Mother, Please! - By Brenda Novak & Jill Shalvis & Alison Kent Page 0,67
fixation on the past. About how her own mother had moved on. “Johnny Boyd, for one.”
“I’ve already admitted I made a mistake following him under the bleachers, all right? I kicked myself a thousand times over after that night.” She threaded her fingers through the handle on her mug and held it tight. “What else do you want me to say?”
He looked at her then, unsure if her naiveté was real or if she was still deceiving herself all these years later. He thought for a moment. “Did you tell your parents what had happened?”
She had the grace to drop her gaze, her face coloring slightly as she shook her head. “They heard what everyone else heard.”
“That we were suspended for fighting,” he offered before she reminded him of all the other rumors that had taken off and raged like a rampant wildfire upon his and Johnny’s return to school.
She nodded, used the tip of her knife to push around the torn ends of her croissant. “I thought if I stayed quiet, if I didn’t tell anyone what Johnny had been trying to do, then he wouldn’t—” she shrugged “—you know, make things bad for you when y’all came back to school.”
He didn’t want to talk about his return to school. He wanted to talk about her. The weariness, the sadness, hell, the guilt he saw in her expression now hit him harder than Johnny Boyd’s fists had. Why couldn’t she let it go?
He pictured her getting to her feet that night in what had felt like a movie set when he’d first walked up, a dark city underbelly ripe for breeding crime. The bright yellow top of her uniform gaped where it hung torn from the neckline to just above her waist, the flap of material exposing one breast covered in a plain-Jane bra.
He’d pictured her like that for years, dusting gravel from her bottom and the backs of her thighs, digging stubborn grit from the palms of her hands. She wore little makeup then, but her mascara had run in dotted lines down her cheeks as she silently cried.
The fact that Johnny Boyd had six inches and sixty pounds on David hadn’t deterred him a bit. He’d done his damnedest to keep the inevitable from happening.
And he had, surprising Johnny and suffering in the process, but gaining a world of brutal experience to replace his innocence lost. An innocence that had kept him believing he had a chance to win Avery’s heart. Pathetic.
One heartbeat, two, three and David pushed out of his chair. He headed for the coffeemaker, realizing too late Avery had left the pot on the table. Hell, he didn’t want another cup anyway. He only wanted the distraction and the distance.
“Avery, look. I need to finish up your mom’s sink,” he said, turning to find her standing there beside him, the coffeepot in her hand.
He didn’t know what else to do so he held out his mug and she poured, setting the carafe on the coffeemaker while he made his way back to the table for sugar and cream and, hell, why not, another croissant.
Avery, however, stayed where she was, leaning against the countertop, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s not the end, David, and you know it as well as I do,” she said softly. “We’re stuck with this connection neither of us seems to want.”
He poured cream into his coffee, added sugar, stalling as he weighed his response. Truth-or-dare time. Put up or shut up. She’d given him the perfect opening. And he’d be a damned fool not to take it.
He’d been a damned fool for this woman too long already.
“Answer me this, then. How come it’s taken us ten months to have this conversation? We could’ve gotten this out of the way last summer, and you wouldn’t have spent all this time avoiding me.”
“Avoiding you?” Her eyes went wide. “You think I’ve been avoiding you?”
“I know you have.” He shrugged, glad to see he’d struck a nerve. “I’ve seen you turn around on the staircase when I’ve been on my way up.”
A pink flush dotted her cheeks. “That’s because the staircase isn’t designed for two people.”
“Sure it is. We fit just fine,” he said, thinking that the way they fit together would be a whole lot of fun to explore further.
“Maybe your idea of fine,” she muttered, but not so low that he couldn’t hear.
“It bothers you, then. When we’re that close.” She didn’t say a word. She unscrewed the top