Chapter 28
Knox
I pulled up to Ava and Cash’s cottage next to the inn. The place looked cozy, lived in, like a home, the way my house didn’t yet look from the curb.
Love lived here. It was plain to see in the pots of mums along the walkway and the two chairs with pillows and the low, warm light in the windows.
I got out and hurried to the front door. It took a while for it to open after I knocked, and when it finally did, Ava stood there, blinking at me in confusion, her eyes bloodshot and swollen.
“Knox, what are you doing here?”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Of course I’m okay.” She blinked again, glanced at the driveway, then tilted her head back up at me. “What… Did Cash contact you?”
“He said you were upset.”
Her eyes fluttered closed. “I love that man to pieces, but he’s ridiculous. I told him I’d be fine.”
“He’s worried about you,” I said, wondering when I’d started defending my unfriendly brother.
“Come in out of the cold.” She stood back so I could enter. A lamp shone on a low setting from the living room on the left, the only illumination on the main floor. “I can’t believe… Did he really call you?”
“He texted. Said you were upset about writing, threatening to quit—”
“I’m not going to quit.” She frowned. “I don’t think I could if I wanted to. I was just ranting. You know how it is.”
“Sure.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “So you’re not upset anymore?”
“I didn’t say that. But I don’t need an intervention. Would you like a drink?” She gestured to the kitchen on the right, open to the dining and living areas. I followed her over.
“What do you have?”
“Beer, soda, tea, water.”
“Got any Rusty Anchor?”
She walked around the island, opened the fridge, and took out an IPA. I was touched she knew my preference without asking. I’d never had that kind of closeness with people in Texas.
Grabbing a tea for herself, she leaned on the island. I took a seat on the opposite side.
“What’s going on?” I asked her as I opened the bottle. When she didn’t say anything, I said, “Talk to me, Ava.”
She spun her tea around in circles, her eyes locked on it, avoiding me.
“This is me,” I said in a coaxing voice.
Still not looking at me, she let out a breath. “I sent some of my chapters to a writing coach,” she finally spit out. “It’s someone I knew from school.”
“You don’t need a writing coach.”
She scoffed. “I definitely need a writing coach.”
“Ava, the screen play you wrote is a TV series.”
“I can write a screen play, but I’m so used to being brief and paring down details that I can’t write a novel.”
“Untrue. You’re writing one.”
“Not well.”
“Says who? The writing coach?”
“And me. You know I’ve been working hard to get the right amount of description in, to add introspection.”
“You have. You’ve gotten a lot better at it in just a month.”
“Yeah, well, the writing coach thinks I overdid it.”
I clenched my jaw, frustrated that she’d been unsure enough of herself that she’d even gone to this writing coach. “Ava, you’ve been working your ass off to expand your writing. You expanded your writing. You overdid it? That’s fantastic. That’s what we wanted.”
“I wanted good writing.”
“You’re a damn good writer. Stop it.”
“I’m holding you back, Knox,” she said quietly. “We’re spending so much time on me trying to figure out the right balance that we can’t move forward.”
“We’re almost to the midpoint of the rough draft. That’s progress.”
“But my last three chapters are overwritten.”
I couldn’t help a grin. “Ava, come on. Listen to what you’re saying. You overwrote. Your problem before was underwriting. This is a win.”
She looked at me finally, her expression saying I was crazy. “Overwriting is not good writing.”
“But you can edit it down. We can edit it down. Three chapters of overwriting? We’ll go through it together and fine-tune it. Piece of cake. Compared to vomiting out extra words and details, polishing is nothing.”
“I can’t figure out the balance. I don’t know if I ever will.”
“Whatever, Ms. Professional Writer. You’re smart. Give yourself half a minute to adjust.”
Her shoulders lifted with an inhalation, then relaxed slightly with the breath out, her gaze averted to the counter again.
“Don’t you dare even think about making me go solo,” I said.
“I’m not going to make you go solo.”
“Promise?” I leaned down to try to get her to meet my gaze.
“I promise,” she finally said begrudgingly when she glanced at me.
