Page 14 of A Little Too Late
Not ten minutes later he’d surged inside me while I’d clutched his body and rocked beneath him. Nothing had ever felt so good, or so right.
“So what happened?” Raven whispers. “A year is a long time, especially when you’re young. That’s a relationship.”
“Yeah.” I exhale.
“And then?” Callie prompts.
I gulp. “And then I got pregnant.”
CHAPTER 6
MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, VERMONT
March 2011
Ava watches a skier come shooting down the course. And Reed watches Ava, loving the way her eyes widen as the athlete angles his body into the turn.
“Holy crap,” she breathes. “Do you go that fast?”
“Faster.” He chuckles, pulling her close and pressing his lips to her temple. They have been together for almost three months now. Ava’s warmth is a source of heat and light for a boy who’d been living under a dark cloud since his mother’s death.
He doesn’t talk about his grief with Ava. He doesn’t have to. When she’s around, she’s all he can think about.
“Isn’t it time for you to go?” she asks, leaning closer.
“In a minute.” He didn’t draw a great start time for this race, and the course will be chewed up by the time it’s his turn. But he doesn’t care that much. He’s thinking about last night, when he and Ava were supposed to be studying together but ended up sixty-nining on his bed.
Ava gasps suddenly, and Reed looks uphill to see that the next skier has had a mishap. He’s missed the turn, falling and ejecting both skis before flying into the protective netting.
She turns to him with anger in her face, and she grabs his chin with one mittened hand. “Reed Madigan, you are not allowed to fall like that. I can’t watch you hurt yourself.”
“I won’t.” She gets another kiss. “And he’s fine. Look.” Reed points at the skier who is getting to his feet. The guy looks pissed off but unhurt.
“Still,” she grumbles. “I’m just not sure about this sport.”
Ava has been learning to ski downhill. She took a clinic, and when they went up the lift together afterward, he expected her to fall all over the place.
But nope. Ava is a natural. She cut cautious, graceful turns all the way down the bunny slope.
Like that first day in the pottery studio, she never stops surprising him. He loves everything about her.
But it’s almost time for him to go. So he lays a kiss on her mouth that’s hot enough to thaw even the coldest parts of his broken heart.
Ava isn’t quite as free with public affection as Reed is, but it’s such a good kiss that she forgets herself and clings to his broad shoulders until one of his teammates whistles at them just to be a dick.
“Bold move, Madigan!” the guy taunts. “Takes balls to get horny in a spandex racing suit.”
Reed laughs, and Ava blushes. “He’s right, and I’ve got to go,” he says.
“No crashing,” Ava reminds him before giving him a shove in the direction of the lift.
He walks off grinning, and Ava catches herself watching him go. Even after three months, she still walks around in a state of disbelief that Reed Madigan picked her.
He’s her first serious boyfriend. But she knows instinctively that their sudden, intense connection is a rare and beautiful thing. To Ava—an only child from a volatile household—Reed’s unabashed affection is like a drug. She’s a little obsessed, and it’s hard to hide it. Although she’s careful not to be the one who always texts first.
He’s generous with his time and affection, though. Last weekend he came home from a meet in New York State when she was already falling asleep on her neurobiology homework.Can I come over?his text said.
There’s no privacy here, she’d warned him.Winnie is home.
