First and Forever: Heartache Duet Book 2

by McLean, Jay

  “It’s a… boy thing,” I tell her because apparently, I’m twelve.

  Karen smiles, and I realize how badly I miss these moments with her. “A Connor thing?”

  I nod.

  “So? Tell me.”

  “I… I’m scared.”

  She settles in next to me, her legs kicked out, her arms outstretched behind her. “Of what, exactly?”

  “Of history repeating, I guess.”

  “Well, I don’t really know what happened with you guys last time, so…”

  “Things just got too hard,” I admit. “With my mom and his basketball, it just seemed to take up all our time, and when we were together, it was… I don’t know. Bad? Not bad as in we didn’t want to be there, but we were under so much stress and…” I puff out a breath. “I’m talking in circles, and this is pointless.” I stand, unable to sit still any longer.

  “It’s not pointless. But just… get it out, A. Whatever you’re thinking, just say it.”

  I look at her, at the genuine concern in her eyes, and so I do as she says and just… let go. “The first time we fell in love, it was… magic, you know? Like we were two people who just happened to be at the right place at the right time, and there was this undeniable attraction…” I start pacing, my heart beating wildly in my chest. “And we just seemed so connected in so many ways, and then life… life happened, and it tore us apart, and that’s okay.” I nod to myself, my throat aching with my swallow. “I’ve come to terms with the fact that it had to happen, but now…”

  “Now what?” she asks, her voice low as she watches me.

  “Now, it’s different.”

  “How?”

  I slump back down next to her. “Now, it’s like those feelings have amplified. We’re so close to being back there, but I’m afraid because… because things are so much more now. They mean so much more. I mean, every time he looks at me, I feel this”—I bring my hand to my heart—“this ache in here, like… like something is missing and Connor’s it, and last night…”

  “What happened last night?” she encourages.

  “Last night, he came over and he and my mom—they had this moment together that just killed me in all the best ways.”

  “So, what’s the problem?” she laughs out.

  “I—” I take a calming breath, drop my head in my hands. “I want it so bad,” I say, trying to collect my emotions. “But I want it forever. And I don’t think that’s possible. Not under my circumstances. Not even under his.”

  Karen nods as if taking everything in. She stares out at the field for seconds that feel like hours. Then she blinks, slowly, her gaze moving to mine. “You want to know what I think?”

  “Please,” I breathe out.

  “I think maybe the first time, you fell in love with the idea of him, you know?”

  I nod.

  “And now… now you’re in love with him.”

  My breath catches while I let her words sink in. “Yeah,” I whisper. “You’re right. I am. I’m so in love with him, Karen.”

  She smiles, but it’s almost sad. “I love that you’re in love, Ava. You deserve it.” She links her arm with mine, nudging me gently. “And as far as this fear of forever that you have? Forever’s never guaranteed. You know that more than anyone. So, I guess you should ask yourself if forever ended tomorrow, would you rather go out holding on to regret or holding on to Connor.”

  “Connor,” I whisper, facing her. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She kisses my cheek, then giggles. “I guess I should probably stop hitting on him now.”

  “I mean, yeah,” I laugh. “I’d appreciate it.”

  Chapter 15

  Connor

  “If you plan to go pro, you have to get used to this shit,” Rhys says after hearing me complain about the open practice we’re about to have. It’s not that I mind doing stuff like this, and I know how important it is… school spirit and all that, but I’d prefer to be using my practice time doing things that better my skill, especially since playoffs start this week. It just seems like a waste of time. I may as well go home and sit on my porch for the slight chance of seeing Ava. It’s been days since I’ve had any real time with her, and it’s getting under my skin. We text every now and then, but it’s not the same.

  “Let’s go, gentlemen,” Coach yells.

