by Mia Ford
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 face 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.”
“Ava,” I said with a sigh. “I love you, too. I’ve been waiting forever for you to just be open and honest with me about how you felt. I knew you were holding back and that you were scared, but I couldn’t be the one to force you to open up to me about these things. You had to make the decision to do so. You are one of the most amazing women I have ever met, and I can’t think of a better way to spend my time than working and living with you by my side. You have become my partner in crime, the woman who wanted me, not the CEO of MJ, but me, Tanner.”
“It is pretty sexy that you’re my boss.” She laughed and sent me a suggestive wink.
“You’re a mess,” I laughed, pulling her in close.
“So, you want to give this a go, be with each other completely?”
“That sounds absolutely amazing,” I said, pulling back and leaning down for her mouth.
I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her in toward me, kissing her with passion. She whined softly as our lips pressed hard against each other, and our tongues tasted the salt on each other’s lips. That moment felt so perfect, so right, and I couldn’t be happier with the way things had turned out. Finally, we could be a couple, a family, without secrets and stressors holding us back. We could make love and know the other person would be there the next day. We could have an argument and not fear that it was the end of everything. We could be a normal couple, well, as normal of a couple as she and I could get. On top of all of that, she would be working alongside me to grow and push MJ to the next level.
If two people could be so completely perfect for each other, it would be us. We were like two crazy puzzle pieces that fit together but was really hard to find. She pulled back, breathing heavily from the kiss, looking me deep in my eyes. She shook her head and giggled, and I smiled curiously.
“You’re my boyfriend.” She giggled.
“That, I am,” I said, laughing. “For as long as you will have me.”
“Mmmm,” she said, leaning her head on my chest. “I can’t think of anything better than having you in my life for as far as I can think into the future.”
I hated Mondays, but this one may have not turned out so bad after all. I had the career, the best friend, and I had just gotten the girl.
Chapter 34: Ava
I grasped onto Tanners hand tightly and peered up at him with a smile as we walked into the restaurant. I looked across the floor and waved at my dad already seated and waiting for us. I had called him when I woke up, telling him all about the night before and asking him to go to lunch with us. He seemed really happy for me, and that warmed my heart. We walked over to the tab
le, and I kissed my dad on the cheek before sitting down in the chair Tanner had pulled out for me. He reached over and shook my father’s hand, giving him a pat on the back. I was so excited to see my dad and be free to be in public with Tanner as my boyfriend. I reached over under the table and laid my hand on Tanner’s knee, smiling at him as he wrapped his hand over it.
“How was work?”
“Crazy,” Tanner said, shaking his head.
“Yeah, the company had all the new employees in the building in the financial area for a meeting,” I said. “At first, it was like a showdown, but once they started to get to know each other, they actually started to get along really fast. Everyone seemed to be on board with the change management plan, and those who currently work in the building vowed to help the new employees get what they needed to survive.”
“Wow.” My dad nodded his head up and down. “You sound like you’ve got it all together.”
“She does.” Tanner said with a mock grimace. “She’s harder on them than me.”
“That’s like Gestapo.” My father laughed. “You know what? I really missed you as a friend, Tanner.”
