The Avery Shaw Experiment

Avery


If Grayson weren’t propelling me forward with the arm he had around my shoulders, I would probably have still been standing on the front steps to the condo building. I was in shock all over again.

I couldn’t believe it. I mean I literally could not believe it. As in, my brain physically wouldn’t accept the information.

“He has to be wrong,” I mumbled as Grayson strolled me down the street. “He didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t understand what I was asking.”

“He definitely didn’t get it, but Aves . . .” Grayson sighed.

“He can’t know whether or not he loves me if he’s never given it a thought. I’ve been so patient, all these years. Maybe I just needed to say something. Maybe if I’d just kissed him once.”

“I don’t know, Avery. He’s pretty dense, but a guy doesn’t just ask for space if he’s in love with you. Even if his love is subconscious.”

I think this conversation was making Grayson uncomfortable, but I couldn’t stop myself. My brain was stuck in a loop because moving forward meant acknowledging that Aiden saw me as a sister, and that was simply unacceptable.

“He just hasn’t ever considered the possibility of a relationship between us,” I insisted. “Maybe he hasn’t hit that level of maturity yet. I mean it’s not like he’s ever gone out with anyone else. He never talks about any other girls.”

“Maybe he’s gay.”

“Grayson!” He was laughing at his own joke. “Aiden is not gay! Don’t you even joke about that! It’s not funny.”

“Come on, it’s a little funny. It would also explain how he could spend almost seventeen years with a girl like you and never make a move, because no straight guy could do that.”

My stomach did this weird flip. Had Grayson always been so sweet? I hadn’t thought so, but he’d been incredible since the moment I jumped in his shower.

I leaned into him, sagging against his side, and the next thing I knew, my arms were around his waist and I was hugging him. He stopped walking and hugged me back. When his arms pulled me tight against him, all of the tension left my body.

“I didn’t realize you were so nice, Grayson.”

The warm sound of Grayson’s chuckle rumbled pleasantly against the side of my face that was resting on his chest. “Damsels in distress have always been my Achilles’ heel, but don’t let that fool you. I’m really not that nice.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not. If I was nice, I wouldn’t be having such a hard time not grabbing your butt right now.”

I gasped and shoved away from him. He let me go but caught my hand and intertwined our fingers. His holding my hand made me blush even worse than his perverted comment had.

Since I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, I didn’t notice when he stopped walking until I was yanked to a halt. He stood in front of a small bistro with a questioning look. “Hungry? Dinner’s on me tonight.”

The restaurant was dark and cozy with soft lighting. Grayson helped me out of my coat, then held out my chair for me before taking his seat directly across from me at the small, candlelit table for two.

The moment was so surreal. I always knew Grayson was charming. There was a reason he’d dated most of the girls in school, and yet they still kept lining up to be his next fling.

Seeing Grayson Kennedy in action and being the focus of his attention were two entirely different things. He wasn’t doing it on purpose to seduce me or anything, but even set on “friendly,” he was freaking me out a little.

The server brought out glasses of ice water, and I started chugging mine because Grayson was making me so nervous.

“You might want to slow down there, slugger, before you get a . . .” I winced and Grayson laughed. “. . . headache.”

As Grayson watched me, his eyes sparkled in the dim light, making him look like he’d just stepped off the set of a Hollywood movie. Aside from his tall, broad frame and amazing body, Grayson Kennedy had the entire package where looks were concerned. He was Spanish Fork High’s golden boy: hair the color of amber, eyes so blue they looked unreal, and golden skin that didn’t have a single blemish, freckle, or scar.

His teeth were perfect, and he spent so much time smiling that the gesture on him was a work of art. He even had this one adorable dimple that only showed itself when he was really, truly happy about something. That dimple was present now.

I broke the silence with a nervous laugh. “This is awkward, isn’t it?”

Grayson pursed his lips until they turned white because he was trying so hard not to laugh at me. “Awkward? What’s awkward?”

He knew darn well what I was talking about! Grayson was always torturing me like that. I asked him why he did it once, and his answer had been because it was fun to make me blush. Well, mission accomplished, Mr. Kennedy. I was beet red. Again.

