Page 8 of Words I Couldn't Say
IT’S DEFINITELY TRUE, WHAT THEYsay. You can take the girl out of Ohio, but you can’t take Ohio out of the girl. That’s what Tawni told me every time I dragged her to the sports bar across the street from our apartment to watch whichever Ohio team was in town. I waxed poetic about my hometown so frequently that she often told me to either suck it up and go home or zip it.
She was right and I knew it. While I’d been in California for five years, I still missed home with an aching I unsuccessfully tried to squelch on a daily basis. I missed my parents, my brothers, and all of my crazy extended family. I missed going to Reds games or fishing on the riverbanks with my uncle Jace. But, when I did, my thoughts of home always shifted to him. At any given moment, I’d wonder what Tucker was doing. Who he was with. Did he ever think of me? Did he lie in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, missing me? Could he smell me the way I could still catch the faint scent of his cologne, even if it was just my imagination? Did he see me in his dreams? Or had I been reduced to a bitter memory best left forgotten?
It stung, knowing that the latter was most likely the case.
And, like always, I pushed those thoughts from my mind and focused on my beer, barely noticing that the Reds had just scored to extend their lead by six. They’d been having a phenomenal year, and even though there were still five weeks of baseball to play, they had a clear shot at making the playoffs. They were the defending World Series champions, and I would give anything to see them win it all again. Hell, maybe I could actually muster the courage up to return home and watch them raise the trophy at Great American Ball Park.
Maybe. But not likely.
“Earth to Ava,” Tawni chimed, breaking my thoughts.
When I glanced up, she had a brow raised curiously.
“What’s up with you lately?”
That was Tawni. She could always read me, and she made no bones about calling me on my crap. I loved and hated that about her. But mostly loved.
I toyed with the peeling label on my beer bottle before looking back at her with rounded, innocent eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Her perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together. “We’ve been roommates for years,” she reminded me.
Thank goodness for it. When we’d met at UCLA, we’d instantly hit it off. I had won the roommate jackpot when the school had roomed us together, and I’d been thankful for her friendship ever since. Tawni Collins grew up Los Angeles. Her mother was an incredibly gifted violinist who fell in love with her hotshot agent, married him, and produced Tawni and her brother, Tyson. So, while I was going to Reds games, Tawni was walking the red carpet. She was raised with wealth and prestige, but you’d never know it. To everyone else, Tawni was a normal girl. Sure, she’d jet-set off to Milan every once in a while, and I’d enjoyed more than one all-inclusive spring break with her, but she was Tawni. My closest friend. And she knew that something was up.
“And?” I asked before taking a long drag of my beer and wondering how much longer I could hold off on telling her what my deal was.
“It’s almost August twenty-second.”
I drew in a sharp breath as her brows shot up. She knew she’d struck a nerve.
“What is it about this time of year that shuts you down?”
Like I said, the girl could read me. She’d asked me the same thing last year, and I’d shrugged her off. I never talked about it. About him. Hell, I didn’t even want to think about him, let alone admit out loud how badly I’d messed up.
But, as Tawni watched me with concern, the dam inside me broke.
I caved and, after five years of friendship, told her everything.
Five years earlier
My life was awesome.
I had grown up in Cincinnati with nauseatingly in-love parents, three pesky but completely lovable little brothers, and an extended family that, while at times could be annoyingly overprotective, had given me a warm and loving childhood.
The icing on the cake was my boy-next-door best friend, Tucker Manning.
We’d been born only three days apart, both entering the world two weeks earlier than expected but no worse for wear. Since we were neighbors and our moms were friends, our own friendship was a no-brainer. Heck, we were friends before our tiny brains even understood the concept, and it was a friendship that lasted for the next eighteen years. Two peas in a pod. Birds of the same feather. We went together like peanut butter and jelly. Whatever close cliché you want to use, that was us.
Despite how close we were, our friendship was always platonic. Through awkward stages, high school angst, and first crushes, we’d never been romantic. There’d been no near kisses, heart fluttering, or any indications that love was in the cards for us. Both of our moms made it no secret that they were waiting for it, but the spark just wasn’t there between Tucker and me. And that was okay.
Until it wasn’t.
