She met my eyes. “Why?”
I blew out a long breath. “I guess there’s only one answer to that: I wanted to.”
Her lips parted, shock flashing in her eyes. Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she dipped her chin in an attempt to hide it. “Okay. Again, why?”
At that, I shrugged. “I can’t answer that. I wish I could, but all I know is that I wanted to kiss you, so I did.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Do I regret kissing you?”
“I’m not asking if you regret stealing my socks, Ethan.” She peered back up at me, something dark in her eyes. “Do you regret kissing me?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “A part of me does because of the situation it puts us in. It makes this living arrangement uncomfortable, doesn’t it? Not to mention fucking awkward, and that’s before you even consider that your brother is my best friend.”
She nodded slowly, reaching up and pushing a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. “What about the rest of you?”
“That’s the selfish part of me that doesn’t regret it.” I rubbed my fingers against my chin. “I wanted to kiss you, Ava, and I don’t regret following through with what I wanted to do.”
“Okay. I mean, that’s what I wanted to know, I guess. At least I know Angelica wasn’t lying.”
“What do you mean, she wasn’t lying?”
She played with a bit of string on the bottom of her yoga pants. “I asked her what your Achilles heel was. The thing I could use to really piss you off. She said it was me.”
I was going to fucking kill my sister.
She was the only person who knew exactly how I warred with my feelings about Ava, and she’d sold me out.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I got up and dragged my hand down my face. Turning back to face her, I said, “Listen. I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been attracted to you for a fucking long time, all right? But you’re Leo’s sister. You’re off-limits, and she’s the only person who ever knew that.”
“Until she told me.”
“Until she told you. Evidently, you’re attracted to me, too, or you wouldn’t have kissed me back.”
“Evidently.” She finally looked up at me, her eyes shining. “It can’t happen again,” she said quietly. “You’re right. It’s awkward, and I have no desire to do anything that would ruin your friendship with my brother.”
“I know. I wouldn’t do it either.” I put my hands in my pockets. “The awkwardness will pass, but you’re right. Not again.”
“Right.” She stood and walked past me into the kitchen. “I’m glad we cleared that up.”
“Me, too.”
She pulled a carton of juice from the fridge and set it on the island, but she didn’t move to get a glass. Instead, she stared at the carton, fiddling with the plastic lid, twisting it back and forth.
I opened my mouth with every intention of asking if she was okay, but nothing came out. Something was bothering her, and there was nothing I could say that would make her feel better.
I didn’t want to make her feel worse.
God only knew that I felt like shit. That conversation had been horrible, and she obviously felt the same. Upsetting her wasn’t something I wanted to do.
Ever.
She laughed.
Out of nowhere, she laughed, shaking her head.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” She caught my gaze. “We’ve spent years fighting with each other, hating each other, and one kiss and we can barely talk to each other at all. Crap.”
“I never hated you,” I admitted. “It’s just easier to keep you at arm’s length if I’m pissing you off.”
“Yeah, but that didn’t work out too well in the end, did it?” She snorted. “All it’s done is lead to one mistake. A mistake we can’t ever go back from. Are we supposed to wake up tomorrow and carry on this irritating fight we’re in the middle of? Or are we going to avoid each other for the next week? Seriously. It’s fucking dumb.”
She grabbed a glass and slammed it down onto the counter.
“Careful. We don’t need another broken glass.” I waved my finger as a reminder of what’d happened a couple of nights ago. “And I’m not going to call it a mistake. Kissing you wasn’t a mistake.”
“If it wasn’t a mistake, why did you say you regret it?”
“I regret what’s happening now. I don’t regret doing it.”
“That’s not what you said a minute ago.”
“What do you want from me, Ava?” I slammed my hands on the island counter. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’ve fought my attraction to you for fucking years, and a decision I made in a split second has changed all of that.”
“I don’t want anything from you!” She mimicked my position, flattening her hands on the countertop. “I just… I don’t know how to live with you now, Ethan. I don’t know how I’m supposed to be your roommate and do normal shit like watch TV with you when every single time we’re alone, I know I’m going to think about what it was like to kiss you.”
Her voice trailed off at the end of her admission, and something inside me clenched.
Was there a chance that I wasn’t the only one hiding some feelings?
“You’re not the only one who’s aware of my brother, okay?” She took a deep breath and looked away. “You’re not the only person who’s kept things secret because of him.”
Shit.
Fuck.
Shit.
This wasn’t information I needed.
It wasn’t information I fucking wanted. What was I supposed to do now?
“I—I think I’m gonna call Reagan. I’ll stay at her place tonight.” Ava stepped away from the island, unable to look at me.
“No.” I took my own step away. “This is your apartment first. I’ll stay with my mom. I’ll come back after work to get the hedgehog so you don’t have to feed it, all right?”
“I can do it once,” she said softly. “As long as you swear it won’t bite me.”
“I swear he won’t bite you.” My lips twitched into a smile. Not that she could see it. “I’m gonna head back to work.”
She nodded, still looking at an unknown spot on the floor.
I wanted to go over there and wrap my arms around her. I wanted to hold her against me and press her face into my chest. To reach down and cup her chin and lift her face to mine, to whisper against her lips that I was sorry. So fucking sorry for making it awkward, for making her feel this way, for even a second.
I didn’t.
I clenched my fist, grabbed my keys, and left.
And you know what? For a few seconds, I really fucking hated myself. I hated that kissing her had made her feel like that. I hated that it’d been my choice to kiss her. That, in reality, I hadn’t given her a choice about it—I was going to kiss her, and if she’d kicked me in the balls, I would have taken it.
I’d changed our relationship. Any idea that we could brush it under the rug was now shattered. We were irrevocably changed.