by Chloe Cox
It nearly broke his heart.
He regretted putting clothes on now. He felt like skin to skin would be best, given the circumstances. He climbed across the bed, pulling his shirt over his head as he did so, and wordlessly pulled her into his arms from behind. He didn’t say anything. Just buried his face in her neck and held her.
After a moment, he realized she was trying not to cry. She’d be mortified if he noticed. He tried to give her cover.
“So who was that?” He said it as coolly as he could.
“Ellie.”
“How’s she doing?”
He pretended he didn’t feel her shoulders shudder, and just held her tighter.
“You should see that shower, by the way,” he said. “Even better than mine. In fact, I might have to get in there with you.”
He nuzzled her neck and she laughed a little, which was an improvement, except that right at the end, a sob tried to get out. She nearly choked herself with the effort of holding it back. His heart broke a little more. He didn’t know why she felt she couldn’t cry in front of him when they always seemed to get each other in every other situation, but maybe now was not the time to argue that particular point.
“How ‘bout those Jets, huh?” he said.
Now she laughed. They’d gone to a Jets game together in college. Ironically, it had been a sobering experience.
“Ava—” he started, but she was quick on the draw and didn’t let him finish.
“It’s nothing,” she said, and wiped her eyes with her head turned away, as though he didn’t know that meant she’d been crying. “My mother is getting married.”
It wasn’t until she’d said that that Jackson realized he’d had a number of scenarios in mind. Death in the family, disease, unwanted pregnancy, God forbid some kind of assault. But he hadn’t, for the life of him, expected to hear that a wedding was the problem.
Jackson turned her around, saw the confused expression she had going on, equal parts panic and grief and a whole lot of bewildered anger on top, and thought: Does she even know why she’s crying? The woman who famously saw through other people, right to their core, couldn’t see her own self? It was almost funny, in an incredibly unfunny way.
“Ava,” he said.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He handed her a tissue, and she snatched it out of his hand.
“No shit,” he said, feeling hurt. “You never do.”
It was like he’d slapped her. She looked at him, stunned.
You’re pushing her too far, Reed. Not the right time. Even so, Jackson felt his own frustration start to crest inside him, and, fuck it, they had been so close. He just wanted to stop managing everything, for once, just say what was on his mind.
“Why?” he said. “Why the hell is your mother getting married a freaking tragedy?”
Oh, fuck. He hadn’t meant to belittle her feelings, just show that he didn’t understand. And probably being pissed that she hadn’t immediately told him everything wasn’t a great idea, either. He wanted to keep talking to try to fix it, but nothing he actually wanted to say was helpful. Instead, the controlled Dom part of him heard what he said next with disgust.
“Ava, just fucking tell me. Haven’t I shown you it’s better to be open and honest about stuff?”
She blinked at him, then carefully got up from the bed and started opening drawers.
Fuck.
“You’ve shown me a lot of kinky sex after a decade of nothing. The sex has been fantastic, by the way,” she added, almost as an afterthought. Ouch. “But it was just sex. It doesn’t change anything about the last ten years, and it doesn’t change anything about the life I had before I ever knew you.”
He shot up from the bed and grabbed hold of her arm, spinning her around. It was suddenly very clear that neither of them was wearing many clothes. “Please look at me,” he said.
He was profoundly conscious of her nakedness, of the heat that was always there between them, like a natural force that pulled them together. They stared at each other, fuming, for what seemed like a long time.
“That’s not true,” he finally said. “It’s more than that, I know you felt it. What we have can change…things.”
She smiled, her cheeks dry and her eyes cold.
“Really?” she said. “You chat much about your family today?”
He had no response. That didn’t stop Ava from pressing forward.
“And if I did tell you all about it, Jackson, if I told you the most private things, what would you do? Do you think you would hold me, and I’d cry, and then it would all work out? Somehow?”
Jackson hadn’t ever seen her angry, really, not like this. He hadn’t realized…
“Or,” she said, her voice dropping to bitterness, “would you just look at me with that stupid, horrified, open-mouthed look, and let me know exactly what you thought of me? Like last time?”
There it was. He didn’t know what to say. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t said anything, why he hadn’t started out with an apology and an explanation: there was none, not without talking about things that maybe he didn’t love talking about. Of course he didn’t want to tell her about his family; he wanted her to like him.
He felt sadness fall around him like a dull rain. “I wanted to show you that you could trust me,” he said, sitting back on the bed, his big, useless hands held open in his lap.
“It’s not your fault, Jackson,” she said, and she started to get dressed. “Though you’re being a total ass right now. I get that stuff can work out, that it’s possible, or whatever. I’ve just never seen it happen, and I don’t feel like there’s a whole lot of reason… I just don’t like those odds, considering the payoff.”
He winced. She was almost done getting dressed now. It felt like the final seconds ticking down on the game clock.
“You’re wrong, Ava.”
Ava turned and put on the final bits of her armor in full view of him. She was calm, perfectly calm, about a hundred times more calm than he felt.
“This is not something with a wrong or right answer,” she said gently. “It’s a choice.”
“It’s the wrong choice.”
“But it’s mine.”
