Straight Up Love

by Lexi Ryan

  A woman shouldn’t plan her wedding while thinking of another man’s kiss.

  Ava

  Present day . . .

  The best way I can describe how badly I want a child is to say I’ve always seen myself as a mother. A lot of girls do, but it wasn’t just that I thought having children was something I was supposed to do or something I might like. It was part of my identity before I was old enough to understand how it all worked. Like every other little girl who plans to be a mommy, I grew up believing that my ability to bear children was a foregone conclusion. I was so sure that once Harrison and I started trying, we’d be able to get pregnant. After all, if I’d spent years before putting a lot of effort into trying not to get pregnant, getting pregnant should be easy, right?

  In reality, it wasn’t so simple, and month after month, motherhood was a dream kept just beyond my reach. When my body wouldn’t cooperate, my heart felt raw with the effort of wanting. Try after try left me with an empty nursery and empty arms, and the vacancy in my womb grew unbearable. It felt as if the more I wanted a child, the further it fell from my reach, until I was grieving the loss of a child who’d never been conceived. The magnitude of that grief built a wall between me and my husband until he was so lonely he sought comfort in another woman’s arms.

  And look how happy they are now. Harrison’s chest is puffed with pride, and his wife is glowing. She’s the picture-perfect expectant mother today, wearing a light pink chiffon dress with a big bow at the top of her baby bump. And I hate her desperately.

  The baby shower is at a local winery, which seems a little thoughtless to the mother-to-be who can’t partake, but that would be consistent with Harrison’s personality. If a baby shower at a winery speaks of his social class and importance more than a baby shower somewhere else, then that’s what he’s going to want, regardless of the preferences of the mother of his child.

  It’s a crisp early spring day, and the dining room doors are open to the patio. The place looks amazing—tables dressed with white cloths and pink napkins folded into little cranes at each spot. The centerpieces are made of light pink peonies and white roses, and look like something you’d see at a high-budget wedding. In fact, the whole party rivals some of the nicer wedding receptions I’ve attended. Lunch was four courses, each served with its own wine pairing, and the cake is as tall as Jake’s niece.

  The baby shower probably would have made me sick to my stomach if I didn’t have Jake here by my side, quietly whispering his commentary on the food, décor, and the behavior of the parents-to-be.

  We’ve just been served cake—an Ooh La La! creation and, so far, the best part of this day—and we’re sipping at our fresh cups of coffee when Harrison makes his way to the empty seat beside me. He props his elbows on the table as he takes us in.

  “I’m so glad you could make it, Ava,” he says in his best salesman voice.

  Jake slings his arm over the back of my chair and scoots toward me.

  I smile. “Yes, I wanted to congratulate you in person.”

  Jake squeezes my shoulder.

  Harrison’s gaze darts between my face and Jake’s, then settles on Jake’s hand on my shoulder. “I see you’re still dragging poor Jake around.” He shakes his head. “I’ve gotta hand it to you, Jake. You’re a better sport about it than I am. I don’t even like going to these things with my wife, let alone just a friend.”

  Jake smiles next to me, totally unfazed by Harrison’s attempt at cruelty. “I’d go anywhere with Ava,” he says. “I mean, we can have a good time watching paint dry, so if she wants company at your baby shower, I’m happy to oblige. Besides, I get her to myself all next weekend, so I’m trying not to be too greedy.”

  “Is that so?” Harrison shakes his head. “Well, you two have a good time.” He pushes back from our table and walks to the next.

  I feel small. Like I’ve been caught playing a game. My ex knows better than anyone that there’s nothing between me and Jake. Harrison and I were together for years. He saw that Jake and I were the perfect example of how a man and a woman could have a truly platonic relationship.

  I look down at the napkin I’ve crumpled into a ball in my lap. The happy pink taunts me. They’re having a girl.

  “Hey,” Jake says. He takes my chin in his hand and tilts my face up to his. “Don’t let that asshole get you down.”

