Ava
“You look different”
Cara announces when we meet up later at one of the cafes around campus. The place is buzzing with students even though it’s a Saturday and the campus is less crowded than usual.
I glance up from the heart shaped design on my latte, shooting her a puzzled look.
“Different how?”
She shrugs, “Just different”
That’s strange. I hadn’t done anything peculiar to up my style this morning. My hair was in a loose ponytail and the dress I wore to the studio today was less than flattering on my figure. It had to be since I knew that it’d be coated in paint whenever I decided to leave the studio today. Which was thirty minutes ago when Cara called to ask if I was free for lattes.
Cara tilts her head, deliberately trailing her gaze up and down my body. She looks at me the way a scientist would look at an equation they can’t solve, stern and focused and I try not to let it unnerve me more than it already does.
I lift the latte to my lips, taking a sip. The heavy creamy texture submerges my taste buds with its sweetness, and I moan at the taste. I discovered this cafe during my first week on campus and it immediately became my favourite spot to unwind in after classes. I introduced it to
Cara not long after we met and she was instantly won over by their blueberry muffin and chai latte which is actually what she’s having right now.
My best friend watches me intently while picking at the edge of her muffin, and then suddenly, her brows shoot up, eyes wide as if she just discovered the secret of the universe.
“You had sex didn’t you?” She exclaims, loud enough that the blue-haired girl on the other table whips her head around and pins us with a – well, pins me with a look that screams approval rather than judgment.
I nearly choke on my latte, sputtering as my brain tries to come to terms with her accusation.
“Excuse me?” I choke, still wheezing.
“You and Nikolai finally did it, didn’t you.” It isn’t a question. She continues, “I didn’t know me helping the guy plan your date would earn him a night of Ava’s sweet, sweet love” She finishes with a dramatic flourish, wiggling her brows suggestively. She sounds proud of herself. Truly hopelessly proud of herself.
I gape at her, eyes wide like she’s just said the most incredulous thing to ever happen when, in fact, she isn’t too far off.
“Cara!”
“What?” She sips her chai latte, completely unbothered by my lack of composure “Your aura’s is different. You’re glowing, babe. Either you finally got laid, or you just won a lifetime supply of that ridiculously expensive art supply brand you keep whining about. What’s it called again…” She taps her chin while trying to remember the name, “ToHo?”
I roll my eyes, setting my cup down with a little more force than necessary. “It’s SoHo and for your information, we did not have sex,” I say the last word in a harsh whisper.
“Yet” she grins
My eyes do another one eighty.
When I first met Cara she was obsessed with aura’s. She claimed that everyone gave off an aura, and each person’s aura sometimes changed as they aged or due to other life-changing circumstances.
She narrows her eyes, studying me like a detective analyzing a suspect’s microexpressions. She was one of the few people who knew me almost as much as I knew myself. I used to joke she was the soulmate I never knew I needed which is why her current scrutiny makes me squirm.
With Cara, it’s better to just come clean than have her overanalyze me and say something else that’ll draw another approving stare from the blue-haired girl on the table beside us.
“But we did do… other things.” My face flushes and I feel hot all over.
The look on Cara’s face has me both blushing and wheezing. Her jaw looks like it’s permanently locked in place and I think I might’ve given her an existential shock. Her muffin is temporarily forgotten as she leans across the table, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
“I knew it” She squeals, smacking the table lightly. “Spill. Tell me everything. Every. Single. Detail. Don’t leave anything out”
I bite back a groan already regretting letting the truth slip.
“We just… well, I just, kind of, sorta gave him a hand job”, I rush out, flushing as I tighten my grip around my cup.
“Shut Up. Did you like it… Do you think he did? Oh my God this is just so… wow”
I gnaw at my bottom lip as the memory of how Nikolai had praised me afterwards burns deep in my mind. He seemed so undone in that moment. Like my very touch had unravelled him from the inside out. Like it was too much for him to bear. Like I was too much for him to bear.
“I didn’t hate it.” I reply, drawing out the words, “And I don’t think he did either”, I add l honestly.
Cara looks at me for a second then she lets out a long exhale, collapsing back in her seat.
“Wow… that’s just… wow” She leans forward ever so slightly, “You really like him, don’t you?”
She asks it like she seriously expects an answer from me.
If this was a month ago, I would’ve definitely, one hundred percent without hesitation, shut her down, but it wasn’t. It was now, and right now I didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t know” I reply slowly, taking a long sip from my latte. Sweet.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“It means,” I run a frustrated hand through my hair, exhaling roughly, “It means I don’t think I hate him as much as I used to before.” It means I think I might actually find him tolerable enough to want to feel his cock throbbing in my palm. It means I like him. It means that I might, probably be falling for him.
