Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Ava could respect the disinterest. She could even understand how it was objectively better for them.
But she was eternally petty, so she opened her mouth to call the attendant bucko in response and start an altercation, because everything was raw and Jack’s hands were so tender with her, and Ari was still gone and they had almost gotten caught by cops earlier that day and—
Jack’s hand was so gentle on her arm as he pulled her away. “That’s it,” he said softly as they reached the hallway. “That’s it, Boss. Let’s go.”
There was a sob in Ava’s throat that hadn’t been there a minute ago. She swallowed it down, but she leaned against Jack’s arm.
He was unmoving. He was a rock. She was dangerously close to feeling something for him, dangerously close to having a reason to—
Stay.
Jack unlocked the room and ushered her inside. There were two single beds on opposite sides of the narrow room and nothing else.
“I liked your first rental house better,” Ava said, her voice coming out shaky and a little watery. “Jack, I—”
And then the tears came, sudden and forceful as a spring rain, and Jack sat down on one of the beds and pulled Ava into his arms and just held her there.
“I’m not panicking,” Ava said through the sobs that were quietly racking her shoulders. “I’m not scared.”
And Jack just said mmm and closed those big arms around her.
There was nothing else in the world. There never was, not when Jack was touching her.
When her tears finally subsided, the exhaustion set in. “I don’t ever want to live through a day like today again,” Ava said. “How are you just . . . carrying on? I thought the cops were going to get us. And then I thought they might kill us. And I had to hike, which is honestly maybe worse?”
“You’re from the Midwest, and you’re in the PNW, and you hate hiking?” Jack pulled back a little to look at her in amazement. “Never mind. I know it’s been a long fucking day. But we’re all right, and this job can still be done, and you’re safe. And that’s the important thing.”
The words dug down into Ava and unsettled something. That was the important thing, Jack said. But what was most important? That the job could still be done, or that she was safe?
That was a stupid thing to wonder, and Ava knew it. Contract killers didn’t fall in love. Neither did angry ex-librarians still grieving a lost wife, though.
But when Ava closed her eyes, she saw cinnamon buns and an empty magazine and Jack, demanding she accept kindness about herself.
“Ava?”
“Hmm?”
“Let’s get you rehydrated,” Jack said. “I’m keeping the beard on, and you should keep your hoodie on, everything in place in case we have to run again.”
“I hate the beard,” Ava said. “I’m gonna be so honest. It doesn’t quite match your hair, and if you did grow a beard, I’d love it, and I’d ride it twice a day and three times on Sundays, but this one doesn’t feel like real hair, and that freaks me out.
I don’t want to ride a fake beard, Jack. Did you ever consider that?”
“I did not,” Jack told her, very seriously.
He moved her gently to the bed and then stood and began rummaging through his bag. He withdrew a lukewarm orange Gatorade and a protein bar, both of which he offered to her. “Eat something and drink something,” he instructed.
“What if I don’t want to do as I’m told?” Ava said. “I’ll drink the Gatorade if you take off the beard, though.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “I’ll grow my own beard if you drink the Gatorade,” he said.
“You’ll what?” Ava stared at him in disbelief. “You wouldn’t. No, you would. That’s absolutely wild work, my dude.”
“My dude,” Jack repeated to himself, shaking his head. “I think I like O’Sullivan better. You manage to make my own name sound a little condescending.”
“You got it, bucko,” Ava said, since she hadn’t gotten to call anyone else bucko.
He laughed. “I knew that got under your skin,” he said. “Now, I have to—”
“Jack?”
He stopped, looking at her carefully, waiting for her to continue.
“Her name was Ari,” Ava blurted. She didn’t know why.
Why now, why him. But she hadn’t talked about Ari—she couldn’t with Ari’s aging mom, who wanted nothing to do with Ava after Ari was gone.
She couldn’t bring herself to with any of the friends she’d alienated—and now, finally, it was all catching up with her.
Jack sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, his dark eyes so serious. “Your wife,” he said.
“You knew.”
Of course he did. Of course he’d done his research.
“I knew you were married,” Jack acknowledged. “But I don’t know anything more than that.”
“You know that I lost her.”
For a second, just a second, she could see emotion in Jack’s eyes, too. “I knew you had lost someone the day I met you,” he said softly. “Because I know how it feels.”
“Jay,” Ava said. “You don’t have to—if you don’t want—”
Jack leaned in and kissed her, soft and slow. “I do,” he said. “I do, Ava. He was my husband.”
Ava felt her chest squeeze dangerously, and she reached out, took Jack’s hand in hers. “Did he make you laugh?” she asked.
She didn’t ask whether losing Jay had driven Jack to this line of work. She didn’t ask who he had been before. She didn’t ask how he’d lost Jay. Because she knew, she knew so intimately how much the pain of something like that burned.
Jack’s eyes were distant, but he squeezed her hand. “He made me laugh every day,” Jack said. “We fought about laundry and getting a dog. But mostly he made me laugh. He did this little—this little scrunch with his nose. You do it, too.”
Ava’s eyes snapped to his.
The look he gave her was electric.
“What about Ari?” Jack asked. “Did she—make you laugh?”
“It was always my job to make everybody laugh,” Ava said.
“And I did make Ari laugh, yeah. But she made me laugh. So hard my stomach hurt. We’d play cards every Saturday, like we were ninety-two or something, and I’d make fun of her for wanting to.
But we’d always end up laughing, I don’t know what about even.
One Saturday night I laughed so hard I fell out of my chair and sprained my wrist on our kitchen floor. ”
She’d give anything for one more fucking day at their little card table.
Jack pulled her close, wordless but so steadily there.
They stayed like that for so long Ava’s heartbeat slowed and her eyes even started drifting shut. When Jack gently pulled back, he helped her settle against the small hostel pillow.
His phone buzzed, and Ava sat up.
She was pretty sure he only talked to his client with that phone, so buzzing was probably not good news. Not that she was an expert. She dried her eyes and looked up at him expectantly.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I want to hear more about Ari, okay? But I think it’s urgent that I respond to my client, so I’m stepping outside to make that call. You stay here, all right?”
“Last time you told me to stay somewhere, I went to Dynamo,” Ava reminded him playfully, but the weight of what they had just talked about remained. She couldn’t shake it—couldn’t pretend in front of Jack, not when he’d seen her.
“Right,” Jack said, running his knuckles along the ridge of her jaw lightly. “But I’m trusting that this time is different, Ava Cavalcante.”
Ava closed her eyes, leaning into the softness of his touch. “Is that because you know I’ll always come back to ride that dick?”
Jack shook his head, but when she opened her eyes again the look on his face was fond. “That’s not why I trust you, Ava,” he said. “But it is a definite bonus.”
Ava waved him away. When Jack left, he shut the door behind him, turned the key in the lock carefully. Even the sound of his footsteps was measured and even, control in everything he did.
Ava leaned back on the bed, an uncomfortably thin mattress on a shaky bed frame that might break at the first sign of any excitement. Now that he had stepped outside, Ava had nothing to distract her from the most uncomfortable truth she’d ever discovered about herself:
She was falling for Jack O’Sullivan.