Chapter 22 Jeremy
JEREMY
I knock on Avah’s door at eight fifteen Tuesday night like a man with a plan. One which involves standing on the metal landing in this alley hoping she’ll let me in. And trying to figure out why the fuck she’s ghosting me in the first place.
She hasn’t returned my calls or texts, which progressed from a casual hey to just checking in to what can only be described as digital groveling.
Pathetic doesn’t begin to cover it.
I should know what we are, and also what we aren’t. More than fuck buddies, but not much else apparently. I shouldn’t feel slighted by radio silence. She doesn’t owe me anything. We’re casual, which is fine.
Except the nerdy kid who once had a crush on the most popular girl in high school is back, operating on the same naive frequency he always has.
Wanting to believe that if I show up in the right way she’ll want me the way I want her.
Bottom line: all the money in the world can’t tamp down the proclivity to be a total sap.
I knock again. “I can feel you glaring at me through the door, Avah.”
There’s a beat, and then the deadbolt turns. She yanks the door open with the kind of force that suggests she’s pissed as hell. That makes two of us.
“I guess your billions can’t buy the ability to take a hint.”
Does she truly believe her attitude can push me away? Clearly, she hasn’t figured out that I’m so far gone there might not be anything to bring me back.
She’s wearing an oversized Skylark Fun Festival T-shirt and cotton shorts, her blonde hair gathered into a knot on top of her head with escaped strands framing either side of her face. She’s wearing no makeup, and I hate the dark smudges under her eyes.
I want her with a determination I’ve never shown to any deal. I want her standing in this doorway with her bare feet and her messy hair and those blue eyes that dare me to keep showing up.
Double fucking dog dare, because I’m all in.
“Can I come in?”
She holds my gaze, and I hold my breath. Finally, she steps aside with a beleaguered sigh, like she can’t decide whether I’m more inconvenient or annoying.
“I’m having Cheerios for dinner. Want some?”
“Are they Honey Nut?”
Her lips twitch. “Duh.”
“Then hell yeah.”
She pulls two mismatched bowls from the cabinet, pours the cereal, adds milk from a half-gallon jug, and carries everything to the scuffed oak table in the corner. I take the chair across from her and pick up my spoon.
We eat in silence, Avah dunking the Os into the milk with the back of her spoon before scooping them up, attention riveted on her bowl.
There is no earthly reason something that can best be described as OCD-adjacent should be so captivating. I’m a grown man losing his mind over a woman dunking Cheerios.
“Are you going to ask me why I’m being a bitch?”
“You’re not a bitch.” I take another bite. “We can talk, or we can enjoy our Cheerios in silence.”
“You’re a nut.”
I lift my spoon. “A honey nut.”
She covers her face with one hand. “Don’t quit your day job for the comedy club circuit.”
But her posture no longer reminds me of a cornered alley cat, and the line between her eyebrows has smoothed. I shovel in another spoonful and wait.
Eventually she pushes her bowl forward and wraps her hands around her water glass.
“Winnie told me she’s thinking about selling the bakery. And Jon—” She pauses to pull in an unsteady breath. “I met with him today to discuss the money he transferred from our joint accounts.”
I set down my spoon.
“He believes he had every right to take my money. Told me he’d think about what I deserve.” Her jaw tightens. “His exact words.”
I grip the edge of the table like I can prevent myself from standing up and driving to wherever Jon Clark lives and dismantling his life brick by brick. “You met with him face to face?”
“Piper came with me. She wanted to kick his ass.” Her gorgeous mouth kicks up at one end. “I told her she can’t go to jail pregnant. Plus, getting arrested will mess with Felix’s football season.”
“Fuck football. I’ll post her bail.”
“Jeremy.”
“Say the word, Avah. I’ll have a team of attorneys so far up his ass, he’ll need a colorectal surgeon to remove them.”
She meets my eyes, and the fierceness there stops me cold. “I don’t want you to fix my problems.”
Every circuit in my brain is screaming at me to throw my weight around until her ex-fiancé chokes on the consequences of ever putting his hands on her.
But I sit with her words, trying to fit them into the framework of everything I know.
Growing up in a house where productivity was valued over anything else, I learned to make myself indispensable through action.
Fixing is all I’ve ever known how to do.
And if I can’t be a fixer, what good am I?
I can’t figure out what Avah wants from me, if anything. Christ, please let her want something.
“Would you consider it interference if I bought the bakery?”
She laughs like maybe I’ve just resuscitated my potential for a comedy career. “Uh, yeah.”
“How about if I loan you the money?”
“I’m not taking your handouts.”
“It’s an investment.”
“I’m not a good bet.”
I trap the urge to blurt I’m all in in my throat, where it can’t do any damage. Avah wants to be the one who saves herself. Even though it’s driving me insane at the moment, I respect the fuck out of that.
“Agree to disagree.” I lean back in the chair. “Let’s talk about the NorthStar caregiver camp.”
Her eyes narrow at the pivot, but she takes it. “You’re going up for the first weekend, right?”
“What if I pay you to go with me?”
She raises one delicate brow. “Like a hooker?”
I walked into that one. “You have some real untapped Pretty Woman kink, huh?”
“You’re the one offering cash for my company.”
“Two nights. I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars.”
She chokes. “That’s stupid.”
“Twenty thousand.”
“Jeremy, stop.”
“Name your price.” I keep my voice level, the way I do in boardrooms when I need the other party to take me seriously.
“I don’t want to do this without you.” That sounds less unhinged than I can’t do it if you aren’t with me, right?
I’m not sure when having Avah at my side became so essential to the partnership, but no half measures at this point.
“You think I’ll do it for money?”
“I think you need money to rebuild your life, and I need you.”
