Page 131 of How To Tackle A Crush
“I’ll probably say it again.”
She lets out a quiet, sleepy laugh.
“You don’t have to thank me for caring about him.”
“I do.”
She tilts her head back slightly to look at me.
“You’d have done the same.”
“Yes,” I admit. “But not everyone would have done it without being asked.”
She goes quiet at that.
Then she says, very softly, “You did ask.”
I think about that.
About the hesitation. About not wanting to push. About how easily she said yes.
“I didn’t know if I was allowed to,” I admit.
Her fingers trace a small, absent line on my T-shirt.
“You are,” she says.
Simple as that.
Sleep is already pulling at both of us now. The words come slower.
“He reached for you,” I tell her. “Yesterday.”
She stills slightly.
“He needed someone safe,” she says.
“He chose you.”
That lands between us.
She doesn’t answer straight away. Just presses a small kiss against my shoulder, almost absent-minded.
“I chose him too,” she murmurs.
That does something to my soul I don’t quite have words for.
A minute later her breathing evens out.
I stay awake just long enough to realise I haven’t felt this calm in a very long time.
Then I fall asleep with her in my arms.
I wake slowly.
Ava is still here.
Curled against me, one hand resting on my chest like she fell asleep mid-thought. My T-shirt is twisted around her like she belongs in it. Alfie’s voice drifts up the stairs, explaining something very important about dinosaurs to my mum.
