by K. V. Rose
I might deserve that, but I can’t tell her about what happened because I don’t know her and I’m not about to put my career in her hands like that. My entire fucking life.
“Yeah, you already did,” I say instead. We pull up outside the condo, and I forgo the underground garage for a spot opposite where my unit is. If Rolland is looking for this car, if he’s somehow smarter than I thought, I want to at least throw him off a little bit.
“I wish I never had,” Ava snarls, still staring straight ahead even as I put the car in Park.
“You’d be the only girl who ever regretted me having my dick inside her.” I open the door and hop out, slamming it behind me. I walk around to her side, under no illusion she’s going to open it herself because she’s being a little shit right now.
I yank open the door. “Come on, Princess,” I growl at her, reaching around her to undo her seatbelt.
I catch her scent; nothing overly heady, just light and clean, and yet I feel my cock twitch at the smell of it. But I clench my jaw, pushing that thought down. Benji is not getting laid tonight, and my dick needs to figure that out like my head has.
I pull on her arm, straightening.
“Come on, Ava,” I say gently. “I know you’re confused but—”
“Confused?” she sneers at me, yanking her arm from my grip. “You were about to bang the waitress, I watched you leave with her and—”
“Yeah, let’s not play that card,” I snap, glancing over my shoulder, not wanting to be in this fucking parking lot longer than necessary. I turn back to her. “You were fine with another dude grinding up on you—”
“As if it fucking matters to you,” she challenges me, her eyes bright.
“It doesn’t,” I say easily, stepping back and shrugging. “Now get the fuck out of my car.”
She stares a me a moment longer then she finally slides out, slamming the door behind her before I can close it.
I reach for her hand but she snatches it away, wrapping her arms around her body like she’s cold even though it feels goddamn delicious outside.
I roll my eyes, and together, we walk into the lobby, me waving the key over the keypad. I head to the concierge.
“Anyone asked to see me tonight?” I ask him quietly.
I watch his throat bob as he swallows. He’s dealt with me before, before Caden and I moved in here. He probably thinks we’re up to no good, which is more or less true. But he also knows better than to let anyone up to my room, or Riley’s, or her mother’s.
“No,” he finally answers, his voice hoarse. I get that I’m intimidating but damn. Then his eyes lower down to my waist and I realize the gun is showing. I brush my coat over it.
“Great.” I turn back to Ava and half-drag, half-lead her to the elevator. She doesn’t put up a fuss because there are a few people waiting for one of the half dozen elevators to come down. But her mouth is turned down into a frown and I know she probably hates me right now. I press the button to close our elevator, not letting anyone else in.
I check my phone. Nothing except Caden going off, as per usual.
Once we get up to my floor, I knock on Caden’s door.
He answers it immediately, his face lined with fury. His blue eyes shoot past me, to Ava, and his brows go up.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” he asks. I take it they’ve met. Probably when he took Riley to her class. “And what the fuck is going on?”
I don’t even look back at Ava.
“She’s with me. It’s just…something was off, man.”
Caden’s hands ball into fists. He’s wearing his usual white shirt, sleeves rolled up to the forearms. I can see his veins bulging because he’s fucking pissed and hell, maybe he fucked Riley again. I don’t know. And I don’t really want to know.
“Something was off?” he repeats. He knows I’m lying. But if he had fucking killed his dad with that baseball bat instead of stopping too soon, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
That was weakness.
Rolland Virani doesn’t deserve to live, and I don’t give a fuck whose father he is.
“Stay in there,” I say quietly, eyes flicking past him to inside his and Riley’s condo. “It was probably nothing…just…stay there,” I say again. “I’ll be across the hall. He probably wasn’t anywhere near us. But he will come to us. We wait. If we do it right, none of us will go to jail, and he’ll end up in a grave.”
I hear Ava’s sharp intake of breath behind me and Caden’s eyes narrow on her.
“Maybe watch your fucking mouth, man,” he snaps. “Or else you’ll have to add to the body count.”
Something about those words and the way he says them makes me tense. I take a step toward him but he doesn’t back down. He knows me. He knows I won’t hurt him. Not too badly, anyway. But Ava has nothing to do with this.
“I’ll take care of her. Let me know if you hear anything.”
He nods, I clap my hand on his shoulder, squeezing a little harder than necessary, and I feel a sick sort of satisfaction when he winces.
I turn around, loop my arm through Ava’s, and drag her to my door as Caden locks and closes his.
“What the fuck is going on?” Ava hisses again as I push her inside my condo. I lock the door behind us and then turn around to face her, my back against the door.
“It’s complicated.”
“You’re…you’re going to kill someone?” she asks me quietly, and I see fear flash in her eyes.
I walk past her, bumping her with my arm. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
Ten
“I’m not leaving, and I’m sure as hell not going out of the country.” I run my hands through my hair, tugging on the long strands until it hurts, making sure I’m not actually having a nightmare right now. “My mom is dying, Benji. Besides that, I’m not fucking going anywhere with you.”
