by Dahlia West
“These are nice,” Emilio remarked.
“My son drew them. Do you know my son?”
Emilio looked up. “Well, I know Jonah.”
“You’re friends?”
Emilio grinned. “I just met him the other night, but yeah, I’d say we’re friends.”
Pop grunted. He looked up at Ava questioningly, then turned back to Emilio. “Are you her boyfriend?”
Ava stiffened.
Emilio glanced at her and then back to Pop. “Honestly? I don’t know,” he replied. “If she knows, I wish she’d tell me.”
Pop smiled. “You might be waiting a long time, then.”
If Emilio was surprised or disappointed by the comment, he didn’t show it. Instead, he told Pop, “I got time. For the right girl, I got nothing but time.”
“What’s your name?”
“Emilio.”
“You got a job, Emilio? You aren’t some worthless bum sniffing around my daughter, are you?”
Instead of being offended, Emilio laughed. “No, sir. I mean— yes, sir. I have a job. I work over at Burnout. Chris Sullivan’s place. You know him?”
Pop nodded but made a face. “I do. He turned out to be all right, I reckon. Considering his old man. Lot of folks in this town thought the apple wouldn’t fall far from the tree, and for a while there, it looked like it might not.” Pop whistled low. “Boy, I’ll tell you, Chris Sullivan was meaner than a pit bull when he was your age. Can’t say I’d have wanted the Buzzards to end up with a president like that. Chris’ old man was bad enough.”
Ava jumped in surprise, staring at them both. “What?!” she demanded. “The Buzzards? You... you know them?” she asked Emilio, dumbfounded.
Adam had always liked Shooter Sullivan, never had a bad word to say about him. Then again, the Buzzards had told her they knew Adam and Dalton, as well.
What exactly was going on in this fucking town? And who could Ava trust?
Emilio shook his head, though, vehemently. “Nah. Chris’ dad was their president. Back in the day. He got shanked in the pen, though, and the way Chris tells it, he knew then that if he didn’t get out, he wasn’t ever going to. So, he enlisted instead. He hates them. They never come around. They all know to stay far, far away.”
Ava searched his face for signs that he was lying, but could find none. She didn’t think Emilio would have anything to do with those bastards. There was something about him that was too... clean.
But Sullivan, that was a different story. He’d killed people, a lot of people. Or so said the rumors about him. The gossip was that it was dozens of people, while deployed overseas. Ava figured if it was even half that, Shooter Sullivan wasn’t like other men she’d known.
Maybe Emilio wasn’t getting the whole story. Maybe Chris Sullivan still had connections to the gang. Maybe he was keeping tabs on her, through Emilio.
Ava chewed her lip as she mulled it over. Either way, whether Shooter had severed ties with the Buzzards or not, Emilio was safe. She figured that was a good thing. Though now she might be walking right into the beast’s lair. Which didn’t seem too smart.
She opened her mouth to ramble out an excuse. She had plans with Sienna tonight and had only just remembered. Rain check, she’d say, with no intention of making good on the promise. Before she could get a word out, Pop asked Emilio, “Staying for dinner?”
Emilio shook his head. “Nope. Ava’s invited to Shooter’s place. To hang out. Play some cards.”
Ava watched Pop as he nodded. He didn’t seem to have a problem with it, which made her question whether or not she should. Pop seemed perfectly lucid at the moment, remembering things without the aid of his sketchbook. No one had brought up Chris’ father’s association with the Buzzards but Pop.
“Careful,” Pop warned, but he wasn’t talking to her. “She’ll take you for all your worth.”
Emilio smiled at her and she melted all over again. “Good thing I’m young and dumb and not worth much.”
Pop laughed but Ava silently disagreed. Emilio wasn’t dumb. And he was worth a lot to her.
Chapter Twenty
As Ava held her bedroom door open, she realized it was the first time a guy had ever been in her room. Pop would’ve run off almost any guy she’d tried to bring home in high school and Clint hadn’t lasted long enough to even consider it.
