by Hanna Hart
“How dare you tempt me,” she wrote. His nerves lifted as she wrote, “I'll be there at noon.”
“Don’t think you’ll get away with stealing half my sandwich,” he teased.
“You share or the deals off ;)!” she wrote.
Walker smiled at the message. He didn’t know exactly what he was doing, inviting her to hang out, but something about it felt right.
If nothing else, maybe he could finally get some answers from her.
Chapter Six
Ava
Lunch was not something anyone should ever be anxious about. It was not an occasion someone should feel nervous about or agonize over what to wear for.
Yet, Ava had spent the last half hour deciding what to wear, looking at the menu online wondering pre-emptively what to order, and fixing her hair in a dozen different ways, wondering which one made her look the most effortlessly, casually pretty.
She didn’t know why she accepted Walker’s invitation.
Actually, she did know. He was cute and sweet and made her feel a certain way when she saw him in the coffee shop. Being around Walker was easy, and that was the problem.
Reconnecting with him was fine for a coffee, but she didn’t know how much she should let him in. He had been a big part of her life once, and things didn’t exactly end well. It stirred up memories in her that she would prefer to keep locked away.
Yet, there she was, standing outside Sam’s Sammiches, nervously waiting for his arrival.
“There she is,” he exclaimed, coming up behind her.
"Is my being here a surprise?" she mused. "You thought I was going to stand you up, didn't you?"
"Wouldn't be the first time," he said.
"Ha-ha," she retorted. "Come on, let's go in. I'm freezing."
Ordering turned out to be the easy part. Ava ordered a jalapeno popper grilled cheese with gooey cream cheese and cheddar filling and Walker ordered a honey banana grilled cheese, at her behest. As soon as the food came, Walker instinctively separated each sandwich, taking half of hers onto his plate and exchanging it with his.
"I thought you said we weren't going to share," she said with a knowing smile.
"Ah, well, I'm a nice guy," he said with a shrug.
"How's wedding fever?" she teased.
"I don't even want to talk about it," he said, rubbing his thumb and forefinger along his forehead. "Family, in general, is off the table for this chat, I'd say."
She snorted. "That doesn't leave us with a lot of safe options, does it?"
"Sure it does," he said with an easy charm. "There's the weather, Christmas activities we're planning on attending, since I know you're going to end up at the festival of lights, the wagon ride, and of course the New Year's Eve firework display."
It was amazing, she thought, how you could be away from someone for so many years, yet they still knew you so well. "I've only missed it once!" she announced proudly.
"Yep," he nodded, and she immediately regretted bringing it up. "The time you stood me up."
She looked down at her sandwich, gingerly tearing it in half. "The beginning of the end," she said.
"Yep," he said, the 'P' causing a popping sound to smack against his lips.
Ava looked across the table and met Walker's eyes He wasn't smiling, and neither was she. At that moment, she remembered their relationship like a flurry of puzzle pieces coming together out of order. There were scattered memories, soft moments, screaming fights, and of course, the test.
"So why did you message me?" she asked, forcing a wide grin. She didn't want to dwell on the past. "You lookin' for a date or something? Because we tried that once and it didn't work."
"No, no, no," he said with a breath. "Nothing like that. I just liked seeing you the other day. Feels nice to catch up with someone who gets me, even if she hates my guts. Besides, my options are limited."
Ava laughed. "Good to know I am your last resort," she snickered. Then, with a mouth full of grilled cheese, she added, "And by the way, I never hated you."
"Didn't feel that way to me," he said softly. She wasn't used to hearing him that way. "Seeing you the other day brought up a lot."
"For me, too," she said. It was the truth.
"So..." he said, searching for words. "What happened between us? I know it sounds stupid to ask. It was so long ago, but, I guess, I never figured it out."
"What happened?" she repeated, nerves fluttering in her stomach. "What happened was I was almost twenty-two. I was just a stupid kid, that’s what happened."
Very, very stupid, she thought.
Looking at him now, Ava could distinctly remember the true beginning of the end. She’d been keeping a secret from him, and everything Walker did put her on edge. Every movement he made and every time he began a new sentence, she felt her stomach clench and tighten with anxiety. Her body would tingle with defense.
“You want to go out with the guys tonight?” Walker had asked. The ‘guys’ he was referring to was actually a group of their male and female friends.
They were all going out to a couple of country bars for drinks and dancing, celebrating their friend Jordan's new job.
Ava didn't go to school. She knew to be a camera operator it would have been good to get some sort of bachelor's degree in television, film, or videography, but she also knew it wasn't required. What was required was talent, and she felt she had enough to get by.
She'd been working a small job for a company called Leelo, a dog boarding service, and she was tediously mixing the final draft of her project.
Walker interrupted her with his offer, and the sound of his voice filled her soul with an unnerving disquiet. She didn't look up from her laptop as she said, "Nah, I'm not in the mood."
"You don't have to drink or anything," he said, coming up behind her and rubbing her shoulders. "It would just be nice to see them. Feels like we haven't hung out with them in forever."
"I don't know," she said evenly, tensing as his hands began to drift down toward her stomach. "I'm just not feeling it."