Not to mention Dumont has been blowing up my phone. After we met last Tuesday, nothing was resolved. We didn’t sleep together, and I went home afterward, but I wasn’t able to tell him I wanted to slow down. I didn’t really need to. He was crying over his fucking wife.
Ex-wife.
“I’m sorry about your mom, but you don’t get a choice,” Benji replies, tossing an empty black bag to me across the dining room table.
I let it fall to the floor and step back. I’m still in the dress I was in last night when he took me here, and I still don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I don’t want any part of it.
“You’re not listening, Benji,” I say, raising my voice. “I’m not leaving with you. I’m going home. You can either take me there, or someone can pick me up, but I am not leaving my fucking mother. She’s dying!”
As soon as the last words leave my mouth, I feel something prick behind my eyes, and I take a deep, shuddering breath. Benji looks up from the three passports he was glancing over on the table in front of him.
His eyes are soft, flecks of emerald green visible in the brown from the sun pouring in at my back. His fingertips graze the table as he holds my gaze.
“I’m sorry, Ava.” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his dark hair, causing it up to stand up on end. It’s messy, disheveled. It looks like he just had sex, even though I know he didn’t. I spent the night here, after all. “You’re right. I’ll take you home.”
Really? That easy?
He must see the surprise in my face because he nods. “When you’re ready.”
“I am ready,” I announce. He had a toothbrush for me, and I tried to look decent, wearing the same shit I had the night before, but I know my appearance isn’t going to improve until I get home.
He blows out a breath. “Okay, I just have to grab my stuff.” He turns to walk down the hall to his bedroom.
“You’re going back?” I call after him, even though I don’t know why. He was about to take me on a private jet up to Toronto. Just because I’m staying here, that’s not going to change his mind.
“Yeah,” he calls bac
k without looking at me, “with you.”
Dad is out. He rarely ever leaves the house, but I called him on my way and convinced him to get some fresh air. He mumbled something about groceries over the phone and agreed with me. Benji stopped back at the club to get my car, we parked his on campus, and then he rode with me to my parents’ house.
He hid in the back seat, and it’s only thanks to my tinted windows my father didn’t see him when he pulled out the driveway. He barely fit in the back, having to curl into a tight ball.
When I open the door, he glares at me as he slides out, stretching his limbs. He raises his arms overhead, and I see his black t-shirt rise up, exposing his fucking perfect six pack.
I look away but I hear him chuckle as I lead him inside the house.
“I’m going to be with my mom,” I mutter quietly. “You’ve probably got half an hour before my dad comes home. Be in my room when he does.”
I start to climb the stairs, but he clears his throat behind me. I glance down and see his eyes on my ass. When he meets my gaze, he doesn’t look the least bit guilty.
“Where’s your room?”
Good question, I guess.
I jerk my head up to indicate the stairs. “Third room on the left.” And then I leave him down there, pulling out my phone as I do.
He insisted that if I insisted on staying here, he was going to come with me. He told me fuck all about what’s going on, but made it pretty clear he wasn’t letting me out of his sight.
Naturally, I threatened, begged, and pled with him to tell me what the fuck was going on, but he wouldn’t budge.
I even text Riley, but she told me she was sorry she couldn’t say more yet.
I can’t tell my father.
Not with Mom…
Tess is still angry I left with Benji last night, and I know that makes me a shitty friend. Dumont wants to see me this weekend and I’ve been ignoring him, which makes me a shitty lay.
But right now, I’m being a good daughter, and that’s enough.
I curl up around Mom, and she moves beneath me, her gaunt frame all sharp edges and hard lines.
She turns in the bed to face me, and my eyes meet her blue ones, watery but still sharp.
“Mom,” I whisper, swallowing back the sob that threatens to come up. If I let it, if I let it go just like that, I won’t ever stop crying and that’s why I’ve been avoiding this room. Why I’ve been avoiding her.
I don’t look at the feeding tube that’s through her nose, down her throat. I just keep my eyes on hers as she reaches out a shaky hand and runs it down my cheek.
“Ava, babe,” she whispers. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
My throat gets tighter and I let her pull me into her, laying my head on her chest, listening to the slow beat of her heart. Too slow. Painfully slow.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper, the words creaking out of my throat. I don’t even know if she can actually hear me. If she’s still awake.
She doesn’t respond for a moment, but then she takes a deep breath and she does.
“It’s okay, babe.” I swear I can hear her smile. “Remember how we used to go to Starbucks every weekend, at the crack of dawn before your dad was up?”
Despite myself, despite the hole that’s forming in my chest, I nod, half-laughing, half-sobbing. We did that until a few months ago, when she was too sick to leave the house. Even then, we still had hope.
Even then, we felt certain she’d be beating this.
I still think that because I can’t not think it, even as all the evidence points to the contrary.
She breathes in, the sound strangely raspy. Or maybe not so strangely. She’s dying, I remind myself, so I can feel the pain of the words. So I can feel the sharp sting of them. She’s reminiscing on something that will never happen again.
I close my eyes tight, still against her chest as she strokes my hair back.
“Those were my favorite times, Ava,” she says quietly. “With you in the passenger seat, and that big smile on your face when you got the biggest iced coffee known to man into your hands.”