  I swallow hard. “I was foolish to think he’d care.”

  “He does care, Ava. Seeing me here with you is making him crazy. I bet he’s watching us right now, isn’t he?”

  I take my eyes off Jake’s to look over his shoulder. Harrison’s still at the table beside ours. He’s nodding as if he’s listening to the conversation, but I catch his gaze on us before he yanks it away.

  “The only foolish thing,” Jake says, bringing my attention back to him, “is that you still want him to care.”

  “I . . .” I wince and shake my head. I wish I didn’t. Harrison’s opinion of me and my life shouldn’t matter at all. “It’s immature, but I want him to feel like he lost something good when he walked away from me.”

  “He might never say it, but he knows he did.” The fingers on my chin fan out, sliding over the sensitive skin under my ear before moving back up into my hair. I know what he’s doing and how this looks from Harrison’s perspective, and though it’s small and probably proves I’m petty, I’m grateful. “You wanted more than you got out of that relationship. You gave more than you received.” He strokes a thumb along my jaw. “But I promise you, there are better things coming.”

  Affection swells in my chest. Sometimes people say nice things to make you feel good, but you know in your heart you don’t deserve the kindness. But when someone you’ve known this long wishes you well, when someone who knows all your flaws, shortcomings, and neuroses believes in you, it means more. “Thank you.”

  He hums, his eyes dropping to my mouth. “I’m gonna kiss you now, Ava.”

  I hear my quick inhale. “Now?”

  His eyes remain on my lips as if he needs to catalog every millimeter he wants to taste. “Yeah. It’s not going to be the kind of kiss I want, but the kind I want will have to wait for when I have you alone.” He dips his head and sweeps his lips across mine.

  Tingles radiate through my limbs. A spiral of warmth coils in my belly, and he does it again, lightly nipping at my bottom lip before pulling away. I take a fistful of his shirt, trying to keep him close. I’m so full of sensations and longing for more that I can’t breathe.

  “That should do it,” he says. He slides his mouth to my ear and whispers, “He never deserved you.”

  And I’m so caught up in the feeling of Jake’s lips on mine and the hot pull of desire in my belly that it takes me a beat to realize who he’s even talking about.

  Jake

  I unlock the front door of Jackson Brews and pull it open for Molly. “You’re early.”

  She grins as she steps inside. “I wanted a chance to talk to you before Brayden joined us.”

  I tense, but I suppose this was unavoidable. If I was enough of an idiot to get drunk and screw Molly five years ago, I have to be willing to talk about it now—and be willing to own up to the mistake to Ava. It feels more important than I want it to, but yesterday she let me kiss her in front of her ex-husband and a couple dozen people who were a part of her married life. I don’t know if it felt significant to her, but the significance of the moment wasn’t lost on me.

  “Yeah, I need to talk to you too.” I wave to one of the tables and shut and lock the door behind her. The bar won’t open to the public for two hours, so Brayden and I will have plenty of time to give Molly the rundown on what we’d need in a regional sales rep.

  Molly puts her purse down on one chair and pulls out another to sit. “I want to talk about you and Ava,” she says.

  “If you’re going to give the ‘hurt my sister and die’ speech, you should know Colton already beat you to it.” I rub my shoulder, still a little sore from where his fist
connected when he saw me at the bar last night. That whole conversation would have gone a lot better if I could have been honest with him instead of rolling with the whole “trying to help my best friend get pregnant” story. But the truth? That I want Ava to give us a chance? That I’m going all in for one last shot at making her love me back? I kept that story to myself. I don’t want Ava knowing what this is about for me. Not yet. I can’t risk her freaking out.

  “What exactly is going on between you two?” Molly asks.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated because you’re still in love with her and she still doesn’t feel the same about you, or complicated because you’re going to let her use you for a baby?”

  Her words are a punch to the gut, and I wince. “Jesus. Don’t say it like that. It’s not like I don’t know what I’m getting myself into here.”