"Well, I would like it. It feels like I—” he began, but she bristled away from him before he could finish.
She spun in her office chair to face him and grimaced. She was testing him, but he remained as patient as always.
"It feels like I haven't seen you in forever, either," he finished sweetly.
"If you're going to keep harping on about this, then we'll just go," she snapped.
"I think it'll be good for you," he said happily. "You've been cooped up working nonstop for days now."
Against her better judgment, Ava went out bar hopping with her friends.
As it turned out, Walker was right. It was good for her. Her sour mood turned pleasant, and she even found herself laughing again, but she could tell Walker was getting annoyed with her. He'd asked her to dance several times, and she told him she wasn't in the mood, but when her friend Maria had asked, she jumped up onto the dance floor without a second thought.
He walked up to her at the bar and set a gentle hand on her arm. "Can I talk to you?" he asked.
The two of them walked to the back of the bar and slipped out the exit door back by where they had parked.
It was early December and the nights were starting to get bitter cold. Walker took Ava under a street lamp and the country music blaring from the bar filled the parking lot each time someone opened the front door.
"What?" she asked, irritated.
Ava had a miscarriage, just weeks earlier, and Walker didn't know.
He didn’t know because Ava never told him she was pregnant.
They hadn't been trying to start a family. They had been so caught up looking for a ranch and Ava trying to find work that babies weren't even on their radar.
There was a strange guilt that came from losing a child, like she'd done something irreparably wrong. And hadn't she? She was the carrier of life, and she'd lost that life, and she could never get it back no matter how hard she tried.
The longer
she put off telling Walker what was wrong with her, the further she spiraled, and the more she spiraled, the more she began to resent him.
"Talk to me," Walker said, putting his hands on either side of her shoulders. "Why are you pulling away?"
"I'm not," she said, glazed over with the alcohol she hadn’t intended on drinking. "I'm having fun."
"You're having fun with Alex, you're having fun with Maria," he listed off. "But you're ignoring me. You have been for weeks now."
"Because I'm not having fun with you," she said with a laugh.
"Ouch," he said. His expression started as well-humored, but when he looked into her eyes, his face fell. It was that undeniable expression of someone who just realized something was wrong. Something big. It was a face that said, “We have a problem, don't we?”
"What's going on with you lately?" he asked, wincing with confusion.
"You," she said, her words clipped. "You're always...I don't know, around!"
"Isn't that the point of a relationship?" he asked, his eyes never leaving hers. "Or don't you know what a relationship is anymore?"
"Yeah, I guess I don't."
It was cruel. She’d replayed the moment for years and years since their breakup.
"So, are you seeing anyone these days?" she asked, pulling herself out of the memory. "Driving anybody else crazy?"
“I kind of went through a divorce. So yes, apparently, I was driving somebody very, very crazy.”
Ava blinked in surprise but didn’t make much of a reaction otherwise. “Just kind of?” she asked.
“I did,” he enunciated properly, “I did go through a divorce. Four months ago. I guess part of me still doesn't believe it's real. I don’t know.” Walker set his jaw. "But you don’t want to hear about that."
"I don’t want to hear dirt about my ex’s love life?" she teased.
He lay a fist over his heart and teased, “Ouch.” Then he quickly said, "Speaking of which, what was all that about you kissing some married guy?”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Blind date gone wrong,” she said evenly. “Very wrong.”
“People suck,” he said.
“Yep. People do suck,” she nodded in agreement. “What about you and your ex?”
“Ran off with my best friend,” he said, and the words seemed to tumble out of his mouth too eagerly.
“Oh, yuck! I’m sorry,” she said, baring her teeth. “Did you suspect anything?”
“Nope. Not until I walked in on it,” he said. "I guess that's not entirely true. I knew she was unhappy, sure. But I had no idea she was sleeping with my best friend behind my back. Now there’s an image that’s burned into my brain for all of eternity,” he added.
Ava’s gentle smile fell and she tilted her head to the side, her face ripe with sympathy. Her eyes searched his as she softly said, “I’m sorry.” Then she shrugged and added, “If it makes you feel any better, mine left the country without telling me.”
Walker blinked. “What?”
“Yeah, we were having the talk. You know, the ‘we’ve been together for two years, where’s this going’ talk. And I was pretty sure he wanted to move in together,” she said, somewhat excited, somewhat nervous.
“And let me guess,” he snorted, “you freaked out?”
“I freaked out,” she admitted with a blush. “I mean, I said maybe we should take some time apart. But I didn’t mean in separate countries! I meant, like, a week. But I guess he took it as me telling him to scram.”
To Walker, it probably did sound like she was telling him to scram. Which, frankly, was more than he ever got from her. He had to push and nudge and pull the truth out of Ava back when they were dating, and even then, she never had the courage to be honest with him.
“Have you guys spoken since?” he asked.
“Yeah, but it’s just…I don’t know,” she sighed. “It’s complicated.”
That summed up life in your twenties quite nicely, Ava thought. Complicated. Her relationship with her mother was complicated, her relationship with her friends, her exes, even her own body was complicated, and there seemed to be no answer or solution in sight.
