Ethan and Ava Read online

  The evening was far from a normal night: Ava's parents were in Fort Worth celebrating their anniversary and since Ty, of course, was AWOL with Kayla—God only knew where—it left the two girls alone and defenseless. Ethan abruptly amended that thought— from the way Josh was acting, apparently Hannah McIntyre wouldn't ever be defenseless as long as his buddy was around.

  When it became obvious that Hannah was going to spend the night with Ava, it also became obvious that Josh wasn't going to leave the Andersons' house that night because of that reason. Ethan couldn't really blame the dude, not with the way Ty had been acting around Hannah lately, generally flirting and practically standing on his goddamn head to get her to notice him.

  And who the hell knew when Ty would come slinking back home? There wasn't a chance in hell that Josh was going to leave Hannah unprotected for the night. Ethan knew his friend better than that.

  The drive from the party had been silent. Ethan had tried to breathe evenly, tried to scale down both his anger and his lust as Ava had stared mutinously out the window, all but refusing to acknowledge his existence.

  Her attitude didn't help his anger, not a damn bit.

  As soon as they arrived at the house, Josh settled onto the living room couch, looking as if he were trying to bait Hannah into sitting down next to him. Ethan didn't have time to stand around and watch that situation unfold because Ava quickly walked through the house and barricaded herself in the bathroom. Hearing the door slam shut, Ethan felt his temper rise as he followed her into the hallway and leaned against the wall, waiting for her to come out. The longer she ignored him, the more his fury grew.

  She finally came out of the bathroom, still ignoring him completely. He was hot on her heels as she went inside her bedroom. He gave her no choice, he followed her inside and shut the door, leaning against it with his arms crossed.

  She watched him with both anger and what looked like a tiny hint of trepidation. Shit if that didn't soothe him somewhat. But then she opened her mouth and his ire came roaring back to life. "Get out," she ordered flatly.

  He shook his head, it was all he could manage without snapping at her.

  Her shoulders stiffened. "Ethan. Get the hell out of my room."

  Other than fisting his hands, he remained perfectly still. He felt a burning itch to move across the room to impose on her personal space, but he knew that idea would be utter insanity. He soothed himself with a biting question. "What the hell was in your head when you decided to go there tonight?"

  Her eyes sharpened as her mouth flattened into a grim line. "Nothing. None of your business. Get out."

  He sucked in oxygen through his teeth as he tried to calm the fuck down. "Ava. Listen to me. Ty was past irresponsible when he took y'all there—"

  She cut him off with unbridled anger. "Bullshit. It was only a party."

  Well now, goddamn, she wanted to cuss at him? "Bullshit? Bullshit?" he bit out. She glared at him from across the room and he felt his temperature kick up another notch as he slammed her with his opinion. "You didn't need to be there tonight. You took advantage of the fact that your parents are out of town—"

  She interrupted him, the pretty lines of her face drawn into a scowl. "This doesn't concern you at all. Who the hell do you think you are to lecture me?"

  Her anger only pissed him off further. "Ava—" he growled.

  "You're nobody, that's who you are. Nobody who will ever have any say-so over me."

  "Nobody?"

  She stared at him in belligerent silence, her nostrils flaring.

  He pushed off the door with a booted foot and took a single step forward, mounting rage mixing with never ending hunger making a volatile shitstorm of emotion damn near overflow. He contained it to one cutting comment. "Your goddamn brother is worthless when it comes to protecting you—"

  She cut him off. "I don't need his stupid protection and I damn sure don't need your protection and I repeat—it's not your business." Although her anger was palpable, Ethan's gaze was drawn to her chest, which was rising and falling in agitation.

  Forcing himself to get a grip, he looked into eyes that were shooting daggers at him. "I've known you since you were a little kid and if Ty won't take care of this bullshit, then you can bet your ass I will."

  She clenched her teeth, looking as if she wanted to punch him. "I don't need another brother. You're not my damn brother, Ethan."

