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You wouldn’t find the richest teenager in the world curled up on her bed, crying in her tank and shorts after she had managed to save the people she loved and before she was to gain full control of her fortune. But-
Harry, Toby, the man with a hundred different identities had left. He had not come with her. He was a Blake now. And there was nothing Avery could do about it. All because she had selfishly wanted to hide her mistakes.
I see so much of your mother in you.
But her mother wouldn’t have done this. Her mother wouldn’t be the reason of so many people’s deaths. She wouldn’t be the reason Toby was going to have to spend the rest of his life with the Blakes. As a Blake.
The reminder brought a fresh bout of tears to her eyes.
Avery cried silently; her head buried in the pillow. When you lived in your car, when you were almost broke, when you lost someone you loved, crying wasn’t a vulnerability that went unexploited. Even though Avery had gone largely unnoticed. A teenage girl crying to herself didn’t.
As far as Avery was concerned, if no one saw you, it didn’t happen.
So this is what she did. Keeping your tears to your pillow, hiding them in the shower. It was all the same.
The mattress dipped under the weight of someone climbing. Avery stilled.
Only three people showed up in her room unannounced. Max was in college on the other side of the country. Libby was most probably out with Nash. It could be only one person.
Albeit tiny, there was a small chance she could play oblivious. So she tried to bring her frantic breaths under control, closing her eyes really tight.
But Jameson Hawthorne had a reputation for not being fooled. Especially by her.
“What’s the matter Heiress?” He murmured into her head, sliding an arm round her waist.
Avery stayed silent. She heard the worried tone in her boyfriend’s voice but there was still a one in million chance this was salvageable.
The silence stretched for a moment too long.
“I know you’re not sleeping, Avery.” Jameson sighed.
But Avery couldn’t bring herself to talk about it without dissolving into a crying puddle. However good it felt to have someone holding her, even if that wasn’t Toby.
Jameson unslung his arm from around her, and from the feel of the mattress, seemed to be shifting away.
Avery's heart sank. "Jameson?" she croaked out. "Please don't go." Avery winced at the raw and hoarse tone of her voice. Pathetic.
"I wasn't going to," Jameson spoke softly. "Do you want a glass of water?"
Avery just shook her head.
"Alrighty." He declared, slipping close to her and engulfing her in a back hug. He placed a firm kiss on her bare shoulder blade.
When Avery’s frantic breaths slowed, Jameson tried again, “Is it something related to inheriting the fortune?”
Avery shook her head again. “Why would you think so?”
“I don’t know. Just that it’s quite close, I suppose.” Jameson spoke into her ear.
Avery sniffed and turned around in his grip, wiping the tears with the back of her hands. He smelled like old books. She inhaled his scent, trying to ground herself. No matter how devastated she felt about Toby at the moment, she had to say this to Jamie, and she wanted him to know she meant it. “Why would I be upset about that. Sometimes I feel like y’all are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Jameson looked slightly surprised, like he couldn’t really believe it. Then smiled, “Even though you’ve been shot-”
“Shot at,” Avery corrected.
“-shot at, manipulated by the old man, kidnapped, and almost killed?” Jameson had started as a joke, but his voice cracked at the end, and his face crumbled slightly.
“Even then.” Avery conformed, placing a hand on his cheek. “Sure, all that stuff sucks and well, now that we’re here, I can’t quite believe it happened, but if it hadn’t been for this fortune, I would never have gotten to meet you all. I wouldn’t have gotten to meet you.”
If it hadn’t been for Toby.
The reminder always came back to Avery. She closed her burning eyes and tried to turn back around, but Jameson placed his hand on her arm. His grip was tentative, as if he wasn’t quite sure of it. But the look he gave her was anything but tentative. It was part adoring and part pleading. Avery broke down against his chest.
Jameson pulled her in with his hand on her nape. “It’s Toby, isn’t it?”
Avery nodded, her chin bumping his chest, too frantic to say anything. “I-I lost him, Jameson.” She sucked in a sharp breath. Her voice was so sad, it broke the boy’s heart.
