The Night Before

by Jacinta Howard

  A few minutes later, Elias was turning into a residential neighborhood, where the houses were large and heavily decorated, mostly with white lights because people tended to think they were classier. He pulled in front of a large brick house with bay windows, a huge wrap-around porch and a perfectly manicured lawn that was notable even through the snowfall.

  “Wow. Your parents’ home is gorgeous.”

  “This is their retirement home, my mom’s dream house,” he grinned. “I remember my dad was having a fit because my mom insisted on five bedrooms, so we’d all have our own rooms. We moved into it my senior year, so by that time it was just me and Matthew at home. But she wanted it, and my dad’s a sucker when it comes to my mom so…” He shrugged, grinning sexily again. Or maybe he just grinned regularly, but it was sexy because it was Elias.

  “Did you just call your dad a ‘sucker’ for wanting to please his wife?”

  He chuckled. “Nah, my parents have an ideal relationship. They’ve been married almost forty years, and they actually still like each other. No separate bedrooms, no silence. That’s the worst thing that could happen I think… having a silent marriage.”

  He glanced at her as he pulled into the spacious garage, and she nodded in agreement. A second later, he’d hopped out of the truck, grabbed her luggage, and was opening her door. She slid out, taking a deep breath as he closed the door behind her. The garage was cold but very clean. Another vehicle that Ava assumed was his mom’s was parked next to the truck, and a large work bench sat along the far wall next to a neat stack of boxes. It didn’t even smell like a garage or motor oil. In fact, Ava didn’t think she’d ever seen a garage that was so immaculate. She sucked in a quiet breath, suddenly nervous, which was ridiculous.

  Elias was watching her.

  “You okay?” He pulled off his skull cap, running his fingers over his head. His hair was grown out a little, but still low enough for it to be straight, just before it would curl.

  Ava shifted her weight and nodded. She almost felt as if she was meeting a boy’s parents on her first date.

  “I’m fine,” she finally responded.

  He quirked a brow, waiting for her to speak. It was crazy how well he already seemed to know her, to be able to gauge her mood.

  “It’s just that I’m about to impose on your family, Elias, and it’s weird. And it’s Christmas. And I’m all like, ‘Hey, Elias family! Your son barely knows me, we just met at a Christmas party like, two-point-five seconds ago before I made him rescue me from the side of a literal ditch, but Merry Christmas! I’m sleeping on your couch now!’”

  Elias laughed, a deep rumbling sound that filled the confines of the garage, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He finally shook his head, a smile still on his lips, staring at her as if she were the cutest thing he’d seen in a while. He stepped closer, sitting her luggage on the ground. Her back pressed against the side of the truck and she inhaled at his sudden nearness.

  “Ava, I told you I got you. Okay?” He waited until she met his dark brown eyes. “No one is tripping, and we have the room. And I’d never put you on the couch. You can have my bed.”

  She was watching his lips move and she blinked, trying to focus.

  “You’d give me your bedroom?”

  He chuckled. “I’m a thirty-four-year-old man, Ava. I don’t have a ‘bedroom’ at my parent’s house. But, yes. You can have the bed I sleep in when I’m here.”

  “I can’t let you—” she started, and he rolled his eyes.

  “Let’s not go through this whole thing, alright?”

  “What whole thing?” She blinked, staring at him indignantly.

  He grinned and stepped a little closer to her, crowding her personal breathing space.

  “The thing where you fight me on silly shit, like taking my bed. We both know that’s what’s gonna end up happening because one, you’re my guest…”

  “And two?” she asked, raising her brows, flirting with him.

  The corner of his mouth quirked up and he stared into her eyes. “I’m a gentleman.”

  She smiled and looked down at the ground before meeting his eyes again.

  “That you are,” she admitted.

  “And I dig you. A lot. So, I need for you to keep on liking me.”

  He’d stepped a little closer so that they were nearly touching, and she had to tilt her head up to meet his eyes.

