Chapter 19
Knox
As I walked from the parking lot toward the Honeysuckle Inn for my Monday meeting with Ava, I checked the cottage off to the side to see which vehicles were there. I was glad to verify Cash’s blue truck was gone.
I’d suggested we meet somewhere else to avoid antagonizing my pissed-off half-brother, but Ava had said he’d likely be gone for work, and if he wasn’t, he’d behave himself just fine. I had my doubts.
I was relieved we didn’t have to test the theory today.
I went in the door of the place I’d called my home for four months to find the cozy lobby hopping with activity. Anna, who managed the inn, was behind the desk with Sadie, one of the newer desk clerks. They both had customers in front of them.
“Hey, Knox,” Anna called as I walked by on my way to check the gathering room for my writing partner. “Ava’s upstairs.”
“Morning, Anna. Thanks.” I backtracked to the curved staircase and headed up.
At the top of the stairs was a relatively quiet lounge area with a couch and a few chairs.
The stone fireplace from the gathering room below stretched upward and bordered one side of the stairs.
The room was partially open to below. There were doors to the offices and an entry to the ballroom’s upper level.
Ava sat on one of the club chairs opposite the overlook.
“Morning, partner,” I said, then stepped to the balcony to glance below. “I see why you’re up here. Downstairs is busy.”
She smiled. “Hey, you. Business is picking up even though it’s off-season. Our ads seem to be working.”
“That’s great news.”
I knew, when she’d taken the reins after her aunt’s death, business had been a mere trickle. Ava had worked her tail off to start turning it around, and Anna was continuing where she’d left off.
“Anna’s the best thing that could happen to this inn, believe me,” she said humbly.
“She seems great at her job. How’re you doing today?” I asked as I sat in the other club chair. “Did Cash give you static because I was coming here?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I told you to quit worrying about that. You’re welcome here anytime.”
I knew I was in her eyes. I didn’t know if I’d ever feel welcome in Cash’s territory. They weren’t married yet, and Ava was still the sole owner of the inn as far as I knew, but that was just a technicality.
Exhausted, I sat back and worked up my willpower to get my laptop out, seeing that Ava’s was already powered up.
I noticed she had her chapter open and had probably been working.
I hadn’t found the time to write for at least two days, maybe three, and had accomplished hardly anything before that, which wasn’t like me at all.
Yes, I’d had a baby fall into my life, but I needed to start doing better with my jobs, both for financial clients and fiction writing.
Ava frowned as she looked closer at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said on an exhale.
“Did that sweet baby keep you awake last night?”
The question sent my mind right down the Quincy track. I took a few seconds to answer. “Quincy had her last night. I just didn’t sleep much.” None of which was a lie. “Ava, I’m letting you down. I was supposed to get you chapter four a week ago, and it’s still not done. I’m sorry as hell—”
“Knox, shut up. You basically just had a baby.”
“I mean…”
“No. No jokes about not having a uterus. You’ve been a daddy for two weeks, and there’s going to be some adjustment.”
“I know that. I just…” I expelled a breath. “You’d think I could write a couple hundred words a day.”
Ava closed her laptop and set it on the table, sat forward in her chair like she meant business, and raised her brows. “Remember a couple of months ago when my aunt died?”
“Of course.”
It was when I’d met her. She’d come from California to take care of this place, which I’d been living in for about two months at that point. We’d started talking and discovered we were both writers.
“Remember how much writing I got done for the next two months? Let me refresh your memory. Zero words, Knox, and I didn’t have a baby depending on me around the clock.”
“You did have an inn,” I pointed out.
“Exactly. And that’s what needed my attention.”
I appreciated what she was saying, but our situations weren’t the same. “I can’t afford not to write for two months. Not only are you depending on me, but I’ve got a freelance project due on Friday.”
“You need to prioritize the freelance project. I’ll be here. I’m not making any speed records myself.”
