by Q. B. Tyler
She looks at me, and it’s as if our eyes are having a conversation of their own. After a few moments of staring at each other, she sighs and rolls her eyes as she accepts defeat. “Fine, whatever. I have to get home anyway. I need to study.”
I narrow my eyes at her before I’m on my feet and guiding her out of the room. At this moment, I could care less about Tucker’s attitude. Ava was leaving, and I wanted a plan in place for when I’d see her again.
“You can’t study here?” I brush the hair behind her shoulders. I swat her hand away as I zip up her jacket for her and pull her into my arms. I’m mildly aware that I’m still within sight range of her brother but maybe he needed to see this. He needed to witness our interactions and our love for each other, up close and personal.
“I wasn’t planning to stay here while he was in town, so I didn’t bring my books with me. The plan was for me to go home and maybe meet up with you guys later, remember?”
“I know. We’ll--” I look over at Tucker, who I can tell is trying not to look at us as the scowl on his face fades by the minute. “Well, I’ll at least come pick you up later.” The plan may have been for us to all have dinner, but if Tucker was still pissed, I wanted her to know I was seeing her later regardless.
She nods and lifts her chin, presenting her lips to me. “I love you,” she says just before my lips meet hers, and I don’t miss the feeling of euphoria that runs through me hearing her words again.
“I love you, too.”
I plant a simple kiss on her lips, not wanting to risk things becoming obscene with her brother present. I can see the devilish look in her eyes when we pull apart, and sure enough, she licks her lips before sinking her teeth into the bottom one.
“You need to go,” I tell her, my voice low as to not alert the guy several feet away.
She shoots me a cheeky grin before turning her stance toward her brother. “Tucker,” she bites out, and only then does he turn his gaze toward us, the sad look on his face making me feel somewhat bad for the lashing Ava is probably about to give him. “I’m happy. Can’t you see that? We’re both happy. And if you of all people can’t be happy for us then…you’re not the guy either of us thought you were.”
Tucker left that night. I tried everything to get him to stay, but he made up some excuse about a work emergency. He tried to tell me it had nothing to do with what had happened, but I knew. There was no sense in trying to convince him to stay.
He needed space.
But now, it’s been two weeks. Two weeks of radio silence. Not one word from him. I’ve called him a few times, but they went unanswered. Ava was trying everything to cheer me up, knowing I was feeling a little unsettled about where things stood with my best friend. She, on the other hand, was ready to breathe fire onto her brother. She wasn’t calling him, knowing he wouldn’t take her calls either. But she was certainly preparing for an in-person battle the next time we were back in Philly.
The Remington house was about to be a war zone come Christmas.
Tucker was supposed to be in town this weekend, but we assumed that either he wasn’t coming, or he’d gotten a hotel room, and we wouldn’t be seeing him while he was in the city. I certainly wasn’t expecting to walk through my apartment door to see him sitting at my breakfast bar drinking a beer.
Ava’s laughter immediately halts as her eyes find her big brother, and I see the daggers shooting out of them. I grab her, knowing her next move, and lift her slightly off the floor. “Hey!” she yells and turns her face to meet mine as she kicks her feet slightly to try and touch the ground.
“Hold on before I let you at him.” I try to calm my hot-headed girlfriend.
“Why the hell does he still have keys?! Babe, change your locks.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I tell her as I set her back on her feet.
“I’m dramatic? He’s the one throwing a temper tantrum because he’s jealous you have a new best friend or some shit.”
I chuckle at her very juvenile explanation of this situation. But a part of me wonders-- is there more to Tucker’s anger?
“You’re both dramatic,” I tell her. “It must be in the Remington DNA.”
“Bite me,” she retorts, and if her brother wasn’t ten feet away from us, I’d already have her pants off.
“Don’t try and seduce me in front of your brother, Ava,” I growl in her ear before I bite down on the lobe gently. She giggles, and for a moment I’ve forgotten he’s even in the room until he clears his throat.
I turn back to Tucker as I make my way over. “Can’t take any of my calls?”
Upon closer inspection, Tucker looks exhausted, and it makes me wonder if he’s been just as unsettled by the recent developments in our friendship. “I just needed some time to process everything.”
“Process what, Tucker? We’re together; get over it,” Ava interjects before I can respond.
“Ava.” I look at her. “Go finish your paper.”
She crosses her hands over her chest and furrows her brow. “Excuse me?”
“Is it done?” I ask her, knowing full well it’s not. She was supposed to finish it last night, but I pounced on her the second I got home from work, effectively derailing her from finishing the twenty-paged Procedural Law paper that was due at the end of this weekend. After that, we’d made a strict no touching of Ava’s womanly parts rule until she was finished.
She scoffs. “You don’t know me.”
“Your books are still in the study,” I tell her, ignoring her petulant “you don’t know me” comment.
“Thanks, dear,” she mutters before disappearing out of the room.
“How’s school for her?”
“Good.” I nod.
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
I shrug. “I ask.” It was meant to be a dig. Tucker used to check in on Ava every few days, but his stubbornness has prevented him from calling to see how she was doing or how school was going. “And I help her study sometimes.”
“That’s nice of you.”
I shrug again. “Least I can do. I’ve banned her from studying with half of the guys in her class.”
He laughs, and for the first time in weeks, I see a glimpse of how things used to be. “This the real thing…? You and my sister?”
“Yes,” I tell him honestly. You finally getting that through your thick skull?
“Marriage?”
“I’ve mentioned it. She thinks I’m crazy. But… I’m twenty-eight. I know what I want. I would say she’s not sure but-- she is. She just enjoys tormenting me.”
