“You’re serious about this girlfriend business then?” Zac said while the others were basically all paired off.
I drained the rest of my current beer and gave him a nod. “Sure.”
He chuckled. “You don’t sound so sure. But you keeping your hands to yourself tonight makes you sure look it.”
“I’m spoken for now, mate. Excuse me if I take that shit seriously.”
Zac looked around the room where Nate was hooking up with Liv, but the others had gone looking for some private time. “Nothing wrong with that. I guess I’m just surprised that you were the one to settle down first.”
I rubbed the back of my head. “You’re not the only one.”
Zac laughed away the semi-seriousness we’d fallen into and nudged my shoulder. “Come on. I’m still betting I can beat you one day.”
“Not likely.”
I followed him over to the TV and we set to, not really paying attention to whatever it was Liv and Nate were getting up to behind us.
Eleven: Avery
Davin walked towards me on Saturday evening and I had to admit I felt a little flurry of excitement at just the sight of him. He was in his usual dark jeans and scruffy black Converse, with a non-descript tee under a non-descript jacket. He had his hands shoved in his pockets, his shoulders were hunched, and he was scowling as he looked around. But as a package, it did something for me.
“More florals?” he asked, totally unimpressed as he pulled his sunglasses down to look me over – it was still early enough in the year that the sun wasn’t quite down yet.
“I’m very impressed you know what floral is,” I told him with a smile.
“I’ll bet.” He pushed his sunglasses back up his nose. “Right. What torture in the guise of entertainment have you got planned for me today?”
“Something from this century.”
“The horror,” he mono-toned. My smile widened. “Oh, God. I’m going to hate it, aren’t I?”
I shook my head. “No. I think you’ll love it!”
“Impossible.”
I would not be deterred. “No. I think you’ll be really pleased with my choice.”
“Go on, then.”
“Ready Player One.”
He blinked and I did an internal victory dance at having surprised him. “You picked what?”
I nodded. “I thought it sounded just like you.”
“What? It sounds incessantly annoyed by a small fairy creature straight out of Wes Craven’s most depraved nightmares?”
I laughed, having no idea who Wes Craven was but I got the gist. “Sure.”
I took his hand, noting his protest was limited to an eye roll – progress – and dragged his totally unenthusiastic person into the cinema complex.
“Okay,” I said as we walked in. “Dinner choices?”
“Well, Grill’d is the closest,” he said unenthusiastically.
I smiled. “Great. I love burgers.”
He pulled off his sunglasses and swapped them out for his normal glasses. “I’m yet to find something you don’t love.”
“I’m sure you can find something,” I said as I led the way to a table.
“I find that very hard to believe,” was his dry reply as we sat down.
“All right, you can have a free one. I don’t like spiders.”
“Shame you live in Australia then, isn’t it?”
“I happen to quite like it.”
“Even though everything wants to kill you?”
“Not everything wants to kill me.”
“It’s not personal or anything.”
I laughed even though there was nothing about his face that suggested he was joking. “No. I’d like to think it’s not.”
He looked around as he took a deep breath. “What do you want then?”
I looked over the menu and tried to decide. “I think I’m going to have a…crispy bacon and cheese today.”
“Come here often then?”
“Blair and I enjoy it, yes.”
He nodded as his eyes skimmed over the menu. “Okay. Drink?”
“I think lemonade.”
“You think lemonade?”
I nodded. “Lemonade. What about you?” He stood up and I frowned in confusion. “Where are you going?”
“To order,” he said simply, pulling his wallet out of his pocket.
“You don’t have to pay for me.”
“Of that I’m aware. And yet…” He shrugged lazily.
“I’ll get the tickets then.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Be back in a tick.”
I watched him walk away and realised I’d never really watched him walk before. He looked sure and confident as he manoeuvred through the few people crisscrossing around the restaurant. I watched him order and took note of the interaction. He wasn’t the hunched over guy he was at school. I wondered what was different about school and here that had him acting so differently.
“Want a drink to go with that straw?” he asked me as he came back to the table and I realised I’d been chewing the end of a straw as I watched him.
I smiled as he sat back down, sliding my drink over to me. “Thanks.”
He nodded. “No problem.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“I’m not sure how I’d stop you.” He was looking around and I wasn’t sure if he felt the need to keep an eye on the people around us or he didn’t want to look at me.
“At school you kinda hide…”
“Not a question, Avery.”
“Fine. Why do you seem to be hiding at school?”
“To avoid human interaction.”
“Just how many socialisation credits do you have a day?” I asked him.
The corner of his lips twitched, but he sniffed and any sign of a smile was quickly gone. “I’ve had to borrow against future credits since we started dating.”
“So why don’t you feel the need to hide here?”
He looked at me, his eyebrow quirked in surprise. “What?”
“You went over there and ordered with total ease and confidence.”
“I’m not shy, Avery. I dislike social contact. There’s a difference.”