He rose, suddenly furious. It was still wrong, so obviously, clearly wrong, a goddamn child could see that. She was fucking up her life—what should have been their life—for no good reason. The familiar anger crept up on him, that anger he hadn’t felt in years, anger at good people making bad decisions that hurt them, and him as a bonus. He felt it radiate out from his chest to his arms, his legs…
Jackson suddenly saw her, again, standing in front of him. For the first time, she looked a little afraid.
He opened and closed his fists.
“Of course it’s your choice, Ava,” he said. “But you’re still wrong. About the payoff. You are dead wrong about that.”
“I’m leaving, Jackson.” He hated how she said it tentatively. Like she was worried about how he would react.
“I know. Am I going to see you again?”
She actually looked at him with pity. “I don’t know.”
chapter 14
It took Ava over half an hour to get herself into the restaurant. She’d been trudging through the snow the whole time. She had taken a cab in that kind of weather, like a normal person, and had gotten out at 6th Avenue, perfectly willing to walk the half-block to the shitty chain Chinese restaurant in the middle of Midtown. But as she’d gotten closer, looking up occasionally from the slippery, slush-covered sidewalk, a feeling of foreboding had gathered around her, increasing in density until she just couldn’t bear it any longer.
When she’d actually gotten to the restaurant, she’d just kept walking.
Now it had been at least thirty minutes , she was late, and she was frozen to the bone after walking the same four blocks, over and over again, circling around the place like a drain.
Christmas dinner with her mother. Jesus fucking Christ.
Probably not the
ideal day to take the Lord’s name in vain. But it wasn’t the first time that day, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
Really, what was there to look forward to? She’d seen this exact scenario play out a hundred times before—her mother and the boyfriend du jour—and it never went well. A comedy, this was not. She wondered how many drinks her mom had put away already. Would she still be sweet-drunk when Ava finally worked up the courage to walk in there? Or would she already have slid all the way into mean-drunk?
The woman was getting married. Ava shook her head.
In the end, the only thing that impelled her into the restaurant was the thought of Ellie alone with their mother. That had always been something that could reliably send Ava’s adrenaline into overdrive. She mentally kicked herself, wishing she’d had the brains to deal with her mom days ago and had just told Ellie to stay home. If she hadn’t been distracted by Jackson, she would have.
No. Do NOT think about Jackson Reed.
Too late. Lump in her throat.
It turned out she’d rather face her mother than think about Jackson, which was quite an accomplishment for the guy. Ava pushed open the huge wooden doors.
The world seemed to fall away a little bit as she went through the motions. Ava knew she spoke to the coat check girl, but she couldn’t have remembered what was said. She couldn’t have told anyone what music was playing. She was falling into that familiar, protective place she reserved for time spent around her mother, where everything was just a dull echo of its normal self.
She saw Ellie first, seated in a red leather booth facing the door. That snapped Ava right back to reality. She couldn’t afford to slip into the protective cocoon if it meant leaving Ellie by herself.
Ellie waved. Her sister looked…strangely optimistic? A little nervous, maybe, but not desperate, not hurt.
Ava didn’t wait to catch her mother’s eye. She started threading her way through the sea of tables as soon as she saw that blonde, coiffed head begin to turn her in her direction.
“Hey you,” Ellie said, smiling up at her. Ava already felt terrifically guilty, as she should. She’d been walking in circles in the snow while her kid sister had, as always, been on time. Ava smiled weakly back, trying to apologize with her eyes, and steeled herself for what came next.
“Merry Christmas, Ava.” Her mother, Patricia, had half-risen from her seat, as though unsure if she should hug her daughter. It caught Ava off-guard, and they met in a sort of scrunched half back pat. Ava hurried over to the other side of the booth and scooted in next to her sister.
Something was different. Something was off. Her mother’s hesitant, almost apologetic smile was unlike anything Ava had ever seen before. For one, she was completely sober. That was ice water in front of Patricia. And two, she seemed…self-aware.
Ava was on high alert.
“Hi, Mom.”
Her mother let out a nervous laugh, like she’d been holding her breath until Ava spoke. She covered her mouth with one hand and reached for her water glass with the other.
The one with the big, fat stinking engagement ring on it.
“So I hear you’re getting married,” Ava said.
“Ava,” Ellie said softly.
“Yes,” Patricia said. She looked at Ava, but Ava just couldn’t meet her eyes.
She just couldn’t stop staring at that ring.
Ava didn’t know how to explain how she was feeling, not even to herself. She knew that not even Ellie, who’d been there for the worst of it, could possibly know what she was feeling. Looking at that ring, knowing what it represented, it was impossible not to think about all the other times Patricia had told her eldest daughter that she’d met a man, that this one was The One. That usually meant that Patricia would become nice, and funny, and interested, and loving, and basically the best mom on the planet, because she was happy. That was when she was Ava’s best friend. That was when they’d spend happy afternoons together, making up stories, painting, putting on musicals to entertain Ellie. At night, Patricia would go out with her boyfriend, but it was with the promise of even more happiness later.
And then, of course, there was what happened next. What always, always happened next.