  We file out of the locker room and onto the court, one by one, surrounded by the loud support of our peers. “Just get it done,” Rhys says, smacking the back of my head. We start as we always do, with warm-ups, and it’s not until I’m halfway through them that I see her. Sitting next to Karen in the front row, Ava’s biting back a smile as she watches me. There’s a balloon in her hand, bright orange, and she lifts her hand in a wave. I make my way over to her, ignoring everything else. Squatting down to her level, I say, because it’s the only thing my brain can come up with, “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she replies through a breathy giggle.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Baking.” Smart ass.

  “I mean, how did you manage to—”

  “Ledger!” Coach calls.

  “One second!” I shout back.

  Coach yells, “Now, boy!”

  Ava laughs, her head dipping. “Ooh, you’re in trouble.” Then she pushes on my shoulders hard enough that I have to catch myself on an outstretched arm. “Go! Do your thing, number three!”

  I flex, I admit it. But there’s something about Ava’s presence that makes me want to push myself harder than I usually do. Besides, it’s not often she gets to see me in action in real life, and so of course, I give her a show.

  I have to.

  As soon as the practice is over, I race over to Ava, making sure I catch her before she leaves.

  “Hi,” I say again.

  Shaking her head, she smiles up at me. “Watching you on the court is like watching paint dry. I’ve never been so bored in my life.”

  “Sorry,” I laugh out. “I’ll try harder next time.”

  She clucks her tongue. “I don’t think there’s going to be a next time, number three. You were that bad.”

  Karen stands to the side of us, watching our back and forth with a dip in her brow. “So, this is what being in love looks like?”

  “Karen!” Ava whisper-yells, her eyes wide and focused on her old best friend.

  Busted.

  “What?” Karen shrugs. “As if you both don’t know.”

  Ava takes a breath, eyes on me again. “Karen’s giving me a ride home. It’s just as quick as if I were to take the bus.”

  “Or me!” I rush out—too loud, too enthusiastic—and point a thumb to myself. “I could give you a ride home.”

  “I know,” she says. “It’s just, by the time you shower and—”

  “No shower,” I cut in. “Let me just grab my things.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Karen speaks up. “He’s sure, Ava.” Then to me: “We’ll meet you outside.”

  I nod at the same time Ava orders, “Give me your jersey.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her.

  She shrugs. “For my collection.”

  Without a thought, I reach behind me, pull my jersey off of my back and hand it to her.

  Karen lets out a low whistle while Ava stares at my bare chest. Then she brings the jersey to her nose, inhales deeply. “Mmm. Pre-shower jock might be my favorite.”

  “You’re so weird,” Karen laughs out, throwing her arm around Ava’s neck. “Go get your shit, Ledger,” she says, spinning Ava around. They make it to the exit before I realize I’m staring at Ava… and Ava—she’s staring back, her neck craned to look at me, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

  I rush to grab my things and put on a sweatshirt. Then I go to the parking lot, where Ava and Karen are standing by my truck. Ava’s wearing my jersey, school skirt and knee-highs, and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a hard-on so fast. She’s holding Karen’s pom-poms to her chest, and when she sees me
, she grins full force. “Ready? Okay!” she yells, the standard cheerleader call. She moves the pom-poms around, her arms and legs kicking out, and I picture every guy in the parking lot watching her and let my growl die in my throat. I close in, seeing her smile fade the closer I get. Her head tilts back to look up at me when I stop in front of her. I take the pom-poms from her, hand them back to Karen. “You don’t need these.”

  Ava giggles. “You don’t like cheerleaders?”

  Shaking my head, I lead her with a hand on her hip to the passenger’s side of my truck and open the door. “I like you as my own personal one, sure,” I murmur, helping her step up and settle into her seat.

  She eyes me a moment. “That’s a little possessive, no?”

  I shrug. “Say it again without wearing my name on your back.”

  “It’s just a jersey,” she whispers, her gaze locked on my lips.

  “If that’s the story you’re going with.”

  We’re halfway home by the time either of us says anything, the tension in the cab keeping us quiet. I say, “How was your day?” at the same time Ava says, “I know it’s not just a jersey.” I clamp my lips together, hoping she’ll continue, and she does. “I know that it signifies a lot more than that, and I like that it does. The thing is, I have some stuff that I need to sort out right now, just a couple of personal hurdles… and I know it’s not fair to ask you to wait for me, but I was wondering if maybe when I do have everything worked out if maybe you’d want to try again… with me?”

