by Mia Ford
Chapter 32
Ava
Mondays were always the worst, especially when you spent your Sunday getting chewed out by the guy you loved because you couldn’t get your shit together enough to allow yourself to be happy. Monday mornings were the worst when you opened your tired eyes to the bright sun coming in your window or the loud as hell alarm that was asking to be thrown across the room. Monday cab rides to work were the worst because you just wanted to sleep while you sat in traffic, but the cab always smelled like egg sandwiches or stale coffee and cigarettes. Mondays at work were the worst because you had to pretend to be awake while being dragged into meetings and being expected to be coherent enough to answer questions about work you spent the last two and half days desperately trying to forget.
That Monday, the one I woke up feeling like I had been told more about myself in a couple sentences, than I had learned about myself in twenty-five years, was the worst one yet. When I got to the office, I struggled through answering emails, making sure I didn’t misspell too many words and I didn’t fall asleep writing it. No matter how much sleep you got on Sunday night, you were always dragging ass on Mondays. Then, I had to go sit in a meeting, headed by Tanner where I felt completely disconnected. I was nervous as hell, knowing I had to face him after having a breakdown over the logistics of telling my father about us. I couldn’t focus on anything he was saying, and my mind had drifted so far off-kilter, I forgot every few minutes that I was sitting in the conference room.
“Do you have those prepared, Ava?” I could hear Tanner’s voice, but it was still in the background of my thoughts. It took him saying my name again to snap me back to the present. “Ava?”
“Oh,” I said sitting up in the chair and looking around at everyone staring at me. “Yes, I mean no. I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson, could you repeat that question?”
I felt like a complete moron, and while everyone else was giggling under their breath at my lack of concentration, Tanner was looking at me with concern. I had always been the one with the spunk and alertness on Mondays to answer the questions with an overabundance of knowledge. However, that day, I wasn’t even sure I remembered what my name was. I was completely overwhelmed again, but this time, it wasn’t over a lie or a commitment issue, it was over the fact that I was self-sabotaging, trying to force myself to only care about the business and sneak out of relationships as fast as I could get into them.
“Sure,” he said, nodding his head. “Can you come up and explain your change management board.”
“Of course,” I said, standing from my chair and straightening my skirt.
I walked up to the front and took the power point clicker from Tanner’s hand. He stood there for a minute, looking at me before taking a seat to the side. I hated when he watched me at work. It was like having your teacher stare you down during a presentation. I fumbled with the power clicker for a moment until I got my slide up on the screen. The other employees didn’t seem to notice since they all were plagued by this Monday hell as well. I cleared my throat and began to explain the different stages of change management that we were going to be implementing in the financial division over the next six weeks. There was going to be a merger of employees, a merger of ideas, and a merger of the business as a whole. It was going to be extensive and overwhelming for many, but the CFO and I had worked diligently to make a plan that would create a stepping stone for both new and old employees alike.
I went through every step, ignoring Tanner as he followed along on the screen. The financial side of the meeting all paid close attention while the marketing side seemed to daze out without much thought. The change would affect them in some ways, but not nearly as much as the financial sector would see it. They were going to get the brunt of it all. When I was done, I went back to my seat and tried to pay attention for the remainder of the meeting. Everyone pretty much bolted when the meeting was over, and it left me alone with Tanner in the conference room as I packed up my bag. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, gathering his things and glancing over at me.
I wanted so badly to tell him the truth right then and there, but that fear was back and it was burning at me like a fire. I put the last of my things away and stood up, straightening the chairs and turning to walk toward the door. I wanted him to stop me, but I didn’t want to make it obvious.
“Ava,” Tanner said, allowing me to breathe a sigh of relief.
“Yes,” I said, turning back around.
“You okay?”
“Yes, why?”
“You were really distracted during that meeting,” he said motioning to where I was sitting. “What were you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” I said, picking up my things. “I mean not nothing, but nothing you want to hear.”
I took in a deep breath and turned back, sitting on the edge of the table as he cleared the computer and turned off the power. It was the only meeting we would have that day, and I was really happy about that. Meetings should be canceled on all Mondays. I thought about his question and my answer, and I cringed, realizing I gave him that typical answer of nothing when it was most definitely something. I had lied, just like I wasn’t supposed to do. There was way more than nothing going on upstairs, but I didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. I didn’t know where the boundaries were. I didn’t know if I could piece the issues together enough to understand, and I didn’t know if he really actually wanted to listen.
I had so many emotions rolling around in my chest, and I wanted to scream how much I cared about him, but I was terrified at what he would say. What if I confessed my feelings and he walked away? What if I had read him wrong the entire time? I was so nervous, I could barely get my speech out and that was memorized. If I had to put together an understanding of how I felt about him at the spur of a moment, I knew it would come out completely wrong. I could tell by the look on his face, though, that he did not like the answer one little bit. I cleared my throat.