  He tried to rein it in but her answer set him off. He felt a jolt of adrenaline and lowered his tone to a firmly modulated threat. "Oh, you got that goddamn straight. I'm not your brother." The air grew tense around them, silence pulsing back and forth between them in static waves of heat. Unable to control himself any longer, he pushed forward and crowded into her personal space. She took a step back, so he immediately moved forward again. Her back came up against the wall, and as she looked up at him, he could feel the way she held her spine rigidly, fortifying her stance against him.

  He stood not six inches away, and as they breathed erratically and stared into each other's eyes, her gaze dropped and fell to his lips. She swallowed and took a deep, shaky breath and it was in that instant that Ethan knew. He knew.

  Although real, her anger was a front. She wanted him to kiss her. Maybe she wasn't thinking of doing to him the things he wanted to do to her, but all the same, she wanted to kiss him. She was feeling the exact same pull toward him that he felt toward her, and if he wasn't careful, damn careful, this could erupt into flames all around them.

  His hands were reaching for her of their own volition when somehow, only God knew how, he managed to find a sliver of control and stopped himself. He jerked back, fighting his arousal, his head pounding, and turned and slammed out of the room before he started something they both probably weren't ready for.

  ****

  Ava's head fell back against the wall as she stared at the door Ethan had just slammed shut. She heard his booted steps ringing against the planks of the wooden floor and then the sound of her brother's bedroom door opening and banging closed.

  So, he hadn't left the house. He'd only left her room. Her legs shaking, she closed her eyes, refusing to sink to the floor.

  Ethan Jackson had always gotten under her skin. When she was younger, she'd watched him from afar with a type of hero-worship that she'd tried her best to conceal. Her hero-worship had slowly turned into her first crush. And a crush had really been all it was until about a year ago, when he'd started watching her in return—always quietly and without giving anything away, but she'd become so confused. It always went one of two ways with him: he either silently watched her—or he ignored her completely.

  Even though she was two grade levels below him, he wasn't really that much older than she was. She had an April Fool's birthday, and normally she would have been one of the youngest in her class. But she'd been born with a small heart defect, and although she was fine now, she'd had to have a couple of surgeries that had put her a year behind when she started school. So, instead of being one of the youngest in her grade level, she was one of the oldest. In fact, since she'd started high school, she'd been taking all the courses allowed, in addition to some online classes, and if everything went well, she'd be graduating with the same kids she should have been with from the very beginning.

  She didn't think Ethan knew about any of that—Ty certainly wouldn't have told him as her brother paid little attention to her. She'd started her sophomore year at sixteen years old, and she wondered if Ethan knew her exact age, he would still be so hard on her? Did he think she was barely fifteen? Her actual age hadn't ever come up between them and she doubted anyone had mentioned it to him.

  But one thing was certain. She'd known for weeks now that he'd been noticing her in a new way. Until this year, they'd been at separate schools, for a very long time. Redwood Falls kept the freshmen separated from the older kids on a satellite campus. So when she'd started tenth grade a few weeks back, suddenly, she and Ethan were on the same school campus again, a situation that
hadn't happened since she'd been in the sixth grade and he in the eighth.

  Out of the blue, an insane memory from that time washed over her.

  Being a very small town, the Redwood Falls middle school was really only a single corridor of the large building that encompassed grades kindergarten through eighth.

  So when you hit sixth grade—man—you were suddenly a big kid, you were on the grown-up wing.

  Ava was a little older than the other kids when her sixth-grade year started, and it showed. When she'd come back to school after summer, she'd already begun maturing, her breasts developing, and suddenly, for that reason she supposed, she'd found herself to be instantly popular with the boys in her grade level—sixth grade boys being nothing more than immature and stupid—acting as if they'd never seen a girl with breasts before.

  And because of that immaturity, one of the boys' favorite pastimes during lunch break, or between classes, had been shoving a girl into the boys' bathroom and holding her trapped inside for a few minutes while they held the door barricaded from the outside.

