37. Ava
AVA
A s December rolls around, the cold settles in, blanketing everything in a layer of snow. I don’t mind, mostly because I spend all my free time in Levi’s bed, either in the cabin or in the house.
I’m not ashamed to admit I’m healing myself in a non-conventional way. One orgasm at a time. When he’s touching me, I don’t have to think about anything else. Only him and what he wants me to do for him. Whether that’s making him come with my mouth, my hands, or my body.
I’ve had so many orgasms, I’ve lost count of them, but I know I must have a strong heart from how hard it’s been working recently.
Levi and I don’t talk about my mother and Brad. We don’t talk about Gran’s death, or how I fell apart after she died.
We just live. One day at a time.
“I’ll only be a moment,” he says, pressing his lips to my forehead. He’s dropped me off at the bar, again, while he goes back and talks with Deigo. “Cherry’s here, and if you need anything, I’m only a phone call away.”
I really don’t like him leaving me with the wicked witch of the north, but I force a smile on my face.
“I’ll be okay.”
He stares at me for a moment, his eyes bouncing back and forth between mine like he doesn’t believe me.
Something briefly flashes across his features before it’s replaced with indifference.
“I’ll just be a second,” he reminds me.
“She’ll be fine, Casanova ,” Cherry chimes from behind me. I can’t help but cringe at her voice. “She’s not a baby bird.”
Levi looks over my head at her, and something unspoken passes between them. I get the sinking suspicion there’s more between them than what Levi told me, and I can’t deny I feel like the fool willing to turn a blind eye.
Finally, Levi nods and releases me.
I watch him walk away, my stomach sinking as he goes. I push it down and slip into an empty stool at the bar. Cherry doesn’t ask, sliding a soda across to me without a word.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
“Don’t mention it,” she says, equally as awkward.
She’s quiet for a while, washing the bar. Drying glasses. Otherwise, ignoring my presence.
Then finally, she speaks.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?”
I stare at her for a moment, swallowing my drink slowly.
“W-what?”
She glances up, and I follow her gaze across the room. Levi’s speaking to a woman. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I also can’t deny the twinge of jealousy sliding through me.
“Bringing the current girl here to be babysat by the former girl at the bar while you meet with the next one behind her back.”
“He came to speak to Deigo.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger,” she says, holding up her hands in self-defense. “I’m just making an observation.”
“He’s not like that,” I grit. “If you knew anything about him, you would know that.”
“I know him better than you think,” she says, wiping down a glass. “Who do you think was there for him when his father died?”
I think it would hurt less if she’d just stomp on my chest, rather than ripping my heart out.
I look back across the room, and he’s chatting with the woman, his arms crossed over his chest. He seems interested in what she has to say, and there’s a sick and twisted part of me that wishes I could hear what they’re talking about.
And suddenly, without a doubt, I know.
“You’re . . . Cherise.”
She grimaces at the name, but sighs with a shrug.
“Guilty.”
It’s why he didn’t want me present when he was speaking with the police. Because the girl he was with is the same one who makes his drinks every time he comes to this stupid club.
“You were . . . with him before.”
“Ava,” she says, like I’m a child who needs coaching. “I was where you were, at one point. I thought I was high on the world being the girl in his bed. I thought I could change him. It’s not real.”
It’s not real.
It’s not real.
“It’s men like that who always get what they want,” Cherry continues. My gaze locks on Levi across the room, and I can’t fight the disturbing pang in my chest. “They take and take and take, and when they’re done with you, they throw you to the wind.”
Without looking at her, I shake my head.
“Levi’s not like that.”
I hear her humorless chuckle behind me.
“Is that what you really think?” she asks quietly. “Or is that what he told you to believe?”
A pit opens up in my stomach and threatens to swallow me whole.
She’s right.
Of course, I know she’s right, but I don’t want to believe it.
He cares about me. He has to. Otherwise, why would he have come to Gran’s funeral? Why hold me while I cried?
Hell, he even went so far as to threaten my thieving mother and her new boyfriend for me.
