Dear Ava: Enemies-to-lovers Standalone Romance

by Ilsa Madden-Mills

  I watch him intently, cataloguing each little change, searching for the truth in the granite-cut curves of his face. His jaw pops, betraying emotion, but when he looks me straight in the eyes, all I see is an arctic winter in those wolfish depths.

  “Well?” I add, my hands clenched, hiding under the desk.

  “I don’t have to take by force what is offered to me on a daily basis. I’ve never, ever touched a girl unless she begged for it. You aren’t even on my radar, Tulip. But hey, the offer’s still open for a pity fuck.”

  Not on his radar—good.

  “But you were there.”

  “Doesn’t mean it was me. And I left that party—with my very willing date. You watched me leave. Remember?” His eyes cling to mine, searching for something.

  I frown. Why would he bring that up? Such a specific detail.

  “You’re one of them and I can’t believe a word you say,” I bite out. “You’re all liars.”

  We’re facing each other now, our heads tilted low, our voices hushed, mine angry, his taut and firm.

  “We’re all liars—sure,” he mocks. “I saw you drink Fireball like it was iced tea. I watched a video of you dancing in a circle of at least six guys.”

  “Huh, I thought it was more. Did you count them? Funny, I didn’t see you in that video.”

  “Because I don’t do that shit. And I left. Remember?”

  What is up with him and this remembering? The whole school knows I don’t recall much. I shove it aside.

  “Am I too poor for you?” I say. “Poor little old me.”

  “I don’t participate in videos because I have a football career to think about. College recruiters look through social media,” he says tonelessly, unflappable control holding strong.

  My mouth tightens. I’d give my right boob to see Knox Grayson lose his cool.

  “Yeah, everyone knows you’re high and mighty. Everyone kisses your ass. Guess what—I don’t. I think underneath that exterior is a guy who’s got some real problems. Mommy and Daddy not love you enough as a baby? Is that why Dane is still snorting coke or whatever?” I pause, feeling triumphant at the thunderous expression he now wears. “Oh, yeah, I know what it looks like. Grew up with an alcoholic, drug-addicted mom. See, it’s bad all over, right? No matter the social class we belong to, when it comes down to it, we’re all just humans with the same problems. Mine’s dealing with not remembering what happened that night. Yours is…I don’t know. You’re just a cold sonofabitch.”

  It was quite a speech and he blinks rapidly, his chest inflating as he flashes a look over my shoulder to glance at Dane. He gazes back at me, eyes hard, but at least there’s heat there, dark and deep and angry. “Leave my brother out of this.”

  Huh. If there’s a chink of weakness in Knox, it’s his brother. I file that away under the Things That Piss Off Knox dossier.

  “All I had that was mine—my body—was taken without my consent, by you or one of your precious teammates. There’s nothing else you can do to me, Cold and Evil. Go tell your little brat pack that today. Something’s going to trigger my memory and when it does, I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”

  “I’ll kill him with my bare hands.” His eyes flash.

  My heart drops and I rear back, confusion making me suck in a breath.

  What?

  I search for words and end up with, “Why would you say that?”

  His face flattens. “And while you’re at it, let it all out. Say everything you’ve obviously been holding back for months. Do it now. Get it over with.”

  I frown. How has he gotten the upper hand all of a sudden? “Why?”

  “Don’t you want to? Isn’t this your first time back among us in ten months? Don’t think I don’t see all that rage inside you. Let me have it.”

  Is this one of his games?

  I swallow, caught between my need to lash out at a Shark—something I’ve dreamed about for almost a year—and my urge to ask him to explain why he’d kill the person who hurt me. Anger wins. “Fine. I hate you and your friends. You ruined me last year, but I won’t let you take this year from me or shape the person I’m going to be. If you make my life hell, I’ll do the same to you.”

  His eyes close, his thick dark lashes lowering briefly. “Oh, Tulip. You can’t make my life hell.”

  “I’d like to see you walk in my shoes.”

  His gaze goes down to my Converse. “No thanks.”

  “Asshole,” I say, my jaw tight.

  “Yes.”