“It’s going to be alright.” Jameson said. Because what else could he have said?
“Damnit, it’s not going to be alright.” Avery cried out fiercely. Isn’t that what she had been telling herself for the past hour, or the past however many hours. But it was a lie. It’s all fucking lies. What wasn’t a lie was that she was never really going to have Toby ever again. “You don’t understand!”
She looked up at Jameson through eyes blurred by tears, like a small child waiting to be reprimanded for overstepping. But his face looked torn and sad and hurt, in a way. What had he done, after all? He was just trying to comfort her.
And she had gone and pushed him away.
“I’m sorry.” Avery’s voice had lost all its fierce quality, it just sounded defeated now. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you. That was wrong.”
“Everyone is a little wrong sometimes, Heiress.” Jameson mumbled.
Avery’s face twisted in something similar to a smile. She looked up at Jameson. “You said that to me, when I first came here. When we were looking for clues in the library.”
Jameson smile wasn’t halfway. “I did.” He tapped her nose. Then traced her bottom lip. “You’re probably right that I don’t understand what you’re going through. But I want to, if that’s okay. And please don’t shut me out if I inevitably say something stupid. Let me know what I did wrong.”
Avery had difficulty reconciling the man running his hands over her lips, brushing away the tears spilling from her eyes from the one she had kissed in the Laughlin’s bathroom. The revelation loosened something inside of her. Like she could show him her most broken parts and he would smile and tell her that it’s going to be alright. The kind of smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. And it wouldn’t just be a fake promise, because he would try to make it alright. She snuggled as close to him as possible.
When Avery spoke, her voice was muffled by his throat, pressed against her mouth. “I just feel like I’m an imposter. And the fact that Toby isn’t related to me in any way just proves that further. I don’t think I can look him in the eye again.” Toby’s soft brown eyes flashed in her mind, always so loving. Avery swallowed “Not after what I did to him. Leaving him there.” She almost choked on the next few words, but Jameson was there, and he was holding her so close, she could feel the beat of his heart. She brought her hand to his chest. “And what do I even know, about being here, about loving someone.”
“I get that.” Jameson said softly, testing the waters.
“You do?”
“In a way. Yes.”
When Jameson didn’t elaborate further, Avery went on. “And I don’t feel like my earlier self either. Because the girl from Connecticut would have never left him there to avoid getting in trouble with the police. I knew her. I knew wha-”
Jameson interrupted her. “I knew her too, Heiress. She would have kept away from it all, no matter how badly it cost her. And she wouldn’t ever have dared to hope for something from someone.” He didn’t pull his punches. “But you’re not that girl Avery. That girl isn’t the one I am proud of.” She felt Jameson swallow, “She isn’t the one I fell in love with. You are.”
Avery’s heart swelled at his words. If she were looking at him, he would have made a face that said its so funny. But the raw tone of his voice and the way his heart seemed to be bruising his chest told her otherwise. “I love you too.”
Jameson pressed his lips against her forehead. “I know that. And Toby loves you too. He wouldn’t have chosen to stay with the Blakes if he didn’t.”
“And look where loving me got him.” Avery mumbled to herself.
Jameson was quick to butt in. “Don’t say that about yourself. It’s not true.” He pressed another kiss to the side of her face. “Are you sick?” he asked, placing a hand on her sternum. “Your skin feels like its burning.”
Avery did feel impossibly warm. But a more reasonable explanation was because she had been crying for hours. “Its probably because I’ve been crying,” she told Jameson, feeling glad her hair was tied, otherwise she was certain she would look like Mr. Rochester’s first wife. “I do feel really warm and sweaty.” Avery’s top clung to her skin. She pinched it and fanned her chest.
Suddenly, Jameson’s face lit up. In a devious way. He grinned from ear to ear. “You do get that way when you’re with me. Hot and sweaty.” He winked.
Avery’s eyes widened. He did not just say that. He did not. Her face, if it was possible, grew even hotter. Her cheeks had probably acquired a red that would give tomatoes a run for its money. Despite his protests, she turned her face away from him, her back to his chest.
