But he didn't want to upset her and he knew for a fact that the other girls' visits to his room would upset her. That would be dangerous for her and dangerous for their baby. Yes, he'd seen two girls naked, but not because he'd wanted to. That shit had been a complete accident, and he not only hadn't enjoyed the view, it had damn near made him puke.
Maybe Ava would never have to find out. It hadn't taken much to text Cade and ask that he stay away for the night. For once, his asshole roommate had agreed, but Ethan knew it was only because the guy was so proud of him 'for getting laid'.
But whatever, maybe Ava wouldn't ever have to know.
That would be for the best. Things were good right now. Why fuck them up?
Chapter Eight
A month after her trip, Ava clutched her cell phone and stared at the screen as if sheer mind control could produce a text from Ethan.
Two days. He hadn't texted her in two days. The tight knot of worry she'd been feeling the past twenty-four hours slid down the slippery slope into all out fear. So she decided to ask her brother that very night.
"Have you heard from Ethan?" she asked after knocking on his door later that evening.
Ty looked up from his phone but didn't acknowledge her or her question in any other way. And yet she knew he'd heard her.
Glancing back to his phone, he scrolled for a few seconds and then frowned. "No. It's been a week or so. Hadn't much noticed. He hasn't been in touch with you?" he asked with an impatient scowl as if unconcerned.
She forced herself to answer, although it made her feel sort of stupid. "He's not answering my texts and hasn't in a couple of days."
"Something must be wrong with his phone," Ty answered dismissively.
"You think?"
He glanced back up, finally noticing that she was upset. "Ava. Yeah. Why else wouldn't he text you back? You're not really worried, are you?"
She shrugged. "Kind of."
He let out a derisive snort. "You got nothing to be worried about. Dude is balls-to-the-wall pussy whipped and that's the truth."
At that exact moment, her phone pinged with an incoming message. She hurriedly opened it. Hey sorry left my phone are you okay?
Christ. Thank God. Her hormones must be fucking with her.
"Is that him?" Ty asked.
"Yeah."
"So, it's cool now?"
"Yeah, thanks." Turning away, she got a grip on her runaway emotions and answered Ethan's text. I'm fine. Same shit, new day. I miss you.
The 'miss you too' that came in response should have eased the slight nausea that still roiled in her stomach, but it somehow missed the mark. She wanted more from him, but the single text was evidently all the time he had to spare.
She was being stupid, she knew that. She took a calming breath and took comfort from her brother's words: pussy whipped.
Even though she didn't believe anything could ever whip Ethan Jackson, the thought did soothe her. So she clung to it. But she wished she could see him. She desperately needed to feel his arms around her.
Christmas had come and gone and there was still a week left before school started again.
If only she had a damn car. What good was having a driver's license if she had no vehicle? She was sick to death of pandering to her mother's way of thinking. She was sick of having to tow her parents' line. She was sick of living here under such stifling circumstances. Life was pure misery. If she had to pretend for just one more day that she was giving her baby up for adoption, just to keep the peace, she didn't know how she was going to keep her sanity.
She had to get away, even if it meant borrowing a car or taking a bus out of town.
She needed a plan.
And that plan definitely had to entail finding her backbone.
****
The city where Ethan was living was growing by leaps and bounds and he'd been able to score a job fairly easily.
His schedule left him with little time for a job, but he needed the work. Stocking shelves was 'busy' work, but it was work he could do as his time allowed. It was also a job that he could practically do with his eyes closed while he dreamed of the future he and Ava and their children would have. Because it wouldn't be just one kid; he'd decided that a while back, and he knew Ava agreed. He was an only child and although it was a situation that had given him all his parents' attention, he'd always wanted a sibling.
He sliced through cardboard with his box cutter.
Yeah, he wanted more than one kid. Seeing Ty and Ava interact with each other on an almost daily basis had proven to him that he wanted the same sort of dynamic in his own household, when the time came.
And with one bun in the oven, the time was basically here.
Of course, one thing at a time.
He had to get through the days, one at a time, until Ava turned eighteen. Then they'd get married, then the baby would come.
Those were the future events he concerned himself with, they were all he really thought about. The fact that he didn't know where they would live or how they'd get enough money to live, or how he'd manage to finish college or any of the other million problems he couldn't figure out, those things weighed on him.
So, he'd decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Getting a job, even a part-time job, would allow him to save a little money for the future while keeping him from his damn dorm room for a few hours at a time. Of course, he was hiding the job from Ava. She knew how difficult keeping up with football and classes was for him. Knowing he was trying to save for their future would only stress her out more and he couldn't have that. He needed her well and safe and protected from the truth.
So knowing about his job was out. And really, the job wasn't so bad anyway. Again, it allowed him to stay away from the dorm, and that was damn good. The mundane work kept him from thinking too closely about much of anything. It kept him from thinking about the curse playing football had put on him.
Because the attention he was getting was even worse now. Yep, he'd gone and done it. He'd managed to score a touchdown—while on defense—on national television. It had been the next-to-the last game of the season and it had been a doozy. They'd been down four points in the fourth quarter with only seconds left on the clock. He'd intercepted a pass on the fifty yard line and ran it all the way back for a touchdown as the clock timed out.
How many people had come up to him and told him they'd seen the play? Not just random girls (but those had been too fucking many to count) but professors as well. Even the librarian had seen it, as well as the lunch ladies in the dining hall.
Overnight, he'd turned into a local hero. The fucking women were all over him now. Shit, from the way his social media accounts had exploded, you'd think he wasn't simply a local hero; fuck no, he might not have been wrong to think all the attention he was receiving reached even further than that.