Chapter 105 CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE

Chapter 105 CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE
ASHER

I told Jace I’d check on him.
That was true.
But it wasn’t the only reason I came.
Part of me wanted to see Avery after the way she shut me out at the hospital… cold voice, eyes that refused to meet mine for longer than a second. She had looked at me like proximity itself was a mistake she needed to correct. And I hated how much that mattered. Hated that it followed me home. Hated that it stayed in my head all night, even in bed, replaying in fragments I couldn’t shut off.
The hospital hallway.
Her shaking hands.
The side yard.
The kiss.
The way she came apart for me, then rebuilt every wall the second fear gave her an excuse.
I had almost told her at the party.
That was the part that kept circling back. I had been right there, mouth too close to hers, pulse still wrecked from the way she looked in that dress, from the way she kissed me like she hated how much she wanted to. I had been about to say it cleanly. No games. No leverage. Just the truth.
That I wanted her.
Not the secret. Not the upper hand.
Her.
 The argumentative, impossible, maddening version of her that got under my skin and stayed there. She drove me crazy in a way I didn’t have language for… not the shallow kind, not boredom dressed up as interest. The kind that made my thoughts less orderly. The kind that made control feel like something I was losing by degrees every time she pushed back and every time she didn’t.
And that had never happened before.
Girls didn’t mess with my head. They occupied space for a night, a week, maybe less. They were easy to want and easier to forget. Avery Voss was neither. She had become the one thing I couldn’t categorize cleanly, and the fact that she could dismiss me with a few cold words in a hospital room made something restless and ugly turn over in my chest.
I needed control.
I needed to regain the version of this where I decided the terms, where she didn’t get to look straight through me and walk away like I was the one left unbalanced.
I had come here for Jace.
But when Avery walked through the door with that tiny bakery box in her hands, every carefully arranged reason I had for being there tilted.
“I want more of the cookie,” Jace said, interrupting the spiral of my thoughts.
I blinked, then looked down at him. He was staring at the empty box with the tragedy of a child betrayed by portion sizes.
“Oh… alright.” A smile pulled at my mouth before I could stop it. “I knew you’d love it. Those cookies are the best. Let me make a call.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket.
One of my father’s old friends owned the bakery. Back when we still lived in New York… back when Dad was still alive — we used to go there often enough that the staff knew our order before we spoke. After he died, the man never stopped treating me like I belonged to that history. Preferential treatment. Private boxes. A number that skipped the circus outside. It was one of the few remaining places that still felt like it remembered my father without needing me to explain him.
I was already scrolling for the contact when Avery’s voice cut in.
“Wait. That’s it?”
I glanced up.
Her eyes had gone wide, disbelief written clean across her face. “So all you have to do is make a call? I waited like two hours before I got the—”
She stopped herself hard.
Interesting.
“Yeah,” I said mildly. “It’s always crazy there. You should’ve just told me. I’d have gotten it for you.”
“Not for me, technically,” she stuttered, a little too fast. “Jace.”
“Yeah,” I said, smirking. “Sure. Jace.”
I could be deceived by a lot of things if I wasn’t paying attention. Bad excuses. Careful smiles. People underestimating how much I noticed.
But Avery’s failed attempt at pretending that cookie had never been for her?
That was driving me insane in the best way.
She stood there trying so hard to look neutral, while the truth sat between us in an empty box and a two-hour confession she hadn’t meant to give. There was a faint flush at her cheeks, the same one she got when she was cornered and refused to admit it. 
Ridiculous.
And still somehow the most distracting person in any room she entered.
I looked back down at my phone before I could stare too long, thumb hovering over the contact.
“Lucky for both of you,” I said, “I can get more.”
Jace cheered.
Avery looked like she wanted the floor to open.
And I, traitorously, liked that more than I should have.
I stepped away toward the hallway as the call connected, keeping my voice low. The familiar greeting came through almost immediately, warm and unsurprised, the way it always did. I didn’t need to explain much. A box of the chocolate chip. Fresh if possible. Someone could have it ready. Preferential treatment had always made things simple there, and today I was grateful for it in a way that had nothing to do with convenience and everything to do with the girl currently pretending she had not emotionally combusted over pastry.
When I hung up, Jace was watching me like I had just performed magic.
“Are they coming?” he asked.
“They’ll be ready for pickup,” I said. “Or delivery, if I feel generous.”
“You’re the best.”
Avery made a quiet sound that might have been a scoff if it hadn’t been so weak. She busied herself fixing Jace’s blanket, then the pillows, then nothing in particular, hands needing somewhere to be that wasn’t anywhere near me.
I slid my phone back into my pocket and leaned against the side of the couch, watching her avoid my eyes with impressive commitment.
“You could’ve just asked,” I said.
“I didn’t need to ask.”
“You stood in line for two hours.”
“I was in the area.”
“Sure.”
Her jaw tightened. “Drop it, Asher.”
I studied her for a second. The stiff shoulders. The distance. The way she kept trying to act like the biggest problem in the room was still a bakery line and not everything sitting unfinished between us.
“What really is your problem?” I asked. “Do you have an issue with me?”
Her eyes flicked to mine, sharp and defensive. “Uhm… aside from the fact that my journal is with you?”
A simple answer.
I leaned in before she could build another wall out of sarcasm, close enough that my voice only had to travel the space between my mouth and her ear.
“Is it about the journal, Avery…” I murmured, “or about last night?”