She watched Emilio take in her space, with its dark blue walls and beige carpet. As he turned, he caught her eyeing him.
He shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s what I was expecting.”
She snorted. “It was Dalton’s room. Adam moved back into his old room across the hall last year.”
Emilio raised his eyebrows at her. “Really? Damn. That must be... weird.”
Ava shook her head. Though she’d graduated, she hadn’t thought too much about leaving just yet. Not permanently. Staying here in this house didn’t seem at all weird. It was tinged with sadness, though, that much was true enough.
“No, it’s not,” she told Emilio. She cleared her throat a bit before she spoke again. “You’ve seen my dad. He’s... he’s sick.”
Emilio’s features softened and this was the first time Ava didn’t want to rail against someone’s pity. “I saw his book. What’s that for? Is it...”
His voice trailed off, unsure what to say.
“Alzheimer’s,” she finished for him. “He has early-onset Alzheimer’s. And with my mother gone, we need to be here for him. He can’t live by himself. I need to be here. I’m always here. In case he needs me. I work at the shop and then I’m here.”
“You weren’t today,” Emilio pointed out.
Ava scowled. She’d hoped she’d successfully dodged that particular bullet.
Emilio waited patiently, as though he expected her to offer some kind of explanation for ignoring his texts all day. He could wait forever, as far as she was concerned.
He must have sensed that she wasn’t going to offer anything up because he turned to face her fully. “Ava, are you in trouble?”
“What? No.”
“Ava.”
“I’m not!” she insisted.
“Look, if... if you are, I can help.”
“I don’t need help.” Ava plucked at the bent corner of the poster tacked to the wall. The reds, browns, and golds of the Grand Canyon remained undiminished despite the small imperfection.
Emilio sighed and she glanced back at him. It was clear from his expression that he wasn’t buying it. “You’re dodging me. And your family. What’s going on with you? Is it your ex?”
“No.”
“Is it drugs?”
She jerked away from him. His words struck a little too close to pay dirt. She covered her fear with anger and bravado. “No! What the fuck?!”
“I’m sorry,” he added. “But you look exhausted. I know you slept well last night, because I was right there next to you. But now you’re cagey, paranoid, and look like you’ve been through the ringer. Twice. I just—”
Ava glared at him. “The only needles I like have ink in them!”
An awkward silence hung between them. Emilio was the one to give in. “Okay,” he said, holding up his hands. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on, Ava. I’m trying to figure you out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” she insisted.
“There is,” he argued. “You’re hiding something. Even your family knows it.”
“You spent a few minutes with them,” Ava reminded him. “That doesn’t exactly make you an expert on my family.”
“So, tell me about them.” He cast his gaze about the room and it fell upon her nightstand. “Is this your mom?” he asked as he picked up the framed picture that someone had taken at a barbecue years ago.
Ava didn’t remember that particular day but only because there were so many, a whole life filled with love and laughter, until the end.
“Yeah. She had cancer.” It was a simple explanation and a complicated one. Those three
words couldn’t convey all they’d lost, all they’d gone through in the end, all Mom had gone through. “She wasn’t sick. And then suddenly she was. And then just like that, she was gone.”
“What’s this?” He set the photo down and picked up the white envelope that sat beside it.
“Don’t!” Ava darted across the room and grabbed it from him. “Don’t mess with that.”
“Sorry,” he said, handing it to her. “But what is it?”
Ava turned it over in her hands, checking it for damage before she slid it back onto the nightstand. “It’s... it’s a letter. From her. She wrote one to all of us. At the end.”
“It’s not opened,” he observed.
She sighed and plopped down onto the bed next to him. She wasn’t sure she liked having anyone in her room. “If I read it, that’s it. It’s the last thing she’ll ever say to me. She’ll really be gone forever.”
It was a half-truth, like so many she’d told lately. The other half was that Ava was terrified of what the letter would say. Would her mother’s last words be a comfort? Or did Mom finally say what Ava had always felt— and feared— that she’d never really been a Stark, after all?
