Page 34 of A Little Too Late
“No, no. Come on. Up you go.” I take her hand and guide her slowly to her feet. She groans a little but allows me to lead her to the king-sized bed, which I’ve already turned down for her on the side closest to the bathroom.
She moans when her head hits the pillow.
I spend a few more minutes tidying up in the bathroom, leaving the place clear of obstacles in case she needs to hurry in again.
Ava is already sleeping by the time I’m done. I walk around to the other side of the bed. There’s no point in me trying to get comfortable on the sofa. Morning will be here practically the minute after I close my eyes.
I slip into the luxurious bed, shut off the lamp, and pull up my side of the comforter, which is like a big, fluffy cloud.
Madigan Mountain Resort is nice, I have to admit. This bed gets five stars. Just as I’m about to drift off, Ava sighs sleepily. Then she rolls over with the typical grace of a drunk—which is none. “You smell niiiiiice,” she says to my shoulder.
I hold my breath, wondering if she’ll say more. She doesn’t. Instead, she burrows a little closer to me, pressing her face against my arm.
Not that I want to see her suffer, but drunk Ava is a hoot. Smiling into the darkness, I lift my arm so it doesn’t block her airway. She moves into the open space, scooting closer, nestling her sleeping face on my bare chest.
Then she lets out a comfortable sigh.
Well, shit. I forget to breathe for a long beat. It’s been a million years since I held Ava. And I hadn’t planned on doing it tonight.
The truth is, I haven’t held anyone in the last ten years. Not enthusiastically, anyway. I’d not been a dick about it, but after I left Ava, I never had the urge to get too close to anyone else. Ibecame the kind of lover who’s generous in the moment but then gets the hell out when the fun is over.
But here I am again, Ava’s soft breath on my bare chest. I used to love this. We spent many happy nights curled into a twin-sized bed. After exhausting each other, we’d lie there, talking in the dark. She told me about her crappy home life—a father who’d left the family when she was young. A mother who somehow resented her for it. The yelling. The fighting.
And in return, I told her… not much. I guess I told her about my big dreams on the ski slopes. And how it was a huge longshot for me to make Team USA, but I still wanted to try.
I didn’t tell her much about my mother’s death a couple years before we met.
I didn’t tell her how angry and cold my father became afterwards.
I didn’t tell her about the awful black cloud that had hung over my head for so long. How I’d partied like a rock star and skied like a daredevil just to try to shake it off. Just to feel things again.
Or how I felt the darkness lift the very moment I first spoke to her in that pottery class. Loving Ava had cured me of the sad fog I used to live inside.
Tonight, I’d told Ava that I’d left her so that she could be happy. And she’d called me on it immediately.That makes no sense. Even plowed, she’d called me on it.
When I was twenty-two, I was absolutely sure that I was taking the only option available to me. I knew with a dark certainty that it was true.
But right now, lying here listening to her breathe, I can’t fathom why. I can’t call up even a wisp of that old logic. It’s gone, like wood smoke leaving a chimney, reaching the nighttime air.
I turn my chin a fractional degree and place a soft kiss to her hair. Then I lie back on the pillow and try to sleep.
CHAPTER 13
MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, VERMONT
January 2012
Reed is in the library.He’s supposed to be writing a paper for this year’s J-term class—a retrospective on food and culture.
He should already have written five pages on the origins of modern breadmaking, but instead, he’s doing online research for next year. He’s dreaming about what the future holds. Skiing for him. Med school applications for Ava. And a baby for both of them.
He has a hundred new bookmarks on his web browser. Lamaze classes, baby names, US ski team qualifiers, apartments for rent in Colorado.
He and Ava lie awake in his bed each night for hours, discussing the possibilities. They might have to move home to Penny Ridge for a while after he graduates. He can work during the spring and summer and tap his trust fund during ski season.
Ava is experiencing a lot of emotions. She says the hormones are making her cry about everything. “Even dog-food commercials. It’s like living on a roller coaster. Including the nausea.”
There has been a lot of puking, but Reed takes this in stride, holding her hair and carrying wet wipes and mouthwash in his backpack wherever they go. And she is so grateful.
