Chapter Five.
WAYNE
Earlier when Avery had described the building she and Aidan lived in, she’d done it in such a tongue-in-cheek manner that he’d thought she was joking.
But taking in the cinder block walls and institutional paint scheme, it did look more like a mid-century sanatorium than a place where families lived.
The fact that there were a number of windows on the outside boarded up with particle board and a few interior spaces that had been marked with graffiti, made it all look a little more run down than he’d like to see.
When they left the staircase, he let out a breath and must have made some kind of noise that she heard because Avery turned her head to look at him.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.”
He grimaced at that, not even bothering to hide his feelings.
“It looks pretty bad.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, “but Aidan and I are safe. Most days there are cameras that work at the entryway and in the stairs. I-”
He reached out and grabbed her arm. He turned to face her in the hallway. “Maybe we could just not talk about this until we’re inside your apartment.”
He felt a muscle tick in his jaw, and he felt a flare of pain in his head, but neither held a candle to the feeling that was constricting around his heart.
“Hey,” she covered his hand with her own, “we’ve lived here for the better part of five years. Nothing dangerous has happened to either of us.”
He didn’t know if he believed it fully. Avery was a strong woman. It didn’t take more than a minute or two for him to know that about her. She fairly radiated with strength and intelligence. She might just be seeing things with her own brand of rose-colored glasses.
“Let’s go inside. I have a feeling that coffee might do both of us some good.”
He bit down on the inside of his cheek, nodding.
She turned her back to him for a moment and when she turned back around, she had her house key in hand. He felt his eyes widening at the sight.
He felt his tongue pass over his lips. “I’d ask where that came from, but I don’t think my heart could survive hearing it.”
Avery leaned in, her eye bright with something like humor. “Come on, Coach. Your heart is made of stronger stuff than that.”
Wayne shook his head. He would have thought so before, but the idea that her key had been tucked away between her fantastic breasts left him more than a little breathless. With a wink she turned and opened the door to her apartment.
She stepped inside and turned to face him. “Well, are you coming in or not?”
Damn, he heard the invitation in her voice and all the challenge as well.
He wasn’t a man to let opportunities pass him by, but he was also a man who knew how to judge those opportunities for the ability to turn them over into winning situations.
In this case, winning wasn’t about where the night would end, it was about spending time with this incredible woman.
He stepped inside as she reached around him, to close the door. It made him smile to see that she had a set of locks to secure the door beyond just the lock on the doorknob.
As she set the deadbolt, he had to wonder. “Where did you say Aidan was tonight?”
She smiled, a wistful grin. “He’s at a friend’s house working on a project. Something I have you to thank for.”
“Me?”
She turned on the light switch by the door and gestured to the couch and chairs in the living space of the apartment. “Go ahead and have a seat. I’ll get the coffee going.”
She walked over to the kitchen counter and instead of going to take a seat on the couch, he followed her to the counter as she talked.
“When I met you in the principal’s office, Aidan was in danger of not only being booted off of the football team for his grades and attendance but also expelled from the school itself.
I didn’t know that he was hiding how bad he was doing.
Or the amount of trouble he’d gotten into, skipping classes and things like that.
” She opened up one of the cabinets and brought out a tin, setting it on the counter.
“Aidan and I have been a family of two since the day I found out I was pregnant. I thought we were more of a... a team than that.”
Wayne saw her blush and she quickly put the coffee grounds into the waiting filter of her coffee machine.
As soon as he pushed the start button, he reached out and covered her nearest hand. “If I were to tell you not to be so hard on yourself,” he smiled, “would it do any good?”
He saw the immediate shake of her head and his smile deepened. He’d known the answer.
“I’m a mom. It’s hard to admit that as much as I’ve tried to be a good one, being a firefighter means that I’ve had to put him in childcare for hours and hours while I was on shift.
I thought that being in school, getting older, he’d be...
he’d be more responsible, but it just turned out that I didn’t know what was happening. ”
She shook her head, lowering her chin so he could barely see her face at all.
“I’m... I’m not sure if there’s anything I could say to make you feel better, but, I’ve had the chance to talk to Aidan since he started working with the kids in our outreach program.”
Her whole demeanor changed then. Where she’d been slumped forward, her spine had straightened, her face turned toward him. The look in her eyes? He could only describe it as hope. The coffee maker was still working, puffing and gurgling on the counter.
“When we were talking about the backgrounds of the kids in the program.
I mentioned that many of them had signed up through the food bank and he nodded, smiling.
Before I could ask him why, he told me that the two of you used to go there when he was little.
How they always gave him a lollipop and a juice box along with the groceries that you went home with.
“He told me how both of you went back to volunteer there when you didn’t need to go there for food anymore.”
Wayne saw a myriad of emotions pass over her features. Confusion. Worry. And others he couldn’t quite name. But under it all, he saw love. Love for her son. He reached out and put his hand on hers.
“He talked about the struggles the two of you had back then. How he could hear you pacing at night. He saw the worries you had.”