  “Major asshole. Like the biggest dick at this school, and I don’t mean size-wise. I mean douchebag of major proportions. I can’t believe girls actually want you. You’re disgusting.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the truth is, you’ve probably peaked as a quarterback in high school. Someday you’re going to be a lonely, middle-aged man with deep-seated commitment issues. You’ll be in AA, hooked on porn, crying over your Chinese takeout—”

  His hand scrubs his mouth, and at first I think he’s pissed; then I realize his shoulders are shaking.

  “What’s so funny?” I snap.

  His eyes spear mine. “You.”

  I reach out and ruffle his hair. It’s silky under my fingers, and I flinch back, feeling branded.

  I just touched him.

  What is wrong with me?

  He freezes at the contact and jerks away. “Don’t touch me.”

  I will my pounding heart to slow down.

  Mrs. White clears her throat as she approaches our table. “Well, I’m glad to see you two getting along.”

  I scoff.

  “I’ve got some movie choices for you,” she continues. “You’ll need to watch it together and work on the essay. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “No,” Knox says tersely.

  I groan inwardly. “I can’t wait to work with Knox. What do you have for us?”

  She smiles, seemingly clueless about the thick tension that’s hanging over our desk. “Ah, well, I have two here, either Star Wars or Dirty Dancing. Which one?”

  “Star Wars,” I say.

  “Dirty Dancing,” he says at the same time, and I gape at him.

  “Seriously? You’d pick ‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner’ over flaming swords and Jedi, and hello, aren’t all guys into starships and killing? Are you male? Use the Force, Knox. It must be Star Wars.”

  He gives me a haughty look. “Flaming swords aside, there are aspects to Dirty Dancing we can write about. How Baby brings her family together—”

  “Pfft,” I snort. “What about Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia? Chewie and Han Solo? That’s a family for you, not rich people vacationing in the Catskills—”

  “—two socioeconomic groups, the vacationers and those employed at Kellerman’s—”

  “God. You even know the name of the hotel. And now you want to throw out big words like socioeconomic. Surprising—I always assumed you were a bit dim.”

  “You’re supposedly the brain. That’s your label, mine is jock. Keep up with the big words, Tulip.”

  “If you call me Tulip one more time—”

  “It’s a heck of a lot better than what everyone else calls you.”

  “—I will smack your face.”

  There’s silence as Knox and I stare at each other.

  He shakes his head. “You’re mouthy.”

  “Get used to it.”

  Mrs. White holds her hand up, her eyes bouncing from me to Knox. A little titter comes from her. “I never expected you to be so vehement about your options. Is everything okay?”

  Oh, I’m not backing down now. I nod. “Yes.”

  Knox sighs.

  She grins. “Good! I love the, um, enthusiasm. Let me see… Oh, I have it. There’s a number in my head and each of you gets to pick between one and ten. Whoever guesses closest to the one in my head gets to choose—”

  “One,” Knox says, interrupting her while glaring daggers at me.

  “Five,” I snap.
>
  She gives me a sheepish look. “I picked one. Sorry, Ava, it’s Knox’s choice, so Dirty Dancing it is. I’ll leave it up to you to decide on the topic, but I like Knox’s idea about societal differences, or perhaps a discussion of how the romance in the movie has managed to capture the hearts of several generations?”

  “Societal differences,” I call.

  “Romantic aspect,” Knox says over me.

  We glare at each other.

  Are you for real? my eyes say.

  Oh yeah, his gleam back. And this is going to be so much fun.

  She laughs. “Whichever you want. Maybe you can come up with something more original. You need to have it watched and notes turned in two weeks from now.”

  She walks off, and Knox faces the front. “She always picks one, by the way. I beat you.” A dark chuckle comes from him.

  I bristle. “Romantic aspect over lightsabers? And here I thought you were a dude.”

  ‘“Patience you must have, my young Padawan.”’

  I stare at him. “Oh, you jerk! You just did that just to get at me, didn’t you? It wasn’t about the movie—it was about you being all Let’s make Ava uncomfortable.”