  I glance over at her, my smile unrestrained. “Yes.”

  “Yeah?”

  “A huge fuck yes, Ava, yes,” I laugh out, unable to hide my excitement. This is everything I wanted. Everything I needed. “And I don’t care how long it takes you to be ready. I’m so here for it.”

  She removes her seatbelt, just long enough to slide in next to me on the bench seat. She kisses my jaw. “Thank you,” she says, as if I’m going out of my way to one day be with her. The girl’s delusional, and I kind of love that she is.

  I pull up outside our houses and cut the engine, but I don’t make a move to get out. Instead, I lean against the car door and face her. She’s already watching me, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “So,” she says.

  “So?”

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Anytime.”

  “And for the jersey,” she says, tugging on the fabric.

  “Sure.”

  “Okay,” she says through a giggle, sliding across and opening the door.

  “Hey,” I rush out and then stop because I didn’t really have anything to say. I’m just not ready to be apart yet. “You think maybe we can work on that multimedia assignment?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Or now…?”

  She glances over at her house and then back at me. “I don’t really know what state my mom will be in.”

  “Of course, yeah,” I reply, nodding as I stare past her, trying to hide my disappointment.

  “If you give me a few minutes, I can find out and see…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh huh.” She can’t seem to stop smiling, and I can’t either. And neither of us can take our eyes off each other.

  If the world ended and I died right now, I’d be pretty damn happy. I’d be an eighteen-year-old virgin, sure, but still… I’d be happy.

  I wait out by my truck while Ava goes into her house. She opens the door a few minutes later and waves me in. Exhilaration knocking on my flesh from the inside, I grab my bag from the car and make my way in. “You must be Connor, six-five, weak jump shot,” a woman, I assume is Krystal, says in greeting.

  “Damn, what’s with the women in this house?” I retort.

  Krystal laughs, squeezes Ava’s forearm as she passes. “Have a good night, sweetheart.”

  Once Krystal’s gone, Ava turns to me. “Mom’s having a zero-day, so…”

  Ava had explained the rating system of her mom’s temperament and emotions to me before. A zero-day means nothing. The way Ava explained it, it’s as though her mother is a shell, and inside, she is empty. Which sucks, but it’s far better than a negative day.

  “She’s in the kitchen working on her speech words, so is it okay if we sit with her there? Just so I can—”

  “Of course,” I cut in. I follow Ava into her kitchen, where her mom sits at the table with a bunch of flashcards in front of her. She picks up one. “Cat,” she says, looking at the picture.

  Ava offers me a sad smile. “Did you want a drink?”

  “Sure, thanks.” I drop my bag on the floor and take a seat opposite her mom. “Hey, Miss D,” I say quietly.

  Miss Diaz looks up, then right back down, picks up another card. “Dog.” She moves it to the top of a pile on her right at the same time Ava places a plastic cup of water in front of me.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Miss Diaz picks up another card, and I notice now they’re all pictures of animals. “Tuttle,” she says.

  Ava sits next to me. “Turtle,” she corrects.

  “Turtle,” Miss Diaz states. This card goes to a pile on her left, thicker than the one on her right.

  “Do you have any idea what particular murder you want to focus on?” Ava asks me.

  “Not really,” I answer.

  And Miss Diaz says, “Murder.”

  Ava smiles over at her. “That’s not on your cards, Mama. If Connor and I are a distraction, I can ask him to leave.”

  Miss Diaz shakes her head. “Connor, six-five, but is hoping for a growth spurt.” She glances up at me. “Hi, Connor.”

  “Hi, Miss D.”

  “Jo. You call me Jo.”

  “Okay, Jo.”

  Fixated on her cards again, she picks up a picture of a bee. “Bee.” She puts the card on a pile to the right.