“Thank God.” I injected lightness into my tone. “We’ve got two characters halfway to falling in love, and I can’t get them there by myself. I don’t know a thing about romance.”
Now she raised her head and looked me directly in the eye, her brows climbing her forehead. “Really though?” Her tone was deliberate. Stronger. None of the unsure writer of two minutes ago.
I became wary, narrowing my eyes at her. “Really. Remember me? Fantasy and sci-fi guy?”
“Are you sure you’re not romancing your nanny?”
My eyes went wide, and I reared my head back before I could control the reaction. “Where did that come from?” I asked, trying to play it cool while I gathered my thoughts.
In a one eighty from the distraught woman I’d found when I showed up, she tilted her head and studied me. “I notice you didn’t deny it.”
Hell. She wasn’t going to let this go. It wasn’t a random attempt to divert the focus from her to me. I suspected she’d been dying to ask me about Quincy for some time. I was surprised she hadn’t before now based on a couple of veiled comments she’d made.
I picked up my bottle, swigged half of it down, and decided to be honest.
“You’ll keep this between us?” I asked, still holding my bottle.
“Of course.” She said nothing else, just eyed me. Waited.
“Quincy and I are…involved.”
I couldn’t bring myself to use the word romancing. I wasn’t sure what that entailed, though I didn’t think it meant just shagging for shagging’s sake.
My lids closed with that thought because…I was lying to myself if I said it was just sex between us.
It’d become more.
“I knew it,” Ava said with glee. “Awesome.” She apparently got a good look at my face, and her smile disappeared. “Not awesome?”
I leaned my forehead into my hand and rubbed it, trying to find words. Despite being a guy who made a living off them, I was sure as hell struggling now.
“She’s too attached?” Ava guessed when I didn’t say anything.
I shook my head. A half grin popped out. “Quincy’s pretty carefree.” More carefree than I’d ever be. “We set boundaries, and she respects them.”
“Are you having a hard time with boundaries?”
“Nope,” I said quickly. “We agreed it ends when she goes to school.”
Ava studied me. “Did you grow feelings?”
Shit, this conversation had gotten uncomfortable fast.
“I care about her,” I said. “It’s impossible not to care about Quincy.”
“Yeah, I can see that. She seems like an awesome girl. Caring, dedicated, funny. Cute.” She emphasized the last word.
I couldn’t argue with any of that.
“You don’t seem like you’re happy,” Ava said.
“I’m not unhappy. Just…worried, I guess.”
“What are you worried about?”
“It’s…probably a mistake. The longer it goes on, the more we could start to care. The more we start to care, the more someone gets hurt.”
“What if you took away the end date?”
I shook my head. “That’s the only thing making it okay.
Keeping it temporary.” I folded my hands together and leaned my forehead on them.
“I’m forty-two, Ava. She’s in her twenties and about to go to college.
She has her whole life ahead of her, her whole future.
She’s going to be a teacher.” I cracked a grin, thinking about how good she’d be.
“It wouldn’t be right for me to plan a future with her.
She needs to go into the education program with no ties, nothing holding her back.
Her twenties, Ava. When I was in my twenties, bars and friends were just as important as books and tests.
If she drove home to Dragonfly every weekend to see me and Juniper, she’d miss out on college life. That stuff is important.”
Ava looked thoughtful as she nodded. “It is. I get it. You’re in homeowner and fatherhood mode. She’s in English 101 and frat-party mode.”
“Exactly.”
“Are you thinking you should put an end to the fling sooner rather than later?”
The thought of having Quincy under my roof but not in my bed… I didn’t like that thought. At all. “Do you think I should?”
“I think that’s entirely up to you. Would it make anything better?”
It’d make everything downright shitty and awkward. I shook my head.
“There’s your answer then, Mr. Romance. Keep on romancing until your deadline. Respect the boundaries. You’ll miss her when she’s gone, but you knew what you were getting into from the beginning.”
And that was the bitch of it. I’d known, at least on some level, and I’d done it anyway.
I had a feeling I’d pay for it later in the form of missing Quincy like crazy, but I’d get through it.