If I’m being honest, part of me hopes she says no. I want her to come because I matter to her, not because I’m cutting a check. But transactions are a language I understand, and people have been taking my money and calling it affection for so long I’m not sure I know how to be any other way.
“Twenty-five thousand.” Her chin lifts, cheeks flushed with color that could be anger or embarrassment or both. “If you’re going to be ridiculous, at least make it worth my while.”
I force my features to stay neutral despite the disappointment gnawing at my gut. This is what I have to offer, so I can’t fault her for taking it.
Then her eyes spark, quick enough that I’d miss it if I weren’t staring, and I wonder if she’s waiting for me to call bullshit on this whole absurd negotiation.
I extend my hand across the table. “Done.”
She stares at my hand with an expression close to horror.
“I was joking, Jeremy.”
“I’m serious, Avah.”
“I’m not going to take twenty-five thousand dollars from you to go on a camping trip.”
“You named your price. I accepted. That’s how deals work.”
Her eyes search my face, and I hold still because if I move, I’ll pull my hand back. And then I’ll say the thing I can’t say. The thing that would reveal that my feelings for her are completely outside the parameters of casual.
She wraps her fingers around mine. Her palm is warm, and I stand, pulling her to her feet and toward me until she’s close enough that I can see the flecks of gold at the edges of those blue eyes.
Her lips part, and I lean in to press my mouth against the underside of her jaw where her pulse hammers against my lips. Not her mouth, no matter how badly I want it, because there are rules that go along with the deal between us.
“You’re stupid,” she whispers.
Stupid for losing my heart? Definitely. For doing whatever it takes to keep her? Smartest move I’ve ever made.
“Sticks and stones, sweetheart.” I drag my teeth along the tendon of her neck, and the sound she makes goes straight to my cock.
“Is this part of the deal?” Her voice has gone ragged.
“No.” I pull back enough to look at her, needing to make sure she understands. “This is because I can’t be near you without wanting to touch you. If you want me to stop, I’ll stop. Always.”
She grabs the front of my shirt and drags me forward.
We don’t make it past the couch. She yanks at my clothes while I lift the shirt over her head, and the urgency between us tonight is different from the last time.
That night was two people learning each other’s topography.
This is need and frustration and all the things neither of us is brave enough to say out loud.
I drop to my knees, unable to show any sort of restraint when I spend every waking moment craving the taste of her on my tongue. Her back is against the wall, and I hook my thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and pull them, along with her underwear, down in one motion.
“Jeremy—”
“Let me, Avah. Please.”
Her leg trembles against my shoulder as I press my mouth to her inner thigh.
The skin there is so soft, and when I trace my tongue higher, she grabs for the back of the couch to steady herself.
I spread her with my thumbs and taste her until her hips buck forward and a strangled noise tears from her throat.
I flatten my tongue against her clit, working her in steady strokes while she groans and gasps and pants out commands on exactly how she wants me to worship her.
I fucking love listening to her boss me around, and I’m more than dedicated to learning exactly what drives her mad.
It’s only fair given what she does to me just by existing in the world.
I could stay like this all night, but when I slide two fingers inside her and curl them forward, she jerks hard enough that I brace her hip with my free hand.
“Don’t stop. Right there—”
I increase the pressure, my tongue circling her swollen clit as my fingers work her at a tortuous pace.
After another minute, she shatters with a cry that echoes off the walls of the apartment.
Her thighs clamp around my head as the orgasm rolls through her, and I hold her steady until her grip on my hair loosens and her breathing slows to something less ragged.
I press one last kiss to the curve of her hip, then rise to my feet. Her eyes are glazed, her bottom lip swollen from biting down on it, and the flush on her chest extends all the way to her collarbones. I cup her face with both hands, wanting to claim her mouth so badly my body aches with need.
She reaches for the waistband of my jeans with hands that aren’t quite steady. “I need you.”
Three words that crack my ribs open without her even realizing what she does to me.
I strip out of my jeans and boxers while she turns, bracing her forearms on the arm of the couch, and the sight of her bent over and waiting makes my brain short-circuit.
I grip her hips and line myself up, pushing inside slowly.
She’s slick and tight, and her body pulls me in like a fucking siren song.
I have to pause, forehead pressed between her shoulder blades, just to keep from losing it in the first five seconds.
“Move,” she demands.
I pump into her hard, because that’s what we both need right now.
She meets every thrust with an urgency that borders on desperation.
The couch creaks against the floor as we find a punishing rhythm, and I reach around to press my fingers against her clit.
I want her to come again, to feel her clench around me when she does.
“God, Jeremy, yes—”
I circle her clit while driving into her, and her back arches, her body tightening around me as my vision whites out. She comes first, her whole body seizing, and I follow two thrusts later with a groan I bury against the nape of her neck.
We stay like that for a long moment, both of us breathing hard, my chest pressed to her back and arms wrapped around her so tight I can feel her heart pounding against my skin.
I don’t want to let go. Not now. Possibly not ever.
Letting go means going back to the version of this where we’re casual and temporary.
I go back to pretending that finding her on the beach that night didn’t turn my whole world upside down then rearrange it into a configuration that…
She straightens and turns in my arms, and for a second we just look at each other. She’s the most devastatingly beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“You know I wasn’t serious about the twenty-five grand.”
“I was.”
She shakes her head. “I’ll go to Steamboat with you, but not because of the money.”
“Okay.”
“Stop smiling.”
“I’m not smiling.”
“You are absolutely smiling.”
I pull her closer, tucking her head under my chin. She fits there perfectly, and I’m not ready to stop touching her. Her palm is flat against my bare chest, and the rightness of her touch marks me like a brand.
I am, in fact, smiling. Because right now, I don’t have to calculate the cost of partnerships or business deals. In this moment, Avah chose me over a check. I don’t know exactly what to do with that except hold on tighter.