Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
The first week of fall semester felt like stepping into someone else’s life.
Same campus. Same classes. Same roommate who’d already covered every surface of our shared space with her eclectic collection of vintage concert posters. Although, thankfully, this year we had found an apartment off campus to live in, so we got separate rooms.
But while pretty much everything around me felt the same as last year, I wasn’t the same Ava who’d left Dunridge in May with a plan to finish her spicy bucket list with her brother’s best friend/situationship over the summer.
That Ava was gone.
In her place was someone who’d done most of the items on that list. Someone who’d discovered she liked sex—really liked it—and that she wasn’t boring at all. Someone who’d learned exactly what her body was capable of when she was with a man who paid attention.
Someone who’d made the catastrophic mistake of falling in love with said man.
“You’re doing it again,” Sydney said, snapping me out of my spiral.
I blinked at her from my spot on our secondhand couch her brother had let us have when he and his fiancé, Josh, bought a whole new living room set. “Doing what?”
“Staring at nothing with that constipated look on your face.” She tossed a throw pillow at me. “Spill. You’ve been weird since you got back.”
“I’m not weird.”
“Ava. Please. Clearly you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to.”
I pulled the throw pillow she’d tossed at me against my chest. “I’m just adjusting,” I said. “Getting back into the groove.”
“And…”
I looked at her, hoping she could see all the conflicting feelings on my face that I wasn’t ready to say out loud.
Her expression sobered and she nodded. “Okay, how about some pizza, ice cream, and an action adventure movie.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “As long as it’s not 300 again. You’re legit obsessed with that movie.”
“How are you not? Have you seen their abs? Like, fuck me sideways, please and thank you.”
I laughed and felt some of the weight sitting on my shoulders ease up.
That was the thing about having a best friend who actually paid attention. She knew when to push and when to wait.
And right now, I wasn’t ready to be pushed.
Because how was I supposed to explain the mess I’d made of my summer?
How was I supposed to articulate that I’d spent three months having the best sex of my life with my brother’s best friend, caught feelings I was never supposed to catch, and now existed in some undefined purgatory where we were definitely still sleeping together but absolutely not talking about what any of it meant?
Harper and Drew had gotten back together and were back to being disgustingly in love.
But neither Liam nor I had brought up talking to Drew about us again. Which made me think I was right that he’d changed his mind.
But now school was starting back up again. I was going to have to tell Sydney if Liam and I were still going to hook up because there was no way in hell I’d be having sex with him at the hockey house.
Everything felt blurry now. Like living in limbo and not knowing what came next.
There were still a few items on my bucket list we hadn’t checked off. But what happened when we did?
We’d stopped having sex simply to fulfill the list—in fact, for the last month of summer, the list never came up once. And the few “rules” we’d agreed to at the beginning were nonexistent.
And Liam, who was supposed to be the king of one-night stands, was acting like anything but a one and done guy.
Sometimes he’d hold me afterward for longer than necessary, his fingers tracing patterns on my skin like he was memorizing me.
Sometimes he’d look at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read before his walls would slam back into place and he’d become the Liam I recognized again.
I hated that I noticed. Hated that I cataloged every deviation from our original agreement like evidence in a case I was building. A case for what, I didn’t know. Hope? Delusion? Some desperate belief that maybe everything would work out in the end and we’d actually be together?
That was the most pointless thing to hope for, and every day that went by without us telling Drew made me feel like it was never going to happen.
At some point soon we’d complete my bucket list and that would be the end.
I just hated that the end meant losing him.
Part of me wanted to drag this out forever—find excuses, create delays, or manufacture reasons why we couldn’t possibly finish yet. If we never completed the list, we never had to have the conversation about what came next.
But the other part of me—the part that had spent years being the easy, accommodating, don’t-make-waves twin—wanted it over. That part wanted the clean break. To rip off the bandage before Liam had the chance to do it for me.
Because he would. Eventually. He’d wake up one day and remember that he didn’t do relationships, or commitment, or forever. And I’d rather we were finished with my list before I had to see him flirting with someone else.
Better to control the ending than to have it happen to me.
My phone buzzed.