Patricia looked from one daughter to the other, her eyes darting between them like a frightened bird.
“I think I should give you two a moment,” Patricia said quietly. “I’ll just go to the ladies’ room.”
Ava exhaled, felt herself deflate as she watched her mother walk away from the table. She already felt tired.
Ellie said dryly, “You don’t seem entirely happy for Mom.”
“You don’t remember when it was really bad, El. What she was like.”
“Oh, I dunno,” Ellie said, reaching for her own water. “I probably remember more than you’d think. I remember the yelling.”
Ava made a face. “The yelling.”
“I remember once—or, I don’t know if it was just once—but she tore up these pictures that we’d made. They were really nice—that’s what I remember—and she tore them up.”
“It was more than once.”
Ellie smiled. “Well, if she found a good move, she wasn’t going to let it go to waste.”
“God forbid.”
“And I remember her saying no one would ever love us…”
“…the way she did.”
“She hit you sometimes.”
There was a pause. Generally, by mutual agreement, the Barnett sisters didn’t talk about this part of their childhood. But this seemed like a special occasion.
Ellie downed her glass. “She did not handle break ups well.”
Ava laughed. She kept laughing for no real reason—it wasn’t funny, not really—right up until their mother returned to the table, nervous as ever. Ava couldn’t remember her mother ever being nervous before. She had always been a charming flirt who could make anyone feel like the center of the universe. This woman in front of her was like some sort of pod person. She wanted to shake her mom, tell her to stop the act, to be real. The whole thing made her so damn anxious, and now she didn’t even have time to ask Ellie what she knew about this supposed marriage.
“Those bathrooms are fabulous,” Patricia said.
Ava had nothing for that. Ellie smiled at their mother encouragingly.
“Ok, I can’t take this,” Ava suddenly said, sitting up straight. “What the hell is this about getting married?”
“He’s actually a nice guy, Ava,” Ellie said.
Ava looked at her, betrayed. “You’ve met him?”
“I met Dave in AA,” Patricia said quietly. She smiled hesitantly at her eldest again. Ava hadn’t even known her mother had quit drinking, let alone gone to AA. “He’s been sober twenty-five years. He’d be here, but he’s volunteering for the Samaritans tonight. They get really busy this time of year.”
And, for the first time, Patricia Barnett let a hint of pride into her voice.
The conversation, such as it was, smoothed out after that. Patricia seemed to find her footing, Ellie was sweet, good-natured, witty Ellie, and Ava was at least on autopilot enough that she didn’t just sit there like a dumb lump.
She felt like a dumb lump.
All of the different parts of her brain appeared to be working separately, and none of them were talking to each other. Whichever part was in charge of getting her to respond to small talk seemed to be operating just fine, but behind the scenes? Rationally, Ava knew she should be happy for her mother. To finally find health and happiness after all those years—years that had been hard on all of them—was obviously a great, great thing.
The thing was, nowhere inside her could Ava find even a little bit of happiness. All she found was anger. It didn’t take Freud to figure out that Ava’s issues with vulnerability and her inability to trust the world to not suck might have something to do with her mom being a crazy bitch for most of her life, and now that same mom got to have her own happily ever after while Ava herself was so hobbled by tho
se issues that she fucked up every small shot she ever had at a real relationship.
How was that fair?
Ava wasn’t stupid or crazy; she knew life was better with love in it. But it didn’t seem like something she could count on. And now her mother, of all people, had found it, and Ava was doomed to a life spent alone, pushing people away.
People like Jackson.
Oh God. Jackson.
Even as Ava tried to ride out the silent storm that raged within her, all that anger and sadness and whatever the hell else was going on in there, the only person she wanted to be around was Jackson freaking Reed. He would get it. She could make jokes between tears if she wanted, and he would get it, and he wouldn’t…
He would get it.
And she’d just said a bunch of horrible things to him and left him, because he’d tried to be there for her, even if he’d been a jerk about it.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” Ava announced.
Her mother and sister were even more surprised when Ava didn’t run for the bathroom, but for the door.
chapter 15
Jackson had been blessed with singularity of purpose from about five minutes after Ava had left the Volare estate until about five minutes after he’d found himself standing outside her dingy walk up apartment building in Alphabet City. He knew he had been blessed, because—very, very suddenly—it was gone.
Now he was just an idiot standing in the snow, wondering if he was a stalker.
He was frustrated by the uncertainty in all of this. It wasn’t that he was unused to ambiguity. He dealt in algorithms and languages and art, where ambiguity was almost a feature of expression, not a bug. But he was a decisive kind of man, a man who knew who he was and what he wanted and what he believed to be within the bounds of acceptable behavior—or, at least, he had worked very hard to become such a man.
Anyway, none of that helped him figure out if showing up on Ava’s doorstep with some snow-covered flowers and an apology was sweet as all get out or creepy as hell. At least there was no doorman to give him dirty looks.
Yeah, that made him feel better. He didn’t like the looks of this building, and Alphabet City, while just trendy enough to be a little bit expensive, still had an unacceptable number of stabbings, as far as he was concerned. It was not the kind of place where he wanted Ava to live.
