Chapter 18
Ava
Our presentation went off without a hitch on Tuesday.
Logan and I definitely aced it, would be shocked if we got anything less than an A.
But between when Macie came home during the storm and when we met up in class, Logan and I hadn’t really seen much of each other.
And that may have been intentional on my part.
I was avoiding him, I knew that. Even though I was the one who demanded we keep our tryst a secret…I didn’t know how.
When I saw him, all I wanted to do was run into his arms or run my fingers through his wavy blonde locks. Not act like we still hated each other. So it was easier to simply not see him.
As I lay on my bed, I felt like a prisoner in my own house, trying to steer clear of him.
My phone received a text. When I looked, I couldn’t help but chuckle. It said it was from My Forbidden Secret.
Logan: Come upstairs
Me: It’s the middle of the day, someone could come home
Logan: Is it against your rules for roommates to be in the same room talking
I stood outside his closed door for a couple minutes, debating whether I should knock. Then another text came through.
Logan: Come in, I can almost hear you breathing
But before I could even grab the knob, he threw the door open.
Looming in front of me was the man I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.
His jeans were tight, and I wanted him to turn around so I could get a glimpse.
He had one of those long-sleeve waffle-knit shirts on, and it clung to his arms, the muscles thick against the material.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said. He almost glared down at me, and I could have mistaken him for being angry, but his eyes were sad. “Why, Tink?”
Pushing past him, I sat at his desk chair. His computer was open to something that looked like law gibberish.
“I’m not doing anything.” But I refused to look at him when I said it.
Suddenly, he grabbed the chair I was in and slid it along the floor to the side of the bed. Sitting across from me, he forced me to look him in the eye.
“Ava.”
I loved when he said my real name.
“These past few days have been torture,” he said.
“I know you want to keep this…” He gestured between us with his hands.
“A secret. And I’m OK with that to keep you happy.
But we have to be able to talk, Ava. We have to be able to see each other, I mean, we live in the same fucking house.
What we had before was better than this. ”
My shoulders slumped because I knew he was right.
I also knew that I was scared. Scared of so many things.
Logan was right. We couldn’t live like this because it was even more unusual for us and would raise eyebrows with the roommates just as much.
His hands cradled my face, the warmth reaching my heart. I was unaware how much I’d missed his touch. Our lips touched ever so gently, his tongue grazing my bottom lip, searching out my lip ring. It swirled around the tiny hoop, playing with it, and it made me smile against him.
“Did you miss this as much as I did?” he whispered against my lips.
I answered him by deepening the kiss, leaving the chair and straddling his lap, both of us now on the bed. His hands held me by the waist, then my ass, pulling me close and tight as our mouths got reacquainted.
Then we heard the door open downstairs. And I panicked.
I jumped off his lap and stood frozen in the middle of his room like a deer in headlights.
Logan, however, calmly moved his chair and pointed to his bed as he took a seat at his desk.
I sat on the edge of his bed, though nowhere near as calm as he was.
My hands went to my mouth and face, rubbing, thinking I could erase the evidence of what we were doing.
But I was probably only making my lips redder.
“Anyone home?” Becca yelled.
“We’re up here,” Logan responded.
She was standing in the doorway with her Stanley in one hand, a sandwich in the other, and a full backpack on her shoulder. Her coat, hat, and gloves were still covering every inch of her body.
“Christ, I need it to warm up out there so the snow can melt. I’m sick of walking through it and dealing with it.
I’m sick of winter.” She looked at her full hands with exasperation, as if she wanted to throw everything to the ground but knew she couldn’t.
“Whatcha you guys doing? Homework? Have to say, it’s kinda nice seeing you two in the same room. ”
She started backing out of the doorway.
“I have to get this shit off me, out of my hands. I need a bath, I need to eat. I need this day to end…” Her words trailed off as she headed to her room.
Logan let out a chuckle before coming to sit next to me on his bed.
“And that’s what I refer to as ‘Tornado Becca.’”
Now I understood. She never took a breath or let us get a word in. Then was on her way.
“But I love her,” he said.
My hand was engulfed in his before we even heard the door upstairs close, proving Becca was indeed in her room. I had no idea how to navigate this, yet he seemed cool as a cucumber.
“How is this not making you nervous?”
“That’s an excellent question,” he said.
“I’ve been a ball of anxiety since getting to school.
If you didn’t already know, I’m still talking with my counselor on video sessions, and she helps me with my sobriety as well as my anxiety.
” He paused to monitor my reaction to that information.
When he saw none, he continued. “Well, it’s kinda weird.
Since this weekend, Friday night to be specific…
” He gave me an impish smile. “I haven’t had a panic attack. ”
“Great.” My eyes rolled so hard it hurt my sockets, and I hoped he was going to get my joke. “You gave me your anxiety! I’ve been nothing but a ball of nerves since exactly then!”
He pointed above us. I knew what he was going to say, but it wasn’t going to make me feel any better. We still had Macie to worry about.
“Becca has been desperate for us to become friends. I think she’d be oblivious to anything else other than reaching her goal of that,” I told him. “Macie, on the other hand, is very in tune to me. And she’s the one I have the agreement with.”
Pulling me by the hand, he led me from his room and down the stairs to the main living area. He brought his computer and had it open on the table but sat us on the couch. Then, he pulled up Netflix and scrolled through until he landed on the next episode of New Girl for me.
“Let’s watch some TV together. If Macie comes home, we can look like we’re doing homework or taking a break from that.”
