Chapter 24 Ava
My recollection of the walk home was fuzzy.
My hands shook the whole way, and twice I needed to stop myself from turning around and going back to punch Gray and his stupid brother again.
I knew they were Devils, I knew it. I’d heard the stories, I’d witnessed their douchebaggery when I was in high school — but, oh my God, the nerve.
The actual goddamn nerve of them. Squeezing me in between them like that, what was their intent? Did they think I was one of their bed-hoppers that would bounce from one dick to the next as long as it was a Santo?
And drugged him? Drugged him? Was he for real?
By the time I was back at the apartment, angry tears had spilled, and I wasn’t sure if I was furious or hyperventilating.
I was so thrown by the afternoon that I completely forgot my best friend would be home, and as I burst through the door, I startled Mia so much she gave a yelp of alarm.
“Ava?” Her hazel eyes were full of concern as she took in my appearance, and then I was wrapped in the comfort of her arms. “Oh, my gracious, what happened?”
The adrenaline from them, the confusion of kissing Jett — and liking it — the mere bizarreness of it all combined with my temper, and I burst into tears. Mia held me as I sobbed on her shoulder, and her soothing voice and serene stroking of my hair calmed me enough to know I was going to be okay.
“Shh, tell me what’s happening,” Mia spoke evenly as my crying eased and I started to get a hold of myself again. My sniffles subsided, and hearing that I was semi in control again, my best friend stepped back and looked at me. “Want to talk?”
The dry humor and the quirked eyebrow were enough to make me smile, and, grabbing my hand, she led me to our sofa.
“I’ve not been completely honest with you,” I started, and when she frowned, I jumped back off the sofa. “I need a drink for this.”
“Water or hard stuff?” Mia asked me curiously.
“Hard, definitely hard,” I grumbled as I grabbed two bottles, one of José and one of Jack, and held them up to her.
Her legs were folded underneath her, and with her daisy print skirt and soft white T-shirt, she looked as if she should be ordering tea rather than deliberating the choices of tequila or whisky. Mia pointed at the whisky, and I poured us two healthy shots with ice.
As I handed her the glass, I sat back down beside her, and we clinked our glasses. “You okay?” she asked me.
“No.” Taking a sip of the liquor, I grimaced. “I think I should have put Coke in this.”
“Nah, this way we’ll get hairs on our chest,” Mia teased.
I grinned as I settled my head on her shoulder. “I had sex with Jett Santo.”
I felt her body stiffen in surprise, and I heard the faint choking and knew she was probably stopping herself from spitting out her drink. “Excuse me?”
“That Friday when I left you and walked home. I don’t know how I met him or when I met him, but we hooked up and I spent the night with him.”
Mia inched slowly away from me, and she turned slightly as I raised my head to meet her incredulous stare.
“Ava, I . . . girl! You’re gonna have to tell me from the beginning.
Okay? I . . .” She took another drink before she stood and went to the kitchen, grabbing the bottle of whisky and two cans of Coke from the fridge.
Topping up both glasses, she added a splash of Coke to each. “Okay, spill.”
“Wade said I played beer pong, and I vaguely remembered the game once he told me. I definitely tasted the tequila the next morning,” I started dryly. “I don’t remember the boy you said I spoke to. I can’t even picture his face. I was drunk. Like I don’t even know how bad, but it was bad.”
“I didn’t think you were that drunk.” Mia frowned as she sipped her drink. “I feel so bad that I didn’t know.”
“It’s fine, it would have been fine. I should know better than to do shots, especially ol’ José.”
“Why can’t you be a fall-down drunk like normal people?” Mia demanded as she swatted me with her hand.
“I want to say that my way is less embarrassing, but you know, the whole ‘I slept with the Devil’ kinda puts a new slant on things.”
“This was over a week ago,” Mia scolded me. “Why are you only telling me now? Because of the horrible things guys are saying?” I knew when she realized, because her hand flew to her mouth and she stared at me in horror. “You’re his thief?”
“I’m the thief.”
“Ava!” Mia’s look was searching. It was like she didn’t know me. “I . . . my goodness, I just . . . okay, no more interruptions, tell me what you remember.”
“I don’t,” I snorted. “That’s my problem.
I don’t remember much of the party after agreeing to play beer pong, and I only remember that because Wade mentioned it last week, and that’s when I knew I’d played.
