Chapter 6
AVA
Ava heaved a sigh, tossing a lock of hair over her shoulder as she dumped her keys in the bowl on the foyer table. Alex shuffled into the house behind her, the folder with the data breach information at his side.
“You want to change and take a look at those files? See if we can figure out what they were after?” she asked.
“Yeah. Ummm, dinner…”
“I’m good with whatever,” she answered.
“You want to order a pizza? Or I can have something fancier–”
“Pizza’s good. Perfect food for a cram session.”
He grinned at her. “Awesome. Pepperoni still your favorite?”
She opened her mouth to answer when Chris appeared in the foyer. “Good, you’re back. We need to talk.”
Alex shifted his weight as he glanced between them. “Well, I’ll change and call for that pizza. You have a fav topping, Builder Buddy?”
Chris slid his eyes closed at the nickname, stretching his neck as he sucked in a deep breath. “Pizza is not a meal, Tech…person.”
“Really? That’s the best you’ve got?”
Chris offered him an unimpressed stare.
“Cyber Sage. Byte Boss. Code Commando. Tech Titan. Net Ninja. The Ace of Cyberspace.” Alex wiggled his fingers in the air before he shrugged. “It’s not hard, Crossbeam Ch–”
“Enough.” Chris puffed out his cheeks. “No pizza. Ava and I are going out for a real meal.”
Alex’s features pinched. “Well, we can have something else here. I can get the–”
“No, it’s fine,” Chris said. “Ava, go change.”
Ava flicked her eyebrows up. She wasn’t used to being ordered around. “No, I promised Alex that I would help him look at the data breach info. We’re just going to work over dinner.”
“Pizza is not dinner, Ava. And you can take time out of your busy schedule to have dinner with your fiancé.”
Alex wrinkled his nose. “Uhh, not to ruin your plans here, but…it may not be a super wise idea for Ava to be…like having dinner with another man after that happened earlier.”
Chris narrowed his eyes. “What happened earlier?”
“I’ll explain it over the pizza. It’s sort of a long story. Let’s change.”
“Oh, speaking of changing,” Chris said with a smile, “I ordered you a set of those silk pajamas I bought you for Christmas. No more Scooby Doo.”
Ava shifted her weight, her lips parting as she tried desperately to straddle her past and her present. “Oh, okay, thanks, hon. Umm, I don’t mind the Scooby Doo ones, though.”
He stared at her as though she’d grown a second head. She offered him a weak smile.
“Can we talk before you change?” He snapped his eyes to Alex. “Privately.”
“I’ll…be upstairs changing and…calling for the pizza and stuff,” Alex said.
“See you soon,” Ava reassured him.
He offered her a fleeting smile before he flicked a hesitant gaze at Chris, then darted up the stairs.
Chris heaved a sigh as he waited for Alex to disappear down the hall before he turned his gaze back to Ava. “Another unsolvable problem?”
Ava crossed her arms, understanding the implication of his words. “It’s not unsolvable. We just need some time to sort through the information.”
“Ahh, right,” Chris said as he let his head fall back between his shoulders. “Of course. You need to spend time with Alex to solve this.”
Ava clicked her tongue. “I can see you’re still in a mood about this. I’m going to change.”
“I’m still in a mood? Are you serious, Ava? I’m not in a mood. I’m concerned about our relationship and how it’s evolving…or failing to evolve.”
Ava bit into her lower lip hard as she vetted her next words carefully. “Chris, it’s been like a day since you’ve been here. I told you this is going to take some time.”
“Mmm-hmm, did Alex tell you that?”
“No, he didn’t. And he’s very upset over this entire thing. I really wish you’d stop accusing him of setting this all up because that is completely ridiculous.”
Chris pressed his lips together in a thin line as he flicked his gaze to his feet.
“I’m serious,” Ava said, releasing her arms from their position and stepped closer to him, taking his hands in hers. “Please try to get along with him. He’s important to me.”
“Well, he’s not important to me, Ava. I mean…I don’t even like the guy.”
She stared at him, the words stinging her. What did it mean for her relationship with Alex if her future husband didn’t care for him at all. “You’re not giving him a chance. Get to know him.”
“He’s weird. All the annoying nicknames and the slang. The strange clothes and the weird tics.”
Ava firmed her jaw, her irritation growing. “He’s…nervous around you. He’s not great with social situations.”
Chris snorted a laugh. “No kidding.”
“Chris…he’s just…shy. Give him a chance. As soon as he gets used to you, he’ll drop the whole Alex act, and you’ll see what a great guy he is.”
Chris sucked in a deep breath before he bobbed his head. “Fine. I’ll give him another shot, but, Ava…”
“What?”
“Never mind.” He shook his head.
“No, what? I want to know what.”