He was waiting for an answer.

“You know . . .” I squirmed in my chair. “This. Us. Being here like this.”

Grayson suppressed another laugh. “Being here like what?”

“I don’t know. This restaurant is so . . . atmospheric, and you helping me with my coat and pulling out my chair.” I was now so red that my face was going to stain permanently. “It just feels, I don’t know, sort of like . . . like a . . .”

“Like a date?” Grayson asked. He wasn’t laughing anymore. He met my eyes with a startling intensity.

I couldn’t find my voice, so I just nodded.

He gave me another heart-stopping smile. “That’s because it is a date, Avery.”

I felt my eyes grow to three times their normal size, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get them to stop. “What?” I gasped. “No, it’s not!”

“Yes, it is.”

His voice left no room for argument, but that didn’t stop me. “We can’t be on a date!”

“Why?”

“Because you’re . . . you’re . . . you’re you and I’m me! We grew up together! We’re practically family!”

Grayson frowned—a real one, not his usual pout-to-get-his-way sad face. “You grew up with Aiden too.”

All the air left my lungs. “That’s different.”

“How so?”

“Because he doesn’t treat me like a sister.”

Grayson looked like he was about to argue that, but I really didn’t want to discuss Aiden, so I quickly said, “You, on the other hand, act like an annoying, gross older brother.”

“Gross?” I thought he’d be offended, but he actually laughed. “You think I’m gross?”

“Yes, I do. You are so horny it’s unhealthy. You burp in my face every time you eat onions, and you don’t bother to leave the room before you fart. This afternoon you dripped your sweat on me. On purpose!”

“Okay, okay. You’ve got me there. I will admit that our relationship has always had more of a sibling vibe. But the truth of the matter is that you gave me a total hard-on today and—”

“Oh my gosh, Grayson, shut up!” I shrieked in a whisper, burying my face in my hands. “Please don’t ever, ever say something like that again!”

“You’ve got to face the facts, Aves. If you were really my sister and we’d ended up in the shower together, I’d have puked and hired a therapist. Not stared at your chest and wondered if you’d hit me if I took your shirt off.”

“Oh my gosh!” My hands were starting to sweat because my face was so hot, but how was I supposed to remove them? That would require looking at Grayson, and there was no way I’d ever be able to do that again.

Grayson chuckled. “Aves, look at me.”

“No! You were right. You are not nice! You are cruel!”

Grayson reached over the table and peeled my hands away from my flushed face. “I’m not being cruel,” he said. I finally forced my eyes up to his.

He leaned his tall body over the tiny table so that he could look straight into my eyes. There was only a foot of space between us.

“This is most definitely a real date,” he promised so passionately it made me shiver. “I asked you out. I’m paying for your dinner. There will be dancing later, and I will be kissing you when the clock strikes twelve tonight.”

I let out a tiny squeak of fear and Grayson upped his intensity. “It’s going to happen, Aves, and you are going to like it.”

Grayson’s focus was interrupted by a small sigh. Thankfully! Because I’d stopped breathing again.

We both looked up to see our waitress standing over us, staring dreamily at Grayson. “Wow!” If she weren’t holding our plates in her hands, she probably would have been fanning herself because she looked like she was about to melt. “And I thought my boyfriend was good.” She smiled at me as she set my food in front of me. “Girl, you have got your hands full with this one, don’t you?”

Grayson flashed her his biggest smile, and she winked at him as she left.

I’d never been so grateful to see a plate of food in my life—anything to give me an excuse not to look at him and stop this conversation.

Grayson must have seen that he’d pushed me to my limit, because he went to work on his dinner and let me eat in peace.

Unfortunately, the silence let my thoughts wander back to the reason I was out with Grayson in the first place. I set my fork down, unable to eat another bite.

Grayson set his fork down too. “Avery, I promised your mom you’d eat.”

I could feel tears in my eyes when I looked up at him. “Why you?” I asked. “Why are you the one here with me? Why isn’t it him?”

Grayson’s smile was sad and full of sympathy. “I don’t know, Aves, but maybe it’s for the best. You guys are almost seventeen. If it hasn’t happened by now, maybe it’s not supposed to.”