  “You keep saying I like you with a lot of confidence.”

  He grinned, though it reached his eyes more than his lips.

  “Let’s not do that either.”

  “What?”

  The word came out far more breathlessly than she intended.

  “The thing where you pretend like you’re not feeling me too.”

  He had her by the bottom of the jacket, and she felt herself swaying closer, tempted to press upon her tip toes to press her lips to his. Because he was right; she did like him. Elias bit the corner of his lip, his gaze hot when it trailed to her mouth again.

  “Elias,” she said, her voice way breathier than she intended it for it to be.

  “Ava.”

  His gaze was still fixed on her, and he tucked her hair behind her ear, his eyes low, as he let his fingertips graze her ear. Her eyes flitted closed and the warmth in her belly circled lower, gathering and pulsing.

  “We should go inside,” she said, opening her eyes.

  He grinned, releasing a breath, his eyes turning thoughtful as he studied her, then nodded.

  “You’re right, we should,” he said, extending his hand for her to take. “Come on.”

  6

  He was caught up.

  That’s the only thing that could explain the past few hours, since he’d reconnected with Ava. Elias couldn’t believe he’d gotten that deep with her in the car.

  Since her death, he’d rarely talked about his daughter. Not to his mom, who gently tried to support him in the months following by getting him to talk, and still bought a Christmas ornament for Kayla every year, right along with Matthew’s girls. Not to his brothers—who he chopped it up with all the time, about every and anything, but never seemed to have the words for when it came to losing Kayla. The conversations were all surface, because Elias couldn’t bring himself to go beyond that. He couldn’t bring himself to share the worst parts of what he was feeling. It felt as if he’d be lingering there, in that gut-wrenching place he’d been so desperate to escape so that he could function normally.

  But he’d shared things he hadn’t uttered aloud ever with Ava. Even Janay didn’t know what he’d told Ava in the truck, about him still buying things for Kayla, months later. Talking to her had almost been like talking to himself. Like a stream of consciousness in a safe space of no judgment or expectation for the way he should feel.

  That last year they were together, it was Janay’s biggest complaint—he didn’t talk. He was too closed off from her. He wouldn’t “let her in.” She didn’t realize she was “in”—as much as any woman ever had been. That he just needed a minute, to get his head right, without feeling like he was somehow failing her, adding to her ever-present unhappiness. In the end, they were both so dispassionate about their relationship, each of them having already mentally detached, it didn’t make much difference what he did anyway. The silence between them was deafening.

  That he talked so easily with Ava, with no real explanation as to why that was, had him messed up. Everything with Ava was guttural. That’s where he was feeling her, in his gut and chest, and nothing about it was rational.

  In the garage earlier, he wanted so badly to press her up against that truck and just explore the chemistry between them—let it take them wherever it would in the moment. But she’d stopped him, not verbally, but with the look in her eyes, which he felt extended far beyond the moment with him. She’d been burned and she was cautious. It was all over her.

  She was also feeling him. Her curiosity was all over her too, and he’d been tempted to just press her a little bit to see
how much, or even if she’d resist him.

  But after they left the garage, Elias made up his mind to back up off her a little. She was already staying over at his parents’, which even though circumstantial, felt significant after that truck ride. But then she walked into the kitchen, won over his entire family in less than thirty minutes, and had him completely intrigued all over again.

  None of the trepidation she’d expressed in the garage was present when Ava charmed his mom and dad as they lingered in the kitchen, having a nightcap but really, waiting up for him to get back. He understood how she excelled in public relations. She had a knack for making other people feel comfortable but even more than that, she had a way of turning the conversation to focus on the other person, and picking up instantly on the person’s interests and strengths because she actually cared enough to pay attention.

  She’d done it first with his mom, Hope, commenting on the décor of the house, intuitively recognizing that interior design was her hobby. Within a minute, his mom was telling Ava all about the design schemes at her daycares, which she’d taken care of herself.