  He grunts and lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Everything isn’t about you. Patrick Swayze was my mom’s favorite actor, and Ghost was the one movie she’d watch over and over.”

  My ears perk up. “Was?”

  He clamps his lips tight.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he mutters.

  I narrow my eyes at him. Oh, it’s definitely something.

  I pick up my pen and twirl it around. “Keep your secrets then. I don’t—”

  “My mom died when I was twelve.” He rubs his hand over his mouth, as if he’s surprised the words came out.

  I blink rapidly, trying to realign what I thought I knew about the inscrutable Knox Grayson. How did I not know this?

  “Happened before you came to Camden.”

  Okay, so he lost his mom. Don’t feel sorry for him, Ava. Fuck that. He’s Knox, a Shark, and he doesn’t deserve my—

  He gives me a tight nod, interrupting my thoughts. “People die. Life is tenuous, and we get no clue as to when it’s going to be over. Not that it even matters. No one really cares.”

  No one really cares.

  “Super dark, Knox.” I clear my throat. “Back to the paper—”

  “Right. I imagine you don’t want to spend any time with me that you don’t have to. We’re just going to pretend to watch Dirty Dancing together.”

  “I can’t imagine being alone with you.”

  He doesn’t answer, and I turn to look at him. He’s toying with his laptop, rubbing his fingers absently across the silver keyboard, looking at nothing. Suddenly, he frowns. “Because you’re afraid of me? It wasn’t me.” An odd look fills his eyes.

  I study his wavy dark brown hair, the silkiness of it. The guy who raped me had dark hair, I think. Maybe I’m wrong, and I can’t trust those memories…

  I say quietly, “I just don’t like you.”

  “Thank God.” He jerks out a piece of paper from his notebook, scribbles a number, and passes it over to me. “Here’s my cell. Don’t share it, or we’ll have a problem. Maybe we can watch on the same night and talk about what topic we want to write about when it’s fresh.”

  Oh.

  Oh.

  Knox Grayson never gives out his number. I know because every girl since freshman year has tried to get it, to sext him or whatever. I’m not one of those. Rumor is he’s warned all his buddies if they share it, they’ll be sorry.

  I take the scrap of paper, instantly recognizing that the digits aren’t the same as the ones in the letter that’s been lingering in the back of my mind since I found it. Well, at least my “secret admirer” isn’t him.

  “No problem. One night this week? Watch around nine and chat at eleven?” I exhale. “The younger kids get the TV after dinner, and I have to wait for them to go to bed. I don’t have one in my room. I could watch on my laptop if you want to do earlier, but I prefer the TV.”

  “Younger kids? I thought you only had one brother.”

  I flinch. How does he know about Tyler? I barely talked about him in the years I was here.

  “I live at Sisters of Charity. I only have one brother—actually he’s my half-brother—but there are twenty little ones there and then the older kids.”

  “Wait? You’re still there? I thought you’d—”

  I give him a glare. “Where else would I be? I turned eighteen this past January, and they’re letting me stay for now but it isn’t permanent. I asked for a dorm here, but I don’t know if that will work out…” My voice trails off and I lapse into silence. I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear the details about me coming back to Camden.

  He frowns, his brow wrinkling as if he’s in deep thought. He gives me a dismissive glance. “I see. Fine. Just text me when you want to watch it. Whatever.”

  I stare at the number. Texting him? Screw that. If he thinks I want any kind of contact with him, even if it’s via a phone, he’s deluded.

  But, shit, his number!

  So many possibilities. Girls’ bathroom, announcing it in class, posting it online, the newspaper—hell, flying it on a banner behind a plane. I sigh. A girl can dream…

  He’s leaned into my space, that stupid ocean cologne drifting around me. “If you write my number in the bathroom, I will make you pay, Tulip.”

  I smile innocently. “Me? Never.”

  “Mmmm.”

  Thank God the bell rings only a few moments later. It felt like the longest hour of my life, and I dash out of there like a greyhound at the races.

