****
Aggie and Gianna had put together a wonderful party. The stone passageway that connected their back decks was lit by little party lights strung all through the trees on either side. Waiters served cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while people greeted one another and congratulated Ari, Rory and Julia. All of the people from the twelfth floor were there, along with half of the rest of the school. After an onslaught of questions hit me, full on, as to where I had been and what had happened on the beach on New Year’s, I decided it was best to hang back with August at the bar. He kept me company for a while. Suddenly, after about an hour or so, I felt a cold, strong hand on my shoulder.
Crap, it was Margaux. “Hello, Margaux. What are you doing here?” Embarrassingly, my voice came out in a bit of a squeak.
“I might ask you the same question, Ava Dear,” she purred in my ear, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.
“Didn’t you hear? My place in London caught on fire.”
“Oh, Ava,” she smiled wickedly. “I know all about my building catching on fire.”
“Oh, right… it was an accident?” I hedged.
She peered her beady black eyes at me. “Don’t lie, Ava. It is very unbecoming of you. I know the fire wasn’t an accident. You owe me, huge. However, I am glad to see you unharmed. Now answer me, what are you doing here?”
“Moment of weakness.”
“I’d say so. If this is where you choose to be, then you are the one who has to pay for the consequences, not me. I was only trying to help you by keeping you in London, but it seems very clear to me that you and the Alexander boy can’t stay away from one another. If I can be perfectly honest with you, Ava, Ari is a very bright man to choose to be with.”
I was surprised that she even bothered to say that at all. “Besides,” she continued, “in a week you will be free to do whatever you wish so take this time and try to enjoy it. I know you have been through so much,” she concluded in an oily voice.
“That’s right, I’ll be eighteen in a week and I won’t ever have to talk to you again; that alone will be reason enough to celebrate,” my inner voice responded.
Margaux continued to hang around me for a few more moments, trying without much success to be nice, then excused herself, having completely ignored August the entire time. I am pretty positive he was relieved when she finally left. I still wasn’t entirely sure why she had even been there or what her message to me had actually been. I knew that she and Andy had the foundation together, but I had never thought of her as the graduation party type.
Ari stole me away from August after he greeted all of the partygoers. He held me in his arms and we swayed back and forth to the soft croons of Jim James playing in the background.
“Last night was fun,” he whispered in my ear. I felt the butterflies in my stomach twirl around in a crazy, frantic flight.
“Last night was more than fun,” I whispered back, playing along with his quiet game. Ari’s eyes shot open and a sly smile snuck onto his face.
“What was your favorite part?”
Oh, the things Ari does to me with his words.
“My favorite part was when you touched me.”
“I am afraid you are going to have to be more specific, Ava. If I remember correctly, I believe I touched you several places. Was it when I touched you here?” He gently traced his fingers across my face. I shook my head no and Ari’s smile grew brighter. “Well, was it when I touched you here?” His fingers left my face and trickled down my neck to my collarbone. I shook my head no again and Ari’s smile got brighter. “What about when I touched you here?” He moved his fingers with a deliberate slowness down my chest and finally paused for a moment right below my tummy where the butterflies danced. My eyes shot up into his dark and lidded gaze and I nodded a small yes. Ari moved his hand around my back and we continued to sway with the music.
“I liked that, too, but my favorite part was when you asked me not to stop.”
I closed my eyes. My breath hitched in my throat. My body ignited with desire. Ari rocked us gently back and forth to the music and held me tightly to him. His mouth was on my ear.
“I wanted to do things to you that would make you blush for a week. I didn’t ever want to stop. But if I remember correctly, you seemed relieved when I did stop. I told you I would wait forever, Ava, and I meant it. It seems to me that maybe you don’t want to wait forever. I think that maybe you and I should have a talk about sex. I will do anything you want. I will wait for six months, a year, five – it doesn’t matter, but I will not let things between us get carried away and sneak up on us and just happen one night. I want you to tell me what it is you want, Ava.”
I swallowed hard. “Can I think about it for a while?”
“Take as long as you’d like, but I will not touch you like that again until you have set some boundaries.”
Andy walked up and handed Ari two drinks. “I think maybe you two should cool down.”
I looked at him puzzled. We had only been dancing; our words were no louder than a small whisper into each other’s ears. There was no way anyone could overhear our conversation. Ari smiled coolly at his father, took the drinks and set them on the table. He took my hand and led me into the house. We walked back to the bedroom. He kept his bedroom light off so no one could see us through his giant floor to ceiling wall of a window. He disappeared into his closet.
“Come with me to the beach?”
He held up my bikini, the one I received from Julia the past Christmas.
“I won’t let anything happen to you. You don’t even have to get wet. Just please come with me.”
“Ari, you have a house full of people who are here to see you.”
“I see these people every day. I went to school with them for four years, lived by them and sat by them in class. It is you I want to see, not them; these last six months have been hell and all I want to do is be alone with you.”
