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Kova:Da. We certainly have.
Kova leaves and I gather my thoughts. That stupid Russian drives me crazy, but he wouldn’t be the coach we hate to love if he didn’t.
READ AN EXCERPT OFWHAT’S LEFT OF US, AVERY AND XAVIER’S STORY
Coming February 2023
What’s Left of Us
by Lucia Franco
CHAPTER 1
Avery
I squeeze my eyes closed and clench my stomach as the airplane wheels skid across the asphalt to a hard stop.
Holding the armrest, I rear back against the chair, fearing the plane is going to crash. In the back of my mind, I know it won’t, but that does nothing to calm the dread in my gut. The aircraft bumps and lifts off the ground again, and the breaks squeal in rejection.
I hate flying.
A few stiff moments later, the pilot comes on the speakers. I drown out his voice and wait impatiently for the flight attendants to give us the all-clear to depart. My heart is in my throat, and I’m an anxious ball of nerves. I’ve been preparing for this moment for months, eager to get to my destination, but dreading that I’m going to seehim.
My ex-boyfriend.
One of them, anyway.
Pulling the strap of my purse over my head, it falls across my chest. I blindly feel around inside for a carton of cigarettes out of habit. My shoulders sag when I remember I don’t smoke anymore. I quit a year ago, but some days I wish I hadn’t. The only thing that keeps me from lighting up two and puffing them together is the fact my best friend needs my kidney one day. We’ve already been tested and matched. Sealed and declared. We’re with each other until the end.
I finger the necklace that hangs over my heart. I never take it off—I haven’t in years—and I don’t plan to anytime soon. To the naked eye it looks like nothing more than a gray glass pendant, but when I hold it toward the sun and bring it close to my eye, there’s a clear image of a sonogram picture inside.
My thoughts should not be on anything else except the new life Adrianna will soon welcome into the world. But they’re onhimbecause I know we’re going to see each other again.
Adrianna’s brother, Xavier Rossi.
And I feel disgustingly guilty about it.
Thinking about him causes a pang in my chest. It always does. He’s a yearning I’ll forever have gnawing under my skin. I want to know what he’s doing and who he’s with. Where he is. When I’ll see him. If he realizes we’re going to see each other again. If he even cares that we will. If he’s asked Adrianna about me at all. Xavier consumes my thoughts more often than I care to admit. He keeps me up at night tossing and turning with regret from the lie he ate so easily that I wish I could take back. The truth had been too hard for him to bear, so I took the blame. Some days, I wish I hadn’t.
Though I’d never admit this to anyone, I can’t wait to see Xavier, even if it does hurt my heart to be in the same room as him. He was my first love. My only love. You never forget your first love.
The last time I saw Xavier was at my father’s sixtieth birthday celebration over a year ago, and before that it had been years.
Air seized my lungs the second my eyes landed on Xavier. I knew he’d be there, but I wasn’t expecting such a response to come from me. After all the years of no communication, I assumed I was over him. But I was wrong. So, so wrong. He brought back to life all the butterflies I thought were long dead. Before that night, I hadn’t seen Xavier since I left for—and graduated from—college. I’d stalked him over the years, but social media didn’t do him justice when it came time to seeing him in person. Not even close. I could appreciate a good-looking man when I saw one, and Xavier was in a league of his own.
The flight attendant’s voice comes over the speakers to notify us we’re next in line to connect to the building’s door. There’s a backup of arrivals and the airline will need a few more moments of our patience before we can exit safely. The passengers groan. Luckily, I paid the extra fee to sit in first class. I can exit the plane once the green light is given.
My thoughts wander back to the past again. That night is still so fresh in my mind. I’d just turned a corner and stepped into the dining area when I stopped in my tracks. My lips had parted at his masculine beauty. I’d watched Xavier for a moment, trying to steady the sudden chaotic beating in my chest. He was dressed in business attire and talking to Frank with a glass tumbler in his left hand. He hadn’t seen me, it wasn’t possible from the direction I’d come from, but he turned around as if he’d sensed me enter the room. Our eyes met, and Xavier stopped talking mid-sentence to stare at me.
The attraction was instant, and I became hyperaware of him. He ate it up too. I didn’t care that he saw I was stunned by how ridiculously gorgeous he’d turned out to be. He took my breath away.
I grew up living next door to Adrianna. It was an ideal situation for two families who were in business together. Naturally, Adrianna and I loved it. Who wouldn’t want to live next door to their best friend? Like most older brothers, Xavier was like the gnat at a barbeque who wouldn’t go away. He was always around, but it turned out to be a good thing since he was close in age to my twin brothers. That meant Connor and Michael would leave me alone. At least, I thought they would. The three of them called themselves the “band of brothers,” and they were annoying as hell daredevils. The guys were constantly in trouble or pulling pranks on us girls. We lived in a small, ritzy complex, where homes were priced starting in the millions. The locals didn’t find them as entertaining as they thought they were. They were typical dumb boys, except somewhere along the way, Xavier hit puberty and it made me see him in a completely different light. I guess he felt the same about me too.
What transpired between us happened by accident. It was just like any other night after cheerleading practice. I’d walk next door and wait for Adrianna to get home from gymnastics so we could hang out for a bit. She was homeschooled, but I wasn’t, so our schedules were vastly different. At first Xavier didn’t want me around, but I didn’t want to sit the forty-minute wait alone, so I would mosey out to the pool house to see what he was up to. He’d often plop onto his bed like a sullen boy and bury his face under his folded arms and complain about the pressure his dad put on him. He’d talk and ramble about pointless things without looking at me. On occasion I talked and shared, but I’d rather listen. I’d sit next to him and play with his hair as I teased him about how hard his spoiled life was. There was a familiarity between the two of us despite our four-year age difference. Our sibling type bickering turned flirtatious, and hands became extra grabby. No one was there but us. No one knew we were alone. We thought nothing of it at first.
Xavier was different behind closed doors. He was wildly smart with numbers and could solve the Rubik’s Cube in under twenty seconds. He was more intense in his conversations when no one was around, emotionally deeper than the aloof pretense he wore like a second skin. His chest would turn red when he’d get on a tangent. He spoke freely when it was just us. He was honest and had questions about life. Xavier was comfortable around me, candid about what he liked and didn’t, and I think it’s why I was attracted to him. He was different.
I stare out the window, thinking back to the time we first kissed, reliving the innocence we shared before shit got heavy. He called it seven seconds in heaven. It became a thing between us.
