Chapter 30 Avah
AVAH
At least I have the window seat. Can’t cry about that.
I’ve already cried once today, sitting in Mariel Johnson’s living room like a schoolgirl in the confessional, spilling secrets I’ve guarded for most of my adult life.
She handed me a tissue, willing to listen without interrupting, and when I finished, she looked at me with an expression so gentle, I almost lost it again.
I’ve spent years constructing an identity around being tough enough to never need anyone’s pity, and it took about three minutes of truth-telling for the facade to crumble.
I don’t need a mile-high repeat performance.
The aisle seat fills first. A large man in a Rockies T-shirt drops into 34C, and immediately the manspreading begins. His knees splay wide, claiming the empty middle seat, and sweat glistens along his temple. I hope he’s not a talker.
“You want some beef jerky?” He waggles the bag toward me. The smell mingles with the recycled cabin air and the close press of too many bodies in too small a space, and my stomach lurches.
I shake my head. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
He shrugs and rips off a piece with his teeth.
The cabin door hasn’t shut yet because of a delay at the front of the plane. I could get off. I press my nails into the fleshy part of my palms, like the bite of pain will keep me rooted in place.
Please don’t let this delay last much longer. Not when every minute I spend on the ground in Colorado is another minute I might change my mind, go running back to a man I don’t deserve, and beg him to fix everything.
I don’t even know if my mom will appreciate the impromptu visit.
The last time I saw Tamara Harris—she changed both our names back to her maiden name after my dad’s conviction, as if you can shed a life like a coat you got tired of wearing—was close to five years ago.
I flew down to help her move out of her loser boyfriend’s house and into a cramped studio in a 55-and-over condo complex in the center of Bradenton.
Standing next to her three boxes of belongings, a cigarette hanging from her lip, she told me I was making more of the situation than was necessary. Because having to rebuild your life after allowing a man to ruin it (again) isn’t a big deal.
But I have to go. I can’t tell her about my dad over the phone.
She’ll hang up, pour herself a drink, and pretend the call never happened.
I need to see her face when I explain that the man who destroyed our family is out and circling back.
I need to know she understands not to let him in, for any reason.
You’d think she would understand that, given everything he did. But my mother has a dangerous gift for selective memory, especially where the people who’ve hurt her most are concerned. She taught me that trick, and I’m trying very hard to unlearn it.
I can do this. I can keep my mom safe. The Johnsons, too. And I can keep Jeremy—
The thought catches in my throat, and I clamp my lips together against the shattered sigh that wants to break free.
Finally, the flight attendant comes over the speaker, announcing that the cabin door will be closing in a few minutes. The middle seat is still empty. One small check mark in the win column for a day that has been nothing but losses. I wouldn’t exactly categorize it as joy, but it’s something.
I open the shade and watch as the ground crew does their thing, then let my eyes fall shut, praying for a few hours of oblivion before we land, and I have to face my mother.
There’s rustling nearby, and I swallow another sigh. Not the middle seat.
“Let me just get up so you can squeeze your way in there, buddy,” the big man says, his movement reverberating through the entire row like a boat’s wake.
I keep my eyes closed. I don’t care who it is. I don’t care if it’s a toddler with a drum set, as long as they don’t try to talk to me.
A body settles into the middle seat as I shift closer to the wall of the plane, like I can find a few extra inches of space there, will them into existence by wishing hard enough.
An instant later, cutting through the beef jerky and chemical lavatory smell, the scent of cedar and clean soap curls around me.
My body goes rigid.
No. The universe can’t be this cruel. I’m not sitting next to a stranger who happens to smell exactly like the man I left behind.
I brace myself to make a break for the emergency exit and take my chances.
“Avah.”
My heart does a thing I refuse to name.
“Avah.”
I must be hallucinating. It’s a stress response. This is what happens when you cry in front of a woman you barely know and then board a budget airline with no snacks and not enough sleep.
“Sweetheart, look at me.”
I open my eyes and slowly turn my head.
