. “I’m in love with you, Avery.”
She pulled in a deep breath, then blew it out slowly.
“And,” he continued when she didn’t say anything, “you like me a lot, too.” His tone was light.
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
“And I want the world to know.”
“That I like you?” she asked.
“Yes. Getting on your good side has taken me a long damned time.” He smiled and brushed his thumb over her cheek.
He was in love. For the first time in his life. With Avery Sparks. It felt like something needed to happen to commemorate that.
Avery deserved that. She hadn’t had nearly enough love—and demonstrations of it—in her life. He knew she was reeling from his confession of his feelings for her. He knew it would take time for it to sink in so she could believe it. But he could be very convincing when he put his mind to something. His mind was most definitely on Avery.
He’d spent his early life barely noticing her. The riverbank had been one night and had been between the two of them—well, and Max and Dillon, but they didn’t count. The times Jake had kissed her in Chance had been semipublic in that everyone knew about them, but there hadn’t been anything more. The past week of the town seeing them together had been more speculation than actual fact.
Now he wanted it to all be a fact. A solid, irrefutable, widely known fact.
He grinned as he thought about how fun it would be to show Avery that he wanted the world to know how he felt about her. “I’m in the mood for ice cream.”
She groaned. “Come on. That’s a little embarrassing.”
“The whisker burns aren’t anywhere they’ll be able