I don’t remember leaving, I don’t remember trying to get home or how I met Sir Fuckalot.
” Mia snorted at my terminology but said nothing to interrupt me.
“I do remember waking up the next morning half-dead, naked, and hungover.”
“Ava . . .” Her look spoke volumes, and I shook my head quickly to assure her.
“I also remember the flashbacks of me having sex with him, and I was a full participant in the act.” Looking away from her, I squirmed in embarrassment. “It was definitely consensual and apparently, much to my grief, loud.”
“I did hear that his bedroom activities that Friday were, shall we say, more robust than normal.”
“Yeah, well, that’s me, the screamer.” I felt another tear slip over, and I wiped it away hurriedly as I took a gulp of my drink.
“Ava, you shouldn’t joke like that.” Mia clasped my hand as she smiled at me sadly. “Tell me more.”
“I woke up on Saturday morning, and I didn’t know where I was, and then I heard him in his shower, which is the first I realized that I wasn’t in bed here. I was under the sheet, so when he came out, I pretended I wasn’t awake. He didn’t see me. Well, not my face.”
“I don’t understand,” Mia interrupted me. “When you left, he would have seen you?”
“No, because I threw up all over his bathroom, naked, in front of him and Ash, and all they saw was my butt.”
Mia’s startled laugh was enough to make me grin humorlessly. “Yup, I spent a long time on his bathroom floor, throwing up with my ass in the air.”
Mia’s two hands were pressed to her mouth, but I saw her shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Oh, it gets better. He had to leave for the game, so while I was dying at his toilet bowl, he locked up all his valuables.”
“Oh my Lord, this is so bad,” Mia told me as she tried to restrain her laughter. “I’m sorry that I’m laughing, I can’t help it!”
I chuckled too because, even though it was horrible, it was a little bit funny. “Mia, I didn’t know who he was until he told me not to use his shower and be gone by the time he got back.”
Her grin faded as she narrowed her eyes at Jett’s words. “What a cracking butthole.”
Nodding, I reached for my glass. “He is.” Pulling my hair over my shoulder, I sighed. “So, I took a shower.” I grinned when she high-fived me. “And then I made my way home. Where I took another shower and basically lay down here and felt like death.”
“You should have told me.”
“I didn’t know what to say,” I confessed. “Hey, Mia, so last night, I lost my virginity to Jett Santo, but I don’t know how or why because I don’t remember?” I looked at her as I shrugged. “You would have had me at campus police in a heartbeat.”
Mia chewed her fingernail as she considered my words. “I still might,” she confessed.
“No. I was definitely happy to be there at the time.”
“How do you know?” Mia asked me gently.
“Because since Sunday I’ve been having complete replays in my head of our time together.” My cheeks were bright red, and I couldn’t meet her eye.
“Good?” Mia asked lightly.
Nodding self-consciously as I flamed red, I was surprised when she reached out and grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. “Oh, Ava, I am glad it was, but, sweetie . . . it’s just so . . . sad!”
“It is.” I nestled into her side again with my head once again resting on her shoulder.
“But why are you a thief?” Mia asked in bewilderment.
I sat up and looked at her. Jesus, I had to say it out loud. “I took his bedsheet.”
Mia stared blankly at me. “Huh?”
“It had . . .” I ran a hand over my eyes in despair. “You know.”
“Oh, Ava.” Mia’s eyes were full of sympathy.
I tried to shrug it off. Instead, I lay my head on her shoulder again. “And the Monday after, I spoke to Ash, and he didn’t recognize me, even though he’s technically seen me naked. And of course, I blurt out naked to him!”
It eased the tension at least as Mia giggled as her hand stroked my hair.
“And then I sat on the girl giving Jett a blow job, and he talks to me, and I knew as soon as he looked at me, he had no idea who I was.”
“What a jerk!” Mia tsked as she listened.
“And then he was here that same night.”
Again, I was dislodged from her shoulder as she looked at me in question. “How?”
“I couldn’t sleep because of . . . him. So, I went outside, and as I was trying to cool down, he appeared like a bad fairy.”
“The night the generator died?”
“Yeah.” I glanced at her once and grimaced. “It was Jett who got it fixed.”
Mia’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Oh,” was all she said as she looked at me before taking another sip of her drink.