Jeremy has folded himself into the seat next to me. His shoulders are too broad for the space, his knees pressed against the seatback in front of him. Dark hair falls across his forehead, a chaotic mess that betrays the hands he’s been running through it. His jaw is tight, and his eyes—
His eyes are burning with an emotion that makes my heart flip and flutter.
“What are you doing here?” My voice sounds like I just swallowed a gallon of sawdust. “How did you find me?”
“Sloane.” He says her name like it explains everything.
Yep. My friend is a traitor.
And I love her.
“Why are you running away?” he asks, his voice low enough that it stays between us and Beef Jerky, who is openly watching like we’re the in-flight entertainment.
“I’m not running.” I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “I’m going to see my mom.”
Beef Jerky lets out a burp that smells like soy sauce and sulfur. “Excuse me.”
Jeremy’s brow lifts, lips just barely twitching. For a half-second, he looks exactly like he did when he held up that egg at camp—absurdly smug and not bothering to hide it. I wonder if he fell and bumped his head on the way in, because no one ever looks that happy in the last row.
“Can we get off this plane?” He leans toward me as if we’re not already squeezed together, and his nearness sends a current down my spine. “I’ll get you to Florida.”
Before I can respond, the flight attendant’s voice drones over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, the cabin door is now closed. Please make sure your tray tables are in their upright and locked position.”
“Too late,” I tell him.
“Then I guess we’re flying coach.” He lifts a hand to adjust the air vents above us like that’s going to make a difference. “I hope we get peanuts.”
I choke out a laugh, my brain still trying to catch up with what’s happening while my heart sprints miles ahead, all hope and reckless wanting.
“Jeremy, why are you here?”
The teasing light drains from his gaze, replaced by something so intense that I have to look away.
“Because you left.”
“I was coming back.”
“Were you?”
I stare at the seatback in front of me. Because the honest answer is I don’t know, and he deserves better than another lie.
“Avah.” He reaches over the armrest and links our fingers. “You can’t leave me.”
The vulnerability in his tone that he doesn’t even try to hide cracks my chest wide open.
“We don’t have to do this here.” I glance toward the woman in the row ahead, who has angled herself between the two seats to watch us. The big man in our row blows his nose into a napkin.
“We do,” Jeremy says. “Because I should have said all of it before you left. I know about your dad, Avah. My assistant found out because he started reaching out to some of my contacts.”
It’s my worst nightmare, only I can’t wake up this time. “I’m so sorry, Jeremy. You must hate—”
“What he did to you?” He pauses, his jaw tight.
“There aren’t words for how much I hate it.
And when she told me, I let doubt creep in for about five minutes, which made me even more pissed.
Mostly at myself for allowing you to believe I’m another man you can’t trust with the truth. With your heart.”
The plane gains speed as we taxi, and the engines hum louder, filling the cabin with white noise. Seconds later, my stomach dips the way it always does after the plane goes airborne. Jeremy shifts in the cramped seat, turning his body toward me as much as the space allows.
“It wasn’t that,” I whisper around the tears I refuse to shed.
“My dad is using your name, but he can do so much worse. He’s going to target the NorthStar families.
I knew—I know what he’s capable of, and I didn’t tell you.
I should have warned you, but instead you were blindsided.
Because I was so scared you’d look at me and see him. ”
“I don’t see him. I said it before, Avah. I can’t see anything but you.”
“I should have told you all of it.” My voice cracks. “I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you with the truth.”
His hand tightens on mine. “I’m sorry I didn’t make you believe that nothing about your past is going to change how I feel about you. You don’t have to carry this alone.”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure I know any other way.”
There’s a familiar overhead ding, and I vaguely register other passengers letting down tray tables and pulling out electronic devices, but it feels like Jeremy and I are encapsulated in our own little bubble. Not like the soft seclusion of our time in the villa, but just as intimate.
“I’ve spent the last year trying to convince the Johnsons—and myself—that I deserve to be part of a community like NorthStar,” he says, completely unhurried.
Like we’ve got all day, or at least the next several hours.
