Because Forever (The Avenue Book 2)

by B. Cranford

  “Oh, that’s just Odie.”

  God, those words had stung at the time, not that Odie had really known why. Austin was her best friend, and being “just Odie” was something she should have been used to, except . . .

  He’d called her pretty then dismissed her to a girl that Odie felt was even prettier. Is it any wonder I never realized he liked me? Or noticed me?

  She waited for a few moments in the bathroom—long enough to make her cover trip to the toilets seem legit—then made her way back to the table.

  Back to her best friend who was just finishing off the last pastry on the table. Only her croissant remained.

  He spoke as soon as she was within hearing distance. “Oh, good, you’re back. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to resist much longer.”

  Resist? A whirlwind of thoughts hit her. Resist what? Following me and then fucking me against the door like we were in a dirty club bathroom, drunk and unable to resist each other?

  Resist leaving the bakery and running away before this conversation got too serious?

  “Resist eating your breakfast,” he added, breaking into her thoughts and pointing at her side of the table. “I’m still hungry.”

  A flush worked its way onto her cheeks that her first thoughts were sex and abandonment when she knew Austin well enough that she ought to have been able to guess he meant the food.

  “You’re blushing. What did you think I meant?” He lowered his voice, not that he’d been speaking all that loudly anyway. But clearly he didn’t want to be heard. Which made sense once he spoke again. “Did you think I meant you? Because, Odie, you’d be right. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d rip those tight-as-fuck jeans down your legs, spin you around and bend you over this rickety little table. I’d fuck you until the entire place came along with us, and then I’d start again.”

  She basically fell into her chair when her legs gave out. She should not be turned on by what he’d just said but she was. Oh, she so was. When he started talking at normal volume again, like nothing had just happened, she struggled to concentrate.

  “When I said you’re just you, I didn’t mean just you, like in a bad way. Odie?”

  “Huh? Sorry, I”—she took in a shuddering breath—“Do you really want to do that to me?”

  “Fuck you in front of everyone? Yes. Well, no, not in the literal sense because that’s a bit porny for my tastes. But fuck you? Yes.”

  “What did you mean, then? Just me?”

  “You’re the best person I know. You’re funny and you’re smart and you can, quite literally, take me to my knees. You’re not one of the guys and you’re not some girl. You’re Odie. My Garfield. You’re”—he made a frustrated sound and brought his one hand up in a gesture that demonstrated that his explanation wasn’t going the way he wanted it to.

  But then, he said two words and the meaning was clear—“You’re everything.”

  You’re everything.

  Not just, as in merely.

  Just, as in only. The one and only.

  Chapter Seven

  He was not explaining himself well at all.

  He couldn’t work out how to tell Odie that she was in a class of her own. That she was Garfield—one of the guys who needed a nickname—and she was Odie—his best friend—and she was his.

  He shook his head at the direction of his thoughts—he was beginning to think like one of those men in the romance novels Odie loved to read. Which was something he knew because one day he’d overheard her describing one to his sister during a lull at The Avenue.

  And if he then went to the trouble to read the book to find out what about it made her giggle and sigh, then he’d happily own up to it.

  He’d been trying to find the way to her heart—her romantic heart—for a long damn time and if there was something that might give him an advantage, he was absolutely going to take it.

  Maybe I need to bite her lip and call her mine?

  Or maybe I should avoid getting advice from a book?

  He was still meandering through his thoughts, trying to find the way to best explain himself when he heard the scrape of her chair on the wood floor.

  Her breath against his ear was heated, and close. So, so close.

  “I get it.”

  That was all she said before her lips were on his temple and it wasn’t until she was back in her seat across from him that he fully processed what had just happened. And, in fact, he still wasn’t completely sure . . .

  “Are we–I mean, do you? Us?” He closed his eyes, marveling at how three words and one chaste kiss had managed to scramble his brain even further. “You understand?”

  “Yeah. I was being a dumb girl, huh?”

  He laughed at her calling herself that, but the reality was, there was nothing funny in this moment. “Do you remember when you left for New York and I came over to say bye?” He waited for her nod before continuing. “I cried after you left, and if you ever, ever tell Aaron or Ash that, I will tickle you into submission.”

  She should have shuddered; that was his intention when he’d used that threat. After all, the idea of being tickled usually had that effect on her, but . . . “I don’t think I’d mind you tickling me anymore.”

  “Odie.” Jesus, he was going to get hard in the middle of the bakery, just from the visual she was giving him.

  She shrugged her shoulders with an air of innocence; one that he didn’t believe for a minute.

  “You know what, never mind.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be a baby, Aussie.”

  “I’m not being a baby.”

  “Oh my God, you are. Is that the square lip I see?”

  Unconsciously, he raised a hand to his lower lip to make sure it wasn’t pouting of its own accord. Nope. “Nope,” he said out loud, making her giggle.

  “But you had to check, so I win. You’re pouting.”

  “Whatever, are you going to eat that? I think the least you could do for teasing me is give me your—”

  “Don’t even think about it.” She swatted at the hand he’d already moved from his lip toward her croissant and he laughed.

