31 I’m not okay （not even a little）
31
I’m not okay (not even a little)
Finn
I have no idea how I’ve successfully been in Ava’s presence for multiple hours without doing anything stupid, but it’s getting more difficult by the minute.
First, she came out of her room in that green dress and I had maybe the world’s least family-friendly thoughts. Then she sang some horrific renditions on karaoke and somehow that still sent every one of my internal organs careening into the abyss. Now, she’s on the floor with Dylan talking about their terrible manager, cheeks pink, long legs stretched out in front of her, absent-mindedly petting a curled-up Rudy.
‘Colin!’ Max yells from the kitchen, pulling me out of my reverie. Who the hell is Colin?
I’m surprised when Ava’s voice replies, ‘What?’
‘Help me get these glasses.’
‘I just sat down,’ she grumbles.
‘But I can’t reach them,’ he says with a grin, as if he isn’t, like, six-five. I can’t help that my eyes cling to her every move; the extraordinarily ungraceful way she gets up, how she pulls her hair up into a ponytail with the scrunchie on her wrist, how she tugs her dress down over her hips and—
‘You okay?’ Dylan asks with a chuckle, quiet but observant as ever.
She knows, Julien knows, I’m pretty sure everyone in this room knows, because despite how desperately I’ve been trying to play it cool, I have a neon sign flashing above my head saying SOS! Ava Monroe makes me feel a lot of things!
I don’t even bother denying it. I just laugh along with her and say, ‘Not really.’
I’m chatting with one of Alina’s friends by the time Ava returns from her conversation with Max, her eyes bright.
‘Ava, have you met Sage?’
I gesture towards the silver-haired person at the far end of the sofa, who replies, ‘We met before at Alina’s birthday, I’m pretty sure.’
Ava hands me one of the two glasses she’s carrying, and I’m grateful because I didn’t even realise I’d finished my last drink. ‘We did – you were wearing those Lucy bending the light and tricking me into thinking I can escape, until I remember that I’m trapped, entirely at her mercy until she says I can leave.
She plays with the collar of my shirt and says, ‘There are people on the other side of this wall.’
‘There are,’ I agree, mouth dry, aware in every atom of my body just how little there is left between us. ‘They might wonder where we’ve got to.’
‘I think they’ll be distracted for a while.’
‘I really hope so.’ I stay perfectly still as she runs her hands down my chest, her touch setting my skin on fire through the fabric.
‘To be honest,’ she says into my neck, and I close my eyes as her lips brush my skin. ‘I probably won’t need very long.’
I don’t know if it’s a laugh or a groan that comes out of me, but it’s made worse when one of her hands makes a lazy trail downwards, stopping just above where I crave her touch most.
I use up every morsel of restraint to pull back and look in her eyes to ask, ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘It felt like you were pretty sure last night.’ She links both hands behind my neck, setting off goosebumps across my skin. ‘And a few hours ago, didn’t you say you wanted to – what was it? Devour me?’
‘I was feeling extremely overwhelmed by the sight of you in that dress.’
‘I’m not wearing the dress anymore.’
‘No,’ I say, swallowing hard. ‘You’re not.’
‘Are you still overwhelmed?’
My hands fist the hem of her T-shirt, lifting the material higher up her thighs, and her chest heaves when the tips of my fingers brush the band at her hips. ‘I’m only a man, Ava.’
She moves forward with a smirk and my breath catches at the press of her against me. ‘I’m hurt. Is that all I am to you, a physiological response?’
‘You and I both know you’d run a mile if I told you what you really are to me.’ My voice is quiet, a stark contrast to the way every cell in my body is screaming at me at eardrum-splitting levels. ‘But please give me an answer. I asked if you were sure you wanted to do this.’
There’s a pause before she responds. It might be half a second, it might be a whole minute, but I wait, until my new favourite word tumbles out of her on an exhale. ‘Yes.’
The sibilance of it hasn’t even left the air before I take her face in my hands and crush my lips to hers with the same urgency from last night. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to kiss her and not feel like I’m starving and she’s my first meal in years.
She sighs against me, and when my teeth drag against her bottom lip, I realise I’ve never wanted to learn a language so badly in my life. I wish we had more than a few frantic minutes. I want to relish the softness of her; find out if my theory is correct, if our bodies have been purpose-built for each other, for fitting in the gaps we both leave behind.
This time, she smiles into my mouth, and when it turns into a breathy laugh I almost die right there. She knows she’s got me wrapped around her finger. Knows I crave her attention and affection and touch so much, I’d do anything for it. Knows if she said to jump, I’d ask how high.
‘I could live right here forever,’ I say, mouth moving across her skin. Lips, jaw, cheeks, neck, nose, there’ll never be enough seconds in the day for the amount of her I want to get to know. ‘I’m serious. This is all I need.’ She tilts her head so I can run my mouth up the length of her throat. My voice drops to a whisper. ‘You’re a fucking constellation.’
‘So dramatic,’ she murmurs.
A low chuckle spills out of me. ‘I’m trying to be romantic.’
‘You’re being corny,’ she says, voice hoarse as her nails dig into my shoulders through my shirt to pull me closer.
I spin us to pin her against the bookcase, and when I push my hips forward and her eyes close briefly, I know she feels all of me, the way I feel all of her. I’ve never thought about the convenience of us being a similar height before, but it suddenly makes complete sense; the way every part of us perfectly aligns, the way all I need to do is shift my weight slightly and there’s friction right where we both need it.
‘If you didn’t want corny,’ I say, hands moving under her T-shirt, gliding over her stomach, her waist, resting just below her bra, ‘you shouldn’t have started kissing someone who thinks the sun shines out of your ass.’
She pulls away and takes off her shirt before I have a chance to blink, and she’s so beautiful I almost don’t want to look, but I do, of course, because finally she’s given me permission, and it elicits a noise I don’t fully recognise from my mouth, sending blood roaring through my body.
‘In that case, maybe I should’ve stuck with Jacob,’ she muses. I freeze and she laughs at my expression. ‘It’s not good etiquette to mention another man right now, is it?’
My lips move back to her neck, and I listen for every hitch of her breath to guide me.
‘It wasn’t good etiquette when that man said you looked nice. Nice is for chain restaurants.’ She sighs as I work my way down to the flushed skin of her chest. ‘And supermarket flowers.’ I move her chin so I can look at her, ocean eyes churning; hungry and desperate, hunting for a victim to drag into the waves. But my whole life, I’ve never been able to resist the water. ‘It’s not for this.’