  Same with his dad. Ava commented on Joe’s bourbon collection—chitchatting with him about his Kentucky roots, and joking with him about how Kentucky needed to be more like France. Only champagne from Champagne could be called “champagne”—everything else had to be sold as “sparkling wine.” Bourbon was Kentucky grown but the state had yet to firmly associate itself with the liquor the way France had. Joe was impressed Ava knew all of that. He was impressed that she knew all of that.

  He knew his mom wanted to press him for more information about Ava after meeting her, even though he’d explained how’d they reconnected at Kendrick’s and their earlier history before he left to pick her up from that ditch. But she didn’t because that wasn’t Hope’s style, especially after they all moved out and fell into adulthood.

  After his parents headed to bed, Elias took her into the den to meet his brothers. His mom insisted on a one-level house, so that as they aged, they wouldn’t have to deal with stairs, and the den was on the far end of the house, separate from the master bedroom as possible.

  Ava made short work of winning them all over as well. Even Daniel, who was perpetually pissed off because he’d just gone through a nasty divorce and was down on women, and life in general, thought she was alright. Elias knew his brothers were feeling Ava because now, only forty-five minutes after first meeting her, they were talking as if she weren’t even there. Like she was just part of the fam. Apparently, the strange familiarity he felt with this woman extended even to his brothers, which had him a little shook.

  He was standing at the small cherry wood bar, which he’d help install with Joe a few years back. Joe was the craftsman, but Elias helped him out enough years back while he was still trying to figure out what to do with himself, that he’d picked up some skill with wood too. The bar, which was now stacked mostly with bourbons, whiskeys, and rum, sat adjacent to the pool table. Elias focused on the crystal glasses he’d pulled out as he sprinkled a bit of cinnamon into the eggnog and rum drink for Ava, who was seated on one of the high back wooden barstools, her legs crossed under her.

  “It smells like Christmas in here,” she told him dreamily when they entered the spacious, airy house. Most of the cooking was finished already, and the scent of cinnamon and warm sugar lingered in the air, mingling with the rich cajun spices of the gumbo.

  Ava was now wearing a pair of baggy red, fluffy Christmas pajamas that said “Get Lit” underneath a huge green Christmas tree. She’d gone back to the room, saying she needed to check in with her mom, and he thought she’d probably crash afterward. But she peeked her head around the entrance way to the den room wearing her PJs just twenty minutes later, asking if she could hang, much to Jeremiah and Matthew’s amusement.

  Elias looked up from the bar and met Ava’s eyes again. They were the color of the sky right after the sun disappeared, not quite midnight black but visceral and appealing in their mysteriousness. She pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek and gave him another one of her cute-ass half-smiles, which he’d been getting more and more often as the night wore on. The one that made his heart race a little bit and his groin tighten because he wanted to know this woman, and he knew it was all over him. Yeah, he was definitely caught up.

  “Everything was good with your family?” he asked her, his voice low.

  She nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “They didn’t get caught in the storm, thankfully. They’re at the hospital now. Jeff’s daughter is doing better than they initially thought, so that’s good.”

  “Cool, glad everything is okay,” he offered just as Matthew blurted, “You see this shit?”

  “What?” Elias asked, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from Ava.

  Matthew leaned his back against the large pool table that sat in the center of the den room and passed his phone to Jeremiah, his eyes now on Daniel who was preparing to try to hit the striped nine ball. Daniel looked tired to Elias, and not just because he’d just flown in from Dallas earlier. He was working non-stop, trying to get his mind off his failed marriage, no doubt.

  “Wait…” Jeremiah’s eyes widened and he turned the phone sideways, his face scrunched. “Hell nah. Is that Shay?”

  “Yes.” Matthew’s eyes were wide when he looked at his older brother.

  “The hell is she talkin’ about, though?” Jeremiah asked, frowning as he held the phone toward Elias for him to get a look.

  Ava gamely passed him the phone, a small smile on her lips, her eyes curious as she looked at him and his brothers.