“I can’t accept that.”

“Denial isn’t good for you.”

“It isn’t denial.”

“Now you’re denying your denial.”

“But look at you,” I said. “You always thought I was like a sister too. If you can change your mind, then he can too. He just needs a wakeup call.”

“Hey now, you can’t just go jumping in the shower with every guy you know. That’s totally our thing.”

“Oh my gosh, Grayson, we do not have a thing!” The torture was never ending. “I wasn’t talking about jumping in the shower with him,” I mumbled. “But maybe if I just tell him how I feel, if I ask him to kiss me—to just give it a chance.”

“And if he doesn’t go for it?”

“He will. Grayson, I know he will. I know it here.” I tapped my heart. “Aiden and I belong together. You’ll see. He just needs to know how I feel. Maybe he believes I think of him like a brother and nothing else, you know? What if he’s been in love with me for years, but he thinks I don’t like him that way.”

Grayson frowned and went back to his dinner. He obviously didn’t agree, but I felt my excitement growing. “That’s got to be it! It makes so much sense! What if he said he needed space because it hurts him to be with me but not with me? What if I’m hurting him? You saw how mad he got tonight when you said you were taking me out. He was jealous.”

Now my excitement had been replaced with dread. I didn’t want to hurt Aiden ever. But what else could all this have been about? Nothing else made any sense. “He asked me to talk, and I walked out on him! I’m awful!”

Grayson rolled his eyes. “You are not. He was a jerk. He deserved what you did. Worse even.”

I shook my head. “Thank you for being so nice to me tonight and trying to help me. I’m sorry to ditch you, but I need to go home and talk to Aiden.”

Grayson sat there as if he were giving the whole situation some serious thought. Eventually I saw acceptance wash over his face and he set down his fork. “I suppose you do need to talk to him, don’t you. But if you do this, you can’t hold anything back. You’ve got to give it to him straight. Tell him everything. Just be sure to use small words so he can understand.”

“I will.” I smiled for the first time all evening and jumped up to give Grayson a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for understanding. You are the best big brother I’ve never had!”

Grayson let go a small laugh and shook his head. “Not your brother, Aves.”

“You never know,” I teased. “You could be someday.”

He smiled again, but this time it didn’t quite reach his eyes “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

I burst through the door to the condo less than five minutes later. The adults had cracked open the wine and were laughing a little loudly, but that stopped the instant they saw me.

For once the attention didn’t paralyze me. Breathless from my run and excited to figure things out with Aiden, I hurried and threw my coat, hat, and scarf haphazardly onto the rack by the door. “Where’s Aiden?”

“Up in the boys’ room,” Cheryl answered cautiously. “Where’s Grayson?”

“If I had to guess? On his way to apartment 7B.”

My mom’s forehead creased, and she set down her glass of wine. “Did you guys have a fight?”

“Oh! No!” Realizing what they were all worried about, I gave them my most reassuring smile. “Grayson is the best! Who knew he could be so sensitive?” I remembered the comment about wanting to take my shirt off and cringed. “Well, sort of sensitive.”

None of the parents seemed to know what to say.

“Grayson and I had a nice time,” I assured them. “I just really need to talk to Aiden now.”

I ran up the stairs without waiting for any responses.

I took a deep breath, and then knocked on Aiden’s bedroom door. Thanks to this afternoon’s shower debacle, I was pretty sure I’d never forget to knock ever again.

“Yeah?”

“Can I come in?”

A split second later the door flew open. Aiden was positively livid. “What happened? Did he make a move on you? I’ll kill him!”

Aiden looked so funny when he was angry. His adorable face just wasn’t meant to hold such negative emotions.

Aiden looked a lot like his brother, and yet he didn’t. Aiden was a lot shorter, but he had the same coloring as Grayson—same rich golden hair and skin. He had brown eyes and not blue, but he and Grayson shared the same perfect smile. The difference, though, is where Grayson’s smile labeled him as an obvious lady-killer, that same smile made Aiden look like the adorable class clown. Fury just didn’t work well for him.