“You sure about that?” He raises an eyebrow at me.
“Yes, dick.”
“So, we’ll be brothers…,” he trails off, and it seems like he’s finally accepting it.
“See, the thing is, I thought we already were.”
He gives me a tight-lipped smile, and I think he feels worse than he already does. “Look man…” His hand finds the back of his neck, his face contrite. “I’m sorry. I was…such an asshole.”
“You were.”
“Can we just…call it even?”
“Even? Really?” I ask, wondering how in the world we could possibly be even for anything after this.
“You wrecked my brand-new bike when we were twelve, asshole.”
I scratch my beard as the thoughts of crashing his bike while I was attempting a trick I’d seen on television fill my mind. “Okay, fair.” I shake my head. “Shit, you’ve been waiting a long time to use that.”
“I had to wait for it to be something really good.”
“Touché, my friend.” I put my hand out. He grabs it, and before I know it, we’re in a manly embrace. Our hug is interrupted by a loud “awwwwww” coming from the other side of the room.
“It’s so sweet, I think I just got a cavity,” she adds.
“Aren’t you supposed to be writing a paper?” Tucker asks her as she crosses the room and moves into my arms.
She scoffs and puts her hand u
p. “You’re not the boss of me.”
“I’m just saying what he said!” He points at me.
“Well, that’s different. He is the boss of me.” She smirks, and I see the blood drain from Tucker’s face, turning ghostly white as his eyes snap shut and his hands fly to his ears.
“I DON’T WANT TO KNOW! God, no, Ava. NO!” he roars as he backs away from us, slowly muttering something about my baby sister.
“You had to go there, didn’t you?” I ask her, and she shoots me the most devilish look.
“Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”
Epilogue
* * *
Seven Months Later
Ava and I are in Philadelphia, walking around our childhood neighborhood revisiting all of our hangout spots. We stop at our favorite playground growing up, and Ava squeals with delight as we both hop on the swings. After a few minutes of reminiscing about our time as kids, she gets up and begins running her fingers along the wood of the jungle gym.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for something. I wonder if it’s still here.”
“What is it?”
“Shhh, I’m trying to concentrate. It’s around here somewhere I think.”
“What are--” My words stop when she laughs and points.
“Found it. Come here, look!”
I move off the swing across the playground and kneel next to her, following her perfectly manicured finger. In handwriting that unmistakably belonged to a child, the following letters are carved into the wood:
AR + JW 4EVR
My eyes widen seeing the workings of a much younger Ava on display. “When was this?”
“Not sure.” She looks at the sky as if the answer will fall from it. “I may have been about nine or so?”
I look at her, the love for me so evident in her eyes, and before I can catch the words, I’m blurting out, “Marry me.”
Her eyes are wide and unblinking as she stammers out “What?” I think as a way to give me an out. She probably thinks the nostalgia is messing with my head, but the truth is I had never seen things clearer, and I had a young Ava Remington to thank for it.
“I love you. I want to be married to you, Ava. Will you marry me?”
She looks back at the writing, drawing her fingertip over the letters before her watery eyes drift back to me. “Yes! Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”
Ava burrowed her way into my heart almost twenty years ago, a girl that used to follow me around like my shadow when we were kids.
Ava Remington, my best friend’s sister, the one woman I should have stayed away from.
But I’m glad I didn’t, because she ended up being my forever.
Maybe little Ava Remington had it right all along.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
What to know more about me or upcoming works?
Find me here:
Facebook Author Page
Q.B Tyler
QB Tyler- Wordpress
Q.B Tyler On Goodreads
Reading Group on Facebook- A place to talk about all books
Three Witches Reading Room
A sneak peek into my upcoming series (working title) – Expensive Charlatan
Prologue
Loyalty.
Arguably one of the most important qualities a person could possess. One word that held so much weight. A word that describes one’s integrity, allegiance, devotion, faithfulness and a slew of other powerful synonyms one can find in Webster’s dictionary. A person with undeniable loyalty was considered inherently good, possessing qualities everyone wanted in a friend-- or a spouse.
I always believed that I fell into that category. Loyal to my friends, my family, and for the past five years, my husband. I’ve played the perfect, doting wife to a man I married at the naive age of twenty-one when I viewed the world through rose colored glasses. I’ve loved him, supported him and I’ve been undeniably faithful to him.
Until I wasn’t.
Until one day temptation presented itself in the form of a broken marriage and a man whose job it was to fix it. I never imagined myself as someone to be capable of infidelity until the man I married seemed to lose all interest in me just in time for another to take notice. Now here I was opening my mind, my heart and currently, my body to a man who wasn’t my husband.
How did I get here?
When did my black and white world blur so catastrophically that I no longer viewed loyalty in a high regard? How did I get here? What turns did I take? At what point did I decide to go running down this hedonistic path that led to this moment?
I feel as if I’m having an out of body experience, my soul floating above my physical body as I watch myself in complete fascination. I watch as a man shoves me up against the wall of the large corner office on the fourteenth floor of a building on Clinton Street. I watch as I wrap my arms and legs around him as his lips finds my neck. I hear the clash of our teeth as our mouths ravage each other, our tongues intertwining furiously. His hands move out of my wavy tresses down my face to grope my breasts. My hands slide down his torso, my fingertips dancing over every ridge hidden beneath his cashmere sweater. My hands fumble with his pants, desperate to get them down his legs. I’m desperate for him. Desperate to feel him inside of me, to feel the connection of our bodies becoming one. I’ve never had this kind of passion with anyone.
Not even my husband.
