by Hughes, Maya
“Did you hash everything out about the breakup? No more shouting matches seems like a good thing.”
“It is, and I think we have, but it feels like there’s still something unsaid between us.”
“Did you get the full rundown on her dad?”
My ears perked up. “Yeah. What do you mean?” Her dad had never been the most responsible guy. Holding down a job at Rittenhouse seemed like the most he’d been able to do. I hadn’t known him before his accident, but Avery swore his forgetfulness was because of that, though I didn’t know how you could forget to pick up your kid every day for a month.
“Totally sucks. Avery’s had to handle way too many things. Mak’s been pretty tight-lipped about it, but man, he’s definitely made life a hell of a lot harder for all of them.” Declan shook his head. “I’m sure you know all about it, though.” He smacked me on the shoulder.
I nodded, not wanting to admit that I probably knew less than he did by the sound of it. A lot of my questions about things outside of our relationship were met with the resistance of a master safe. It hurt to know Avery didn’t trust me to talk about it—had never trusted me enough.
“What’s going to happen when the summer’s over?”
Raking my fingers through my hair, I squeezed both sides of my head. “I know what I want—I want to wake her up, ask her to marry me, and take her with me to LA, but I know that’s a terrible fucking idea. This is what screwed things up before. Other than our misunderstanding, I pushed so hard for what I wanted, I didn’t think about what she needed and what she was going through.”
“What does she want?”
“I don’t know. College? She got in, right? That’s a big deal for her. Alyson is in California, though, so that’s in my favor.”
“What happens when you go back to LA?”
“What the hell is this, an interrogation? I don’t know. If I did, I’d be buying whatever I needed to make it happen—a house, a college, whatever it took.”
“Maybe that’s part of the problem.”
I stared back at him.
“Maybe it’s not about the money, or it shouldn’t be. It’s not about buying anything. Sometimes these things just take time. Hell, it took Mak and me years to get over a simple fight in high school. It wouldn’t be insane for you guys to take things slow.”
“But I don’t want to take things slow. I need her. I need her more than I’ve ever needed anything. I’d walk away from hockey right now if she asked me to.”
“You know she’d never do that.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m willing to do it. I know how things were without her. You saw how I was.” I ran my fingers across my scruff. Shaving had gone by the wayside once Avery started running her fingers along my face like she used to. That was part of the reason I’d always made sure I was clean shaven. The feel of the hair on my face had been a constant, painful reminder of her.
“Yeah, a moody pain in the ass.”
“Thanks.” I lifted one eyebrow and shot him a glare.
“All I’m saying is, you’re both getting back into this, and if it’s going to be a relationship that lasts, you two need to be on the same page. You need to make sure whatever got in the way last time is not an issue anymore.”
He picked up the glass and the bottle of pain reliever. Walking back into the bedroom, I pulled back the covers and slid my arm back under her head.
She mumbled something and her eyelids fluttered, the light catching the sleepiness in her eyes.
“Where were you? I missed you.” She ran her fingers along my cheek. The scrape and scruff made her smile.
“I had to take a call. Go back to sleep,” I whispered.
“What if I don’t want to?” Her hand dipped down between us and she slipped it under the waistband of my boxers.
I groaned as her fingers wrapped around the head of my cock. The half-mast grew with each stroke of her hand.
“Don’t start something you don’t plan on finishing.”
She licked her lips and slipped the fabric down over my crown. Pre-cum covered the head, and using her thumb, she spread it around then continued her strokes.
“I plan on finishing it, all right.” Slowly sliding down the bed like she was doing it just to put me on edge, she pushed back the blankets. Her nails skimmed across my skin and a shudder shot down my spine.
My cock strained against her hold. I dug my hands into the mattress beneath me and let her continue her exploration.
“I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me all this time.” Her breath whispered across the head of my cock.
“That’s not even possible. I’m your buffet—feast at your leisure.” I groaned as she found my rhythm, the same one we’d practiced many afternoons in my bed.
“So you’re saying if I wake up in the middle of the night and you’re sound asleep but I have the urge to taste you, I should go for it?” She licked the crown, running her tongue along the edge.
I threw my head back. “I’d be so pissed if you didn’t.” My words barely made it through my clenched jaw.
“What about after a game? What if you’re super tired after a game?”
I shoved my hands into her hair, pulling it back so I didn’t miss a suck or swipe of her tongue.
“There is nothing on Earth short of decapitation that would ever make me turn you away.”
She grinned at my words and took me into her mouth. I grabbed a pillow and shoved it over my face. Yelling into it, I was about to come already. The muscles in my thighs clenched and everything centered around her hot, wet mouth enveloping me. The temptation was too much. I had to look, couldn’t stop my gaze from burning into hers.
Her cheeks hollowed and the suction made my eyes roll back in my head, but I forced them to stay open, forced them to watch her bring me to the edge quicker than anyone else ever had.
“I’m going to come.” My words were short and clipped.
She took me in even deeper, the tip of my dick hitting the back of her throat.
