Knox
“What?” Avery asks, her voice barely audible.
“The whole drive home last night, I was looking forward to seeing you. To find you in my living room, waiting for me. When you weren’t there, I knew I couldn’t ignore this any longer.”
“This?”
“Yes, this,” I say, hating saying what I’m feeling out loud. “Whatever it is that’s between us.”
Avery closes her eyes and swallows. I nudge her deeper into the house and close the front door. She hasn’t said anything yet, nothing that lets me know what she’s thinking.
Maybe I’m making too many assumptions. I drop my arms from her, and walk towards the kitchen.
“Coffee,” I say, it isn’t a question.
Avery still doesn’t say anything as she follows me into her kitchen. Since when was she ever quiet? I don’t like it.
I go through her cupboards and make two cups of coffee. Her kitchen is hideously ugly and out of date. Instead of setting them on the kitchen table, I carry them into her living room and set them on the coffee table.
On autopilot, she follows me back to the living room.
“Sit,” I say, gesturing to the couch.
Avery sits on the leather armchair.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” I ask.
“I… you surprised me. I had to tell you this morning that I can’t do our arrangement.”
“I already told you I don’t want that either.”
“I’m not sure what you want. A relationship? What about Piper?”
Piper. It’s true, I don’t know what to do about her.
“I really wish you’d sit with me on the couch.”
I let my words hang in the air. With a tense jaw, Avery moves from her chair to the couch, our shoulders grazing.
“You really want a relationship?” she asks, staring at the blank TV screen.
“Yeah, I do. I want you in my bed every morning and at my table every night.”
“Would it be a secret from Piper?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Since Piper was born, I’ve never had a relationship. A girlfriend.”
I let the word girlfriend sink in. I’ve spent my whole adult life avoiding having one. And not once have I ever been tempted to have one. But with Avery, I can’t help myself. I need this woman. In all of my life, not just my bed.
“You haven’t had a girlfriend in all these years?”
Ignoring her question, I say, “Maybe we don’t say anything. She can draw her own conclusions. Besides, we’ll let this develop as it’s going to develop.”
“You think? Piper will want answers.”
“She won’t. She’s been trying to get us together since you moved in.”
“Really?”
“Piper constantly told me how much you liked me,” I say, sliding my arm around Avery.
“Yeah. She did the same to me.”
“See? She’ll be fine. Happy, even.” I hope.
“I didn’t know you felt the same way. I really thought I had to end this today.”
“No chance, baby. I’d never let that happen.”
Avery smiles and rolls her bottom lip in her teeth. Unable to resist, I take her chin in my hand, and tilt her head to me. I brush my lips against her cheek and onto her full lips.
She kisses me back softly, before turning her head away and saying, “You really haven’t had a girlfriend in thirteen years.”
Resigned, I say, “Almost fourteen.”
“Since I’m your girlfriend now, I’m going to pry. Not because I’m nosy. But because, like I tell my viewers, the better I know you, the better our relationship will be.”
I laugh and roll my eyes. “Are you always going to analyze me with your advice? Because believe me, I’m going to show you how wrong a lot of your videos are.”
“Ah! They are not.”
“Eating you out in the shower?”
“Okay fine, but that’s only one.”
I lean into her ear, and say, “Yet. I’ll show you more. Be patient.“
“I am being patient, but now you have to stop ignoring the question.”
“I forgot what the question was.”
“Why no girlfriends?”
“Because. My mother had a string of boyfriends when I was growing up. Not a string, more like a revolving door. I hated it and promised Piper when she was a baby that I wouldn’t do it to her.”
Avery runs her fingers over my arm, looks me in the eyes and says, “Sorry.”
Holding her eyes captive, I say, “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“I mean, it must’ve been so hard, denying yourself for so long.”
I smirk, and say, “Trust me, I wasn’t denying myself at all.”
“Oh,” she says, leaning away, “Is that why the condoms? Because if you have something, you have to tell me. I mean it.”
Pulling her back to me, this time tight against me, I say, “I’m clean. I even have the paperwork to show it.”
“Then what’s with the condoms? Most men beg and lie not to use them. We don’t even need to use them, and you insist.”
“It’s trust.”
“What? You don’t believe me when I say I have an IUD in? Do you want me to show you the paperwork to prove it?”
“It’s not that.”
“But if I’m going to be your girlfriend, don’t you want to be bare inside me? To feel your skin against mine,” she says in her sultriest voice.
It’s almost enough to throw her down on the couch and fuck her bareback right now.
Almost.
“I do. Trust me,” I say.
Avery sits up straight, her brow creased.
“So, what’s the deal? Are you going to tell me.”
My throat tightens at the question. I should’ve known changing our relationship status would mean discussions like this. I’m not sure I like it.
Avery tucks her hair behind her ear, still looking at me for answers. Her eyes trace my face, and I figure I owe her an explanation. At least I get this out of the way. The thing I’ve never talked about in years.
I clear my voice, and say, “When I was twenty one, I met this chick in a bar. We hooked up, and it became a pretty regular thing for a few months. Brandi, her name was Brandi. She told me she was on the pill. Great news, right? All the bareback fucking I wanted. Until she told me she was pregnant.”
Avery sits up straighter, and leans her body against mine, “Piper?”
“Yeah. Turns out I wasn’t the only guy she was fucking. I knew she was seeing someone else. Which was fine, it was casual between us. God knows I had enough other women going on. But I spent the entire fucking nine months not knowing if the baby was mine or not.”
I can’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. I’ve never said them before, and now I’ve started, they keep on coming. The more I speak, I lighter I feel.
“That’s rough.”
“Over the months, she told me she was sure it was the other guy’s, and that they were in love and going to get married and raise the baby. When the baby was born, the guy demanded a paternity test. Turns out Piper was mine. Brandi stuck her in my arms and said she was marrying the other guy anyway, and that he wasn’t going to raise a kid who wasn’t his. She walked away, and that’s the last time I ever saw her.”
“That’s it? Not even any notice or time for you to prepare?”
“Prepare? I spent most of the nine months thinking it was his. At most I thought I’d have to pay child support. You stick a baby in the arms of a twenty-two-year-old guy, and suddenly I was a father? What the fuck did I know about babies? All I knew was cars and partying.”