Chapter 6 Avery
AVERY
I text Jules from Chris’s bed while he’s in the shower. I’m wearing his black T-shirt that smells like him and a pair of panties, my legs all tangled up in the sheets.
I bite my lip to stop myself from giggling as I type.
So, remember that guy from the bookstore? The one you said looked like he eats iron or whatever?
Three dots appear immediately. Jules is always on her phone.
Avery…what did you do?
Now I can’t stop from laughing as I reply.
I went home with him :)
Three dots appear. Disappear. Reappear. Then my phone buzzes in my hand with an incoming call. I answer, and Jules’s voice nearly blows my ear out.
“Are you absolutely insane!?”
I twist in bed, embracing the scent of my new man. “Well, good morning to you too, Jules.”
“Are you talking about the prison tattoo guy? You went home with him?”
“His name is Chris,” I tell her. “And you were wrong about him.”
“Oh, honey, I am never wrong when it comes to men.” She scoffs. “You are eighteen, and you went home with a stranger who reads books about security systems and looks like a professional killer—”
“He’s a security consultant,” I correct her. “And he’s nice.”
“Riiiight,” she replies. “And I’m the Queen of England. Please tell me you did not sleep with him.”
I don’t answer right away, which is an answer in itself.
“Oh my God.” I can just picture her shaking her head, resting her face in her hand. “Your first time was with the scary bookstore hitman.”
“And you know what? It was incredible,” I reply smugly, hugging my knees to my chest. “He was careful with me, sweet, sexy, and he held me afterward, and I fell asleep in his arms.”
“Avery…”
“Jules, he’s not what you think. Sure, he’s a little guarded, but he’s a guy. Guys don’t just spill their feelings immediately. He’s good. I know he is.”
Silence on the other end. Then, a long, defeated sigh. “You really like him, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“'Kay, then I want to meet him. Like really meet him.”
“Okay, no problem.” I hear the shower turn off, and my heart leaps. “Jules, I gotta go.”
“Okay. And, Avery?”
“Yeah?”
“If he hurts you…I will kill him.”
I laugh, feeling free like I’ve never felt. Like the world is filled with promise. “I appreciate that, Jules. But he won’t.”
We hang up, and I lie back in bed, positioning my body in the most alluring way so that when he comes out of the bathroom, he’ll want me. Again.
Jules was wrong about him. She only saw the surface. I mean, she barely even spoke to him. She assumed the worst but never saw what I saw—what’s underneath. The man who is gentle with me, asks me if I’m okay. Who has a future planned for us.
I trust him completely and totally.
Which is why what happens next destroys me.
Chris has gone out when I find it.
He said he had a meeting, a “boring work thing” and would be back for dinner. He kissed me and left me alone in the house, which still feels a bit strange.
I’m not uncomfortable, but the only personal items in the entire place belong to me. My toothbrush, sweater, a few hair ties on the counter, and the clothes I brought over from my apartment.
Maybe I’m being a snoop, but I decide to explore the house.
There’s really nothing to explore. No other furniture, no pictures, no nothing. I go to the closet to grab some sweats I brought over, but the door doesn’t open all the way. Something’s blocking it from the inside.
I push harder, and the door gives way. Something big and heavy falls from the shelf above and lands at my feet.
A duffel bag.
It tips over, and out spills countless stacks of banded cash. More money than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Beneath the cash are two driver’s licenses with Chris’s photo but different names.
Beneath that is a phone I’ve never seen before and something that looks like a folded-up blueprint titled Pacific Waves Bank and Trust. I know that bank. Why does Chris have blueprints to a bank in his closet?
I freeze. I don’t touch anything. I just stare.
My hands are trembling, and not the romantic trembling I get when Chris is around. This is the kind that comes from a chill going down your spine. I stand there, unmoving, waiting for the floor to fall out from underneath me.
Fake IDs…stacks of cash…a burner phone…and a blueprint.
Every potentially sketchy detail about Chris I chose to ignore comes crashing back over me like a wave.
The book on security systems, the way he took apart those muggers like it was nothing, the empty house with no personal information.
The way he so skillfully deflects every personal question like a man who’s spent a lifetime lying.
Jules’s voice echoes in my head.
Men get those tattoos in prison…you don’t know anything about him…
And then the truth hits me like a punch to the gut. She was right. Jules was right about everything.
And I told her she was wrong. I just told her he was good, that I trusted him.
