Heartache and Hope (Heartache Duet #1)(36)

Connor





The entire school is abuzz, hallways are filled with orange and black streamers, and everywhere I go, I get swarmed. Pats on the back from the boys, flirtatious compliments from the girls. Even the teachers are pulling me aside to talk about the game. Or more specifically, my performance. Coach has already had me in his office, along with the school paper’s sports reporter. The headline for the next issue: “Ledger: The Powerhouse Import.” Even the principal wants to meet so we can set up a media schedule for all the local papers wanting to do a story on me. And then there’s the team. It’s as if I had to prove beyond all our practices that I was actually good enough to garner their respect. Which I get, but at the same time, fuck you.

“You have to eat lunch in the cafeteria today,” Rhys says, catching me in between classes.

“What? No. I have lunch with—”

“Ava, I know. But it’s kind of a tradition the day after a game. Win, lose or draw we have to show that we’re a team. Coach’s orders.”

“But—”

“It’s five minutes, Connor; it’s not going to kill you. Besides, the cheerleaders do a thing for new players.”

“What thing?”

He shrugs. “I’ll catch you at lunch, okay? Don’t be late!”





I don’t think I’ve ever cringed as hard as I am right now, watching the cheerleaders chant my name only a few feet in front of me. Next to me, Mitch keeps backhanding my shoulder, his eyebrows raised, like “How good is this?” And maybe to other guys this is a wet dream come true, but to me… I just want to be with Ava. And Rhys—fuck Rhys—because the five minutes he said it would take has turned into twenty, and I need to go. As soon as the cheerleaders have finished their routine, I thank them and start to leave. Rhys pulls me down by my arm. “Stay.”

“Did you like it?” Karen asks, shooing Mitch out of his seat so she can sit next to me.

Not wanting to be rude, I plaster on the most genuine smile I can muster. “Yeah, it was great.”

She nods, takes a bite out of Mitch’s leftover apple. “We worked on it all morning.”

“Cool.” I stand again, and again, Rhys pulls me to sit back down. “I have to piss. You want me to do it right here?”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?”

This time, I’m allowed to leave, and I practically sprint over to the football field. Ava is waiting in her usual spot, and I race up the steps two at a time. “I had to sit with the stupid team in the cafeteria and the—”

She holds out a container, cutting me off. “I made you lunch,” she says, pouting. “But it’s probably cold now.”

“I’m so sorry,” I rush out, sitting in front of her. “I got stuck. I had to sit through the cheerleaders—”

“The welcoming routine,” she mumbles. “Shoot. I forgot about that.”

I want to crack a joke about how she used to be one of them, but she wasn’t the one to tell me, and I don’t know if she wants me knowing. “It was horrible,” I assure.

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah. It’s such a travesty that you had to watch a bunch of hot girls in super short skirts screaming your name over and over.” She mocks fanning herself. “Oh, Connor, Connor, Connor,” she moans.

The sound replays in my head for longer than it should, and I stare, unabashed. Her lips are red, wet, and I can’t help but lick my own, wonder for the umpteenth time what those lips would feel like against mine, what she’d taste like. I realize she’s watching me, too, her focus on my mouth. She’s the first to break our trance, looking away and down at her hands. “Are you still okay to give me a ride home later?”

“Of course.”

“And um… what you said last night, in your text, did you mean it?”

I swallow, nervous. “Which part?”

“Did you lie about any of it?”

“No.”

She nods, slowly, but still doesn’t make eye contact. And before I even get a chance to open the lunch she made me, the warning bell goes off. I curse at the same time Ava drops to her knees beside me. She settles her hands on my chest, her gaze intense and locked on mine. Her lips part, her tongue darting out, spreading moisture on the parts of her I’ve been fixated on for days. Her touch drifts up to my shoulders, my nape, and I’m frozen with fear but melting with desire, and then she moves an inch closer and closer and closer, her eyes drifting shut and mine doing the same, my own hands blindly finding the small bit of skin between her knees and her skirt. She whispers my name, and I groan in response, and then her mouth’s on mine, so fucking soft—a complete contrast to the instant reaction in my pants—and my lips part to take hers in. Her hands are in my hair, fingers laced through the strands, and mine are on her thighs, under her skirt, and she’s warm… warm enough to light a fire inside me. I need air, but I need her more, and when the tip of my tongue searches for hers, finds it, I squeeze her legs—an impulse—and she tugs at my hair, pulls me closer again. My head tilts one way, hers the other, and we’re two jagged pieces of two different puzzles that somehow fit perfectly when we’re connected. Her breaths are sharp, short, and I hear every single one through the loud thump, thump, thumping in my chest. She’s sitting higher on her knees, and my hands move behind her, to the spot right beneath her ass. She moans out my name, and all I can do is open my mouth wider, kiss her harder. So many fucking hours of fantasizing about this moment, and never—not once—did it ever feel like this. This… this…