  Ava had gotten used to this procedure fairly quickly as it had happened numerous times during the first few weeks of school. The boys always pulled the prank when no one was in the bathroom, so as mortifying as it was to be in the boy's bathroom, she usually just gritted her teeth and waited by the door until the immature little pricks finally let her out. Then, when they finally released her, she'd sail right past them with her middle finger sticking up in the air, a habit she'd learned from her brother when somebody pissed him off. Of course, her reaction only made the boys laugh, and because of that reason, they seemed to target her more than the other girls. She used the word 'target' loosely; she knew they weren't bullying her. This was just their juvenile way of flirting with her and she just sort of took it in stride.

  So, on this particular day, when they shoved her into the bathroom and held the door closed, she sighed, turned around, and almost choked on her own breath as she saw Ethan Jackson standing over a urinal, zipping up his jeans. At fourteen, he was already tall and muscular, and as he was one of her brother's best friends and was at her house a lot, she'd had a crush on him for a while.

  As he turned his head and saw her standing there, a shocked frown came over his features before he quickly regrouped and raised a single, mocking eyebrow aimed toward her. While she stood with her back to the wall as close as she could possibly get to the door, he turned toward the row of sinks and washed his hands without saying a word, holding her eyes in the mirror the entire time. He casually reached for a paper towel, as if finding a girl in the boy's restroom was an everyday occurrence, and as he dried his hands, he strolled closer to her, so close he was almost in her personal space.

  "Explain this," he said succinctly and a bit harshly.

  Suddenly realizing that she was trapped with Ethan inside an enclosed room that neither one of them could escape from for the time being, she couldn't control a tiny shiver. As his eyes slid down her body before lifting to her face again, she swallowed hard. Had he just checked out her breasts? She tried to form an answer to his question, but none came.

  "Ava. What the hell are you doing in here?" he barked.

  "I—I can't get out," she managed.

  She licked her lips and sucked in a breath as he casually wadded up the paper towel and then tossed it across the room toward the trashcan.

  Two points, naturally.

  He turned back, frowning, and questioned, "Can't get out?"

  Breathe, Ava. He's just Ethan. He's just Ethan. No big deal. He's at the house all the time. It wasn't as if she'd actually seen anything before he'd zipped his jeans. "The boys threw me in."

  "They threw you in?" he repeated in stupefied amazement.

  She blew out the breath she'd been holding. "Yeah. And they're holding the door shut. You can try it if you want, but I'm usually stuck here for a good three or four minutes, at least."

  A murderous look crossed his face. "This isn't the first time they've done this?"

  She shook her head.

  "They're assuming the bathroom's empty when they perform this little prank?"

  She nodded her head.

  "Have you told anybody this is happening? Told Ty?" he asked with a thunderous expression.

  She shook her head again. "I don't want to rat 'em out. They think it's funny and I don't want to get them into trouble. It's not hurting anything, really."

  "No?" he questioned shortly, his tone terse.

  She shook her head again, barely able to hold his gaze.

  His eyes narrowed. "You don't think this could lead to something dangerous?"

  Not really. Embarrassment couldn't kill her. "Like what?"

  "They thought the bathroom was empty just now, didn't they?"

  She nodded her head.

  "What if they're wrong again? What if somebody was in here who might, I don't know, hurt you?"

  "Hurt me?" The idea sounded completely ludicrous to Ava—right up until Ethan took a step closer and a shimmy of heat settled in her tummy. "I never thought about it like that before."

  "Well, this has got to stop, okay?" He lifted his hand as if to touch her face and butterflies went loose in her stomach, but abruptly, he pulled it back down into a tight fist and said, "I'll take care of them for you."

  Her heart tripping way too fast, she swallowed and asked, "You're not going to get them in trouble, are you? They don't mean anything by it. They're just stupid boys."

