Page 34 of Too Little Too Soon
“I hate that everything is so uncomfortable.”
You and me both, buddy.
“What do you think about calling a truce?”
She cocked her head. “We aren’t exactly fighting.” They were circling each other, avoiding each other, refusing to speak to each other. It was maddening, but it wasn’t fighting.
“But we aren’t getting along either. I just want…I want to go back to the day we met.”
Ava sucked in a breath through her nose.
Lord, yes!She was ready to vault off this bike and into his arms.
“The friends part,” he clarified, and her stuttering heart suddenly deflated.
“Friends,” she echoed.
He nodded eagerly. “Even when you take the amazing sex out of the picture, I had a great time that day. Because of you. I want that back. I want us to be cool with each other again.”
But I want the amazing sex too. Still, it wasn’t an unreasonable request. In fact, it was quite the reasonable ask, and she ought to be giving him kudos for being so brave as to make the first move. She’d obviously not intended to approach him anytime soon, despite how frustrated she was.
And he was right; they had gotten along. Smashingly. That had been the most perfect day of her entire year—like he said, even without the sex.
She swallowed thickly a couple times and then said, “Yes. I’d like that too.”
“Excellent.” His grin split his face from ear to ear and took ten years off his age. It also ratcheted his attraction factor up to a fifteen on a scale of one to five.
Well, this should be fun.
He hurried to the bike next to her. “Okay, now let’s race.”
She laughed. Was he serious?
He hopped on and immediately started pedaling.
Yes, he was.
* * *
Clearly,Travis had been onto something when he’d approached her. They fell into a mostly comfortable, casual friendship. They didn’t go out of their way to be alone together—Ava was certain she could not handle that—but they no longer avoided each other.
She could hang out in the dressing room before and after the shows and not try to avoid glancing his way. She cracked a joke and he laughed. They actually had full-blown conversations on occasion.
She discovered the glasses were indeed real the day they were sprawled side by side on the couch on the bus, working their way through a crossword puzzle book.
The glasses were definitely hot.
Not a day went by that she didn’t wish for the sexual part of their relationship to return, but honestly, she was growing more and more comfortable around him, and that wasn’t a bad thing.
Until the show in Cleveland.
“What the heck is up with him?” she asked Maria when Travis stomped off to the shower after their performance. A performance, by the way, that had been outstanding. They left the fans begging for more. They’d even done a third encore, which wasn’t typical for an opening band.
Travis should be over the moon.
“No clue,” Maria said. “All he told me was that he hates Cleveland.” She shrugged. “Maybe his ex-wife is from here.”
“Ex-wife?” Ava hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but seriously. Travis had been married before? How had she not known this?