I scrap the last thought out of my mind with another sip from my latte.
Cara looks at me like I’m stupid. Like I just said, the most mind-boggling thing she’s ever heard.
“Ava, can I be honest with you?” She asks and knowing Cara that meant she was about to say something that I would either not like or most definitely not appreciate but needed to hear anyway.
“Would you not be if I said no?” She shakes her head and I instantly prepare myself for the fresh wound her words are about to peel open.
“I don’t think you ever hated him to begin with.”
The look I give her is one that hopefully begs her not to continue but she continues anyway. because she’s Cara and she doesn’t know how to not say her mind.
“Not really. I think you wanted to hate him. I think you wanted to hate him so much, but you couldn’t, and it drove you crazy even now, I think it’s still driving you crazy.
I open my mouth to argue then snap it shut then open it again.
Why did she have to be so… so… frustratingly right?
When Nikolai was gone I had more than enough time to think about what my feelings for him were after the date and what they meant.
No doubt they’d changed but I began to wonder if the hatred I felt for him in the beginning was even there in the first place to begin with.
I mean, yes, I hated him for forcing me to marry me, and I hated him for wanting to use me in his vengeance plot against my father, but when it came down to it, I didn’t hate him. Not really.
Not in the way I should have.
Not in the true sense of the word and most definitely not in the way that would have made all of this easier. Because despite it all, despite him marrying me against my will, he’s been nothing but civil to me. He never once tried to use me to hunt down my father even though I knew he was still looking for him.
I let out a frustrated sigh, rubbing my temples as the weight of my thoughts settled over my mind like a suffocating blanket blocked at all sides with no way for air to escape.
Cara, of course, is still watching me with that knowing look in her eyes that makes me want to crawl under the table and hide.
Maybe she senses my discomfort or my inability to form words beyond ‘uhms’ and ‘well’ because she surprisingly changes the subject.
“Aaron called me the other day” She rushes out the confession like she expects me to be mad at her. Which I’m not but I am widely surprised.
“He did?”
It feels like I haven’t spoken to my brother in ages and maybe it’s because I haven’t.
I texted him when we got to Russia, but he never texted me back, and when I tried calling him, he never picked up.
A part of me was starting to get worried because no matter how often my brother tended to withdraw from the world he’s never gone this long without calling me.
Cara nods and takes a sip from her chai latte. I can tell by the small smile in her eyes that the taste is nothing but ethereal. Maybe I should give in to her request and try it one day.
Cara sighs, tapping her nails against the plastic of her cup, hesitant. That alone makes my stomach tighten with unease.
“He wanted to talk to me… well, to someone about…” she trails off clearly looking for the right words.
“About what?” I urge her.
“He wanted to talk to me about you”
Cara and my brother weren’t friends, not by a long run. The two hated each other. They despised each other; actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them exchange more than insults with each other and yet, for some reason, he’d reached out to her instead of me. I can’t deny that it stung but I was also very intrigued as to why he thought talking to her was a better idea than talking to me.
My nose crinkles. “Me?” if he wanted to talk about me why didn’t he just call me?
Cara nods, tapping once, twice against her cup, “Mhmm, apparently, he lost his phone a few weeks ago and hasn’t been able to reach you at all. He wanted to know if you were doing okay.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were” she eyes me for a moment, “Aren’t you?”
“I am,” I say quickly, reassuringly. She lets out a breath, signalling her relief, and continues.
“I sent him your number. He didn’t respond after that.”
“When was this?”
Cara stops to think. “While you were in Russia”
Three weeks. He’s had my number for three weeks and… nothing. Not a single word from his end. Did every man in my life lose the ability to let me know if they were okay the moment they lost their cell phone?
What if something happened to him? What if Nikolai wasn’t able to keep his promise and Antonio got his hands on him?
The worry doesn’t bother to creep up on me. It consumes me in one go, making my grip clench around my latte and my heart race.
Now that I know his cellphone is missing, I can’t just contact him and ask him why he didn’t call me and why he went AWOL on me even though I haven’t done anything to deserve it. I was his sister and they were times when Nikolai was gone that I really needed to talk to him. I missed him.
My face must show my distress because Cara reaches across the table and grips my free hand squeezing tightly.
“I’m sure he’s fine. Maybe he’s busy with work or something which is why he hasn’t called you yet”
I want to believe her words but the unease in my stomach only grows as I mutter.
“Yeah, maybe.”