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“Your bed is very comfortable.”
“What about the person in that bed?”
“I don’t know. Am I comfortable?” she asked. She giggled, her eyes lighting up. “You’re very comfortable, too,” she said.
“I’m glad you slept well.”
“How did you sleep?”
“Like a baby.”
“So, you were up every hour on the hour?” she asked.
I snickered and shook my head as I took a bite of my biscuit. “You really do have a sense of humor,” I said.
“I’m just silly. There’s a difference.”
“Not to me there isn’t. I like your brand of silly.”
“Good. I’m glad, because I don’t have any other brand to try on if you don’t like this kind.”
“I wouldn’t want you to change a thing about yourself,” I said.
Her eyes fluttered up to mine, and she held my gaze. Something dripped over her vision, but I couldn’t decipher what it was. It seemed like a mixture of confusion and awe, but confusion didn’t make sense. Had I said something she didn’t understand? Or maybe something that didn’t make sense?
She took a sip of her coffee before her eyes fell back to her plate. “That’s very kind of you to say. Thank you,” Ava said.
“Nothing kind about it. I enjoy you. I like you. So, why would I want you to change?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s nice to know you don’t want me to.”
“Has someone wanted you to change in the past?”
Her eyes fell on the wall before she sagged in her seat.
“There was this guy I dated back in college.”
I set my fork down and crossed my leg over my knee.
“His name was Michael, and, uh—I mean, he was a good first boyfriend, I guess. I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I sort of just went with the flow.”
Her eyes flickered over to me as I sat there, listening as closely as I could.
“He was a sexual man, and I wasn’t. You know, I hadn’t had sex at that point, and he knew that. Our entire fleeting relationship was nothing but this tug-of-war dynamic. He wanted to have sex, I didn’t. He thought I was being a prude, I wasn’t comfortable giving myself to him.”
“And that was your decision, not anyone else’s,” I said.
“Yeah, but he didn’t think that, Logan.”
“What do you mean?”
“He thought he was entitled to it.”
“He what now?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Ava, did he—?” I couldn’t even bring myself to say it.
“No, he didn’t. I mean, he didn’t fully do—that.”
“Define fully please.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, and I reached out to take her hand.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you aren’t comfortable with,” I said.
“It’s stupid, right? Like, our fights went from ‘when are we going to have sex’ to ‘we should have sex because we’re together.’ It was like he owned that part of me simply because he was my boyfriend. He really felt like he owned me, like I was supposed to bend to his every whim and do whatever he wanted because that was my role as his girlfriend. One night we were at this party, having a couple drinks, and I went to go sit down—”
I squeezed her hand as anger rushed through my veins.
“He just—groped me. You know? He squeezed my breasts so hard he left bruises behind. And when I kicked him off me and ran out of the party, two things happened.”
“Was one of them killing Michael?” I asked.
She snickered and shook her head as her watery gaze panned over to meet mine.
“Two things happened. One, I took the longest shower of my life. Two, I convinced myself that if sex was really supposed to feel anything like that, then I wanted no part of it.”
I reached up and brushed a tear away from her cheek before it tainted her skin too far down her face.
“That’s why you contacted Save the Date,” I said.
“I wanted to lose my virginity on my own time, in my own way, under my own control. They gave me that. They gave me the ability to set the tone, the place, the type of person I wanted to be with. They gave me full control over that moment in my life, which was something Michael had tried to take from me.”
I wrapped my hand around hers and brought her knuckles to my lips to kiss.
“I’m glad it was me, Ava.”
“I’m glad it was you, too, Logan.”
“The idea of any man doing that to you—it makes me sick with anger. But I’m glad I could give you that, give you the control and the comfort you sought for such a monumental milestone in your life.”
She smiled at me. “Camilla’s an idiot,” she said.
“Camilla’s many things, but it’s not about her any more. I know you’re hurting because the two of you are fighting, but I’m glad you’re here with me.”
“I’m glad I’m here, too. I enjoy spending time with you, Logan.”