“So you don’t want to talk to people at school who you know, but you’ll talk to strangers?”
“Strangers only talk to you as necessary. Attending the same school breeds an assumed familiarity that leads to unnecessary discourse–”
“You just don’t want to be nice to people.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Are you afraid people will like you?” I asked as I took a sip.
He scoffed. “If anything, I’d prefer to avoid the unfortunate circumstance in which they do.”
“I like you.”
A range of emotions flickered through his eyes as he looked at me, his bottle of Coke halfway to his mouth. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you enough. You’re smart, you’re funny, and you’re interesting. You think I’m an idiot, but instead of talking down to me or dismissing me you try to teach me… Whether it’s needed or not.”
He leant over the table towards me. “You like what I do to you.”
I mirrored his lean. “I like that, too.”
“Why me, Avery?” he asked softly.
“Why not you?”
“That’s what you said the other week. I want to know why me.”
I looked at him and said the first thing that came to mind. “Because it didn’t matter if you laughed in my face. I didn’t care what you thought and I had nothing to lose. Plus you’re mysterious and moody and in trouble all the time, I figured if anyone could trash my reputation it would be you.”
A single eyebrow rose on that stony face. “I’m flattered you thought so highly of me. Does the use of the past tense mean you care now?”
I paused before I answered, not quite sure how to answer, let alone how I felt. “I…
I don’t not care…?”
He nodded thoughtfully. Finally, all he said was, “You know I don’t laugh, right?”
The waiter came over with our burgers in hand. “A pork and pine?”
“Thanks.” Davin nodded and the waiter put it down.
“And the chilli addict.” The waiter put the other board in front of me and my eyes widened in terror.
I looked up at Davin and there was this glint in his eyes as he popped a chip in his mouth. I frowned at him and there went that ghost of a smile on his face.
I opened my mouth, closed it and turned an awkward smile on the waiter.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Everything okay?” the waiter asked.
I nodded quickly. “Yep.”
Nope. Big nope. I couldn’t get through the slightly spicy twiggy sticks when Dad accidentally bought them at the shops. How was I going to get through a chilli addict burger?
“You sure?” the waiter asked and I looked to Davin again.
It felt an awful lot like the waiter was waiting for me to complain.
“What did you do?” I hissed at Davin.
Davin shrugged. “I certainly don’t remember you ordering a chilli addict, Avery,” he said meaningfully.
“Oh, you didn’t?” the waiter asked and his tone was far too innocent for me to think this was a total accident.
“It’s fine,” I said with an awkward laugh.
“Are you sure?” the waiter asked.
“Yes. It’s no problem. Thanks.”
Davin had a chip on its way to his mouth, but he dropped his hand and looked at me pointedly. “Lesson. When someone brings you the wrong order, you are allowed to say so. You don’t just have to eat something you didn’t order.”
“Yes,” I hissed, leaning closer to him like the waiter wasn’t going to hear me then. “But they didn’t mess up, did they? You set me up.”
Davin’s nose scrunched in a way I was starting to wonder was him suppressing a smile. “No. I merely ordered you an extra burger and asked this nice young man to bring over the wrong one in the hopes you wouldn’t let it go.”
I frowned at him. “You paid for an extra burger?”
“That is irrelevant.”
“No it’s not!”
“It is. Explain to the nice young man that this wasn’t the burger you ordered.”
“Davin,” I hissed.
He leant his elbows on the table. “He knows there’s a purpose to this and you’re still not going to say anything to him?”
I looked up at the waiter with an apologetic smile before I glared at Davin again. “No. I don’t want to make a fuss.”
“You wanted lessons. And I’ve paid for you to make the fuss. So make it.”
I huffed at him, then looked up at the waiter. “I’m really sorry about this. But…” Even knowing the waiter was in on this, something was holding me back from saying it. I cleared my throat, widened my smile, and tried again. “This isn’t what I ordered.”
The waiter was looking between us with a knowing smile. “So sorry about that. What did you order?”
I threw one more glare at Davin. “A crispy bacon and cheese. Please.”
“I’ll bring it right out.”
“Thank you.”
The waiter picked up the chilli addict and left.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Davin asked.
It was terrible. But as embarrassing and awkward as it had been, I also had a sense of accomplishment. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell Davin that or if he needed berating for setting it up in the first place.
“That was mortifying. How did you even get him to agree to that?”
“I told him it was foreplay.”
“Davin!” I yelped, then looked around in embarrassment.
“Relax. He was quite happy to play along. I told him my girlfriend was amazingly wonderful but needed a little help being assertive.”
“You told him I was amazingly wonderful?”
“That’s what you take from that?” he sighed. “But yes. I did.”
I smiled and we moved onto general chit chat as we ate. Well I moved onto general chit chat. Davin wasn’t exactly any more talkative than he usually was, but he didn’t seem quite so closed off as usual somehow either.