“Mainly because I’m holding you back with chapter four.”
She exhaled heavily, blowing strands of her dark hair away from her face. “Trust me when I say I need the time to revise three and five. I’m still trying to master the differences between screenwriting and novels.”
We’d discussed that before in great detail.
Learning a new style of writing was no small task.
Despite the challenges, what she’d written so far had been promising and usually got me pumped up when I read it because I couldn’t believe my luck to be writing with such a pro.
“You’ll get it. I don’t have a single doubt. ”
“Just like you’ll get the hang of being a dad and fitting in work,” she said, a half smile tugging at her lips.
I leaned forward, weary, the lightness and endorphins from being around Quincy earlier completely gone.
“Hello?” Ava said.
“Hi. Yeah.” I debated mentioning the subject that’d been circling through my head for days, ever since my confrontation with Cash at my father’s house.
I decided to air it out. “I know you said Cash will adjust, but I don’t want to be the cause of tension between you two.
If you’d rather work on your own projects, I would understand completely. ”
She tilted her head and made a face like I’d spoken in Swahili. “I wouldn’t.”
“Seriously, Ava. At least think it over. Between my inability to be productive and your fiancé’s dislike of us working together, is it worth it?”
“Hell yes, it’s worth it. We’re going to be amazing. It’s just going to take a while to get going.”
“We’re not going to finish on time.” With my financial clients, I never missed a deadline. You couldn’t run a freelance business and not be reliable.
“We’ll have to adjust our deadlines,” Ava said, “but so what? We’ll get there. We both have other income to rely on until we can launch the hell out of our cowriting career.” She stared at me, raising her brows as if daring me to disagree. Then her face fell. “Unless you’d rather call it all off.”
“No,” I said quickly. “I’d be crazy to turn away the opportunity to write with famous screenwriter Ava Dean.”
“Please. Screenwriter Ava quit. Novelist Ava is even newer than you.”
“New novel writer, new dad. That’s a lot of news.
In all seriousness, fatherhood isn’t going away.
Even if my ex showed up tonight and wanted to take Juniper, I wouldn’t let her go.
I’ll be preoccupied for the next eighteen years plus.
I want you to rethink our deal right now. See if it’s still what you want.”
“It’s still what I want,” she said without hesitation.
“You didn’t think about it.”
“I don’t need to, Knox. We planned out a three-book series with possibilities for another dozen, right?”
A smile tugged at me. We had gone overboard, but the creative synergy once we’d started had been incredible. “Right.”
“I’m excited about our potential. Are you?”
I did what she hadn’t done: I paused for a moment and thought about it.
Fought through the sleep-deprivation fog in my head.
Tried to imagine what the next year would bring, let alone the next five.
Then I considered the first few chapters we’d written together.
They were still rough, but the story was there, and I couldn’t wait to see how it developed.
Though Ava was new to novel writing and struggled with things like introspection and description, she had a way of weaving magic with her words that I could only hope to pick up.
“I am,” I finally said, meaning it. “And I’m going to do better.”
“All we can do is the best we can do, Knox. Juniper comes first.”
“Always. But it turns out Juniper has quite the appetite, and someone needs to pay for her formula, not to mention baby food.”
“She’s gotta keep those darling chubby cheeks chubby,” Ava said with an affectionate grin. “So let’s revise our deadlines. Not a lot. We’ll find a pace that works for both of us.”
I growled. I hated to change our dates, but I knew she was right. We needed to adjust in order to make our goals attainable. “Let’s do it.”
We could give ourselves more time, but I vowed to myself I would not hold us back. I needed to spend less time pretending to have a family with Quincy and more time being productive. It was part of why I’d hired a nanny—so I could still work full-time, still do justice to both of my careers.
Yes, I’d been understandably waylaid by fatherhood, but that wasn’t going away. Quincy was, and I needed to remember that. Pull back. Refocus on my priorities: my daughter and my career.