“I thought showing up with a checkbook was the only way I could prove that I belonged. Then you taught me what it looks like to care about people in ways that are more important than investing from a safe distance.”
I press my thumbnail into my palm when my eyes start to burn.
“You made a huge difference in my sister’s life when she needed someone who wouldn’t treat her like she was fragile.
And you changed mine, even though I didn’t think I needed anyone at all.
You challenged every assumption I had about myself.
” His throat works as he pauses again. “You make me want to be in the room for every moment, even when it means sitting in the cheap seats.”
A watery laugh escapes before I can stop it.
“I love you,” he says, the simple words cutting through every defense I have left.
“I love the way you refuse to let anyone keep you down. I love that you bake when you’re stressed and swear like you’re elevating four-letter words to an art form.
And I love how you fight for the people you care about, even if you think you’re not worth fighting for in return.
” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, goosebumps trailing in the wake of his touch.
“I want to fight for you, Avah. I also love that you went to see Mariel this morning to protect me, which meant exposing the secrets you’ve spent your life hiding. ”
“How did you—”
“I showed up on her doorstep, too.”
I blink. “You went to the Johnsons’?”
“I flew in from California and drove straight there.” The corner of his mouth curves, and the look on his face is so tender it makes my chest ache. “Turns out we each threw ourselves on the sword for the other person. She was pretty entertained.”
I curl the fingers of my free hand and press them to my heart, something bright spreading through me. And I recognize it as joy. Pure joy. My book club friends would call this a bucket list moment. It’s annoying how smart they are.
The woman in the row ahead isn’t even pretending anymore—she’s fully turned around, forehead resting against the two seats.
“I know you’re scared,” Jeremy says. “Life taught you that the people who say they love you are the ones who end up hurting you the most. I can’t fix that with a speech on a plane.”
“Pretty good speech, though,” the big man offers.
Jeremy’s eyes widen slightly, but he doesn’t respond. Instead, his knee presses harder against my leg, warm and certain.
“Let me stand beside you, Avah, even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy. I’ve spent too much of my life choosing managed and lonely, so I’ll pick complicated with you every day.”
We bounce through a pocket of turbulence, and my fingers tighten around his without any conscious decision from my brain. He holds on, solid and steady.
“I went to see your sister this morning,” I tell him. “She told me I was an idiot.”
“She told me the same thing when I called her on my way to the airport.”
I laugh. “Sloane is annoyingly consistent.”
“It’s her worst quality.”
The plane steadies, and I glance out the window to see the grid of subdivisions giving way to a patchwork of brown plains.
My thoughts shift to the people who made me believe that love was either a transaction or a weapon.
Then I think about the man who flew across the country and crammed himself into the middle seat next to a beef jerky enthusiast because he refuses to let me disappear.
“I love you, too.” As I stare into his eyes, something loosens in my chest that’s been wound tight for months. Years, maybe. “I was in deep the moment you rescued me off that beach. I’m kind of a basic bitch that way.”
“You’re a lot of things, Avah. Basic isn’t one of them.”
“I’m serious, though.” I stretch out my fingers so our palms press together.
“You showed up for me before you had any reason to, and you never stopped.” I swallow hard.
“I don’t need you to fix my life or fight my battles or buy me things I didn’t ask for.
I just need you to stand beside me and let me do the same for you. We can handle the rest together.”
“That’s all I want,” he says quietly. “That’s everything.”
He lifts my hand and drops a gentle kiss on each of my knuckles. I hear the woman in front of us sigh.
Yep, this is joy.
“And now you’re stuck with me for the next three and a half hours.” I make a show of looking around the cabin then wink. “In coach.”
He kisses me with no regard for our audience. I’m not sure I’ll ever get enough of Jeremy’s mouth on mine. “Sweetheart,” he says, his breath warm against the corner of my lips, “you’re stuck with me forever.”
We settle back into our seats, hands still clasped together, temples touching across the edges of our seats. The big man offers up the beef jerky again. Jeremy, God love him, takes a piece.