  5

  After class, I take off for the restrooms. My stomach growls yet it’s uneasy at the same time, my nerves tense and ready for anyone who gets close to me. In hindsight, I should have eaten the toast and eggs the nuns set out, but I was wired. Everything hinges on today. If I can make it…

  I find the last stall and sit down.

  One class down.

  Five periods left.

  Pulling the locket out from under my shirt, I brush my fingers over it. Cheap and old, I found it on the floor at one of the various shelters Mama and I wandered in and out of. I recall asking around to see if it belonged to anyone, but no one claimed it, and since there wasn’t even a picture inside, I finally decided it was meant to be mine. I snap it open and stare down at the tiny picture of Tyler, his big eyes and spikey brown hair. We look nothing alike. “Such a sweet baby,” I murmur. “We got this, bozo.”

  One final breath then I leave and walk down the hall, staying on the right-hand side near the line of lockers, headed toward the headmaster’s office. Everyone walks and talks around me. Piper has zipped off to her second class, and I won’t see her until lunch.

  Sometimes the loneliest place on earth is in the midst of a crowd.

  But that’s okay. I’m here and that means something.

  I enter the office, and it’s frantic with students and teachers milling around. First day craziness.

  “What is it, doll?” says Mrs. Carmichael, the office secretary. Unsurprisingly, she looks flustered, her faded brown hair up in a tight bun with a pen tucked behind her ear. Little strands stick out everywhere. Slightly plump, she’s wearing a flowy blouse with giant pink flowers on it.

  I clear my throat. “Headmaster Trask asked me to come in this morning. My name is Ava Harris. I would have come earlier, but I barely made it to my first period.”

  She blinks, her back straightening, obviously registering my name. Yeah, I’m her.

  I gaze back at her blankly. Please don’t pity me.

  She nods. “I see. Are you sure he didn’t mean the end of the day?” She looks over at the headmaster’s shut door. “He’s very busy on the first day back.”

  Someone, a deliveryman, bumps into me as he carries in a large box full of printed pamphlets and places it up on the counter. She signs for them, obviously fo
rgetting about me, and I start to argue and let her know he told me I was to come in the morning, but I decide to let it go. I’ve had enough confrontations today.

  RING!

  The bell dings over the intercom, and I watch tardy students through the glass doors, darting around and running to class.

  I let out a sigh. My other class is on the opposite side of the building. I turn back to ask for a hall pass, but she’s arguing with the deliveryman, telling him the colors are all wrong.

  I’m about to leave when I see Knox come out of Mr. Trask’s office. Wait a minute—I can’t see the headmaster in the morning, but he can? Huh. My face reddens, and I clutch my books close to my chest.

  “Problems already?” he murmurs as he stops in front of me.

  Mrs. Carmichael looks up and calls Knox’s name, telling him she’ll write him a pass back to class.

  My lips compress. “I’m supposed to see Mr. Trask, but it looks like you took up any free time he might have, and now I’m relegated to going to class.”

  “Oh.” He turns to Mrs. Carmichael, who’s busy writing him a pass. “Maxine, Ava was supposed to see the headmaster. Will you buzz him?”

  Maxine? Seriously?

  She cocks her head and moves her gaze from me to him. She looks annoyed, but clearly she’s too busy with the pamphlet man to argue any further. She gives us a quick nod.

  “I don’t need your help, Cold and Evil,” I mutter. “Why were you in there anyway? Trying to change your schedule so you don’t have to sit with me in class?”

  His gaze brushes over me. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy sitting next to you. You’re quite fascinating, charity case.”

  “Why, sitting next to the King of Camden is certain to be the most scintillating experience of my whole life.”

  “He’ll see you now, Ava. Head on in,” Mrs. Carmichael says as she gestures to the shut door.

  “Later, Tulip,” he murmurs, walking past me.

  “Stop calling me that!” I snap to his back as he walks out of the office, broad shoulders swaying.

  Giving the secretary a nod, I open Mr. Trask’s office door.

  A short, balding man in his fifties, he wears a genial expression on his face as I stand in the doorway. He smiles carefully. “Ava, there you are. I was waiting for you, come on in. Have a seat. It’s wonderful you decided to come back to Camden.”