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It was a fire I’d wanted to taste.
I still wanted to taste it. I wanted to wind her up again so she’d yell at me. When she yelled, her eyes shone, and her cheeks flushed with pink.
There was something weirdly sexy about it.
Mostly because I knew I deserved the yelling. Stealing one sock out of every pair was probably the pettiest thing I could do to her, but maybe it was only hot when she was mad because I found it so fucking funny.
Yeah. That was probably it.
Either way, we had to fix something. The smartest thing to do would be to end this little war we had going on. It was bringing us closer together, and after yesterday, getting too close would take us over the line.
To a place we’d never be able to come back from.
I dragged myself out of the car. The lights flashed when I hit the fob to lock it, and I forced myself up the flights of stairs to the apartment. The elevator was busted, and I made a note to call the landlord and get it fixed.
Stairs were for the birds.
I reached our apartment and let myself in. Ava was sitting cross-legged on the sofa with her hair in what I was now realizing was her at-home hairstyle. A.K.A, styled by Halley’s raccoons and tied up on top of her head by someone with no fingers.
She looked over from the TV and dug her hand into the bowl she had rested on her lap. “Hey. Did you get lost coming up the stairs?”
“Why?”
“I opened the window ten minutes ago and saw you pull in.”
Shit. “I got a phone call,” I lied. “Did you get lunch?”
She shoved popcorn in her mouth and pointed in the direction of the kitchen.
“Thanks.” I shut the door behind me and went to get it. I didn’t know what she’d grabbed me, but I didn’t care, because I was so damn hungry I’d eat just about anything right now.
I unwrapped the sandwich. It was a BLT, and I wolfed it down quickly. With my stomach full but still twisting with the conversation that was to come, I grabbed a water from the fridge and joined her on the sofa.
“What are you watching?” I asked, sitting down.
“Some documentary on the British Royal Family,” she answered, her hand back in the popcorn bowl. “But you don’t care about that.”
“If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have asked.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “But you’re not entirely wrong. I don’t have long.”
“Because you wasted half this time sitting in your car, pretending to be on the phone?”
“Wow. Call me out, why don’t you?”
“I did.” She grinned and put the bowl on the coffee table. She wiped her fingers on her yoga pants, and I had to admit that I was glad to see she was wearing a bra.
That was the last thing I needed—to be distracted by her.
“Fine.” I turned, my lips tugging to one side.
Ava adjusted her glasses, briefly pulling them off to clean them even though they didn’t look dirty at all.
She was stalling, just like I’d been in the car.
“You kissed me.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, and it was a true one at that.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I kissed you.”
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.”