Chris fixed his gaze on her. “I just…have this feeling that he’s…”
Ava wagged a finger at him. “Don’t say he’s doing this to himself.”
“Fine. Just feels like he’s trying to… stake a claim or something.”
Ava clicked her tongue. “That’s ridiculous. We’ve been friends for a very long time, though, and he doesn’t have very many true friends. He just doesn’t want to lose that connection. So, okay, maybe he is trying to hang on to that, but he’s not…staking a claim.” She rolled her eyes.
“Fine. You better go change before your pizza arrives.”
“It won’t kill you to eat it once, Chris,” she said as she pecked his cheek and offered him a grin before she climbed the stairs.
She pushed into her room and leaned into the door as she closed it with a deep sigh. They were barely a week into this and already things were falling apart. The two most important men in her life hated each other. And she was stuck between them, trying to keep them both happy.
She let her head thud against the door. “Oh, Ava, what are you going to do?” she whispered.
With a deep sigh, she twisted to find a set of white silk pajamas on her bed. Reaching for them, her fingertips caressed the soft silk before she glanced at the unicorn onesie draped over the chair in her room.
When had choosing your pajamas become a battleground in a war?
She shifted the silk pajamas from the bed, dumping them in a drawer before she tugged on her galaxy pajamas. With her fluffy slippers, she left her room behind to join the men before they killed each other.
She found them sitting in tense silence in the living room, Alex in his lobster print pajamas while Chris chose to stay in his clothes.
“Something wrong with the pajamas, Ava?” he asked as she plopped down on the couch next to Alex.
“No. But…you know, maybe not the best choice for pizza night. I didn’t want to risk getting grease on them.”
“I like the galaxy pjs, Avs,” Alex answered.
Chris leaned back in the chair, his hands patting the arms. “So, want to tell me what happened earlier that would stop me from having dinner with my fiancée?”
“Oh, uh,” Alex said, his hand shooting up to rub his neck. “Well, there was just a little…”
“Alex’s CFO is causing a lot of trouble. She clearly is trying to get closer to him, probably on behalf of The Board.”
Chris shook his head. “I don’t understand how that affects us?”
“She…is trying to say that I am a poor wife. That’s her in.”
“But we showed her,” Alex said with a grin as he slipped his arm around her shoulder. “Didn’t we, Sparky?”
“We did. But she told him I was hitting on some other guy, another tech CEO. So, it might look sort of bad if I’m spotted out to dinner with yet another guy.”
Chris stared at her, his features scrunched. “What? Why does this even matter, anyway? Who cares what she says about you as a wife? You’re not really his wife.”
“Uh, yes, she is really my wife,” Alex said, his muscles stiffening as he answered.
“Because if she thinks she has an in, she’ll use it,” Ava answered.
“He’s a big boy, Ava. I’m sure he can handle her attention. Maybe he’d even enjoy it.”
The words stung her more than she wanted to admit. Would Alex enjoy the attention of Miranda Vale? An image of the woman grinning up at him before she stole a kiss formed in her mind.
For some reason, it twisted her stomach into a tight knot. She brushed it off as worry over the woman’s obviously manipulative ways.
“No,” Alex said with a shake of his head. “No, I wouldn’t enjoy it. Especially after how rude she was to Ava.”
“Maybe she’s onto you two,” Chris suggested. “I mean…how many times has Ava popped into your office before?”
“We’ve never met,” Ava answered. “Until I came out this time.”
“I don’t go into the office a lot.”
“Well, it sounds like you two have it handled,” Chris said as the doorbell rang.
“That would be the pie. I’ll grab it,” Alex answered.
“Why would she have accused you of cheating with another guy?” Chris asked as Alex disappeared from the room.
“Oh, uh, I sort of did.”
Chris’s eyes went wide. “You did what? When?”
“Well, on Saturday, Alex and I went to the Frontiers Conference to track down a lead. Ethan Parker of CyberSolutions was a suspect and we needed information. So, I…flirted with him a little.”
“Ava!” Chris shouted. “I can’t believe this.”
“Can’t believe what, Builder Bro?” Alex asked as he carried the pizza into the room along with orange soda.
Chris wrinkled his nose at the drinks. “Ava and I will just have water, thanks.”
“Uh, no, Ava will have orange soda like we always have with pizza.”
“And cheese balls,” she added as she tugged a slice of the piping hot pie from the box and put it on her plate.
“How can you drink that stuff? It’s filled with sugar.”
“We’ll need it,” Ava answered as she twisted off the cap and set it next to her.
Chris pressed his lips together, his nose wrinkling as he stared down at the greasy pizza. He grabbed a stack of napkins and patted the pizza.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked.
“De-greasing. This is disgusting. I do not understand how you put this in your body.”
“It’s not that bad.”