I slammed my free hand down on the bed. The spasms racked my body, and she swallowed down every bit of me.
Black dots danced in front of my eyes. Slowly, she crawled back up to my chest. With my hands still in her hair, I pulled her to me. I kissed her until she was writhing beside me. It looked like our late-night interlude was about to turn into a morning wake-up call for the house.
“Roll over, Ave.” I palmed her ass, letting my fingers sink into her soft flesh. She yelped and grinned at me before getting onto her hands and knees.
Damn, I love her.
24
Avery
We finished cleaning up breakfast, everyone grumbling about the wake-up calls in the house being really inappropriate. I placated their bleary eyes by filling their stomachs with delicious food. The blues and greens of the house mixed with the top-of-the-line everything were starting to feel like home, and returning to my dad’s place would be rough. Maybe I should stay with Emmett for a while until I could find a place to live…or maybe I’d stay with him.
Moving in together seemed like a one-way trip to getting my heart ripped out. Finishing up my food, I leaned back in my chair. It was one hell of a meal, if I did say so myself. I tucked my plate into the dishwasher then left everyone else to finish the cleanup. It had become our routine, and I was more than happy to never have to wash a dish.
I hopped into the shower. The rich soapy lather washed away the sweat and smell of Emmett still clinging to me, and I was wrapping a towel around myself when my phone went off in my bag. I dug it out and tapped the screen. I could barely understand the words through the tears on the other end.
“Max, calm down. Take two deep breaths and then tell me what’s going on.” Panic set in, a clawing, chest-tightening sensation. Had something happened to Syd?
Her labored breaths came through the phone. “They’re taking the shop.”
“What? Who?” I threw on the closest top and shorts I could find.
/> “The suits. Syd screwed up something. It was nothing you did. She said that like ten thousand times, but she missed something—property taxes, maybe, and now the city is coming after her. They’re going to take the shop. There’s a lien on it.”
I went in search of a laptop, anyone’s laptop. Finding one at the kitchen table, I opened it up and searched for property records.
“Okay, Max, hold on. I’m checking on it right now.” A little searching got me what I was looking for. Sure enough, a nice round number sat there in big red lettering. The pit in my stomach grew.
“I don’t know what she’s going to do. She’s always joked about closing the place down, but not like this, not because of someone taking it from her.”
An idea was brewing in the back of my mind. “I’m going to need to call you back.”
I didn’t even let her respond before I ended the call and made another one. My heart raced and my hands shook against the edge of the table.
“What’s up, kid?” Syd’s gruff voice wasn’t enough to cover the emotion she was holding back.
“Have you ever wanted a partner?”
“What?”
“Max called me.”
An expletive-laden tirade exploded from the phone ending with, “I’m going to seal her lips shut with molten sugar next time and shave that multicolored head of hers.”
“I have the money, Syd.” I’d been saving for so long, for my future—that was what I’d told myself during every missed happy hour or while thrift store shopping. That winter when I’d duct-taped my shoes together to trudge through the snow, I’d known it was for something bigger for me. Turned out I had been wrong about what the future held. It was this, and it felt so right.
“What?”
“I’ve got the money to pay off the lien.”
“Do I seriously pay you that well? I can’t let you give me that money, Avery. It wouldn’t be right.”
“That’s why I didn’t say I’d give it to you. I asked if you wanted a partner.”
“You want to be partners? What about college?”
“I can still go to college—later. It would be on a much more extended type of path if that’s what I wanted to do, but I’ve always been unsure about it, never really knowing if I wanted to go or if I just thought I should go, but this…I’m ready to do this with no questions asked.”
“Avery—”
“Don’t say no. Just don’t say no, okay? I can come up tomorrow.”
Leaving Emmett and our pretend world where summer fun was all that existed was the last thing I wanted to do, but Syd needed me and I had to go.
“I don’t want you ending your trip early.”
“Check the schedule—I’m on it for the next day. I’d have to come up tomorrow anyway. Can you have someone find out if all that needs to be done is to pay the lien and then there are no more issues?”
“I can do that.” The uncertainly in her voice at least meant she’d check it out.
“Please, Syd, don’t give up. We can do this. I know we can.”
“You sound awfully optimistic about this whole thing.”
“I am. I really am, and I want you to be too. We can do this! Bread & Butter will be better than ever. Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do. You think I’d give a fifteen-year-old kid the freaking keys to this place if I didn’t?”
“It will be awesome.” It was like the path was suddenly unveiled in front of me. The future snapped into crystal-clear clarity, and I knew exactly what I needed to do.
“You really want to use your money to go into business with me?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, with maybe just a few changes here and there.”
“What kind of changes?” Any trace of sadness was gone. She sounded like her old self.
“Maybe some menu improvements, change up the décor, but that’s stuff we can talk about as partners.”
She harrumphed, and I couldn’t hold back my laugh.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Ending the call, I sat back in my seat and stared at the doorway filled with a wall of muscle. His t-shirt clung to his chest. Shorts hung from his trim hips. Every time I looked at him, the flutters in my stomach threatened to carry me away.