Ava had tried to open it, more than once. But every time she looked at it, she saw grades that were never quite high enough, that time she’d tried out for the basketball team but couldn’t get along with the other girls, that time she’d wiped out on Billy Riley’s skateboard the day before the fifth-grade class picture was taken.
It had been hard to balance Ava the Good Daughter with Ava the Kickass Youngest Stark. She’d failed more often than not.
Did the letter say Mom wished she’d had Ashley instead?
Having never really existed, Ashley was perfect. She was always better. She was always stronger. She was always faster.
No one had snuck out of a hospital, leaving Ashley behind in the nursery. No one had taken one look at Ashley and decided she didn’t even deserve a name.
Who had given Ava her name? A nurse, probably. She’d looked it up once. Ava, a variation of Eve. The first woman. The woman who fucked everything up.
Well, yeah.
It also meant “bird.” Ava had clung to that part growing up. Running, jumping, higher and higher.
On her bike, she could actually fly.
Emilio gave her a sympathetic look. “I’ve never lost anyone,” he told her. “Just my dad, but I never even knew him. So, it’s not the same. Guess I can’t blame you for not opening it. I’d want to hold on, too.”
He looked down at her. His dark eyes held her gaze for a moment. “So, you want to tell me what’s going on with you?”
Ava didn’t reply.
“Didn’t think so. Well...” he said, getting up and heading toward the door.
For a brief moment Ava felt panic constrict her chest. She didn’t want him to leave. Instead he held the door open and turned back to her. “You coming?”
Ava blinked at him. “Coming?”
“I met your family. Time for you to meet mine.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Emilio led them out of the city and into the canyons that lay just beyond. Up a winding hill flanked by scrub brush, a two-story cabin came into view. It was beautiful and nestled into the canyon face, far enough away from its neighbors to be almost completely private, especially with the surrounding trees in full bloom.
Ava had never imagined where a man like Shooter Sullivan lived, though she supposed looking up at it now, the log cabin seemed like the perfect space for an ex-Army Ranger. A line of Harleys was parked in the driveway and the house gave off a warm glow of light from the windows.
As she took her helmet off, she caught sight of the night sky glittering above them. It was breathtaking.
“Wow,” she said quietly.
“Yeah. He bought the place for his wife, before she was his wife, actually. He fixed it up while he waited for her. He wanted her to have a place where she could always see the stars.”
Ava nodded, though not taking her eyes off the view. She could see herself in a place like this, quiet, out of the way, a place to ride all night away from the city.
“You’re going to love her,” Emilio declared. “You’re going to love everyone.”
She followed him up the porch steps, toward the front door, and almost hoped it was true.
Emilio went in first with Ava just a few feet behind him. She couldn’t see inside but she heard voices within. One of them called out to Emilio.
“Should you even be here? Your mom didn’t send her check.”
“Shut it,” Emilio replied. “Not tonight.”
Ava heard a deep laugh.
“Low man on the totem pole; gotta take your lumps, son.”
Ava made it to the door and stood in the threshold. A man she hadn’t seen before peered over Emilio’s shoulder at her. After a moment, he grinned. “Guess you’re off the hook,” he told Emilio. “You brought us some new blood.”
From the couch, Shooter Sullivan grunted, beer halfway to his lips. “Careful, Doc. She’s a Stark.”
The man called Doc raised an eyebrow at her. “As in the Starks?”
Shooter nodded. “As in Adam Stark.”
The man pondered this for a moment. “I could take Adam,” he decided. “But Dalton is... large.”
“And mean,” Shooter agreed. “But apparently this little hellcat would kick your ass before she’d ever call them for backup.”
Doc’s eyes moved to Emilio and he smirked at the younger man. “We warned you about ones with sass.”
Emilio shrugged, took Ava by the hand and drew her forward, enough to put an arm around her. “And yet you all ended up with one.”
