AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 23
Thanks to Cleo’s love of squirrel watching, the blinds in Allison’s childhood bedroom had a dog-shaped hole in the corner, and the morning sun blazed through it, urging her awake.
Groaning, she turned away from where her head had been pillowed against Colin’s bare chest and started to rise from the mattress.
“Nooo,” he moaned. His arm wrapped around her waist and coaxed her more tightly to him. “Stay.” There was a sleepy rasp in his voice that warmed her center.
Allison let him hold her. At some point, they’d had the wherewithal to get dressed (Colin in his cat boxers, Allison in a baggy T-shirt and some underwear), but with his warm breath dancing through her messy hair and his fingers burrowing beneath her shirt to stroke her stomach, she felt every bit as close to him as she had during sex.
Ever since she’d lost her virginity in high school, sex had been one of those things that made Allison feel tooinher body. No matter how much she loved herself, it was hard to chase off worries about her size when someone’s hands and mouth were all over her, or when she remembered how rare it was to see a shape like hers viewed as beautiful or attractive. Was he comparing her to thinner girls? Did her waist, her ass, her chest feel wrong in his hands? Was she not enough? Toomuch? Sometimes, those thoughts grew so big they crowded her head, making climaxing impossible.
Yet with Colin, in this bed, as the sun had crept over the horizon, there’d been only him and her, and the feel of being tangled up in each other again. Letting go had been as easy, as natural, as breathing.
His lips brushed her shoulder with a softness that sent a shiver through Allison’s limbs. “I’m glad last night wasn’t a dream.”
Her heart fluttered. “Me, too.”
Gentle fingers tucked her waves behind her ear as Colin’s mouth traced a path up her neck to her lips. They’d just sunk into a slow, deep kiss when Monty let out a bark from the floor below.
With a pained sigh, Allison broke off their embrace and slid out of the bed. So much for round two.
Colin rose to join her, but she waved him back down. “I’m going to let the dogs out.” She threw the blanket over his head. It was barely eight in the morning. No sense in them both losing out on more sleep.
On her way out the door, Allison grabbed Colin’s cardigan from the floor and shrugged it on. Maine was too damn cold until the sun found its proper place in the sky. Mumbling obscenities, she pulled the edges of the sweater tightly across her chest and tucked her hands into the too-long cuffs. Somehow, the brown and tan knit had absorbed the smell of his hair gel, and Allison inhaled deeply.
The dogs’ excited greetings were cut short the moment she opened the door to the backyard. In an instant, Cleo was on the lawn doing her business, Monty zooming in circles around her.
Allison poured herself a glass of orange juice and, grabbing her phone, settled down at the breakfast bar. Under a bunch of mailers piled on the counter peeked out two bills with LATE NOTICE stamped in red across the front. They might as well have painted it across her mother’s head like a scarlet letter. Why companies needed to publicly shame people for having money issues baffled Allison. It wouldn’t do anything to help them get their payments more swiftly.
She ground her teeth as she ripped the envelopes open. The first one was a two-hundred-dollar credit card bill, the other an electric bill that was three months behind. Picking up her phone, Allison swiped away a pile of text messages and opened her banking app. With a few quick key strokes, she’d paid both bills and set up some automatic payments so her mom wouldn’t have to worry about them for a while. She’d have to be careful with her spending—no more five-dollar smoothies every time she went to campus and definitely no pricey dinners out—but she could swing it. And even if she couldn’t, she’d do it solely so her mom could worry a little less.
Stuffing the bills at the bottom of the recycling, Allison opened her messages. One was from her mother, a few hours ago, letting her know that things were the same with Jed. A handful of others were from Sophie. It had taken her until three in the morning to realize Allison was gone. Her stomach twisted at that, but she did her best to shrug it off. They’d all been drunk. It was surely an honest oversight.
Mandy had sent the last few messages. There were three, one every hour since six this morning, as if she were keeping a close eye on her phone.
Allison sent the same reply to everyone but her mother.
Allison Avery: Hey! I am so so sorry for disappearing. My mom called saying that my father was in the hospital and I just panicked and left.
She’d barely brought her glass of juice to her lips before the responses started flying in.
Sophie Andrade: OMG. Are you okay? Why didn’t you call me? How did you get home? What can I do?
Allison Avery: I’m exhausted but okay. He had some kind of heart attack or heart failure. He’s doing better now, I guess.
The easiest way out of this would be to ignore her question about how Allison got home. But as Allison thought of Colin’s long frame draped across her twin bed, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Last night felt like some kind of monumental shift. She didn’t want to start this brand new… whatever it was… with secrets and lies.
And especially not to Sophie. Keeping things from her best friend wasn’t doing anything to help Allison mend the rift she felt spreading between them.
Allison Avery: Colin drove me home.
Sophie Andrade: Colin who?
Allison Avery: Colin Benjamin
Sophie Andrade: Since when are you back in contact with him? Did he reach out? When???
Allison Avery: He’s in my program at Claymore.
