Chapter Fifteen Ava
Ava Lane had never introduced a fake boyfriend to an ex-boyfriend in front of her grandmother while standing beside a basket of rolls.
Some women had normal Sundays.
Ava had apparently enrolled in advanced consequences.
Trevor Hale stood in her grandmother’s dining room with a covered dish in both hands and a smile that looked friendly enough for witnesses.
He had always been good at that smile. The polished one.
The easy one. The one that said he was a nice boy from a nice family doing a nice thing, and if Ava felt like screaming, that was probably a flaw in her emotional management.
Nate’s hand closed around hers.
Not tight.
Not claiming.
Just there.
Ava could feel the entire table notice.
Her mother noticed because mothers had a sixth sense for handholding and poor timing.
Grandma Ruthie noticed because Grandma Ruthie noticed dust moving behind curtains.
Trevor noticed because he had spent a year learning how Ava reacted when she felt cornered, and he had clearly expected her to flinch.
She did not flinch.
Barely.
“Perfect timing,” Ava said, smiling at Trevor with every ounce of customer service violence she owned. “We were just telling Grandma how we met.”
Trevor’s gaze dropped to her hand in Nate’s.
Then lifted.
“Were you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ruthie said from the table. “And now you are interrupting.”
Ava’s heart expanded three sizes.
Trevor blinked.
Karen made a soft, scandalized sound. “Mama.”
“What?” Ruthie lifted her glass of tea. “The boy walked in during cobbler. That is an interruption by any reasonable standard.”
Nate made a sound that might have been a cough or the controlled death of a laugh.
Ava did not look at him.
If she looked at him, she might smile.
If she smiled, Trevor would see it.
If Trevor saw it, he would know this no longer felt entirely like strategy, and Ava was not ready to know that herself.
Trevor recovered quickly because men with practiced smiles usually did.
“Sorry, Mrs. Lane,” he said to Ruthie, turning charm toward the strongest opponent in the room. “My mom sent over her corn pudding. She said you mentioned missing it at church.”
Ruthie looked at the covered dish. “I mentioned it had too much sugar last Easter.”
Trevor’s smile held.
Barely.
Ava pressed her lips together.
Nate’s thumb brushed once against the side of her hand.
It might have been an accident.
It was probably not.
Her pulse did something extremely inconvenient.
Karen stepped forward and took the dish because Karen Lane could find politeness in the wreckage of a social disaster and serve it on a platter. “That was sweet of your mother. Tell her thank you.”
“I will.” Trevor looked at Ava again. “I didn’t realize you had company.”
Ava tilted her head. “At Sunday dinner?”
“Special company,” Trevor said.
There it was.
The sweetly rotten edge.
Ava felt Nate go still beside her.
Rule seven.
No jaw crimes.
No territorial nonsense.
Follow Ava’s lead.
She squeezed his hand once, a quiet warning.
Nate did not move.
Good.
Terrible.
It was becoming a problem how well he listened when it mattered.
“Nate is not special company,” Ava said.
Trevor’s eyebrows lifted.
Karen’s did too.
Ruthie’s mouth twitched.
Ava realized the sentence had come out wrong.
Nate turned his head very slowly toward her.
She refused to look apologetic.
“I mean,” she said, with dignity that was mostly panic in a sundress, “he is Sunday dinner company. There is a category.”
“I’m categorized,” Nate said.
Ava looked at him then.
Mistake.
His eyes were warm with laughter, but his face was carefully innocent.
“You love categories,” he added.
“Do not start.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“You are dreaming of it right now.”
“Vividly.”
Ruthie laughed.
Actually laughed.
Ava’s mother stared at them like she had discovered a new language and desperately wanted a dictionary.
Trevor watched all of it.
His smile thinned.
Good.
No.
Not good.
This was not about making Trevor jealous. It was about making Trevor irrelevant.
Jealous meant he still had a role.
Irrelevant meant he was background noise with hair product.
Ava lifted Nate’s hand slightly, just enough to signal the scene was hers. “We were about to have cobbler.”
Trevor looked at the table. “Smells great.”
Karen, because she was kind and also apparently determined to test Ava’s will to live, said, “Would you like some?”
Ava’s head snapped toward her mother. “Mom.”
Karen froze with the dish in her hands. “What? It is polite.”
“It is a tactical mistake.”
Trevor laughed softly. “Ava, I’m not invading. I just dropped something off.”
“You stepped into the dining room,” Ruthie said. “That’s invading-adjacent.”
Nate’s shoulders moved once.
Ava squeezed his hand harder.
Do not laugh.
He squeezed back once.
Trying.
That should not have felt intimate.
It did.
Everything did now, apparently. Hand pressure. Shared jokes. Rolls. This was how women got into trouble. Not with grand gestures. With small, competent things that accumulated until a man became less of a problem and more of a habit.
Ava did not need a habit.