“Mine tricked me!” Hawk chirped from a seat in the corner. “She seemed all sweet and innocent when I met her.”
“But she wasn’t?” Ava asked, genuinely interested in the kind of woman a man like Hawk would marry. He was huge— ripped— with long, black hair and matching eyes.
Even Ava didn’t think she had the stones to go after a man like that.
“Nope,” he replied, taking a pull off his Corona. “Thought she was an angel— my angel. That woman’s the devil. You should hear the things she says to me in bed. Hot enough to singe your chest hair off.”
Tex laughed. “I thought you shaved it off, so you could look like a GQ spread without your shirt on.”
Ava snorted. “Emilio does that.”
Tex raised an eyebrow at her. “Shaves his chest hair?”
Emilio took a step away from her, mouth agape in protest. “I do not!”
Ava shook her head at Tex, ignoring the man beside her. “No, he poses on his bike, for the ladies. With his hair all carefully arranged.”
“He’s trying to boost his self-esteem,” said Easy, coming in from another room. He was carrying a huge bowl of chips so Ava guessed it was the kitchen. “I mean, it’s got to be demoralizing, working beside me all day, every day. The man’s gotta try and keep some pride.”
Easy set down the bowl and patted his fashionably shaggy blond hair. It was easily the longest in the room, besides Ava’s and Hawk’s. Apparently, Easy had fallen back into civilian life easier than the others had.
Emilio snorted. “The only six-pack you’re sporting has hops in it.”
Easy glared at him. “I’m ‘bout to rip off my shirt right now and see who’s stacked, boy.”
“Should we get you a pair of scissors first?” Doc asked.
“We should cut their hair,” Hawk declared. “Bet all their swagger would drain out on the floor.”
“Like Sampson,” Tex drawled.
“Mmm hmm,” Hawk said, nodding.
Both men gasped.
Shooter pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do either of you Beliebers need a mirror?” he grumbled.
“No, it’s One Direction, now,” Doc chimed in.
“What direction?” Hawk asked.
“Toward the door,” Shooter replied. “That’s the direction.
Have a dance-off outside or something. Not in my living room.”
“Nah. Pose-off,” Doc suggested.
“That’s some Zoolander shit right there,” Tex agreed.
“Who-lander?” Hawk asked.
Tex turned to him. “What do you do all day, chief?”
Hawk grunted indignantly. “Make babies with my woman! That’s hard work. I don’t have time for the White Man’s culture!”
“Will you get your butt to the table!”
Ava turned to see a wisp of a woman with long, dark hair and slitted eyes standing on the other side of the living room. She had a toddler perched on her hip, a boy slightly older than DJ, Ava noted. She glared at Hawk the way Zoey sometimes looked at Dalton, exasperated.
Ava stifled a laugh. She noticed the others were doing the same.
Hawk lurched out of his chair and drew himself up to his full height, squaring his shoulders and jutting his chin. He and Dalton were about the same size, certainly the same shape with hulking thighs and biceps. Ava watched as he ducked his head and nodded. “Coming,” he muttered.
She did laugh, then, along with everyone else.
As the large man slunk past his tiny wife, Ava heard the angry whispering that she was used to hearing at home during family dinners. She grinned and followed everyone into the dining room.
Spending time with the Burnout crew and their wives was exactly like being at home when everyone was together, just with more participants. The men argued over their chips and cards, the women rolled their eyes at them and swapped knowing glances.
Hawk and Tex were the ex-army version of Adam and Dalton. Tex constantly slid the bowl of nachos out of Hawk’s reach, earning the larger man’s ire each time.
Emilio was right; Ava loved them.
She caught Shooter’s wife looking at her from the other side of the table. “I’m Sarah,” she called out and Ava nodded. The older woman grinned from ear to ear as she spoke. “So, you’re Emilio’s girlfriend.”
Ava was about to argue the word but she was less a participant in the conversation than simply the object of it.