  She turns to look out the window. The street outside is quiet, with only a few people walking by on their way to work or their Monday morning yoga class down the block. “Has anyone told you this is a terrible idea?”

  Colton, Levi, Carter, Ellie—pretty much everyone who knows what I offered Ava has taken a moment to inform me that I’m a fucking idiot. “It’s come up a time or two.”

  She keeps her eyes on the window. A woman walks past carrying a rolled-up yoga mat. “Good.”

  I feel like a jerk. The night we hooked up, Molly admitted she’d had feelings for me for a long time, but I never would have guessed that she’d been holding on to those feelings since. “Is this about us?” I ask. “Because, Moll, we haven’t seen each other in almost five years.”

  She tugs on a lock of her hair. “I know.”

  “I’m really sorry I let that happen. I should have never—”

  “Don’t. Please. I don’t want your regrets.” She shakes her head and lowers her voice. “Not when I have none of my own.”

  I could offer excuses. Platitudes. Bullshit. But that all feels wrong and insulting. “This thing with Ava . . . You’re right. I’m still in love with her. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I’m taking a chance to see if maybe, if she lets herself, she can feel something in return.”

  “What are you going to do if it works?”

  “I’m going to fucking rejoice.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t mean if your plan works. I don’t mean what happens if you end up together. I mean what happens if you don’t end up together, but you have a baby. Are you just going to carry on with your life knowing you have a kid out there? Pretend you aren’t a father?”

  “I would never walk away from my child.” I swallow. I’ve kissed Ava a couple of times and made some promises, but she hasn’t pushed me about when we’re going to follow through. I imagine that’s because she’s nervous about it. I am too. Nervous that she might only want the child I offered. Nervous that she might feel like I’ve changed the terms of our deal when she finds out this all comes back to how I feel about her. “I’m taking it slow, and she’s okay with that. So I’m hoping things will shift between us as we move forward, and she’ll . . .”

  Molly smiles softly. “You’re hoping she’ll catch feelings?”

  “Something like that.”

  She traces an invisible figure eight on the wooden tabletop. “I guess this is a bad time to tell you I’ve never forgotten about you. I know what happened between us might not have seemed like a big deal to you. Everyone knows Molly McKinley’s an easy lay—”

  “I never said that.”

  She shrugs. “Maybe you didn’t, but enough people did. I just wanted you to know you weren’t just a warm body on a lonely night. You’ve always been special to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Molly.” I hate that she has feelings for me that I can’t return, but more than that, I hate that I fed those feelings on any level—even if I told myself it was only physical, even if it was just one night.

  She shakes her head and traces the same pattern over and over. “Not as sorry as I am.”

  “About what happened that night . . .” I feel like an insensitive prick for bringing this up right now, but I don’t have a choice. “I know we agreed not to tell Ava, but considering how things have changed, I need to tell her now.”

  “Don’t,” she says. She shakes her head and locks her pleading eyes on mine. “Jake, please don’t. It’s a bad idea.”

  “Why?”

  “It was one night. You were drunk, and she was engaged to Harrison.”

  “If it doesn’t matter, then why can’t I tell her?”

  “You know she won’t like it.”

  “I can’t argue with that.” More than not like it—I’m afraid that my mistake will make Ava obsess again about this idea that Molly is everything she isn’t and was supposed to be. I’ll explain how it happened and why. I’ll tell her that it didn’t mean anything. But I have this rotting feeling in my gut that none of that will matter to Ava. What if this is how I lose her? “I don’t like this hanging over us. I don’t like keeping secrets from Ava.” I hesitate for a beat. “I don’t like making you my dirty secret. It’s not fair to any of us.”

  Molly rubs the locket on her necklace and then squeezes it in a clenched fist before taking a breath and nodding. “Just let me think about it, okay? Let me think of a way to . . .”

  I mentally finish that sentence. To soften the blow? To protect your relationship after Ava learns the truth? “You’re as afraid of losing her as I am,” I say.

