Chapter 7 #2
“It’s not. Raven is not happy. He says that is unacceptable. And we don’t want him as an enemy.”
“You’re kidding me.” Alex’s leg bounced up and down as he considered it. Could they push the request and make Raven play by their rules or was that too dangerous a game to play?
“What are you thinking?” Ava asked.
“That I hate Raven,” he answered.
“Beyond that.” She rubbed his shoulders. “What do you want to do?”
“Do we have a choice?” he asked, flinging a hand into the air.
Ava offered him a consoling glance. “There’s always a choice, Ace.”
He grimaced as he stared at his program running on his screen. “I want to take you to the surprise, but…”
“You want to get some of this pressure off of us,” she finished for him.
He glanced at her, upset floating in his eyes, and nodded.
“Is there something else?” she asked, her voice soft as she took his hand in hers.
He clicked his tongue as his brain filled in the answer to her question.
He desperately wanted to prove to her how important she was.
He wanted to give her the world. And he worried if he didn’t, she’d never feel comfortable in their new relationship.
But he didn’t want to keep harping on her about that.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I just…want to show you how much you mean to me, and Raven is ruining it.”
She smiled at him. “I know you do. And that’s what counts. We can go home and deal with this first, and then once all of this is behind us, we’ll have all the time in the world.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind,” she answered. “I can wait to go to Mexico.”
“You’re not going to guess it,” he teased, a slight grin returning to his face. “And even if you do, I’m not telling you if you’re right or wrong. And okay. Let’s go home and give Raven my little surprise so I can clip his wings.”
“I like the way you think,” she said. “I’ll pack and let our good buddy know we’ll be home this afternoon.”
“Okay,” he answered as they rose from the couch. “That’ll give time for this program to finish. By the time we land, I should be able to call Sunshine with the good news.”
“She’ll be thrilled. She seems attached to her new family.”
“Much to Luke’s chagrin,” Alex said as they headed into the bedroom to pack. “I still can’t believe they broke up.”
“I can,” Ava answered as she peeled off her hoodie and folded it.
“Seriously?” Alex’s nose wrinkled at the words. “Because they were together for a long time.”
“Long time doesn’t mean anything,” she answered, retrieving her pink hoodie from the suitcase and sliding it on.
“Right,” he answered, his voice barely above a whisper. If time didn’t mean anything, he probably didn’t stand a chance.
“Don’t read into it, Alex. We’re different than Julia and Luke.”
“I wasn’t,” he lied as his stomach twisted into a knot.
“Yes, you were,” she answered as she disappeared into the bathroom to retrieve her things.
He rolled a hoodie into a ball and stuffed it into his suitcase with a grimace.
Ava flitted back into the room with her arms full. “Julia always thought bigger than Harbor Cove. Luke never did. They weren’t that well-suited.”
“Well, then why were they together for so long?” Alex countered as he stopped packing to face her, his pulse quickening as he waited for the answer.
“It was easy and familiar,” she said with a shrug as she loaded the toiletries into her bag.
His lips tugged into a wince at how easily she said that.
Was he easy and familiar? Would she leave him for some alpha male somewhere along the line, too?
“Yeah, well…Julia doesn’t seem to know what she wants.
I got the distinct sense from her that she’s not sure where she’ll end up in all of this. ”
Saying the words made him feel a little better, anyway.
Ava shot him an incredulous glance over her shoulder. “She’s in love with Grant. It’s obvious.”
“It’s not. And Julia didn’t think it was.”
“It’s written all over her face every time she looks at him.”
Alex picked up a t-shirt and whipped it into the suitcase in a huff.
“Yikes. What did that poor t-shirt do to deserve that?”
Alex slid his hands into his pockets with a shrug. “Nothing. Wouldn’t fold right.”
Ava crossed to him with a shake of her head and pulled it out to fold it. “Julia and Luke have nothing to do with us, Ace. And missing the surprise trip isn’t that big of a deal, okay? We’re taking it slow, remember?”
He swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the lump forming in his throat.
He remembered, but suddenly he didn’t want to take anything slow.
He wanted to know they’d make it. He had been afraid to lose her before he’d said anything, but now with his feelings out in the open, he was terrified she’d walk away.
He couldn’t lose her before, and it was a thousand times worse now that he’d tasted what a relationship with her could be like.
“Julia and Luke took it really slow, and she married someone else.”
“Lucky for you, we’re already married,” she said with a playful grin as she tossed his folded shirt into the suitcase.
He offered her an uneasy smile.
She set her hands on his cheeks, staring up at him.
“You’ve spent the past few days reassuring me that we’ll be fine.
My turn. We’re fine. We are not Julia and Luke, and you do not need to take me anywhere to prove what I mean to you.
You did that this morning when you made sure I was safe. That’s what matters, Alex.”
He clung to her words, trying to embed them into his brain and find solace in them as he nodded.
While they helped, their relationship was so new, he still worried.
At least, though, he had something to hold on to, an anchor in the chaotic seas of his doubts.
“Thanks, Avs,” he murmured as he allowed himself to truly believe in their future for a second.
“Now, let’s go home and deal with this issue,” she said.
“Okay,” he answered with a squeeze of her hand.
Within the hour, they’d packed and left New Orleans behind, settling on their private jet for the trip back to the Hamptons. He pulled his wife closer as she snuggled Gizmo in her arms.
As they had taxied to the runway, Raven had sent his next set of orders. Deliver the flash drive to the Ross Art Gallery. You’ll find an envelope behind the exhibit entitled Beautiful Spy.
The demand unsettled him, but he hoped his surprise would lead them to the information they needed. He glanced down at Ava. He couldn’t lose her. It would kill him if that happened.