“I didn’t want to talk about it, and I thought I may never have to,” I admitted as I shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
“I understand.”
“You do?” I asked hopefully.
“Not really, but I want to.” Her hand made the carry on motion, so I did.
“Then later that day, Ben Kowoski hit me on the head with a football, and I met Jett again!” I rubbed my head where he’d hit me, and I sat straighter on the couch.
“We agreed to never talk again.” I frowned as I thought about it.
“I think. But then I saw him at the bar, and then the party after and . . .” I trailed off.
“And today?”
“Well, I knew he was injured, and you and Wade seemed to think the girl who ‘stole’ from him was the reason, and I’ve been trying to work up the courage to talk to him. But I didn’t hurt him, that Friday, that is.”
“Friday? You hurt him another time?” Mia asked me curiously.
“I kneed him in the balls and kicked him in the ribs today.”
“Ava!” Mia’s hand was once more over her mouth in shock.
“I know, I’m a terrible person.” As my hands rubbed the back of my neck, I hung my head before I thought about it more. “Actually, screw that, I’m not. He is.”
Mia nodded, but she looked uncertain. “How does he not remember you?”
“Oh, Mia, that’s the worst part.”
“How?” Mia asked in surprise.
“Because someone drugged him, and he thinks it was me!”
I felt the tears well, and Mia looked at me in confusion before she was on her feet, pacing. “So, you don’t remember him, he doesn’t remember you, and both of you don’t really remember the night?”
“I think so,” I sniffled. “Well, I’m remembering some of it, the . . . you know.”
Mia stopped her pacing as she looked at me. “Could you both have been drugged?”
“I was drunk. That’s why I don’t remember.”
“But were you?” Mia sat back down beside me, her hands reaching out to take mine. “Sweetie, you both could be victims of a horrible, horrible prank.”
“I don’t even know how I met him.” I leaned forward, my arms wrapping around myself. “If I knew where and how, I’m sure I would remember more.”
“And he knows you don’t know?” Mia asked me.
“Yes,” I sighed. “Neither he or his douchebag brother believes me.”
“Well, they wouldn’t.” Mia looked thoughtfully out the window. “I mean, no offense, if I didn’t know you and know this is way out of your comfort zone, I wouldn’t believe you either.”
“Thanks.”
“You understand what I mean,” she replied as she resumed pacing. “What did he do to make you hit him?”
Leaning back onto the sofa, I scrunched up my nose as I considered the best way to tell her.
“So, they thought they could bully me. Kind of. I think. Anyway, Jett made me go to his dorm house today, and he was in my space, and then Gray was pressing into me from behind, and I asked them to move, because it was really uncomfortable and intimidating, and neither one of them did, and Gray licked my ear! So . . .”
“So, you lashed out,” Mia finished for me in resignation. “Ava, violence isn’t the answer.”
“They had me pressed between them like one of their whores.”
“Ava!”
“Sorry.” I wasn’t — not really.
Mia gave a light chuckle as she looked at me. “You’re so wonderfully you.” After she filled our glasses again, she handed me mine. “Only you would protest being pressed between the Devils.”
“They’re assholes.”
“I know,” she said as she sipped her drink.
“I had wild sex with the Devil himself. He doesn’t remember. He thinks I drugged him, he doesn’t believe I didn’t, I kneed him in the balls, and that’s not even the worst part.”
Mia hesitated slightly as she put her drink down. “There’s more?”
“I made out with him this afternoon in Ash’s bathroom.”
She was silent for a few moments before her head dropped into her hands. “Ava, I . . . none of this makes sense to me!” she wailed. “How? And more importantly . . . why?”
“I don’t know!” I groaned as I fell to my side on the couch and buried my head under a cushion. “He’s so hot! And I hate him, and he kisses like . . . I don’t even know. And he kissed me, and I was upset, and I just . . . I kissed him back.”
When there was silence, I peeked at her from under my cushion. She was sipping her drink and looking at me in slight amusement. Or exasperation. I wasn’t sure. “Who stopped the kiss?”
“Gray.”
Mia whistled as she sat back down. “Awkward.”
“You have no idea.”
“Girl, you are screwed.”
“Yup.”
“Like I don’t even know how to fix this.”
“Nope.”
“Wanna lock ourselves in so we can’t escape and get drunk?”
“Sounds like a plan.” I reached for the bottle of Jack.