  Her eyes water. “We can’t tell her yet. Things are so new and fragile between you two.”

  “And you as well?” I ask.

  She nods. “Please, Jake, I’m begging you not to tell her yet.”

  There’s a knock on the glass, and I look over my shoulder to see Brayden at the door, reaching for his keys.

  “I don’t like the secret,” I say, quickly now, because his key’s in the lock.

  “And I don’t like that you picked her over me even when she took herself out of the running.” She shrugs as Brayden pushes into the bar. “Sometimes we have to deal with things we don’t like.”

  Ava

  Molly’s at the table, papers spread out in front of her, tears rolling down her cheeks. I immediately think of the weeks after my husband left me when I was confronted with not only the worst heartache of my life but with the reality of the debt he’d gladly handed over. I felt stupid for the assumptions I made and guilty for embracing a pointlessly lavish lifestyle.

  “Molly, are you okay?”

  She startles and sweeps all the papers into a pile. “You’re home early.”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” I turn away, understanding that she doesn’t want me to see whatever she was studying.

  “It’s your house. You can be here any time you want. I just thought you had children’s theater auditions or something tonight?”

  I shake my head, and when I turn back to her, she’s sliding the stack of folded papers into her purse. “I’m meeting Jake’s niece to help her with her audition piece, but I’m not heading over there for a couple of hours. Are you okay?”

  She gives a shaky smile. “I’m fine. Great, actually. I met with Jake and Brayden today, and they’re going to hire me as their new northeast regional sales rep. It’s totally different than anything I’ve done before, but I’m actually pretty excited about it.” She blows out a breath. “I’m just indulging in a little pity party that my life didn’t turn out the way I wanted. I thought I’d be juggling social engagements, and instead I’m juggling bills.”

  “This is why adulting became a verb.”

  She laughs. “Oh my God, you’re an English teacher. You’re supposed to hate that.”

  “Not at all. In fact, I don’t know why it hasn’t been a verb for centuries. Our parents had to deal with this shit too, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, but they’d tell you they weren’t as coddled as children as we were, and that’s why adulthood wasn’t a brutal a wakeup call for them.”

  “Whatever,” I mutter. “They weren’
t saddled with student loan debt before they even got started.”

  “Preach!”

  We laugh, and something tugs in my chest—grief for a missed opportunity. Molly and I could have been friends, but I let my own insecurities form a wall between us. I wish I could say it’s the only time in my life I’ve done that, but it seems to be a habit of mine. When I feel unworthy, I push people away. In a way, that’s what I’ve been doing with Jake for years. Maybe I didn’t push him out of my life, but I always put limits on what I believed our relationship could be.

  Her phone clatters against the kitchen table as it buzzes, and she grabs it and swipes the screen. “Hello?”

  Maybe I should leave the room, but worry creases her features, so I stay.

  “How high is it?” She squeezes the locket on her necklace and looks at the ceiling. “Dammit. No, don’t apologize. I understand.” She cuts her gaze to me and then looks at the clock on the stove. “I’m supposed to fly home in the morning, but I’ll see if I can get a red-eye tonight.” She shakes her head. “Don’t. You know I didn’t want to come anyway. The sooner I leave, the better.” She flashes me an apologetic smile, then lowers her voice. “Um . . . I can’t right now? Yeah. I’ll call back when I know something. Yes. You too. Thank you.” She pulls the phone from her ear and ends the call.

  “Is everything okay?”

  She taps on her phone and nods as she stares at the screen. “My friend’s son is sick, and she has to work. Daycare won’t take him with a fever.” She taps the screen and puts the phone to her ear. “I need to get back.”

  I frown. She’s going to get an earlier flight to take care of a friend’s sick kid? “You two must be really close.”

  She nods, then turns away as her call connects. “Hello, I need to speak with someone about changing my flight?”

  My own phone buzzes in my purse, and I pull it out to see a new text message from Nic.