When we went to buy tickets, he let me buy them but then beat me to paying for the drinks and popcorn, saying, “You can pay next time.”
I was already practically elbow deep in the giant popcorn tub as we found our seats and Davin helped me catch it as I sat down.
“We just had dinner.”
“So?” I asked, my mouth full of popcorn.
“And you’re not full?”
I shook my head as I swallowed. “Me? It’s a rare occurrence.”
He looked mildly surprised. “Good to know.”
“Ebony’s worse.”
He nodded. “Great.”
As the pre-movie ads started rolling and the lights went down, I realised the cinema was oddly empty. But I was distracted by remembering I needed to put my phone on silent.
We got all of about ten minutes through the movie before Davin put his arm around me. And it was another five or so when he bent his head to kiss my neck. His breath on my skin tickled pleasantly and I instinctively shied away a little at the same time my head tilted to give him better access.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, trying not to giggle.
“Either tell me to stop, or relax,” was his hushed answer.
“Are they my only options?”
He pulled back to look at me. “How many options do you want, woman?”
“How many do you have?”
“Two. I have two options. Take it or leave it.”
I knew how he felt about me laughing at him, so I tried not to. “I choose option three.”
“There isn’t an–”
I shut him up by kissing him. His hand went to my cheek as he kissed me deeper and everything in me responded, until I remembered we were in a movie theatre.
“You’re missing the movie,” I told him.
“We’ll rent it later,” he replied, his flippant tone telling me exactly how much he cared.
I laughed, but he soon distracted me with kisses as his hand trailed down my body. When he slid it up under my skirt, he didn’t stop and I felt his thumb rub between my legs. It sent an oh-so-amazing shiver up my spine and I didn’t want him to stop, but…
“Davin!” I hissed.
“What?” I could have sworn I felt a smile against my lips. But that was ridiculous because Davin didn’t know how to smile.
“We’re in public.”
“Hardly.”
“What if people see?”
His lips skimmed towards my ear as his thumb kept moving over me. “There are two other people in here and they’re paying less attention to the film than we are. They’re not going to see anything.”
The way I was leaning into him, he’d know I didn’t want him to stop. But my mind was warring with my body.
“Do you want to be that good girl forever?” he asked teasingly.
“Another lesson?” I asked wryly.
“If you like.” Goose bumps chased across my skin as his breath tickled my neck. “Let me teach you how to let go…”
Now I knew that if I had wanted to stop and I’d told him that, he would have and he would have been fine with it. But I didn’t want him to. I wanted Davin to bring me out of my good girl shell, so why not let him finger me at the movies?
I knew why I wouldn’t have done it if Miles had suggested it. I wouldn’t have done it because there would have been no reward for the risk. Which is to assume that Miles would have got me so worked up that I’d be near desperate for release anyway.
But Davin wasn’t Miles. Davin made me feel things that Miles never did. And there was something sort of enticing about knowing we could get caught, but also knowing it
was unlikely.
I mean, we totally still could… Which was scary. But it was unlikely. Which was less scary…
And Davin knew what he was doing down there, so the reward for the risk would be definitely worth it. Besides, good girls didn’t get fingered at the movies because they were too shy and innocent. And I was going to not be too shy and innocent anymore.
So when Davin looked at me, his nose bumping mine as he waited for my answer, I kissed him hard and spread my legs just a little wider so he wouldn’t misinterpret the message. Davin swapped his thumb for his fingers and increased the pressure. I felt my back arch towards him and my fingers threaded through his hair.
By the time my hips were rocking in time with the movement of his hand, he slid it into my undies and stroked me up and down, slowly at first, then building gently in speed. As the tingling spread through me, our kiss grew more heated and I know a moan or two escaped me.
His fingers stroked all the way down and he paused, his finger tracing gently around me. We looked at each other and I felt like he was asking permission. If he was asking what I thought he was asking? God, yes, I wanted it. The previous weekend had been great and all, but I was more than ready for the next step.
His lips were back on mine as he slid his finger into me slowly, in short slow thrusts, each one deeper until I felt the heel of his hand massaging me. It felt so good as his finger pumped slowly in and out. My hips moved with his rhythm, meeting him halfway. I felt my orgasm growing and I was desperate for it at the same time as I didn’t want that pleasurable feeling to stop.
Now was really not the time to think about how Miles had never made me feel like that. But I couldn’t help it. Miles had fumbled his way around down there and not known what he was doing. But it was like Davin had the roadmap to my body and he knew exactly what to do.
As my breathing came shorter, Davin’s finger thrust faster. I moaned softly and I could have sworn he smiled against me again.
Then his lips were back to my ear as he said, “Don’t make me gag you, Avery.”
I didn’t trust myself to keep quiet if I spoke, so I just took his face in my hands and brought his lips back to mine.
Being Not Good: as opposed to being bad Page 12
