Chapter Fourteen Nate #3
“And yet here you are.”
“Still searching.”
Ava muttered, “You’re overperforming.”
Nate coughed to hide a laugh.
Karen’s gaze moved between them.
Too sharp.
Too maternal.
“And the boyfriend part?” she asked.
The table went quiet.
Ava’s fork stopped halfway to her plate.
Nate felt the entire fake structure sway.
Technically true statements.
No lies to Grandma if avoidable.
Do not make mother suspicious.
Do not charm mother.
Do not make it weird.
No kissing.
Rules were easier when no one asked direct questions.
Ava set her fork down. “Mom.”
Karen’s face softened. “I’m not trying to embarrass you. I just didn’t know there was someone in your life.”
There it was.
The ache under the question.
Not nosiness. Not entirely.
A mother realizing her daughter had kept a door closed.
Ava looked down at her plate.
Nate saw it, the flash of guilt beneath the irritation.
He had no right to help with that.
He also could not sit there and let Ava take the whole weight of a lie she had created because someone else had made honesty feel unsafe.
“It is new,” Nate said.
Ava’s eyes snapped to him.
Karen looked at him too.
Ruthie did not move.
Nate kept his voice even. “New enough that Ava probably didn’t want to make it a family announcement before she knew what it was.”
Ava stared at him.
It was technically true.
Painfully true, actually.
Karen absorbed that.
Then she nodded slowly. “That sounds like Ava.”
“Excuse me,” Ava said.
Karen smiled. “Careful.”
“I am careful.”
“That’s what I said.”
Ava frowned at her plate like it had betrayed her.
Ruthie took another bite of roll. “Careful is not a sin. But it does get lonely when you mistake it for wisdom.”
No one spoke.
Nate had the sudden, powerful urge to write that down.
Ava’s face tightened, but she did not snap back.
Karen reached across the table and touched Ava’s wrist. “Baby, I just want you happy.”
Ava looked at her mother.
Nate looked away.
This was not his moment.
This was family. Real family. Real history. Real tenderness wrapped in worry and too many questions.
He should not have been there.
Then Ava’s foot brushed his under the table.
Not accidental.
A touch.
A quiet, hidden contact.
Nate did not move.
He looked down at his plate, and his heart did one slow, dangerous thing.
She was asking him to stay.
So he did.
“I’m working on happy,” Ava said.
Karen’s eyes shone a little. “Good.”
Ruthie looked directly at Nate. “Are you helping or hindering?”
Ava’s head snapped up. “Grandma.”
“Fair question,” Ruthie said.
Nate sat back.
There were a dozen polished answers available.
He used none of them.
“I don’t know yet,” he said.
Ava went very still.
Karen blinked.
Ruthie smiled.
Nate continued, because apparently Sunday dinner had removed his filter and replaced it with consequences.
“I would like to help. But I don’t want to be another person making things harder because I like the idea of being useful.”
Ava’s eyes met his.
The room seemed to hold its breath.
Ruthie nodded once. “Better than charming.”
Ava’s mother looked like she might cry.
Ava looked like she might throw a roll at him.
Nate accepted both possibilities.
The rest of lunch moved into safer territory.
Hockey camps. Lake Briar staffing. Karen’s garden.
Ruthie’s opinion that store-bought tomatoes were an American tragedy.
Ava’s childhood habit of hiding books inside cookbooks so she could read at the table.
Nate’s mother’s inability to watch games without standing the entire third period.
Nate gave minimal head quality.
Mostly.
Ava corrected him twice.
Ruthie liked him anyway.
By the time Karen served peach cobbler, Nate had forgotten he was supposed to be performing badly.
That was when the doorbell rang.
Ava’s spoon froze.
Karen looked toward the hallway. “I wonder who that is.”
Nate knew.
He knew before Ruthie set down her napkin.
He knew before Ava’s face went flat.
He knew because some men had timing that was not coincidence. It was strategy.
Karen stood. “I’ll get it.”
Ava pushed back her chair. “Mom, don’t.”
Too late.
Banned phrase.
Not funny now.
Karen opened the front door.
Trevor Hale’s voice drifted into the dining room, warm and polished and perfectly public.
“Mrs. Lane. Sorry to drop by. My mom asked me to bring this over from church.”
Ava closed her eyes.
Nate felt her foot disappear from beside his.
Rule seven.
Follow Ava’s lead. No jaw crimes. No territorial nonsense.
Nate stayed seated.
Barely.
Trevor stepped into the dining room carrying a covered dish like he had been invited by fate and bad manners.
His gaze landed on Ava first.
Then Nate.
Then the rolls.
His smile sharpened.
“Nate,” Trevor said. “Good to see you again.”
Nate looked at Ava.
Her face was pale, but her chin lifted.
She stood.
Then she held out her hand.
Not to Trevor.
To Nate.
Every rule in his notes app seemed to go silent at once.
Nate took her hand and stood beside her.
Ava smiled at Trevor with the kind of calm that could cut glass.
“Perfect timing,” she said. “We were just telling Grandma how we met.”