Hateful Saint by Ivy Blake

Chapter Thirteen

Ross

“You’re looking happy,” Mom said as she walked into the kitchen. I took a sip of my coffee and rolled my eyes at her.

“Am I not allowed to be? I’ll stop if you want,” I said sarcastically.

“Don’t be silly, Ross. It’s just an observation.” She poured her own coffee and looked at me warily over the mug. Fair enough, I had felt like I was on cloud nine since me and Ava had had sex. And she’d become my girlfriend. Who would have thought I’d actually have one of those? Especially Ava Jackson, of all people.

Mom was watching me as if I was the weird one when she hadn’t been up this early for at least a couple of months.

“What are you up to today?” I asked, trying to shift the focus away from me. We weren’t great at this small talk stuff, but that wasn’t exactly my fault, was it? While she was often around the house, she was barely present.

“I’m actually going for dinner with Ava’s mom,” Mom replied. I nearly spat out my coffee from the shock.

“That’s… random,” I said, struggling to find the right words that wouldn’t offend her.

“It is a bit out of the blue, but it’s been a long time and it would be nice to see how she’s doing.” Mom shrugged. “Have you spoken to Ava much?”

My toast suddenly became the most interesting object in the room. I wasn’t ready to tell her about me and Ava, especially since it was so new.

Of course, Mom had no clue where I’d been spending my evenings- that was way outside her parenting abilities. But at the same time, Ava’s mom was a chatterbox and my visits would most definitely be brought up when they met each other.

Ava had eventually decided that she wasn’t ready to tell her mom yet, which was probably for the best considering it was early days. I was going to respect that decision.

“I’ve been over a couple times, to chill and do homework,” I said casually. I kept my face as straight as possible as images flashed through my mind, reminding me of the mind-blowing sex I’d had with Ava. I’d thought about it a lot since I’d left her house.

“That’s nice,” said Mom, bringing me back to reality. “Well, I’m gonna go and watch some TV. Have a good day at school.” She smiled before leaving the room. I couldn’t tell if watching TV was code for getting drunk or if she was actually going to catch up on daytime television. The times I saw her sober were few and far between and I hated that I had to speculate how long this would last.

* * *

I was relieved when school finished. The day had felt like it had been dragging on more than usual. I was annoyed that I hadn’t seen Ava during lunch and assumed that she’d gone off campus to eat with her friends.

I wanted some time with my girlfriend. It was getting hard enough having to spend the days apart stuck in stuffy classrooms. Or should I say I was getting hard enough just thinking about her when I was meant to be doing algebra exercises.

I knew that Ava had history last thing, so headed over to the building where her class was. Students were pouring out in droves, adamant to get home or onto whatever the hell they had after school.

“Hey Ross, you going to Jude’s party tonight?” Alex, who was also on the football team, stopped me in the hallway.

“Nah man, I’ve got other plans,” I said, clapping him on the back as my eyes scouted around for Ava. I caught a glimpse of her dark hair out of the corner of my eye and excused myself from Alex.

Ava’s head was down as she walked in the other direction, holding her books close to her chest. I crept up behind her like a lion stalking its prey and pulled her into a big bear hug. I leaned into the smell of strawberries and vanilla that radiated from her body.

“What the f-” Ava started before turning around and seeing that it was me and not some random weirdo. Her face broke into a smile and she smacked me playfully on the arm. “You scared the shit out of me!” she giggled.

“Stop looking so damn huggable then,” I smirked at her. Ava went up on her tiptoes and brushed her soft lips against mine. My dick twitched in my pants. Clearly, he was happy to know she was near again. I’d never been a fan of PDA and knew that it was probably best for us to keep our new relationship under wraps for now, but as we shared a brief kiss in the hallway, not a single part of my body wanted to pull away. I didn’t care who saw us.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked coyly. We turned in the direction that I’d come from and started walking out the door together towards the sports pitches. I grabbed Ava’s hand and pulled her in the direction of the cobblestone path that led to town.

“Maybe I just want to spend some time with my girlfriend,” I said, my mouth breaking into an involuntary smile at the warmth that filled my body when I said that word.

Damn, I was becoming one soppy fuck.

“What’s the plan then, boyfriend?” Ava asked, looking up at me with her twinkling eyes.

“Ice cream, I think. That sound good to you?” Ava’s eyes lit up like a kid who’d just been told that they could have a soda.

“Hell yeah!”

When we got to the ice cream parlour, I watched as Ava spent a good five minutes selecting her favourite flavours. She looked at the glass cabinet with all the seriousness in the world, where eyebrows knitted together as if she was solving a Rubik’s Cube as opposed to picking out dessert.

When she had finally picked what she wanted, I paid and then we took our ice creams outside to sit on a bench that overlooked the park.

“Thanks Ross, this is really nice,” she said sweetly, her eyes full of gratitude.

“Anytime,” I said. I noticed that Ava’s ice cream was melting and had started dripping down her hand. “Look, come here.” I grabbed her small hand in mine and brought it to my lips. Keeping my eyes locked on hers, I slowly licked the sweet liquid off her fingers, amused by how wide Ava’s eyes had grown. I set her hand back on her lap, forcing myself to look at her face and not the gap between her stockings and her skirt.

“You’re really trying to get me in trouble.” Ava pursed her lips in an attempt to keep the smile off her face.

“Would that be so bad?” I purred at her. “Public stuff could be fun-”

“Not in a town as small as this!” she exclaimed. We laughed together and ate our ice creams as we we talked about shit we did as kids.

“Remember when I got stuck up there, and I was too scared to come down?” Ava laughed and pointed at the monkey bars in the park. They seemed a lot smaller now that we’d grown up.

“You were dangling there with your little arms, crying your eyes out,” I said, the memory coming back to me. “I don’t know where you got all that upper body strength,” I laughed.

“Okay, but don’t forget you told me that it was safe to jump down!” Ava exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at me.

“I’d never do such a thing,” I said sarcastically, shaking my head as if I had no clue what she was talking about.

“Oh yes, you would! You told me that it was safe to jump because I’d-”

“Bounce back up,” we said at the same time before bursting into more laughter.

“But you believed me for some reason,” I said once we’d wiped away our happy tears. I turned to Ava and laced my fingers through hers.

“Maybe it’s because you were my best friend,” she said pointedly, her eyebrows raised. “And I might have had a little crush on you, but I guess we’ll never know.”

Ava grinned at me before leaning into my body. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, and let her rest her head on me while we continued looking out to the park that we’d spent so much time in as kids.

“Maybe I had a crush on you too,” I whispered into her sweet smelling hair.

“You had a weird way of showing it.”

“Well, I’m working on that one,” I said softly, meaning every single word that came out of my mouth.

People walked past us, coming from school and work or just out for a leisurely stroll. I didn’t care what time it was or what I was going to do next; I was just enjoying being in Ava’s company, and by the way she was looking up at me with her Bambi eyes, I could tell that she was enjoying mine, too.