God, I let him take my virginity and whisper a fantasy to me about a house by the water where we’d spend our days together. And this whole time, he was lying to me about who he was. Who he is.
I close the closet door and fall back on the bed. I want to cry, but I can’t. Not yet. I’m too angry for tears. Those will come soon.
Chris knows the instant he walks through the door.
I’m on the couch with the lights off. The sun is going down, and the house is dark, aside from the last strip of purple over the ocean.
I haven’t done anything since the closet. I’ve sat here thinking, replaying every moment, every conversation, every kiss. Looking for cracks in his story and finding dozens.
He stops at the doorway, eyes on me, reading me the way he always does. What he sees makes him go still.
“What’s wrong?”
I almost snap at him. “Who are you?”
Silence. A long, heavy silence. Even from the couch, I can hear him breathing.
“Avery—”
“I found the bag, Chris. Cash, fake IDs, another phone, and a blueprint?” Somehow, I’m keeping my voice steady, and I’m proud of that. Because inside, I’m falling apart. “So tell me who you are. Right now. Or I walk.”
He closes the door behind him and moves slowly into the room like he’s approaching a wounded animal. He doesn’t sit. He just stands in front of me with his hands at his side. Slowly, the mask he’s been wearing all this time falls away.
“I rob banks.”
I swallow hard. “Banks…”
“That’s what the blueprints are for. My crew and I have been planning a job—a job that goes down tomorrow.”
His words hit me like individual bullets, each one sending a hot pain into me that radiates out until my whole body is shaking.
Chris…is a bank robber.
The man I gave my virginity to, the man who held me so sweetly and called me his, the man who sat me down and described our perfect life together…
Is a bank robber.
I should get up now and walk out. Maybe even call the cops on him. That’s what I should do.
But I can’t. Something keeps me in my place.
“For how long?” I ask.
“Eleven years.”
My stomach drops. An entire career based on taking what isn’t his. “You’ve never been caught?”
“No. I’m careful.”
“Have you…hurt anyone?”
He pauses. It feels like an eternity. “Not anyone who didn’t have it coming. Like those men at the pier.”
I close my eyes, feeling the anger within—burning, rising. But beneath that, there’s something worse.
Fear.
Not fear of Chris. I’ve never been afraid of him, and even now, despite everything he’s told me, I’m still not. No, I’m afraid for him. For what might happen if he walks into that bank tomorrow.
“You lied to me…” My voice starts to crack. “I gave myself to you, Chris. I told my best friend you were a good man. I believed everything you said about the house, our life together. And the whole time, you were just lying to me!”
“No!” His voice is rough, strained, like he wants to shout but is holding back. “Yes, I lied about what I do, but when I told you how I feel about you—when I told you about the life I want with you—I was not lying.”
I shake my head. “How can I believe that?”
“I’m telling you now, Avery. The truth. Right now.” He takes a step closer. “I could have taken that bag and disappeared without you ever knowing, but I didn’t. I’m still here, telling you that I want you with me.”
He’s close enough to touch me. There’s a strained look on his face like nothing I’ve ever seen on him. The control, the discipline. It’s slipping.
I see desperation, emotion. And it’s raw.
He’s terrified of losing me.
Somehow, I manage to stand. My legs wobble, but I brace myself and stare at him. “This job is tomorrow?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“And that phone call you took yesterday? That was one of your guys? Part of your crew?”
“Yes. He got himself busted and brought the heat down on all of us. Since then, I’ve been trying to find a way out.”
“A way…out?” I ask. “You mean, not robbing the bank? Going away with me like you described?”
“That’s right.”
I look at him, the man with ice-blue eyes and scarred knuckles, and think back to the first time he caught my eye at the bookstore. The first time he kissed me, made love to me.
“And you still want that? The house, waking me up in the morning, showing you how to cook eggs?”
He nods firmly. “Yes.”
“Then you can’t walk into that bank tomorrow, Chris.
You can’t have me if you’re dead or in prison.
” I put my hand against his chest. His heart is pounding so hard I actually can’t believe it.
“I don’t care about money, Chris, or some dream house on the water.
I just need you, alive, so you can wrap me up in your arms.”
His eyes are bright, filled with a desire that lifts my heart. Makes me believe he and I might be possible. But then he looks down. Away.
“My crew is counting on me,” he says. “This job will set them up for life. Them and their families—”
“What about us?” I snap. “What about our family?”
The word hangs over us like a sword ready to drop.
Family.