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“Oh yeah?”
Ava nods. “She was the first female student to get suspended for not wearing appropriate clothes, but it wasn’t like her skirt was too short or anything. It was because she wore combat boots and pants.” Her words falter at the end, a weak giggle taking their place.
“That sounds like your mom,” I muse, then ask, “Do you know who your dad is?”
“Nope,” she answers, shaking her head. She flips to her back, eyeing the ceiling, her hand covering mine on her stomach. “Mom said he was a guy she dated for a while, but he didn’t stick around long enough for her to even tell him she was pregnant.”
“You ever want to look for him? What if he could help you out financially?”
“I thought about it for, like, one second. But it would be almost impossible. She never told me his name or had it on my birth certificate, and I don’t want to ask her now. I don’t want her to know how desperate we are, you know?”
I lean up on my elbow, look down at her. “It’s that bad?”
“We’re doing okay right now, but yeah…” The corner of her lips dip downward. “We’ll be going in the red pretty soon.”
“So, what do you do then?” I ask.
Ava shrugs, her chest rising with her weighty inhale. Her eyes flick to mine quickly before shifting away. “Just hope everything falls into place.”
Her phone chimes with a text, and she rolls her eyes as she reads it.
Rhys: I’m going to send Mitch to pick your flakey asses up if you don’t get here soon.
Ava sighs. “Do you want to go?”
“Do you?”
“I guess, yeah. It should be fun.”
“So would staying in bed and beating my PB.”
Laughing, she gets out of bed, dragging me with her. “We’ll have more time for that later.”
“Ava.” I stand in front of her, take both her hands in mine. “This is important, and I need you to listen to me.”
“Okay.”
“Because I don’t want to disappoint you.”
“Connor.” She pouts up at me. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, suck in a breath. “I don’t know if I can beat a minute, forty-eight.”
* * *
Ava’s in a bikini that shows off everything. Well, not everything, but close enough, and I don’t know how to feel about it. Luckily, we haven’t left yet, so there are no prying eyes.
“Is it too revealing?”
Yes. I clamp my lips together, shake my head. “Nope.”
“It’s just I haven’t bought any new ones since everything with Mom, so these are all, like, from when I was fourteen.”
Well, that explains it. “I mean, it’s a little… tight.”
Standing in front of a full-length mirror, I try to pry my eyes away from her ass as she looks over her shoulder at me. “Too small to wear out?”
Don’t be a dick, Connor. Don’t be a dick. “It’s fine.” It’s not.