“In the end, it’s the girls like us that get forgotten,’ Cherry says, her words sliding over me like hot tar. “I’m just sorry no one told you sooner.”
Sickness pools in my gut, and my heart feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest. Without knowing where I’m going, I climb from my barstool and walk away from Cherry and her stupid red hair.
I make my way towards the long line at the bathroom, only when I spot the neon exit sign, I follow that instead.
Once I’m out in the night, I realize the wetness on my face is tears. Angrily, I scrub them away as I make my way down the sidewalk.
Why was I so stupid?
I let him pull me in. He told me from the beginning this was just sex, and like the idiot I am, I let myself get caught up in the little things.
Like the way he holds me in his sleep. Like I might run away or disappear.
Or the way he made me soup when I was sick and brushed my hair with his fingers until I fell asleep in his arms.
Or the way he calls for me in his nightmares. Like I’m the only one who can stop them.
I hate him.
I hate him because he made me love him. I’m a walking oxymoron with a penchant for falling for men who should come with a list of trigger warnings.
I ignore my phone buzzing because I don’t have to look to know who it is. Part of me wants to answer because I have no idea where I am, but the other, stupidly irrational part of me is pissed off and hurt like a child.
I keep walking, and the further I get from The Tomb, the colder it gets. The sun is starting to set, and the streets are growing quieter.
It’s not until my phone stops buzzing for the seventh time that I stop and look around.
Nothing looks familiar, and I realize what a grave mistake I made.
I’m lost and alone.
The wind blows my hair around me, sending a shiver down my spine.
The shadows grow darker from the alleyway to my left.
The silence hums around me.
I’m well and truly alone.
At least . . . until someone whistles behind me.
“You alright, sweetheart?” a man asks, his back pressed into he bricks of the alleyway. He’s got a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a smirk on his face.
I keep my arms wrapped tightly around myself, glancing into the man’s dark brown eyes.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I respond, though my voice cracks as a crawling sensation slides up my spine.
I continue past him, but I can feel his presence behind me. I resist the urge to run, holding my bag tightly to my chest.
“You sure?” he asks, his voice too close for comfort. My stomach sinks with each thud of his footsteps behind me, and my breathing grows tighter and tighter with anxiety. “Pretty girls shouldn’t be out this time of night. It ain’t safe.”
Wonder why that is? I think dryly.
“My boyfriend’s on his way,” I lie. I have no idea if Levi’s looking for me or not. He’s not even my boyfriend.
“Oh, come on,” the man slurs, and I can tell he’s been drinking. “Don’t be like that. Let me take you home. I can protect you.”
“No, thank you.”
He chuckles, and the sound turns my chest to ice.
He doesn’t stop.
In fact, he only gets closer.
“Please leave me alone,” I gasp, but when his hand wraps in my hair and tugs , I can’t do anything but fall backwards.
The man catches me, and all the air is pushed from my lungs. I fight in his grasp, pure, icy panic sliding through me like water.
“ Bitch !” he snarls when I swing, managing to hit him in the nose despite the tears clouding my vision. For a split second, he releases me, and I tear strands of hair free to run.
And when I start running, I don’t stop.
His footsteps pound after me as I race down the sidewalk, bag clutched tightly to my chest and my knuckles smarting from the impact against his face.
Please. Please grant me a miracle. Please.
“Get the fuck back here. I want to play,” the man growls from behind me, quickly catching up to me. I may be small and fast, but it doesn’t beat his long legs as he thunders down the sidewalk after me.
Levi. Find Levi.
Surprisingly, I didn’t expect to run right into him.
The impact of my body against his knocks the wind out of me, but I don’t have time to register that it’s him before he’s moving me behind him and grabbing the man by the collar and yanking him forward.
The look in his eyes is murderous, and if I didn’t know he wouldn’t hurt me, I’d be fucking terrified.
Kind of like the man who was chasing me.
Levi grins down at the man with a wicked smile that sends a shiver down my spine.
The man looks like he might piss himself.
“Oh, you really fucked up now.”