And Jameson laughed. The bastard laughed.
The sound rumbled against Avery’s back. She clenched her fists to keep from turning to see the way his eyes lit up when he laughed.
When he stopped, he slid his arm around Avery once again. She pushed it away. He poked her neck. She shrugged him off.
“Heiress?” She could see the smirk on his face as he whispered the words into her ear. And you would have expected his tone to be apologetic.
“Thought you weren’t done laughing.” Avery muttered.
“I am now.”
No kidding. She wanted to wipe that smirk right off his face.
Unsurprisingly, Jameson’s way of making up to her was to whisper totally insincere apologies in her ear. And calling her all the nicknames he had in stock.
“Avery pleeeeease”
“Heiress I am so very sorry.”
“M.G pretty please”
“Is it too late now to say sorry.” Jameson was a horrible singer. And his high note sounded like a cat wailing.
Avery snorted. You say sorry just for show, she thought.
Jameson fell silent for a whole minute. Avery smiled. Then gave herself a pat on the back for not dropping her resolve. She had won this round.
Then he slung his arm around her waist. Before Avery could shove him away or comprehend what was to come, he started tickling her. Mercilessly.
Avery was a very vulnerable on that front. She cursed herself for when she had told Jameson she was ticklish.
The sound of Avery’s laughter filled the room. “Jameso-” She could barely catch her breath with how hard she was laughing, let alone speak. And he still wouldn’t stop his onslaught even when she turned towards him. “Ok-. Ahh! Sto-” She tried to catch his arm, but he was too fast.
Avery felt her eyes tear up, for entirely different reasons. She shoved Jameson’s chest. He finally took mercy on her and stopped. His smile, if that was even possible, grew larger. Any more and he would break that exquisite jaw. Avery sucked in a breath, chest heaving.
“That’s just cruel.” She narrowed her eyes at Jameson, though she doubted she looked put together enough to come off as serious.
“And you ignoring my heartfelt pleas isn’t?” Jameson arched an eyebrow, placing his hand above his heart. I’m heartbroken, he mouthed.
That grin on his face needed serious fixing. “You don’t look heartbroken.”
The comeback Avery expected never came. Instead, Jameson fiddled with a strand of her hair that had escaped her ponytail. “Too far?” He asked after a while.
Avery shook her head. “Embarrassed, I guess.”
“It was smart.” Jameson argued. Then shrugged, as if to say: Not sure to what extent though.
“It wasn’t smart. It was foolish. Of me. Giving you more ammunition than you already have.”
Jameson shrugged. “You look cute when you’re embarrassed.”
Avery shot him a glare.
“Just an observation.” He said, raising his hands.
Another observation was that Avery didn’t feel like her heart was weighing her down anymore. Things would be good. Better even. They are good as long as she’s got Jameson with her.
“Thank you.” She said.
“What for?”
“You know what for.”
“Do I now?” Jameson said innocently, pouting. He looked so entirely kissable right then.
Avery’s lips pulled upwards. She slid her hands around his neck, pulling him in. Jameson pressed a slow and lingering kiss against her lips. Her hands tugged at his longer-than-usual hair for a more favorable angle. His arms tightened around her waist. She reciprocated, her lips working lazily against his.
It astonished her sometimes, how they would understand each other without words. How they understood what was in the others mind. The level and kind of physical intimacy they were comfortable with at the moment. It was so awkward at first. She still remembered that time when Jameson had leaned in for a kiss and she had bit his lip. She had thought she wouldn’t be able to face him for a week. She had cursed herself that entire night, Jameson had noticed, and told her it was alright. Or that time he had touched her breast when she was feeling rather tired. He had looked like he was going to start crying then and there. And she had stayed up all night, repeatedly telling him that she was not going to break up with him.
But they worked it out. It was good now. This was good now.
Jameson pulled away after a rather long kiss. He pressed another one to her nose. “You should get some rest. Tomorrow’s a big day.”