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Liam joins him in staring at me. “Wow,” he says quietly. “The man’s good. I had to have it explained to me. He just figured it out, like it wasn’t even a mystery.”
I run a hand through my hair, not really wanting to explain myself, but not knowing what else I can do about it to get them to go along with my plan. “Look,” I admit, “I know what it means to have someone in your life during the hard moments. Deacon told me she had an accident and it changed her. You’re her roommate, and almost every time I’ve seen her, you’ve been there like her guardian angel. So yeah, I believe that you’re her person. And I’m confident enough in who I am and what I can be to her, to let her take comfort in you. I’m new.” I raise an eyebrow and stare at him, getting my point across. “You’re old.”
Avery steps into the hall, her hair up in a messy bun. I can smell her toothpaste, and she is wearing the shirt I had on earlier, along with a pair of leggings that hug every single one of her curves.
“Chris is gonna order pizza,” I inform her when she steps into my body, and I wrap my arms around her.
We stand in the hall like that, all four of us, as though it is completely normal and expected.
“That’s perfect.” She closes her eyes and sighs. “Chris, don’t forget the pineapples and jalapeños.”
Chris mock-salutes, even though she can’t see him, and goes to order the food. Liam stays, looking me over with an unexpectedly critical eye, but I don’t care. I have Avery in my arms, and everything else can just take a back seat.
Luckily, their living room has a massive couch that comfortably fits all four of us, and the coffee table easily holds the four different pizzas that Chris ordered. While we eat, Avery puts on cartoon reruns. When she starts snoring on my chest not long after finishing her food, I’m more surprised than Chris is.
“She’s not afraid of you touching her,” he notes when he silently offers me a beer. “I’m the only one she’s not related to that she’s let touch her since the accident.”
“Deacon told me a little.” I swallow the beer down, enjoying the cool and refreshing way it feels against my throat. “But he sounded like a worried older brother. Unsure and wanting to protect her.”
“Will left town after the accident. He broke Avery’s heart, or she’d convinced herself that he did. But she didn’t care about him. Not the way she should have. And when he left her in the hospital, recovering from the accident that he had caused, Avery lost a part of herself. She stopped trusting, stopped letting anyone touch her. Physically or emotionally.”
Chris squeezes Liam’s leg where his hand rests. “I love her, sometimes more than my own sister. But she needs someone like you. Someone to challenge her. To push her buttons and to remind her that she’s making stupid decisions that aren’t truly her.”
With that, he grabs Liam’s hand and walks away without another word.
“Night, Carter.” Liam waves giddily. “We’ll try to keep it down.”
While I turn up the volume on the TV, I lay out on the couch, pulling Avery with me. Her breath hitches, and I feel her body tense. My girl likes to pretend that she is asleep, that’s for sure. Most likely, she thinks we’ll talk bad about her while she sleeps. I shake my head.
“I know you’re awake, Ms. James,” I whisper into her ear. “And when everything dies down, I want you to tell me about the accident. About what happened. When you’re ready.”
“Not a chance in Hell,” she whispers back. “I don’t care how much I like your dick. Some things just aren’t meant to be shared.”
She’s thrown down the gauntlet again.
The only difference between the last time and now… I will be playing for keeps.
Avery doesn’t know it yet, but she doesn’t stand a chance.
18
AVERY
Constant sex does marvelous things to my brain. And body. And every other part of my life. Carter refuses to take no for an answer, even though I haven’t wanted to kick him out since that first night.
I spend almost every single night with Carter now. Especially with Lucas living with him. He needs to be there for him.
When the front door slams in the distance while I sit on the counter drinking coffee, I know it has to be one of them. Quick, light footsteps that belong to Lucas lead straight into the kitchen, where he drops his bag on the table and beams at me.
“Miss James!” His exclamation catches me off guard. Even now, an entire month after he’d been removed from his mother’s house, I don’t know if he likes me most days.
Yes, I know I am absolutely crazy, but Lucas had spent the beginning of the year avoiding even looking at me. I’d had to discipline him, and even had to call his mother in after the incident where he tried to cut Ciara’s hair off. I will live with the fact that I probably caused some of the bruises on his body for the rest of my life. I will never tell another living soul, but I have nightmares about Lucas and the pain his mother must have caused him. Every night. Well, almost every night. When Carter held me in his arms, it wasn’t as bad.
Lucas walks right by me, smiling. “Are you staying the night again?” He grabs a snack from the fridge and sits at the kitchen table with his backpack. The entire time I watch him, my heart bursting at the seams with how truly happy he seems in Carter’s house. “I think you should. We can watch movies again.”
“Actually.” I laugh. “Yes. I am. Carter has to stay late for a case, so I told him I’d stay with you. I was just about to ask if that would be alright with you. But I guess it is.”
That’s really the reason I have a cup of coffee in my hand at four in the afternoon. With Carter gone, I don’t want to fall asleep. Not until after Lucas is well and truly knocked out. I’m not the only one with nightmares. More often than not, if Carter isn’t home, I end up lying in bed with Lucas, just holding him while he sleeps. And when he comes to me and tells me he had another accident in bed, I help him clean it up so he won’t be ashamed.