  “Worth a try.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because I just said I’m still hungry.”

  “No, you idiot.” Her face suddenly became serious. “Why did you cry?”

  “Because I didn’t get to tell you before you left that things had changed. And I wasn’t sure I’d ever get another chance.”

  This was the moment.

  Maybe he should just tell her what he was thinking.

  About her. About them.

  Or maybe he should just give her one more hug and tell her goodbye and hope for the best? It wasn’t like he knew what her reaction would be if he confessed that he thought about her a lot.

  Way more than he should, and in a way that was not appropriate for the kind of relationship they had.

  He tried to picture it, the conversation, only he didn’t get very far.

  “Odie, I love you and I want to jump you and hey, how about I come to New York with you and we bang our way through all five boroughs?”

  He was fairly certain that would be followed by a “no” and a well-placed slap to the face.

  Or a punch. That was definitely more her style—and had been since the day she’d followed her dad to the gym and watched in awe as a young woman with cherry red boxing gloves and a mean right hook lay out her loud-mouthed male opponent.

  God, he was proud of her. He always had been—when she began her training, when she’d started fighting in locally sanctioned events, every time she talked about maybe, one day, getting to compete in the Olympics should Women’s Boxing ever be added. But this was a different kind of proud.

  This wasn’t Odie-can-take-anyone-down proud. This was my-girl-is-going-to-college-because-she’s-so-damn-smart proud.

  He couldn’t ruin that moment, for either of them.

  Because if she didn�
�t want what he wanted—and he’d never seen any indication that she did—then instead of focusing on her future, she’d be lamenting her past.

  All the years she’d spent with him as her best friend, only for it to be broken at the last minute.

  I’d rather miss my chance now, and maybe forever, than ruin everything.

  “Aussie?” Odie came to the door, smiling. “Why didn’t you just come in?” She shook her head like she couldn’t believe he was still standing at the front door, like a visitor. Not the actions of a man who’d basically lived with her until he’d found a small place of his own only a week earlier.

  He couldn’t answer her question. I didn’t come in because I don’t trust myself around you anymore would lead to more questions, and he’d made his decision.

  He was going to let her—and this last chance to tell her what she meant to him—go.

  And then hope to God that, one day, she’d find her way back to him.

  “I’ve been back for years. You could have told me anytime.” It made her angry, his revelation, at the same time it made her want to forget everything.

  Forget the past.

  Forget their fight.

  Forget it all, grab his face and kiss him. Hard.

  “You were dating that guy when you came back. Matt? No, Mitt? No, don’t tell me.” He swiped at his jaw in mock contemplation. “Oh, I remember, Major.”

  “Why are you saying his name like that?” she asked, trying to hold back her amusement.

  “Because come on. That’s why.”

  “Not an answer, but okay. Were you jealous, Aussie?”

  “Of course I was, Odie. Of-fucking-course I was.”

  “Oh.”

  She tried to think of what he’d said back then; if there was anything she’d forgotten that might have given her some clue as to what he’d been thinking.

  Of course there were clues—you were just too blind to realize it.

  “And after Major, you vowed you weren’t going to date again. You wanted to train, build your client base and, and this is a direct quote, ‘avoid men like the plague until I can find someone like you, but not, like, you.’ Which, in case you were wondering, really sucked to hear.”

  “I said that?” She didn’t remember it at all, though after her ex, the boyfriend she’d had through three of her four years at NYU, had split, she’d spent a reasonable amount of time getting white-girl wasted and enjoying her freedom.

  It had been a really shitty, but addictive, relationship.

  “I wouldn’t lie about that. I figured you didn’t want me like I wanted you, and the risk of losing you after just having gotten you back was too much.”

  “Okay, but, and go with me on this: why would you ever believe anything I said when I was drunk?” She met his gaze, trying to show him that she was joking but also that she wasn’t. She was an excellent avoider. World class. Gold medalist in avoidance. If they’d been talking about men and relationships and she’d been drinking, there was a 99.9% chance she’d said that because she wanted to hide the truth she’d been burying for a long, long time.

  She didn’t want someone like him. She wanted him.

  “You were pretty adamant. Are you telling me it wasn’t true?” Hope lit his eyes and she knew the next stretch of conversation was going to finally take them where they’d been heading since the night before. “That you do want me?”

  “I’d be a fool not to.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Yes. Okay? Yes. I want you. I want you to look at me like you did that girl you dated in tenth grade who had massive boobs and no inhibitions. I want you to smile at me like you did that woman who hit on you the first night you ever tended bar—at that dive place at the end of Club Row—who told you you were the sexiest man she’d ever seen and left you a hundred-dollar tip.” She paused for his laughter, then kept going, but it was truth time. Finally. “But I also want to be your best friend. The one you come to when you have this idea to buy a bar and you need my help getting your business plan together so you can convince your sister. I want to be the person whose house you show up at when you have nowhere to go. I want to be the one who you poke in the back with your arm because you’re a terrible, terrible cuddler.”