“I’m fine, Aiden.” I laughed. “Grayson didn’t make a move on me.” Well, not technically. I didn’t think. He hadn’t yet, anyway.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just felt bad for walking out on you. You asked me to stay and talk, and you were right. We really need to.”

Aiden sagged in relief and pulled me into a hug. “I’m really sorry, Aves. I totally screwed that up earlier. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

I squeezed him back. It felt so good that I almost cried. For a while I thought I’d never feel this again. “It’s okay. What happened was just as much my fault as yours. We should have talked about this years ago.”

Aiden was surprised by my comment. I tugged him over to the bed with me, and we sat shoulder to shoulder. He picked up my hand and rested his head on mine. “I don’t ever want to lose you, Avery. I don’t think I could handle that.”

My heart, which had hurt so bad just minutes before, suddenly soared. “Me either.” I took a breath. No time like the present. “I love you so much, Aiden.”

“I know, Aves. Me too.”

“No, I don’t think you do know. I’m saying I’m in love with you.”

Aiden’s grip on my hand tightened. “What?”

“I’m in love with you, Aiden. I have been for years and years. I should have said something, but I always just figured you’d get it when you were ready.”

I let out a huge breath. I couldn’t believe it. After so long my deepest secret, my biggest frustration, was finally out there. Aiden finally understood.

“Oh no, Aves,” Aiden said quietly. “No. No, don’t say that.”

“Wait! Hear me out.” I swallowed back my sudden nerves. The devastation in his voice had shaken my confidence. “I get what you were trying to say earlier. I totally understand you needing some space and some things to do on your own. You want to go join the debate team, fine. That’s great. I’ll support you. You can go be you, and I can go be me, but we can do that and still be us. I know we need a change, but what I’m saying is that I want things to change in the romantic direction. I’ve always wanted that.”

“Aves . . .” Aiden’s voice broke, and his hand started shaking.

“I know that must sound crazy to you, but I’m sure it could work. I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life. You are it for me. I love you, and I want you to love me back.”

Just then a tear splashed down onto the back of my hand that Aiden was holding in his lap. I glanced up and met his eyes, surprised to see the streak of moisture running down his face. I’d never seen Aiden cry before.

I didn’t understand. He was so sad. It was as if somehow I’d just broken his heart.

“Avery, I am so sorry.” His voice had a sort of helplessness to it. “I—I didn’t know. You never said—you never acted like—I assumed it was the same for us. You’re my best friend, but that’s it. I don’t think of you that way.”

Moisture was gathering in my eyes now too. I blinked and a tear fell down my cheek. “How do you know if you’ve never given it a chance?” I squeezed his hand and mustered up every ounce of courage I had in me. “Will you kiss me, Aiden? Please? Just once? Maybe that’s all you need. Maybe if we kissed, you’d feel what I feel.”

Aiden closed his eyes. When he shook his head, it looked as if the action caused him pain. “I’m sorry, Aves, but I can’t. I have a girlfriend now.”

“You . . .”

Who knew a heart could break twice? This time it was so bad I didn’t even feel it. I didn’t feel anything. I actually stopped crying. It was like his confession just . . . broke me.

“Mindy Perez,” Aiden whispered. “We were partners all semester in public speaking and . . . it just happened the last day of school.”

Aiden had a girlfriend.

He’d left me high and dry without a science project partner, ditched me as co-president of science club, told me he needed space, bailed on me for our birthday next month, said he loved me like a twin sister, and I’d been so in denial that I actually thought I’d still stood a chance with him.

I was so stupid.

I believed it now. The second stage of grief was complete. Stage three too. I’d done enough bargaining. I’d asked him to love me, begged him to kiss me—to just give me a chance. It didn’t work, and now I was done with that. I wouldn’t do it again. Aiden Kennedy was never going to love me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“Okay.” I shook myself and rose to my feet.

“Aves!” He tried to keep hold of my hand, but I managed to slip out of his grip. “Avery, wait! I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad.”

I stopped in the doorway and turned back to him. He was still sitting on his bed, looking every bit as upset as I felt.

“I’m not mad,” I promised, and at the time, it was true. Someone who is completely dead inside can’t be mad. They can’t really be anything.