“Mondays are the worst,” I said. “I don’t know where my mind went, but I won’t let it happen again. I was supposed to be prepared for my presentation, and instead, I zoned out on you. Hopefully the others got a good idea of what I was trying to deliver in the speech. I think people in marketing believe that my board had nothing to do with them. But yeah, I wasn’t thinking about anything.”
“Well, okay then,” he said, visibly upset at my answer.
I sat there on the corner of the table and watched as he finished gathering everything up and walked out of the conference room. He didn’t even try to probe me further. I guess if I had someone who was constantly trying to figure out a way to not be around me, I might act the same exact way. I hadn’t treated him right at all. I went back to my office and closed the door, working on projects that I had put off. I got into a smooth rhythm with my work, but Tanner was still all over my mind. It was torture to try to get through the day without his humorous quips, his sweet smile across the hall, and his constant longing stares. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about him. I had already told myself I loved him, but it was the fear that I would lose him after admitting to loving him so much.
I got out of the office on time that day, grabbing my bag and riding the elevator down with everyone else. I took a cab back to my apartment and curled up on my couch, feeling very out of place and lost from not fitting in with everyone at work. They were all so bright and shiny, and I was anything but. I picked up my phone and dialed Tanner, hoping that he would answer. I needed to talk to him, and right then. It was so easy to see that Tanner was the man for me, and I wanted to let him know. I wanted him to forgive me for pushing him away on a regular basis. I wanted him to listen to me tell him I loved him. He needed to know all of this.
With frustration, I slammed my phone down on the coffee table, knowing he was purposely ignoring my phone calls. I was so frustrated with that man, and it was really hard for me to push past my stubborn nature and continue to try to make him understand how much I really cared about him. He wanted to push
me away like I was doing to him. I got it, but now I wanted to talk, and he was making sure that it was as hard on me as possible. I loved him, and if I didn’t do my best to try to help him, really give it my all, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
My father was right that I could have it all. I just needed to reach out and take it. Tanner was what I wanted in every sense of the word, and I was starting to feel completely beat by him refusing to even speak to me about what happened. This was the last time I could mentally handle fighting for a relationship with him. If I screwed it up after that, I was going to just have to move on, letting him live his life without my constant drama and intense excuses.
I picked my phone back up and called him five more times, getting the voicemail every single time. I sat there staring at my phone, not knowing whether to try calling again or not. I figured if he didn’t answer it the fifth time, he wasn’t going to answer at all. I couldn’t let that be the straw that broke the camel’s back. I couldn’t just let him run off thinking I wasn’t ready for a relationship when we could both be incredibly happy with each other, given the right amount of time.
I got up from the couch and went into my bedroom, throwing on more comfortable clothing and wrapping a scarf around my neck. I checked my hair in the mirror and applied a bit of nude lip gloss on my lips, making sure that I didn’t look to tired and haggard. If he wasn’t going to answer my phone calls after everything we had been through, I was going to take my ass over to his penthouse. I could feel my heart breaking already, and I knew that it was going to be impossible for me to hold my emotions back. I would as long as I could, but this situation was no longer about hiding my feelings, it was about letting them out with pure and complete honesty. I knew for a fact that if Tanner were going to hear me out, he was going to expect nothing less.
Chapter 33
Tanner
Ava had called me five times but hadn’t left a single message on my answering machine. That told me she wanted to talk to me, but after giving her the chance at the office earlier that day, I felt like it would be pointless. I wanted to hear the truth from her, the complete, unguarded truth, and until she could do that for me, I wasn’t interested in what she had to say. I was tired, dead tired, of the lies, the keeping me in the dark, and the constant pushing and pulling that went on between us. I didn’t want her any less than before, but I was starting to go insane trying to keep my life together and chase after a girl who only wanted to be chased half of the time.
I sat on my couch, drinking a beer and staring out the window at the nighttime skyline of the city. It was so beautiful with the twinkling lights and brightly lit buildings and instantly made me feel more at ease. As I lay there daydreaming, the house phone rang. I groaned as I pulled myself from the couch and shuffled over answering the call.
“There is a young lady name Ava here to see you,” the guard said.
I wanted to tell him to send her away, tell her to go, just go, but there was no way I was going to be able to leave her sitting down there, especially when she had come all the way from her place to mine. She obviously had something she needed to say, and I figured there was no harm in listening. Who knew, maybe she was going to be completely honest. Maybe she was ready to fix what was keeping us apart right now.
“Send her up,” I said with a sigh.
