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I am shocked this conversation is taking a vastly different turn. “You don’t sound like Tucker.”
“Tucker didn’t notice the way she used to look at you.”
My eyes find Ava’s again, and she’s staring at me curiously.Okay?She mouths at me, and I nod once. Her eyes light up, and she smiles, momentarily rendering me speechless.
I hold one finger up and walk out of the kitchen so I can press Sam for a bit more information and so she wouldn’t be a distraction. “How she looked at me?”
“Ava always had a little crush on you, Jackson. The first week you left for college, she barely left her room. She was only ten at the time, but she was crushed. Her mother and I assumed it was just a harmless crush, and she would get over it. Of course, with time she did. But then you didn’t come home for her high school graduation…that hurt her.”
Iremember that. For some reason Carla called me earlier in that week to ask if I would be home for Ava’s graduation. I had a final the day before, and then I wanted to celebrate being done with school, so I had no intentions of coming home. Carla understood, but I didn’t know her daughter didn’t.
“Either way,” he continues, “she’s always admired you, Jackson. Looked up to you. She’s always cared about you, in more than just a big brother type of way.”
“I-- I had no idea.”Well not until recently when she told me she’d had a crush on me. But I had no idea it had run that deep.
“Ava will probably kill me for telling you all of this…,” he chuckles. “Don’t worry about Tucker; I’ll straighten him out. What’s he doing just barging into your bedroom, anyhow? Y’all ain’t got boundaries?”
“Evidently not?” I rub my face thinking about how my best friend caught me in such an intimate state with his little sister.I can only imagine how mortified Ava felt. Speaking of which, I should make sure she’s okay about that. We never really got a chance to talk about it.
“Well, lock your doors, son! And… take care of my princess.”
“I will.”
“And Jackson?”
I freeze, knowing what’s coming next.Although Sam is taking this better than Tucker, I can only imagine the pain he’d inflict if I ever hurt Ava. And he’s about to let me know that— now.
“Yeah?”
“If you fuck this up, I’ll kill you.”
I walk back into the kitchen to see Ava furiously texting on her phone. She hasn’t noticed I’ve walked in, so I take a second to admire how beautiful she is. Never in a million years would I have thought I would fall for little Ava Remington.
She looks up just as she slams her phone face down with a huff, and her angry eyes find mine. They soften dramatically as I make my way across the room, desperate to have her in my arms again. “He’s being such a jerk,” she pouts as I box her against the counter, pressing my groin against her back. I rest my chin on her shoulder and nuzzle her ear.
“He’s just protective. You know this.”
“He didn’t have to hit you.” She turns around in my arms to face me and runs her fingers over my bruised jaw. “What did my dad say?” She winces as she remembers where I’ve been for the past few minutes.
I tuck a hair behind her ear. “He…took it better than your brother.”
Her eyes light up instantly. “Really?”
Sam Remington’s words play through my head on a loop, and I wonder if it’s possible she’s in love with me because-- she’s always been in love with me. The thought sends a spark through my body. “I’m sorry I missed your graduation—both of them,” I add, remembering I had also missed her college graduation, though I’m sure she wasn’t expecting me for that one.
She furrows her brow in confusion as if she doesn’t know what caused this chain of thought. “I promise I’ll be at the next one, baby,” I tell her, referring to her law school graduation.
She must finally realize what her father told me as she nods in understanding. “I did want you there,” she tells me softly. “I came to yours.”
I smile as I remember a ten-year-old Ava, sitting next to her parents and her brother as I walked across the stage a year early. “I know I missed a lot in your life growing up. But-- I want to be in it now,” I tell her honestly. “For-- as long as you want me to be.”
She doesn’t say anything, and I’ll admit it stings that she didn’t use the opportunity to tell me how she feels.Maybe she isn’t there yet, Walsh. She is younger, and you’re the first man she’s had a relationship with or been intimate with. Give her a minute to process everything.
But in the same regard, she has always had feelings for you. If she loved you, she’d know by now.
Right?
I shake my head, trying to stop myself from the arguments forming in my mind. I’m trying to keep myself from the point of no return, which ends with me deciding that all I am to Ava is her first— not her last. “Now, as much as I want to go find your brother, I do think he needs some time, and I believe earlier you said something about blowing me?” I grin, despite the fact I’m somewhat hurt at her lack of reciprocating those three words I want to hear.