Especially not one with forearms and family manners.
Trevor’s gaze flicked between their hands again. “So this is serious?”
The room changed.
One word.
Serious.
Ava hated that word from him.
He had used it like a trap freshman year.
Why do you need everything to be so serious?
I thought we were having fun.
You know I care about you. Why make it a label thing?
Serious had become the thing Ava was punished for wanting.
She felt the old heat crawl up her throat.
Nate’s hand did not tighten this time.
He did not move.
He waited.
Letting her decide.
Ruthie watched.
Karen watched.
Trevor watched.
Ava smiled.
“Nate brought rolls,” she said. “In this family, that is fairly serious.”
Ruthie nodded. “And they were good rolls.”
“Standard,” Ava said.
Nate looked down at her. “Not standard, apparently.”
“Do not get proud about bread.”
“Too late.”
Ava’s eyes narrowed.
Nate caught himself.
“Banned phrase,” he said.
“Correct.”
Ruthie looked delighted.
Karen looked like she was already naming future holiday traditions.
Trevor looked like he had bitten into something sour.
Ava decided she could live with two out of three.
“Well,” Trevor said, setting his hands in his pockets, “I’m glad you’re happy.”
Ava heard the sentence under the sentence.
Are you?
Are you really?
Or are you performing because I can still make you react?
Nate spoke before Ava could decide whether to answer.
“She seems happy when people let her eat cobbler in peace.”
Ava’s head turned.
Nate’s expression was mild.
Almost bland.
Minimal head quality had been achieved.
Trevor looked at him. “That’s good to know.”
“It is,” Nate said. “Useful information.”
Ava’s stomach flipped.
Because it was not territorial.
It was not macho.
It was not a man stepping in to handle another man.
It was Nate standing beside her, saying the boundary out loud as if it belonged in the room.
Trevor understood that too.
His smile flickered.
Karen cleared her throat. “Trevor, thank your mother for us. We’ll send the dish back with Ava next week if that’s okay.”
Next week.
Ava filed that away for later dread.
Trevor nodded. “Sure. No rush.”
He looked at Ava one more time. “Good seeing you, Aves.”
Nate’s hand went perfectly still.
Ava’s did not.
Her fingers tightened before she could stop them.
Trevor saw it.
Of course he did.
He left with the satisfaction of a man who had gotten one tiny reaction and thought tiny was enough.
The front door closed.
No one spoke.
Ava released Nate’s hand.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
Then she sat back down at the table and picked up her spoon like the last two minutes had been nothing more than a weather system passing through.
“Cobbler,” she said.
Karen blinked. “Ava.”
“Still exists.”
Ruthie picked up her own spoon. “She’s right. Cobbler suffers when neglected.”
Nate sat too.
Across from Ava.
Not beside her.
Somehow that felt louder than when he had stood beside her.
Karen looked between them with a mother’s injured curiosity. “Are we going to talk about that?”
“No,” Ava said.
“Eventually?”
“Also no.”
Ruthie took a bite of cobbler. “We can talk around it.”
Ava pointed her spoon at her grandmother. “That is worse.”
“Only if you’re guilty.”
“Of what?”
“Still deciding.”
Nate looked down at his plate.
Ava saw the smile he was trying to hide.
“Do not encourage her,” she told him.
He lifted his eyes. “I am eating cobbler.”
“Suspiciously.”
“It is good cobbler.”
Ruthie leaned back. “At least he has sense.”
Karen looked at Nate. “Trevor and Ava used to date.”
Ava’s spoon hit the bowl.
“Mom.”
Karen’s face softened. “I’m not bringing it up to embarrass you.”
“Then I am excited to hear the alternate mission.”
“I didn’t realize things were uncomfortable between you two.”
Ava’s chest tightened.
There it was.
The reason she had not wanted to tell her mother. Not because Karen would be cruel. Because Karen would be kind in a way that required answers.
Karen had liked Trevor.
Everyone had liked Trevor.
That was part of why it had taken Ava so long to admit that liking him had made her feel lonely.
“It was a long time ago,” Ava said.
Nate looked at her, but he did not speak.
Grandma Ruthie set down her spoon.
“Long ago is not the same as unimportant,” she said.
Ava swallowed.
This family was exhausting.
Loving, yes.
But exhausting.
“I’m not hurt over Trevor,” Ava said. “I’m irritated by him. There is a difference.”
Karen nodded slowly. “Okay.”
Ava stared. “That’s it?”
“For now.”
“That phrase is ominous.”
“Motherhood often is.”
Ruthie smiled into her tea.
Nate took a bite of cobbler and said nothing.
Ava hated how grateful she was for his silence.
The rest of dessert passed with only three minor interrogations, two grandmother comments about posture, one Karen question about Nate’s parents, and one near disaster when Ruthie asked whether Nate attended church and Ava nearly swallowed a peach slice whole.
Nate handled it well.
Too well.