The Rarity of Falling by Leeann M. Shane

Author:Leeann M. Shane [M. Shane, Leeann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-19T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Bishop

I was grateful for Laurie and Henny’s presence.

They were so animated and close, they kept the attention off me. Or at least they made it so that I didn’t have to interact much.

I ate my food mechanically. One bite of pancake at a time. Eyes mostly on my plate. I didn’t want them on my plate. I wanted them on Ava, but it was hard to look at her without glaring, and she didn’t deserve my attitude. She never had, but she definitely didn’t after the last couple days she’d had. So, I smothered my thoughts. So deep you’d think I didn’t even have any.

But I did.

I completely understood that Ava was a beautiful girl with an infectious personality and that those two combinations attracted the opposite sex. I could compute that. But I hadn’t gone as far as to imagine her… I didn’t know. We weren’t dating, but it felt like some part of me had already maybe gone there. Only, I hadn’t known it until I imagined her with a boyfriend.

I tried hard to think if I’d seen them together. I couldn’t remember and I was pissed at myself for not paying better attention. But I hadn’t known that Ava would become… Ava.

The idea of her putting her lips, the same lips she’d kissed my chest with, on some other idiot, made me feel hollow and enraged. I hadn’t even known that she wasn’t mine first. I’d never been with anyone.

I’d never put my lips, the same lips that had kissed her hair, onto another girl. But she’d kissed someone else. I could see it in her eyes when she threw it back at me, unknowing what she was even doing. And I couldn’t help thinking that maybe she’d done other things with him. Things I hadn’t done.

“Are you all right?”

Laurie shoved my shoulder and I blinked, realizing I was strangling my fork so tight it was bending.

“Dang, Hulk. Relax. Are the pancakes not good?” Henny was already reaching for them.

I stopped her with a look—angry or not, those were my pancakes. “They’re fine.”

I could feel Ava watching me. As hard as it was for me to shove down, I knew I had to get control of my emotions for her sake. If she’d dated someone else, there was nothing I could do about it now. Except for maybe kill him. I let my eyes fall on her. Her bottom lip was between her teeth and worry and pain swirled in her eyes.

She’d barely eaten, even though she’d just been hungry. I nodded at her food, trying for a calm tone. “Eat, please.”

She did.

And Laurie, obviously sensing something, engaged her in conversation.

As I paid, I was torn. I didn’t want to take her home, but I knew I wouldn’t be much company either. I wanted to do the right thing while still being myself. But they didn’t go together.

They never had.

After we dropped the girls off, and they’d all hugged and cried again—girls…—Ava crawled back into the front seat.

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