I agreed and we snuck out through the front door and cut through his neighbor’s yard onto their beach area.
“Are you sure they won’t mind us out here?” I asked.
The home was magnificent and the house was situated in such a way that they basically had their own private strip of beach. He walked me through their sandy back yard and I felt as though we were going to get in trouble.
Ari laughed at me. “You’re afraid of a little trespassing?”
“I don’t know these people and I don’t want them to get mad at us for being on their beach.”
“Don’t worry. They aren’t home,” he said very confidently. I didn’t argue with him and concentrated on keeping up. I followed him out onto the beach and stopped. Ari turned around once he realized I wasn’t following him any longer.
“I promise, Ava, nothing will happen to you. It’ll be fine. Just come on.”
I let him take my hand as he slowly walked closer to the crashing waves. He sat down with me in the sand and wrapped his arm around my body. The warm water rushed up to our bare feet and I let out a little gasp.
“This is as far as we will go. Nothing can hurt you here,” he said. We stared out at the star-filled sky and I took a deep breath, my head resting on Ari’s shoulder. We sat quietly, listening to the waves rush in and then trickle back towards sea.
“So what’s next, Ari, are you going to school somewhere?” Ari is brilliant and I was positive he could get into any school anywhere. He would move on and meet someone he could be happy with, a girl that wouldn’t bring the constant threat of death and danger every time she was near him.
He wrapped his arm tighter around my body.
“I don’t know yet. I am weighing a few options right now. I’m not really sure what my decision is going to be.”
“Ok, so what are your options? Maybe I can help,” I offered.
He let out a cheek-filled breath and rubbed the stubble on his sun-bronzed face.
“Well, I have been accepted into a handful of schools across the c
ountry, but I was just planning on going to Pepperdine, until Margaux called me.”
“Margaux? You mean my Margaux? Why would she call you?”
“She is looking for someone to handle the business side of her company and she wants to keep baio in her family, so she was thinking of handing it over to you.”
“Great,” I said sarcastically. “That is probably the last thing I am interested in.”
“She knows you feel that way, so she offered the job to me instead. She and my dad have a long-standing professional relationship and if she can’t keep baio in her family, she would like to involve mine.”
Ari looked at me with a worried expression. “I can’t help but feel as though I am taking an opportunity away from you, betraying you, Ava, and if you don’t want me involved in your company, your family’s company, then I understand.”
“I have nothing to do with baio. It is nothing but a last name to me. If that is what you want to do then do it. Don’t let me hold you back.”
Ari let out another breath. “OK… well Margaux wants me to start this fall while I take classes. She doesn’t care which office I work out of, so I’ve narrowed my choices down to schools in California, Chicago, New York and London.”
“So which are you thinking of choosing?”
“Umm… I guess I’m just waiting to see where you land before I commit to anything.”
“Oh,” I said, “so what does that mean exactly?”
“Listen, Ava, I want to be with you. You make me happy. I know there are some obstacles in the way but I just don’t see any future for me without you in it. I am not going to let you out of my sight while you are being hunted. I am going with you. From now on, we are going to be together. I have explained all of this to Margaux and she understands that you are going to be in my life and I in yours.”
“Ari, I just don’t think it will be that easy.”
“Yes, it will, Ava.”
“I don’t even know where No. 6 is. I have no idea how to find him. I have tried to see his plans, but he is blocking me in some way. I have no idea of where to go or when to go. I’m scared, Ari, and my biggest fear is that something might happen to you.”
“I can help you if you’ll just let me. No one said you have to deal with the Kakos on your own, and besides, I’ll be a way better roommate than August.”
“Well, that is true,” I smiled. “But let’s just say you’re right and that we should take care of No. 6 together. What do you have in mind?”
He thought for a moment.
“If you don’t know where this guy is, then you should use that to your advantage. Don’t let him know where you are. Stay ahead of him for a while. Let’s travel across the country or backpack through Europe or hide out on the gulf. Let’s just take the summer and run away for a while. We can come back here, to California, this fall and worry about him then.”
“Ari… I don’t know.”
“Come on, Ava, you don’t have a better plan . . . just try it with me.”
“Ok,” I said, “I will; let’s do it.”
I couldn’t bear the idea of leaving him again. Every time the thought crept into my mind, I felt pain in my heart and so I was selfish. I wanted Ari so much that I agreed to put his life at risk for my happiness.
A huge, beautiful smile spread across his face and he grabbed me and pulled me down with him on to the sandy beach. The dark blue water lapped at our legs.
“I love you, Ava. Wherever you are is where I want to be.” He kissed me. Our kiss was long, slow, and sweet. I wanted it to never end.
Eventually, we made our way up the beach to the Alexander’s deck. The party had died down and all the remaining guests and family members were now inside the house. Ari grabbed a light blanket and we nestled up on the deck, in the hammock and fell asleep; both of our bodies were caked in sand.