  “Connor?” Ava says, pulling my stare away from her mom. “Should we start narrowing down our favorite murders?”

  “It’s so weird when you say it like that.”

  “Murder,” says Jo.

  Ava sighs, and her mom goes back to the cards.

  Ava and I spend the next couple of hours working on our project, deciding that the current hype around the sudden arrest of the Golden State Killer from back in the seventies and eighties will give us enough resources to create a decent podcast or video. We gather as much information as we can while Jo continues her flashcards. She’s moved on from animals to inanimate objects. Ball, ring, bat, all of these go to the pile on her right. Toaster, television, computer all go to the left.

  “Hey, Jo,” I say, curious. “What is it that you said I needed to work on?”

  She looks up at me. “Connor, six-five, weak jump shot.”

  “My jump shot, huh?”

  She nods.

  Ava’s eyes narrow as she gently nudges my leg under the table. “What are you doing?” she whispers.

  I ignore her and ask her mom, “Do you know what sport I play?”

  Jo scoffs. “Basketball.”

  I find a picture of the basketball from her pile and push it toward her with my index finger. “What’s this?”

  Ava kicks me. Hard. I ignore it again.

  “Ball,” says her mom.

  “What kind of ball?”

  Jo sighs. “Ball.”

  “I know it’s a ball,” I say, and now Ava is grinding her foot on top of mine. “But what kind of ball?”

  Jo looks up at me, a blank expression marring her features.

  I lean forward. “Did you play any sports in college?” I ask her.

  She nods. “Basketball.”

  “One second, Mama,” Ava says through gritted teeth. She gets to her feet and tugs on my ear, using that grip until I’m standing up and she’s dragging my ass out into the living room. “What the hell are you doing?” she whisper-yells, finally releasing me.

  I rub at my ear, relieving the pain. “Your mom’s not deaf, Ava. She can hear you just fine.”

  Her arms cross. “You�
�re making her feel stupid!”

  “No, I’m not,” I say, matching her stance. “I’m having a conversation with her. Didn’t you just see what happened?”

  “All I saw was you being a dick, and if you want to keep going, you can leave.”

  “Ava.” I grasp her shoulders, get her to face the kitchen, where her mom’s still going with those pointless flashcards. “She has two piles,” I start.

  “I know this,” Ava snaps.

  I overlook her attitude and continue, my hands still on her shoulders. “The ones on her right are the ones she gets correct. They’re single-syllable words. Everything else is on the left, and they’re more than one syllable. But she can say those words, Ava. She just can’t connect them to the picture. Like when she was looking at the basketball, she didn’t say it was a basketball. She said it was a ball, and she got frustrated about it. But when I talk to her, when she’s having a conversation, she says the word, and she says it easily and clearly.”

  Ava’s shoulders drop as she inhales a sharp breath.

  “Those flashcards,” I say, “they’re useless. You just need to talk to her.”

  After a long moment of quiet, Ava calls out, “Hey, Mama? Do you remember Trevor’s pet that he kept in his room? His name was Fetch.”

  Jo nods.

  “Do you remember what animal it was?”

  “Turtle,” Jo answers, not skipping a beat.

  “Oh, my God, Connor!” Ava turns to me, her arms going around my neck. “How did I not see that earlier?”

  I don’t have an answer, so I don’t respond. Instead, I hold her to me, her cheek to my chest.

  Their front door opens, and Trevor walks in. Without looking up, he slips off his shoes and demands, “Love me! Feed me! Honor me!” He turns and sees Ava and me, our arms wrapped around each other. “Oh, so we’re doing this again,” he mumbles.

  Ava giggles, releasing me. “Connor’s just here to do some homework.”

  “Oh yeah,” he responds, walking past us and into the kitchen. “I remember when I called it ‘homework,’ too.” He places his hand on Ava’s mom’s shoulder and kisses her right on her scars. “What’s up, Mama Jo?”

  Miss Diaz taps his hand lovingly. “Connor, six-five is here.”