Page 15 of Leave Before I Love You
My stomach churns as he smirks down at me, a full-on daring me expression.
“Nope. No way.” I shake my head once, twice, and then three more times. “Henry, I’m not doing this right now.”
“Why not?” he asks, far more shocked than he should be, given the subject matter. I mean, of course I’m not talking about my sexual history. We’re trying tosurvivehere.
“Are you serious?” I gesture wildly to the literal survival situation we’re currently in. “Look at what we’re doing right now, for Pete’s sake!”
“Gathering fruit? And what? You have a spa appointment to get back to before the end of the hour? We’re on an island, Ave. Just you and me. What else are we going to do to entertain ourselves?”
I huff but, surprisingly, see his point. What the hell else is there to do if not expose ourselves entirely?But two can play at that game, and I hope his head rolls when he realizes what he’s getting himself into.
“Fine. But if I’m going to talk about this, you’re going to talk about something deep and top secret too. No backing out, you hear me?”
“That’s fair.” Henry laughs, jumping down from the lowest branch of the breadfruit tree and scooping up two of them from the ground.
I bend down to get the other two, and as we walk back toward the other side of the island and what I now think of as our beach, I talk. I don’t really have a direction or plan; it’s all just a stream of consciousness.
“It wasn’t intentional. At least, not at first.” I toss my hair over my shoulder, avoiding his gaze. “I just got used to bouncing from guy to guy, and to be honest, none of them would win any bachelor contests if it came down to it. I kind of made a rule for myself that I’d do anything but penetration, and well, however many years later, here we are.”
“So, there hasn’t been a guy who’s pushed you past the pointof no return? Someone good with their mouth who led you into sex from there?”
My entire body seizes at the way he says that. At the way his voice drops ongood.
I shake my head quickly. “I never stick around long enough.”
“Wow.”
“Wow what? Like it’s so hard to believe I’m not this huge slut or something?”
“I never said slut, Avery. You did.” Henry laughs, nonplussed by my accusation. “And you know exactly how you’ve depicted yourself over the years, so don’t even try acting like it wouldn’t be news to me or anyone else that you haven’t had sex. I respect it, but I didn’texpectit. Okay?”
“Yeah, whatever,” I agree. I mean, he’s not wrong. I go through men quicker than I go through Louboutins, and that’s saying a lot because I purchase a new pair of red bottoms more than I get biweekly facials.
But still.
Henry hit the nail on the head—no one in my life knows I’m a virgin. Not even my best friend June. Somewhere along the way, I just took on this persona of the girl who hooked up with whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted, without a second thought. I don’t even know when it started or why I let people believe it.
I’ve never been the type of girl who needed to fit into other people’s standards, but maybe, in this case, that’s exactly what I was doing. Or maybe I just wanted to keep that truth to myself, like a secret I wasn’t willing to share.
Or maybe—deep down—I’ve just never found a man I wanted to give myself to.
The thought lingers longer than I want, settling in my chest like something heavy, somethingundeniable.
I shake it off.
There’s no use analyzing something that doesn’t need to beanalyzed. It’s just sex. It’s just a choice. And Henry Callahan doesn’t need to be the one making me question it.
“What about your boyfriend?” he asks, and I scrunch up my nose.
“My boyfriend?”
“The one you mentioned at your parents’ house at Christmas. Right after you told me that it was nice to have me there and that I’d always be a part of your family. When I was playing tea party with Addy. Remember?” My eyes just barely escape narrowing over his pointed drag down memory lane. “You’re still with him, aren’t you?”
Yeah, Justin.God, I’d nearly forgotten about him.
“Yeah. We’re together. But it’s really new.” I shrug. I don’t know what to say that isn’t the fact that I literally forgot he existed, and even for me, that paints a little bit of a vapid picture. I turn the conversation back to Henry to take the pressure off myself and this pointedly uncomfortable introspection. “What about you? Are you with someone?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