“Hey.” I closed the laptop.
“Hey. So…you’re buying a business?”
I bounced in my seat. “I guess so. We haven’t worked out the details, but I think that’s what I’m doing.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was the same kind you gave when you were already trying to figure out how to re-gift something someone had just given you.
“What’s wrong?”
He raked his hands through his hair and squeezed the back of his neck. “It’s nothing. Did you want to get some ice cream?”
“We just ate breakfast, and it’s not nothing.” I pushed my chair back and stood. Crossing to him, I wouldn’t let him dodge my gaze. “What is it?”
“I thought…I thought that might be something you’d talk to me about before you did it, but then I realized it isn’t my place. We’ve only stopped trying to burn each other to a crisp with our eyes a week ago. We haven’t figured everything out yet.”
My throat tightened. Figured everything out. “We definitely haven’t, but I’m here to talk it through.”
“What about college?” He ran his knuckles along my jaw.
“I was never really sure about it. I was put on that path early—get good grades, go to college, get a good job…but I already have a good job. I have a great job. Other than waking up at two in the morning to go in, there isn’t another job I could imagine having.”
“Your own business.” He stared at me, trying to make that smile work.
“Em, what’s going on?”
He threw back his head and squeezed his eyes shut. Opening them, he pinned me with his stare. “I think part of me hoped maybe you’d come to LA with me or at least be able to visit during school breaks. Alyson’s in California, so I thought I could entice you out, but if you’re running a bakery, you’re not going to have time to do that.”
A leaden loaf sank in my stomach. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘Oh.’ I know we haven’t talked about what we’re doing here, but I need you to know I want this to be real. I’m not looking for a summer thing. This is us starting up Emmett and Avery.”
The silence between us was deafening, or maybe it was all the blood rushing to my ears.
He slipped his hands into mine and brought them to his mouth. Pressing his lips against my knuckles, he gazed into my eyes. “We’re doing this.”
My head nodded along with his. He was a puppeteer, and I his marionette. “I want to do this.” That bright, glowing ball in my chest grew even bigger.
“Do you think you’ll get some time off later in the summer? Maybe even just a couple of days? I have to go back to the Hamptons to see my parents. They keep driving me crazy with calls and texts. I could use some backup, and it will keep them from trying to set me up with their friends’ daughters.”
It was another bucket of cold water filled with ice cubes from the deepest corner of Antarctica. This was the time. Just tell him. Tell him what they did, what you did, how you’d had no choice…
“It’s annoying to have them doing normal parenting things. Trying to set up their single son, pestering me with phone calls and texts…” While he spoke of irritation, the happiness in his voice made my stomach clench.
How did I tell him this? Maybe they’d changed. Four years was a long time. Maybe they’d turned over a new leaf and were on a different path now, one that brought them to Emmett and even more happiness to his life. I couldn’t kill that. I wouldn’t.
The gentle knock at the front door saved me, and I dashed out of the kitchen. The guys sat on the couch watching TV, completely oblivious to the visitor, whoever it was.
“Hey, do you have a minute?” Imogen popped up on the landing outside the door. The sun reflecting off her Surf Shack t-shirt made
her hair shine even brighter.
I glanced over my shoulder. Emmett had followed me out.
“I’ll be back soon.” Something was up with her and I needed to find out what.
Emmett nodded. “Sure, of course.”
She glanced back through the screen door at the guys crowded around the TV.
“Did you want me to get one of them?” I motioned over my shoulder.
“No.” Her voice was a low, forceful whisper as she shook her head. “Let’s just walk for a little bit.”
I followed her down the steps, and we walked in silence. I was starting to wonder if that was all she needed. The beach was so quiet down at that end, a private respite with no crowds, only the gentle rumble of the waves and a salty breeze off the water.
She stopped abruptly and sat down, crossing her legs in front of her. She ran her fingers through the sand and let handfuls pass through her hold into small mounds.
“Thanks for coming out here with me.”
“No problem.”
We sat so long staring out at the rolling water I wondered if maybe she just needed someone to sit beside her for a while in companionable silence.
“It’s hard…” Her throat worked up and down as she swallowed.
I turned to her.
“It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t…didn’t know Preston. He was pretty popular.” She gave me a watery smile.
My throat clogged at the pain in her eyes. “I’ve heard that. The guys all talk about how awesome he was.”
“He was the best.” Her voice cracked. She wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “But now he’s gone. I try not to let myself have moments like this too often, especially not around Preston’s parents.”
“No one expects you to not be hurting.” My heart ached for her. In the few interactions we’d had, I’d seen the cracks in her armor. She’d worked so damn hard to make them as small as possible, but they were still there.
“I was just his girlfriend, but he was their son. It’s different.”
“Of course it’s different, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. A friend, sibling, parent, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, child—those are all going to hurt in different ways, but none of us can judge which one hurts more. There’s more than enough pain to go around.”