Pain. He felt pain radiating from her and realized that his words had upset her. It was part of the problem when he hadn’t really had time for relationships. He hadn’t worked out the rough edges of his personality.
“I’m... I’m sorry, Avery. I shouldn’t have said...”
“The truth?”
She turned, leaning her hip against the counter. She looked at him, her eyes fierce, her jaw tight.
“I’d be more upset if you fed me some... some BS line.” She drew in a breath through her nose. “What he said... about where we started when he was younger?” She let out her breath in a slow exhale through barely parted lips. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”
Wayne shook his head, frowning. “Why?”
“Why?” Her voice was quite a bit higher than it was before.
“Why would I be proud that I couldn’t feed my baby?
I had enough people telling me that it was a mistake to have him in the first place.
One after another, people in my life turned their backs on me.
I was too stupid. Too Silly. Too... childish to understand what a mistake I was making, deciding to have my son.
“I stared them straight in the eyes and told them I wasn’t about to get rid of him.
When I found out I was pregnant. I was scared.
Scared shitless,” she laughed, but it was a hard scoff of a sound.
A moment later, she was smiling, a sweet curve of her lips.
“And I waffled back and forth about what I would do. It was crazy to do it on my own,” she looked up at him, but her gaze was distant as if she was looking into the past.
“Aidan’s... the guy who contributed the sperm for my egg was a mistake in all forms of the word. I knew it was going to be tough, but I wanted my baby. I was just naive enough not to consider just how hard it was going to be. How one visit to an ER was going to put everything in jeopardy.
“The first time I walked into Central Pantry, I had Aidan in my arms, and I felt like a complete failure. I had bills to pay, a sick baby, and I was worried how I would make it to the next week without help, let alone my next paycheck. It was Maybell who saw me first. She smiled at me and held out her arms. She asked to hold Aidan.”
Wayne felt Avery’s tension start to bleed away.
“I told her he was still sick, but George came walking up, telling me that Maybell had the constitution of an ox and that she’d take care of Aidan while he helped me.
Never once,” she drew in a lung-filling breath, “never once did either of them or anyone else volunteering there make me feel like a failure. They were warm and supportive. They were everything that I didn’t expect and I walked out of there not feeling like a failure. ”
All of that rushed over him and before he could stop himself, he reached out and turned her so he could pull her into a loose embrace. He had a feeling that they both needed it. He just hoped that he was right.
*****
AVERY
She felt him put his arms around her, but she didn’t tense up. She relaxed into his embrace.
Before she realized what was happening, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. A kiss. Gentle. Tender.
She wasn’t someone who showed a lot of emotion with people. At work, she worked hard. She fought shoulder to shoulder with her crew. Hell, she’d walked through fire with and for each and every one of them. What she didn’t do was ‘hang out’ with them.
She could count on one hand the number of times she’d been out socializing with them. If there was a fundraiser at Ciro’s for someone from the first responder community. She’d go and put in an appearance and drop off cash into the boot, but if it was just for camaraderie?
No. She spent her time with her son, trying to make sure she gave him the support she could.
She’d give one of the guys a smack on the back or a soft fist bump to the arm, but hugs?
Ahh... No thanks.
She just wasn’t comfortable being that close to anyone but Aidan. Settling into his embrace, slipping her arms under his and moving closer to touch her cheek to his shoulder. She felt surrounded by warmth. Protected. Cared for. In a word, it felt... perfect.
And that scared her.
Avery tensed and tried to pull back, but his arms felt like a wall around her. He hadn’t tightened his embrace. He hadn’t gripped her arms or put his hands on her back. It was just the slight weight of his cheek against hers. The subtle, almost imperceptible movement of his hand against her back.
“You’re not a failure, Avery. You never were.”
She wondered when her body would remember that she wasn’t the kind of person who leaned on other people like this. She was a woman how put her two feet on the ground and worked to raise her son. As much as she wanted to step back and put some distance between them, she wanted to get even closer.
She’d known he was different from the moment he changed her son’s life, giving him a chance to not only stay in school, but to succeed and have a future to look forward to.
But now, things were different, even better than before.
She felt something opening up inside of her that she hadn’t even known was closed.
The hinges weren’t just creaky, they’d been damn near frozen in place, but this man... This mountain of a man must have melted them somehow.
It might take a while to open them completely, but she had a feeling, he just might stick around long enough to see it happen.
“Wayne?”
She felt him still against her. And when he didn’t say a word, she shifted in his arms and leaned back to look into his eyes. What she saw almost made her smile. This big, strong man looked a little undone by her.
Smiling even more, she leaned in an inch more, biting into her bottom lip. When she was close enough that she could feel his breath on her skin, she stopped and breathed in his scent.
“Wayne?”
He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, she heard his voice, deep and warm. “Yeah?”
“I think I need you to kiss me.”
“Good,” he smiled and she frowned a little.
Why wasn’t he moving? When he spoke again, she heard the deep vibration of his voice and felt it in their close contact.
“I think I need you to kiss me, too, Avery.”
She wasn’t sure who closed the gap first. And really, she couldn’t care a bit.