I listened to her pour her heart out. Realizing that all of the events of the day had caught up with her, with both of us. Even as I craved her body under mine, I knew that what she needed was me.
“Hey,” I grabbed her hand. “Put on some pants. I’ve got an idea. When you’re decent, come to the living room.”
Avery watched me go. I could feel the intensity in her gaze when I opened the door and closed it behind me.
“Chris!” I called his name loudly, knowing that he and Liam were probably eavesdropping again. I was proven right a few seconds later, when he stuck his head around the corner from the office.
“What do you want?” He narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously.
“Get some pants on if you don’t already got ‘em on. We’re gonna order pizza and watch a movie. Avery and you have no doubt had a shitty day. We all have. And I think she needs company. You’re her person, so Liam’s gonna have to give you up for her to cuddle on if she wants it.”
Liam joined him in staring at me. “Wow,” he said quietly. “The man’s good. I had to have it explained to me. He just figured it out, like it wasn’t even a mystery.”
I ran a hand through my hair, not really wanting to explain myself, but not knowing what else I could do about it to get them to go along with my plan. “Look,” I admitted. “I know what it means to have someone in your life during the hard moments. Deacon told me she had an accident, and it changed her. You’re her roommate, and every time I’ve seen her, you’ve been there like her guardian angel. So yeah, I believe that you’re her person. And I’m confident enough in who I am, and what I can be to her, to let her take comfort in you. I’m new.” I raised an eyebrow and stared at him, getting my point across. “You’re old.”
Avery stepped into the hall, with her hair up in a messy bun. I could smell her toothpaste, and she was wearing the shirt I’d had on earlier, along with a pair of leggings that hugged every single one of her curves.
“Chris is gonna order pizza,” I informed her when she stepped into my body, while I wrapped my arms around her.
We stood in the hall like that, all four of us, as though it were completely normal and expected.
“That’s perfect.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Chris, don’t forget the pineapples and jalapeños.”
Chris mock-saluted, even though she couldn’t see him, and went to order the food. Liam stayed, looking me over with an unexpectedly critical eye, but I didn’t care. I had Avery in my arms, and everything else could just take a back seat.
Luckily, their living room had a massive couch that comfortably fit all four of us, and the coffee table easily held the four different pizzas that Chris ordered. While we ate, Avery put on cartoon reruns. When she started snoring on my chest not long after finishing her food, I was more surprised than Chris was.
“She’s not afraid of you touching her,” he noted when he silently offered me a beer. “I’m the only one she’s not related to that she’s let touch her since the accident.”
“Deacon told me a little.” I swallowed the beer down, enjoying the cool and refreshing way it felt against my throat. “But he sounded like a worried older brother. Unsure and wanting to protect her.”
“Will left town, after the accident. He broke Avery’s heart, or she’s convinced herself that he did. But she didn’t care about him. Not the way she should have. And when he left her in the hospital, recovering from the accident that he had caused, Avery lost a part of herself. She stopped trusting, stopped letting anyone touch her. Physically or emotionally.”
Chris squeezed Liam’s leg, where his hand rested. “I love her, sometimes more than my own sister. But she needs someone like you. Someone to challenge her. To push her buttons, and to remind her that she’s making stupid decisions that aren’t truly her.”
With that, he grabbed Liam’s hand and walked away without another word.
“Night, Carter.” Liam waved giddily. “We’ll try to keep it down.”
While I turned the volume up on the TV, I laid out on the couch, pulling Avery with me. Her breath hitched, and I felt her body tense. My girl liked to pretend that she was asleep, that’s for sure. Most likely, she thought we’d talk bad about her while she slept. I shook my head.
“I know you’re awake Ms. James,” I whispered into her ear. “And when everything dies down, I want you to tell me about the accident. About what happened. When you’re ready.”
“Not a chance in Hell.” She whispered back. “I don’t care how much I like your dick. Some things just aren’t meant to be shared.”
She’d thrown down the gauntlet, again.
The only difference between the last time and now … I would be playing for keeps.
Avery didn’t know it yet, but she didn’t stand a chance.
17
Avery
Constant sex did marvelous things to my brain. And body. And every other part of my life. Carter refused to take no for an answer, even though I hadn’t wanted to kick him out since that first night.
I spent almost every single night with Carter now. Especially with Lucas living with him; he needed to be there for him.
When the front door slammed in the distance while I sat on the counter drinking coffee, I knew it had to be one of them. Quick, light footsteps that belonged to Lucas led straight into the kitchen, where he dropped his bag on the table and beamed at me.
“Miss James!” His exclamation caught me off guard. Even now, an entire month after he’d been removed from his mother’s house, I didn’t know if he liked me most days.
Yes, I knew I was absolutely crazy, but Lucas had spent the beginning of the year avoiding even looking at me. I’d had to discipline him, and even had to call his mother in after the incident where he tried to cut Ciara’s hair off. I would live with the fact that I’d probably caused some of the bruises on his body for the rest of my life. I would never tell another living soul, but I had nightmares about Lucas and the pain his mother must have caused him. Every night. Well, almost every night. When Carter held me in his arms, it wasn’t as bad.
Lucas walked right by me, smiling. “Are you staying the night again?” He grabbed a snack from the fridge and sat at the kitchen table with his backpack. The entire time I watched him, my heart bursting at the seams with how truly happy he seemed in Carter’s house. “I think you should. We can watch movies again.”
“Actually,” I laughed. “Yes. I am. Carter has to stay late for a case, so I told him I’d stay with you. I was just about to ask if that would be alright with you. But I guess it is.”
That’s really the reason I had a cup of coffee in my hand at four in the afternoon. With Carter gone, I didn’t want to fall asleep. Not until after Lucas was well and truly knocked out. I wasn’t the only one with nightmares. More often than not, if Carter wasn’t home, I ended up lying in bed with Lucas, just holding him while he slept. And when he came to me and told me he had another accident in bed, I helped him clean it up so he wouldn’t be ashamed.
I never imagined that I’d be granted emergency provisional foster care capabilities. And then, Bria had knocked on my door at six in the morning to tell me that Birch County was overburdened with children needing social services, and that they’d fast-tracked my application. All of a sudden, being able to care for Lucas was possible. I just had a huge list of classes that I had to work through, which I’d already been slogging into when I could.