"We’re like…” Ava began, tapping a thoughtful finger against her lips. “The opposite of lucky.”
“I believe they call that unlucky,” he said with his usual dry wit.
“Yeah!” she exclaimed. “We are very unlucky in love, you and I.”
“With each other, with other people,” he said whimsically.
“We just can't seem to get it together.”
They shared a glance, and she marveled at how attractive he was and how they seemed to fall right back into place once they were together. It was easy to talk to him as it had been when they had first met. Back then, she was an open book to Walker and only to Walker. She told him about her mother's struggle with addiction, about her father abandoning her, about her dreams and goals. She was an introvert by nature, but Walker made it so easy to be honest.
At first.
“It’s weird, right?" he asked, meeting her with his perfect green eyes. "You and me, talking, actually getting along?"
“Definitely weird,” she agreed.
“But kind of fun,” he said. "Kind of made this day..." he rolled his shoulders bashfully, then said, "I don’t know, not suck so much."
"Why thank you," she said, pantomiming tipping a hat. "I have won an award for my making-a-day-better-than-sucky skills, thank you very much."
"Do you want to use those skills, say," he drew out the last word, then concluded, "maybe tomorrow?"
Ava blinked in surprise, but she couldn't hide the smile pulling at her lips. "What’s tomorrow?"
"Family dinner," he winced.
"Oh, no! No, no! You’re not roping me into one of those, buddy-boy!"
"Honestly, I think you’re remembering it wrong," he nudged her. "You used to love family dinners!"
"And being peppered with questions about Mexico and my parents?" she challenged.
"To be fair, they were genuinely curious. Not everything is an attack," he said.
Ava’s mother was Caucasian and her father was Mexican, giving her a skin an appealing warmth. She spoke two languages and learned her grandmother’s infamous recipes for empanadas, corn tamales, masa, and some of the best, spicy soups Walker said he had ever tasted. She loved her father’s heritage.
But Walker’s parents were a bit of a different story. It wasn’t that they looked down on Ava for her heritage, so Walker claimed; to them, it was just…different.
"Come on. You’ve been the best part of coming back to Denver so far,” he pleaded.
"That’s pretty sad," she said with a laugh.
"It is, isn’t it?" he said, meeting her eyes. "Come on. Help me dodge my parents’ incessant questions. Give me someone to roll my eyes at while Kendall talks about marrying the love of her life."
"I don’t know," she groaned, unsure.
"There will be pie," he said in a sing-song voice.
"Pumpkin pie?" she asked.
"Pumpkin and pecan."
She narrowed her eyes, and both her brows shot up as she confirmed, "And you’ll totally owe me one?"
"You name it," he agreed, "After this dinner, I become your genie in a bottle. Ready and willing to grant you one wish."
"Mister," she said. "You’ve got yourself a deal!"
Chapter Seven
Walker
Kendall had her brown hair up in a high ponytail and she wore a slouchy white sweater and jeans. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to reach a high shelf for their mother’s treasured porcelain gravy-dish.
Walker laughed as he entered the kitchen and scooted next to her. “Here,” he said, grabbing he dish with ease and placing it in her hands.
“Thanks,” she smiled.
The two of them were the only ones in the kitchen, grabbing a few last-minute items to complete their mother’s lavishly arranged dining table.
Kendall began washing the gravy boat in the sin
k and Walker thought briefly about striking up a conversation with her, but he couldn’t take more wedding talk.
"Mom told me Ava Diaz is coming to dinner,” his sister said before he had a chance to escape. Her tone was casual and full of disbelief. “So, clearly she's lost her mind, right?”
"Nope,” Walker said with ease. “Ava is indeed coming over. I ran into her the other day. Didn't I tell you that?”
"No,” she laughed through a scoff. “And you...what? Had a stroke and decided to invite her back into your life?”
"Leave it alone,” he said, rolling his eyes.
To his surprise, Kendall seemed genuinely annoyed by this information. She ran a microfiber cloth around the outside of the dish and turned to face him. She leaned against the sink and cocked her head to the side as she asked, "And are we supposed to be nice to her, or what?”
"What do you think?” he said.
"I don't know, it just seems...” she trailed off, then shrugged. “Weird. I mean, she really hurt you.”
Walker sighed. He crouched in front of a grand armoire that was passed down from his grandmother and forced open the creaky bottom drawer. He pulled a set of shiny red linen napkins into his arms and stood back up.
"That was years ago,” he said dismissively.
"So, you've worked it all out since then?” she asked. “Got your closure?”
"I don't need closure, Kendall,” he laughed. “It was six years ago. All I want to do now is spend some time with old friends, eat a giant overcooked ham, and smile politely.”
"Are you starting something up with her again?” his sister asked, staring down at the dish in her hands. “Because if you are, I think this might be a rebound thing after what happened with Leanne. And believe me, I totally get rebounds. But a rebound is supposed to be someone fun and new who makes you feel like a different person. Someone who makes moving on seem fun. Not someone who already broke your heart once.”