Liam
You busy tonight?
I stared at the message for a moment, my thumb hovering over the keyboard.
Me
Depends. What did you have in mind?
The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Liam
I want to check something off your list.
This was good. This was what I wanted. The sooner we were done, the sooner we were out of limbo.
So why did dread fill my stomach at the thought of crossing off another item on my list?
Me
Come over to my place.
Liam
K. 8pm?
I should say no. I should tell him I was busy, that I had studying to do, that Sydney and I had plans. I should protect what was left of my shattered heart and start building walls before he had the chance to knock down any more of them.
Me
Sounds great.
Looked like I was going to have to tell Sydney tonight after all.
Sydney took the news better than I expected.
“So let me get this straight.” She held up a hand, ticking off fingers.
“You’ve been hooking up with Liam Farrell—hockey god, your brother’s best friend, certified man-whore—since last spring and you’re just now telling me about it?
And to add insult to injury, you need me to make myself scarce so he can come over tonight and bang you? ”
“Basically, yes.”
She stared at me for a second and then burst out laughing.
“Oh my God, Ava. This is amazing. This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened.” She grabbed my shoulders. “You absolute fucking legend. You lassoed the biggest fuckboy at CFU. Drew is going to lose his entire mind.”
“Which is why Drew can’t know.”
“For now.” She had more hope than I did. “Don’t worry, I’m a vault. But holy shit. Liam Farrell. I mean, I always thought there was something between you two, but I figured it was just, like, tension that would never go anywhere because of the whole brother situation.”
I groaned. “Can we not dissect this right now? I’m barely holding it together as it is.”
Her expression softened. “Okay. I’m going to go study at the library—and by study, I mean swipe through dating apps and judge people’s bios now that I’m back on the market—and I will not be back until midnight at the earliest. You have the place to yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank me by eventually giving me all the dirty details.” She grabbed her bag and headed for the door, then paused. “And Ava? Whatever happens…you deserve someone who puts you first. Remember that.”
The door clicked shut behind her, and I was left alone with my racing thoughts and the ticking clock counting down to eight.
I showered. Changed twice. Cleaned the apartment even though it was already clean. Checked my phone approximately forty-seven times.
When the knock finally came, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Liam stood in the doorway, looking unfairly good in jeans and a green T-shirt that matched his eyes while his brown hair was still damp from a shower.
His eyes swept over me—I’d settled on shorts and a tank top since it was still relatively warm for September—and they were filled with heat by the time they met mine.
“Hey, Sunshine.”
“Hey.” I stepped back to let him in. “Sydney’s out for a while.”
“I figured.” He closed the door behind him, and suddenly the apartment felt very small. “Did you tell her?”
“Had to. She’d have figured it out eventually anyway. She’s annoyingly perceptive.”
He nodded slowly, his gaze tracking around the living room before landing back on me. “So. This is your new place.”
“Yup.”
God, why did this suddenly feel so awkward?
“So which item were you thinking of from my list?” I asked, because someone had to break the silence.
Liam’s gaze heated. “I want you to touch yourself while I watch.”
Masturbate in front of each other.
Of all the items left on my list, this was the one that terrified me most. Not because of the act itself, but because of what it required.
Complete vulnerability. No hiding behind the rhythm of sex, or losing myself in the sensation of his hands on my body.
It would just be me, exposed in the most intimate way possible, while he watched.
“We don’t have to,” he added quietly. “If you don’t—”
“I want to.” The words came out steadier than I felt. I needed to. I needed to finish this list because until it was done, I wouldn’t really know where we stood for certain.
His voice was slightly ragged as he said, “Lead the way.”
I led him down the short hallway to my room. It was small, but tidy. The fairy lights I’d had in my dorm room were strung along my headboard, and there was a collage of photos on the wall, some of which included him, although Drew was also in those pictures.
Come to think of it, we’d never taken a photo just the two of us.
For some reason, that thought made my heart hurt. There wouldn’t even be any evidence we were ever together when all this was over.
Liam grabbed my hand, his warm, rough palm sliding against mine, soothing me in ways only he could.
“Hey, come here,” he said, his voice low.