He pulled me against his side, forcing me to cuddle into his shoulder. And it felt…perfect. And I did relax. A bit.
We talked quietly about how to proceed. How to make this work.
And he was working so hard to make this work.
I thought, maybe, just maybe, it could.
By the time Macie walked in, each of us were making our own dinners. The kitchen was a chaotic mess as we danced around each other, fighting for the microwave, stove, and sink. But let’s face it, all I really needed was the microwave.
I sat down to my frozen dinner, nicely heated from those microwaves. Becca and Logan joined me at the table.
“Tink, that shit is so bad for you,” Logan said.
I bristled at the nickname, even though he explained what it meant to him. I’d gotten used to him using my real name, but he was keeping up the facade.
“Well, you didn’t offer to cook for me, so this is it,” I retorted, with my best attempt at being snarky right back. Becca sat to my right, completely oblivious to what was going on around her.
“Any food for me?” Macie asked as she walked in and foraged through the cabinets.
“It’s a fend for yourself kind of night,” I told her. “Chef Logan was selfish.”
That earned me a gruff harumph from my other side. His fork stabbed at his grilled chicken with such force the plate slid across the wood surface. But I was following through on what we’d agreed on…back to how we were in front of the roommates.
We decided we didn’t need to be quite as mean, but that it needed to be authentic.
“Well, looks like I’ll be having peanut butter and jelly tonight,” Macie said.
No one but Logan had been to the grocery store in a while.
“We can go shopping tomorrow,” I told her.
Macie nodded as she made her pitiful sandwich and joined us at the table. It wasn’t often that the four of us were at the table together. It hadn’t happened since Logan and I had started our “thing.”
This could be interesting.
Especially since he and I were sitting next to each other.
“Logan told me you guys kicked ass on your presentation,” Becca said in my direction.
“We did. He was a pain in the ass to work with, but the meathead here has a head for business on his shoulders.” My lips turned up in a slight smile, working hard to not overdo this interaction.
His snicker made me pause, hoping he understood what I was doing.
My hand landed on his thick thigh under the table, and I gave it a squeeze.
I was working to be my old self, the one they expected me to be around him.
I watched him put his fork down with precision before his hand came under the table and found mine.
At first I thought he was going to remove it, push me from his leg.
Instead, he gripped my hand in his, threading his fingers through mine, before looking my way.
“Yeah, well, Tink here is like working with a drill sergeant, and not the good kind. But I guess considering we did well, it was worth it.”
He gave my hand a squeeze then let go, his attention back to his plate of food.
Our little secret moment, in front of our friends, made my heart skip a beat or two.
It was thrilling keeping this from them.
More than thrilling, invigorating even.
That shifted when I looked over at Macie.
She was smiling, and my mind made me think she’d seen us, making my stomach drop and my food almost come back up.
I put my fork down, my appetite now gone at the thought.
As I looked back her way, she was eating her sandwich as she listened to the story Becca was telling the table, something about Ty’s daughter, Savannah.
“She sounds adorable,” Macie said.
She was oblivious of me.
And my worries and stress.
They all were as the three laughed at whatever Becca had said.
Then I felt his hand on my leg, his thumb rubbing small circles, as he continued listening to Becca. Like a tether, his hand anchored me to his strength, as he somehow sensed I needed it.
“Well, this was fun, but I’ve got work to do,” Becca announced. “We should try to do this at least once a week, though. A roomies night for dinner!”
“Yes!” Macie squealed in agreement. “That would be so nice.” They both cleared their dishes and kept talking about plans for a night next week as they headed up to their rooms, leaving us at the table.
We sat quietly for a moment, needing to make sure we were alone.
Once we heard the footsteps overhead, Logan reached for my chair, pulling it closer, the wood pegs scraping along the vinyl floor.
He took my feet and wrapped them around his waist, pulling me between his own widespread legs.
As he cradled my face, he studied me with intent eyes.
“I couldn’t wait for them to leave,” he said.
“When you put your hand on my leg, I don’t know, it did something inside.
The risk you took…” His lips settled on mine, gentle as air, as his tongue begged entrance into my mouth.
The slow swirl of our tongues as he kissed me, as he held my face in his hands, as our bodies fought to get closer.
I forgot about all the reasons doing this with him was a bad idea.
“You’re coming to my room tonight,” he whispered against my mouth. “Set your alarm for two a.m.”
Pulling back, I shook my head at him. But he held my head still and stared me square in the eye.
“You’re visiting me tonight, Tink. They’re both on another floor, they won’t hear us.”
Of course I wanted to as well, but us being together while they were home, in the house with us, made my heart race. And not in a good way. But if we were going to make this work, it was going to have to be like this.
Secret.
“OK.”
He kissed me on the lips one more time before moving my legs from his lap.
“I’m heading up to get some studying done,” he said before grabbing his dishes from the table.
He worked at the sink while I sat, ruminating about what was to come later tonight.
“Those wheels turning in your head are about to bust out and roll across the floor, Tink.” He laughed as he placed his dishes in the dishwasher. “Don’t think so hard. I’m the one with anxiety issues, remember?”
As he walked back to me, I admired the way he looked in his sweatpants. The way they clung to his narrow hips and hung low enough to show the band of his boxer briefs underneath. He dipped and kissed me on the nose before spinning on his heels and heading out of the room.
“Go get some work done, Tink. Either that or get some sleep, but don’t forget to set your alarm.”
Two a.m.
Alarm set.