  “Shay is the cousin of a cousin of a cousin,” Jeremiah explained as Elias looked at the picture and smirked, shaking his head, before handing it for Ava to check out. Her eyes widened and she grinned.

  “At least she’s being supportive?” Ava suggested, with a small shrug, passing the phone to Daniel, who accepted it from her with a grunt and eye roll, as Matthew took his shot on the pool table, loudly clacking the balls together, because he was terrible at pool.

  “That’s what’s wrong with people,” Matthew spoke up, scratching under his skull cap, his curly hair peeking from beneath it with his movement. “All this fake shit starts getting credence.”

  The picture was an ass shot of Shay, wearing a tiny bikini with her butt out, standing at a balcony staring out into the sky with a caption that read: “As I look out into the distance, I think of all the brothers who are unjustly locked up because of this unfair system. My heart goes out to you all. #JustUs”

  Elias smirked and shook his head again. Shay was on one.

  “Dayton is locked up, about to do two years, and this is the shit she has the gall to post?” Matthew asked, leaning on his pool stick. His eyes were still wide, as they were whenever he was animated, which was most of the time. His baby brother wore every emotion he ever felt right on his sleeve, for the world to see and judge. “That shit is hella disrespectful,” he said.

  “Dayton is the cousin of another cousin of another cousin,” Jeremiah informed Ava.

  “Ah. Got it,” she said, nodding her head, still laughing as Jeremiah grinned exchanging a look with Elias. Matthew lived with him, but it was Jeremiah who probably knew Elias the best.

  “Shay’s been out here lost,” Daniel said. His eyes were now on the pool table as he took another shot, on his way to what would make his third win in the past hour since they’d entered the room.

  “Man, whatever,” Matthew grumbled. “She needs to get found. You can’t be out here using hashtags like it just don’t mean anything; like corporate prisons ain’t real and fools ain’t out here gettin’ locked up for nothin’ on the daily. This dude is about to be on lock down for two years on some bullshit and you out here getting likes on Instagram. Fuck outta here.”

  He waved his hand dismissively.

  “That’s her thing now,” Elias shrugged. “She’s gettin’ paid to use her page.”

  Elias hande
d Ava the egg nog and rum he’d made for her, and she accepted it with another smile, clearly enjoying the antics of his brothers.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking a sip and making another one of those faces like the one she’d made when he gave her the hot chocolate in the truck earlier. She smiled up at him again, and he bit the corner of his lip, allowing his gaze to rest on her mouth as she sipped the creamy liquid, catching a drop with her tongue when it threatened to drip down her chin.

  “What’d they get Dayton on?” Daniel interjected, not looking up from the table as he perfectly shot the 8-ball into the pocket for the win.

  “He was on probation, right?” Jeremiah asked, swallowing a gulp of beer before setting the bottle down on the bar and getting up to rack.

  “For a gun and drug charge he caught ten years ago, dude,” Matthew said, shaking his head, not even concerned that he’d lost, badly.

  “And he was still on probation?” Jeremiah spoke up, brow furrowed.

  “Prison is a business,” Daniel supplied, watching as Jeremiah set up the table for another game.

  “He got arrested for reckless driving or somethin’ a couple of weeks back and it was a wrap,” Matthew said. “Probation violation, two years. And now Shay wanna go posting her ass for everyone to see, pretending like she’s holding him down.”

  “That is foul,” Jeremiah conceded.

  “In the future, when we look back on how we messed up the earth, I promise it’s all gonna point back to social media,” Matthew said.

  “I agree,” Ava bobbed her head up and down as she sipped on her drink.

  “The downfall of civilization will be and has always been power-hungry men,” Jeremiah argued, glancing in Matthew’s then Ava’s direction. “All social media does is put a spotlight on human weakness. That’s it.”

  “So, power is weakness?” Matthew challenged Jeremiah, raising a brow.

  “Anything that consumes you is weakness,” Elias answered, swallowing his drink.