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She hugs me fiercely, as if she senses I need help to stop my violent shakes. I do. “You’re shaking.”
“You make me so happy,” I whisper, my voice ragged, my heart hurting.
“I thought I made you crazy.”
I smile sadly and face her. “You make me crazy happy.” I push away the hair sticking to her perfectly wet face, kissing the tip of her perfect nose. “You also make me crazy mad.” My eyebrows lift without instruction.
“I prefer you when you’re crazy happy,” she tells me. “You’re scary when you’re crazy mad.”
Yes, I know. I scare myself, but . . . “Then stop doing things to make me crazy mad.”
She has the nerve to appear outraged. Don’t tell me she wanted that dress today. She didn’t. Don’t tell me she enjoyed downing that whole glass of wine the night I wrestled her into a jumper. She didn’t. I’m all for her holding on to her free will, but not at the expense of my sanity. She’ll learn. But, more importantly, will I learn to deal with my newfound intense reactions? Or better still, control them? I can try. Honestly, though, I don’t have much faith in myself. Ava O’Shea brings out the best in me while bringing out the worst. Strangely, the worst is a side I never knew I had, and I’m fucked if I know how to handle it. A little like she doesn’t know how to handle it. We’re in this together. Navigating these foreign waters together.
“I would never hurt you intentionally, Ava,” I say without much thought. I’m being provoked by the unknown. The unknown is how she’ll deal with the truth.
“I know.” She sighs, and it holds too much uncertainty for my liking, but I can’t ask for much more. I turn and fall to my back, bringing Ava with me, and we settle, me staring at the ceiling as I weave my fingers through her hair, Ava tracing patterns across my stomach, slowing when she reaches my scar. It tingles under her fingertip.
“Were you in the army?” she asks quietly.
My hands still for a beat. I could say yes, end the mystery for her, but as my lie tickles my lips, giving me an out on this particular problem, I find other words materializing. “No. Leave it, Ava.”
“Why did you disappear on me?”
“I told you,” I say, swallowing, becoming hot for other reasons. “I was a mess”—that’s the truth—“and you asked for space.” That’s a cop-out.
“Why?”
I close my eyes, praying for the end of this interrogation. I’m not prepared. Not ready. “You spark feelings in me.”
“What sort of feelings?”
“All sorts, Ava.” So many, I’m struggling to find the words to explain, but I’m trying. I'm trying so fucking hard.
“Is that a bad thing?” she presses.
“It is when you don’t know how to deal with them.” I sigh, and she stalls stroking my stomach for a few moments. She’s thinking, and what this woman thinks is a constant fear.
“You think I belong to you.”
Think? “No. Iknowyou do.”
Is she smiling against me? “When did you establish that?”
“When I spent four days trying to get you out of my head.”
“It didn’t work?”
“No. I was even crazier.” I would move heaven and earth to change how I handled that particular meltdown. “Go to sleep.”
“What were you doing to try and get me out of your head?”
Don’t be mad, Jesse. You can’t be mad with her.“It doesn’t matter. It didn’t work, end of. Go to sleep.”
I know it’s hard for her, but she relents, settling, making my skin heat under the friction of her repeated swirls. The silence screams. “Tell me how old you are.”
“No,” I say shortly, unable to muster the energy to remember where the fuck we got to in this ridiculous age game. There are more important matters to deal with. But while she’s snuggled into me like this, quiet, her leg thrown over mine, her cheek squished to my chest, those issues are easy to disregard. Just hold her.
Her breathing becomes shallow, and I love the warmth of her breath spread across my skin. Asleep. I reach across to the nightstand, trying not to disturb her, feeling for my phone. I pull the camera up and turn it onto us, getting us both on the screen. I gaze at her. She looks peaceful. I move my eyes across to myself. I look peaceful too.