I hold my breath, knowing that when I exhale, the tears forming behind my eyes are going to fall whether I want them to or not.
“I want you to always do that,” she continues.
I squeeze my eyes, not daring to open them. “Do what?” I ask her, my voice shaking. “Get a big ass iced coffee?”
She stops stroking my hair and pulls back, so her eyes are on mine. “No,” she begins, then her dry lips pull into a smile. “Well, yeah, if you want it. But I hope you always find joy in the little things, Ava.” She taps my nose in a playful gesture. “I know you’re grateful for everything your father and I have given you, and God do I know how much you like dropping money on clothes, but keep that happiness for the small things, too.”
I think of Benji down the hall, probably in my room by now. For a split second, I want my mom to know about him. I want her to meet him. I want to leap off of her bed, run down the hall, and drag his big ass in here. Even though he can be a dick, I have no doubt he would be a perfect gentleman to my mother.
But he hasn’t even asked about her, even though I know he knows.
He hasn’t asked once.
And besides that, I don’t know him. I don’t know shit about him. And even if my mom never meets him, what does it matter anyway? She’s never going to meet the man I’ll end up marrying anyhow, if I ever do marry. She’ll never meet Dumont, who has been there for me as much as I’ve been there for him, in our own weird way.
I nod, biting my lip to keep the tears in. I’m supposed to be strong for her. I’m not supposed to be crying right now. This is Mom’s time.
Mom’s death.
But the tears flow more anyway, and I can’t hold in my sob. My chest shakes, and my shoulders heave up and down with the grief, with knowing soon, this will be over, and soon, I won’t have a mother.
I won’t have anyone to talk me off the ledge, to tell me what to do when it comes to stupid professors and stupid Canadian boys. I won’t have anyone to help me figure out what the fuck I want to do with my life, which so far has revolved around the least productive things in the world.
I’ll have Dad, of course, and Tess. My friends. But Mom…she always gave the best advice.
She pulls me close, rubbing my back. “It’s okay, Ava,” she says softly. “You can be sad. It’s only natural. But I’ll never leave you, baby girl. Not really.”
But that’s not true, because I don’t even think I believe in a god and the idea of heaven is so fantastic it can’t be true.
I’ll never see her again, once she’s done here.
This is all we get.
And I’m 22.
This isn’t enough.
But I let her hold me for a long, long time. I know Benji can take care of himself. I hear someone at the door—Dad, I guess—at some point, but he doesn’t interrupt us, and eventually, I drift off to sleep in my mother’s arms. Maybe for the last time.
Eleven
I didn’t mean to walk in on them.
I just hadn’t heard her in nearly half an hour, and her dad wasn’t back, and I wanted to make sure she was okay because I’m insufferable.
I pushed open the door that was ajar and saw her in her mother’s room. Her parents’ room, I guessed. I saw her mom clinging to her daughter for dear life, and I saw Ava’s eyes closed, her breathing even. Her mom was still awake, but she didn’t see me. Part of me wanted to walk in, introduce myself. Tell her I would take care of her daughter, at least for now.
But that would have been an incredibly stupid thing to do, not least of all because it probably isn’t true. So I went back to her bedroom instead.
It’s the middle of the night and I’m still here, and Ava still isn’t.
The feeding tube in her mother’s nose reminded, though, very clearly of why what we’re doing is the height of stupidity. Or rather, what I’m doing, barging into her life, making her think
maybe I care for some reason.
If she only knew what I’d done…if she only knew what that feeding tube reminded me of…
But it doesn’t matter.
I scrub my hand over my face and turn over in Ava’s big bed, watching the door. I shut and locked it, as was the plan. She’s to knock four times when she comes back in. If she comes back in.
Pretty soon, from the looks of it, she’s going to be without a mom.
I know that feeling.
My adoptive mom gave me all the things I needed in life, save for love. Her and my dad tried, I really believe that. They were never able to have kids, and they thought adopting was going to complete their lives or something. But they got a snot-nosed loudmouth, quick tempered boy who had watched his father abuse his mom most of his short life, instead of the golden boy they probably wanted.
And then when I ended up in prison, well, that was just the sign they needed to cut me off, like they’d always wanted to do.
No more forced family meals, awkward phone calls, pretending to feel something we didn’t.
But Ava’s family doesn’t seem like that. From the pictures of her and her parents on her dresser to the fact she’s curled up asleep with her mom right now, and that she flunked an entire semester of school for partying and it doesn’t seem to have worn down their relationship too badly, if at all.
Ava’s family is different.
We’re different. It’s why as soon as Rolland Virani is six feet under, I’ve got to get my ass back to Toronto and Ava Culwen off of my mind. I don’t love her or anything crazy like that. Hell, I just met her.
But a girl like that…
I could love her.
And that’s something I promised I’d never do again. Not after Bianca.
Just like that, her face springs into my mind and I close my eyes, counting to ten, letting myself walk up those steps again, letting myself sink down in front of the bathtub with her swollen nose and her black eyes and the bruises forming on her neck.
And then I cut it off, and like a switch, she’s out of my head.
