A Little Too Late (Madigan Mountain #1)(11)

“It means…” I take a fortifying sip and wonder how I could ever put into words the way Reed and I were together. “Until Reed, I thought I was an awkward girl. I thought it was a permanent condition. But then we just clicked, right from the first time we sat next to each other in that art studio. And then…” I break off again, because the truth is that I can’t even remember what we talked about the second day when the teacher introduced the pottery wheel.

We had both struggled with it. But the struggle had been fun. Every moment of it. “We spent a couple of classes getting to know each other while we tried to get the clay to behave. Then he asked me to come over after class to share a pizza.”

“Oh baby,” Raven whispers, her eyes wide.

I guess my face tells the whole story. “We had sex on his coffee table before the delivery guy even showed up,” I whisper. “And we didn’t stop for a year.”

There is a beat of deep silence.

“Holy crap!” Halley hisses. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

“Wow, Ava,” Callie says under her breath. “I would never have guessed you were a wild child in college.”

I take another sip of the miracle that is Callie’s frosé, and I realize it’s still hard for me to believe, even though I lived it. The time I spent with Reed feels like a dream I once had.

Where did I get the nerve?

Confidence with men was never my strong suit. But that first day—in the stairwell of Reed’s dorm—he’d taken my hand. And when he’d led me into his single, I still hadn’t let go of it.

That’s all it takes, I’d think later. When you find The One, you take his hand, and you don’t let go. It had felt so natural when he’d leaned in to take my mouth in a slow kiss, before even getting around to flipping on the lights.

Then we were just…gone. I’d thought I had some experience with boys. But I’d been wrong. Reed had kissed me with the crackling heat of a well-built campfire. He’d kissed me with his mouth and his hands and his whole soul until I felt weak in the knees.

I’d put my hands under his T-shirt.

He’d pushed me down on the sofa.

Our clothes began to come off in quick succession. “Is this okay?” he’d asked as he’d unzipped my jeans.

“Yes,” I’d breathed. “Yes.”

It had occurred to me to slow things down, just to enjoy the moment. But neither one of us could manage it. We kept upping the ante. I’d popped the button on his jeans, and he’d kicked them off. He’d unhooked my bra and had thrown it aside. I’d yanked his boxers off and shamelessly palmed his dick, while he’d hissed his approval.

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.