  "No, I'm not going to rat 'em out, either. But when they open the door, you best understand that I'm gonna let 'em know I'm pissed, okay?"

  "Are you mad at me?" she asked softly. The thought of Ethan being angry with her wasn't making her happy for some reason.

  "No, why would I be?" he asked with a frown.

  "I don't know." She worried her lip as she held his eyes. "Like maybe this is my fault."

  "Hey," he said, almost gently, his gaze running from her eyes to her lips and then back again, almost as if he liked what he saw. "You can't help the way you look, can you?"

  Ava surfaced from the past, savoring the memory of the way those heated words had made her young heart feel. Even now, years later, they made her stomach quiver.

  Ethan had been true to his word. When the boys had opened the bathroom door, he'd stood a foot taller than most of them and with his words, had blistered the five of them to within an inch of their lives.

  And after that, she'd been left in peace. She'd never been thrown into the boys' restroom again.

  ****

  For the next couple of weeks after Nathaniel's party, Ethan tried his best to stay away from the Anderson house. He concentrated on football, his grades, anything at all to keep his mind off Ava. He went to school, went to practice, and made up excuse after excuse to Ty for not having time to hang out.

  The college scouts came and Ethan played his ass off and fortunately, managed to play well. His coaches assured him that if he kept up his grades, he'd get at least a couple of offers. It was imperative that he receive a scholarship for his education, and it had to be a football scholarship—he certainly couldn't score an academic one.

  He wasn't stupid by any means, but he wasn't crazy-ass smart like Josh and Ty. It was a well-known fact that Josh was sharp. He had an aptitude for math that was unbelievable. His friend was at the top of their class and the dude didn't even have to study to make the grades.

  Ty, on the other hand, was fucking brilliant. He was a complete fuckup, but nevertheless, he was brilliant. The dude didn't apply himself; he screwed around, handed in just enough papers to keep from flunking out. It irritated the living crap out of Ethan. It pissed him off that Ty should have that level of intelligence and just fuck it all away. The guy was smarter than anyone Ethan knew, but all his buddy cared about was getting laid and having fun. Ethan had no clue where Ty would wind up, and truthfully, the only reason Ethan remained his friend was because Ty was so loyal.

  Loyalty meant everything when it
came to friendship.

  The dude would cut off his right arm for a friend, Ethan knew he would. But what the hell Ty was going to do after high school, Ethan had not a single clue. His friend would probably wind up staying here, working at the lumberyard, just as he'd been doing part-time for the last several years.

  That wasn't happening to Ethan. He was getting out.

  Out of town.

  It wasn't that he didn't like Redwood Falls. He did. There just wasn't anything for him here. There were no job opportunities, nothing in the way of a career path he could take if he stayed. If he stayed, he'd wind up farming, just like his father. And there was nothing wrong with that if that's what a person wanted to do.

  But Ethan didn't. He didn't want to struggle from crop to crop, season to season, praying for rain and being totally fucked if it never came. Ethan had dreamed of getting out, making money, and seeing the world since he'd been a little kid.

  Nothing was going to stop him. Nothing could stop him, not if he kept everything under control.

  As the days went on, he studied as if his entire future depended on it. He lived for his grades and for football. And he tried, day after day, to stay away from Ava, because he knew, he fucking knew, that the lust he felt for that girl could be his downfall. There was almost no question in his mind that someday, some way, that girl would be his, if it was within his power to make it so. But that would have to be in the future because right now, he had to make his senior year the absolute best he could, and for that, he needed to hold his shit together.

  But his plan to hide out from the world tanked one Saturday night when Ty drove all the way out to his house and wouldn't take no for an answer. Ethan had been studying, but soon, he found himself sitting in the passenger seat as they headed back to town.

  "Want to make the strip?" Ty asked, referring to driving around town and hitting all the spots where the kids liked to hang out. But Ethan knew Ty wanted to do that for only one reason.