  She stopped to breathe deeply and then added, “I want more, but I also want to protect this, what we have. I don’t want it to fall apart because then what?”

  She looked at him, having finished, and waited for his judgment. Did he know what she was saying? Could he see how scared she was to lose him if this thing between them didn’t work?

  “We could just try for a bit, maybe? Because I want all that too, babe. I do. So, we date, right? And then, if it doesn’t work, we agree to be friends again.”

  With what was quite possibly her biggest eye roll of all time, Odie shut down that line of thinking immediately. “No. We aren’t going to be friends with benefits or have the whole ‘we can go back’ safety net in place. For a couple of reasons, like the fact that we need to be all in or it is doomed to fail. But mostly because that’s the dumbest dumb idea any dumb person ever had in the history of ever.”

  “So, you’re a definite maybe then?” he joked, clearly picking up on her sarcasm. Perhaps it was the repeated use of the word dumb and its derivatives?

  “Yeah, pencil me in for that, and then pencil in the inevitable moment when we realize that sitting on the fence—trying to have the sex and the intimacy without the work of a relationship—was never going to work. If I’m going to risk this, I’m only going to risk it for a chance at forever.”

  He nodded along, but that didn’t stop her from talking, since she was finally saying what she’d been needing to say. “We can’t ignore it. Not after you kissing me and me kissing you back. It’s here now, in our faces and refusing to be overlooked. And that’s fine. Because trying to pretend it’s nothing is the only thing more likely to blow up in our faces than acting like we can fuck for a month and then go back to how it always was.”

  “You sound so sure. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d done this before,” he commented, which somehow made her passion for the topic at hand increase tenfold.

  “I haven’t but Jeez Louise, I have read so many books like this. Like this exact scenario. And it’s like, no, no. I’m sitting there practically screaming at the book, ‘It’s not going to work, this is a ridiculous idea’ and you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s literally the most ridiculous idea, Austin. Seriously. No one has ever—ever—successfully had sex a few times with someone and gotten them out of their system. Which is basically what you’re implying here. And if your choices are ignore it—which when you’re spending all that time together, would be akin to torture—or act on it, then act on it. But don’t only partially act on it. You’re friends for a reason, you know? You already know you’re compatible and what? Are you so afraid of commitment that you’d rather have sex and no connection? Really? Man up, you dickhead, and admit what you want! Give her what she wants too, because apparently, you’ve been friends for long enough to know her favorite fragrance of bath bomb and the exact color of the nail polish she wore to her thirteenth birthday party, but not long enough to realize you’re already in the fucking relationship. You’re already in it! You’re just adding the naughty bits and the not-humping other women and maybe telling her she’s pretty more and listening to her complain and making her breakfast or tidying up after yourself or whatever other little things that happen more in a relationship than a friendship but are vital to the success—and I’m ranting.”

  She stopped talking suddenly, watching Austin as his shoulders shook in silent laughter. Her cheeks were awash with red—her embarrassment about her runaway thoughts not enough to stop her joining in with him though.

  When he finally managed to calm his laughter, he said, “I’m feeling a lot of judgement from you right now. A lot of suppressed hostility,” which only served to make them both laugh
harder—and more loudly.

  When they’d both finally calmed down, Odette was relieved that Austin took the lead—apparently her feelings about friends-to-lovers romances were rather touchy and a little close to the surface.

  “So, we’re doing this. No time limits. No assumptions it’s going to end, or plans to just be friends if one of us isn’t feeling it.” He reached across the table, and though Odie briefly thought of protecting her croissant, she soon realized he was reaching for her. But instead of giving him her hand, she stood and moved over to him again.

  Only this time, she didn’t just lean in and kiss his temple. No, this time, she waited for him to slide his chair back far enough that she could sit in his lap and wrap her arms around him. “No time limits. No half-assing it.”

  “We’re going all in.”

  “All in.”

  Chapter Eight

  Mine.

  It was possibly the manliest thought of Austin’s life—if manly thoughts were the same thing as possessive claims and caveman rumblings, that is. But they’d decided they were going all in, and as far as he was concerned, it was all smooth-sailing from now until the end of eternity.

  “Now that we’re together, does this mean sleepovers and cuddling lessons?” he asked, setting the tray with their now-empty plates and mugs on the counter leading into the bakery’s kitchen. Whether it was habit from his teen years as a busboy, or because he now owned a bar and appreciated the little things more, he didn’t know—he just preferred to leave as little mess in his wake, when he ate out, as possible. “Because I can’t wait for that to start.”

  She laughed, grabbing the hand he held out for her as they weaved through the tables and toward the front door. It wasn’t until they were out on the sidewalk that she tugged on his hand, making sure he turned to face her.

  “Yes, dear?” he asked, leaning down to kiss her because he could. After years of waiting and wanting, he had the right to kiss Odie, and he was going to take advantage.

  “I’m not going to be easy.” She returned his kiss, lifting a hand to his hair and playfully pulling on one of the curls he couldn’t seem to tame. Not that he really tried after she’d drunkenly admitted once that they fascinated her and made her want to touch.