I pulled on a sweatshirt and checked myself quickly in the mirror before walking out into the living room. I could hear the elevator outside of the guest entrance beep and the doors sliding open. I walked over to the door and opened it before Ava could knock. I looked down at her and was taken aback as tears flowed from her eyes and down her cheeks. I stepped to the side, and she walked in, heading straight to the couch and sitting down, covering her face with her hands. I closed the door and stood at the edge of the living room, not knowing how to comfort her. She was trying to talk to me, desperately trying, but between the sobs and the hands over her face, I couldn’t understand a single thing she was saying.
My feet started moving before my brain could, and before I knew it, I was sitting down next to her, rubbing her back and trying to get her to calm down. She dipped her head into her hands and sobbed silently into her palms. I wasn’t sure if she was crying over us, over everything that had happened, or if something else had struck, and I was just unsure of it. Either way, she needed to calm down in order for us to even attempt to have a conversation.
I sat there feeling completely helpless, not knowing what to do. Suddenly it came to me, so I lifted my hand to her chin and turned her toward me. I leaned in and kissed her lips, tasting the salty tears on her skin. Instantly, she began to stop crying and her sobs turned into heated moans. I grabbed her waist and pulled her close to me, feeling the heat between us rising. She was so beautiful, even when she cried. And as I held her in my arms, I remembered how I had promised her father that I was going to take care of her and protect her from everything. I wondered if that meant protecting her from herself as well. In that moment, though, as our kiss grew hotter and deeper by the second, she felt like the Ava I had fallen for in the first place. She felt like the passionate woman that I lusted after long before I was able to tell myself that I had more feelings than that for her.
I reached down and rubbed my hands up her thighs, feeling the tight jeans encasing her legs. She reached her hands up and twisted her fingers through my hair like she always did. I loved feeling her playing with my hair. It was so personal, so erotic. Instantly, my pants grew tighter and tighter as we both came up for air, not caring about anything else. I moved my lips over her cheeks and down her neck, tasting her, moving her, and calming her nerves. This wasn’t her telling me the honest truth, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. As I went to move my hand further toward her crotch, she reached down and grabbed my hand, pulling her head back and breathing heavily.
“I can’t do this,” she said shaking her head. “At least not until I tell you how I feel.”
I nodded my head and scooted back, giving her some space to think. If nothing else, that show of affection had calmed her enough that I could now understand what she was saying. Her eyes were red and her lips were swollen from crying so hard. I reached over and grabbed a tissue, handing it to her. She smiled as she took it and wiped the tears off of her face. I really couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say, though I didn’t know what to expect at all. Everything had been so back and forth since we met that she could be spilling her guts, coming up with excuses, or she could be there to completely tell me off. I could feel the nerves in my stomach floating around, hoping that she was opting for candor and not anger, something that I hadn’t seen in her yet.
I quickly got up from the couch and jogged over to the fridge, pulling two bottles of water out before heading back over. I opened one and handed it to her, knowing that with the ferocity she was crying, she needed to refresh and renew herself before she could possibly start to formulate sentences. She took several big gulps of the water and sighed happily, using the tissue to wipe the last remaining tears from her cheeks. She was breathing heavily, and she looked really nervous. Just from that reaction, I wasn’t expecting anger from her, especially since when she was angry, she usually came in full speed ahead.
“I’m a mess,” she laughed through her raspy voice. “I was okay until I got into your elevator, and then I lost it.”
“You don’t need to cry,” I said softly. “I’m here. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“I love you,” she said. “I’ve loved you for a long time, but my brain just wouldn’t let me comprehend that. We have been through so much, and I know that we’re perfect for each other. You were right. I was a coward, and though I wanted to be with you, my brain was telling me to stay away. From that, I started getting angry at you for everything. I was trying to push you away in a way that made me feel okay about it. Then, I would get home and realize how much I miss you, how much I love you.”
I sat there listening to her talk, watching her fa
ce as it began to light up talking about us and our possible future. I felt like she wasn’t just saying these things to me, but she was saying them to herself as well. She had finally understood what I was trying to say and had humbled herself down enough to take the chance on coming here, not knowing if it would be something I reacted to in a good way or not.
“I know that I have been up and down and back and forth over the last few weeks,” she said blushing. “But I am being dead serious when I tell you that I love you and want to be with you. I tried to get you off my mind, especially earlier on, but no matter what I do, I think about being with you and what that really means. I want to have the career, the family, the boyfriend, and everything else life has to offer me. I don’t just want any man in my life, though. I only want you in it.”
“Even after everything we’ve put each other through?”
“Especially after everything we’ve put each other through,” she said with a smile. “My father talked to me on Sunday morning and gave me his full blessing. He gave us his full blessing, really. With the way I feel now, I didn’t have to have that blessing, but I feel a hell of a lot better knowing that my family is on board with my choices. It gave me the ability to know we could be together without any more outside issues. You could be a part of my entire world, not just the parts that were behind closed doors. I am dead serious about all of this, no going back or letting fear rule me like it tried to on a regular basis.”
