Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
T he next morning, Ava sent an email to Robert Clive and Scott Strobel to let them know that after careful consideration, she’d decided that she’d need another week working remotely before jumping into the race to the office.
Then she checked the rest of her emails.
She had one she’d missed from Rachel asking for her address to send her a gift basket.
Then, she got an immediate reply from Scott, telling her to take her time coming back and not to worry, that he had everything under control, which eased her mind.
She went into her client list and took stock of the remaining four: High-Craft Organic, Bubbles Soap Company, Clover Candles, and SpeedBykes—her four smallest accounts. Scott had taken care of all the large companies.
In the past, his email saying that everything was under control and that she shouldtake her time coming back would’ve bothered her.
And then, with her largest accounts reworked and finished by him, she’d have thought he was trying to take over her job.
But now, he just seemed helpful. He’d left her with the four companies she could manage remotely, and he’d taken care of the rest .
Ava got to work building the brand positioning and messaging for her remaining list. She called the subcontractors for SpeedBykes and checked in on them.
Then, for each company, she worked on their content and digital marketing strategies, filling out their website optimization plans and segmenting email lists for product updates and promotions.
With every piece of the puzzle she put together, she began to feel the way she had when she’d first gotten out of college.
Ava was inspired by the creative challenge.
She was becoming comfortable with the unknown, something that would’ve terrified her before the accident.
Ava didn’t know where she’d go from here or what accounts she’d get going forward, but it was—oddly—okay.
Without knowing the future, she was able to put all her energy into the four companies in front of her.
Early that afternoon, after spending all morning digging into her accounts and getting tasks set up for tomorrow, Ava went for her first jog since the accident.
She was slow and careful, and the smallest length got her out of breath, her torso aching, but she moved the same way she had with her work—one step at a time.
Not wanting to push herself, her run was short—only about a street in length—but she felt accomplished.
When she got home, she took some ibuprofen, jumped into the shower, and got ready to see Lucas.
With Lucas’s address in her navigation, Ava drove her mom’s car to his apartment.
She pulled up to an industrial, loft-style building with painted lettering from the original grain factory still lingering on the brick.
Ava parked on the street and went up to the door.
She opened his text on her phone and typed in the code.
The door clicked. She went inside and up to the fourth level.
Outside his door, she stood tall, pushed her newly curled locks behind her shoulders, then knocked.
Lucas opened the door.
“Hi,” he said with a spark of interest in his eyes .
Was he as happy to see her as she was to see him?
“Hey.”
He ushered her inside. “Did you find the place okay?” he asked over his shoulder as he led her through the studio loft—a single open space with tons of natural light through floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Yep.” She walked over to an array of plants by the large panes with a city view. “You grow plants?”
“Don’t act so surprised,” he said from behind the island in the kitchen. He was already gripping the corkscrew around a bottle of white wine. “I did grow up on a farm, remember?”
The pop of the cork echoed in the airy space, and he poured two glasses.
“These are pretty sophisticated for a farm boy.” She gave him a playful look.
“I needed to spruce up the place; it’s only a rental until I can find something permanent.” He came around the island and handed her a glass. “I can be a grown-up like the best of us.”
“Are you sure you want to be a grown-up? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Ava said before taking a sip of the crisp, sweet wine.
He joined her, andthe two of them faced the view of Vanderbilt against a skyline of shopping and bars.
“I swear, I woke up one day, and I was an adult,” Lucas said with a sadness behind his words, the teasing tone gone. “I have no idea when it happened. The next thing I knew, I was proposing to my ex-fiancée, Elise, on the side of a mountain in Italy.” He shook his head. “And then I ruined that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“The way things ended has bothered me for a long time. I didn’t think Elise and I would ever speak again. But remember when you said it’s important that you give effort to building relationships with those around you?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought a lot about that after you said it. I realized I needed to speak to Elise to talk through things.”
“How did it go?”
“She wants to see me again.” He seemed almost relieved when he said it. Then, he gazed out the window. “She’s a good person, and I hurt her. I want to fix what I’ve done. Maybe there’s hope for the two of us.”
Ava tried to swallow her unease.
She swore she could see apology in his eyes.
There was no reason to apologize. He didn’t owe her anything.
If he wanted to try to make things work with Elise, how could she not support that?
Or could he see her heart breaking at the thought of him and Elise mending their relationship? Was that the reason for his apology?
“It’s surreal that you and I are both adults now,” he said, his attention now on the skyline. “I’m still trying to get used to it.”
She fiddled with a philodendron leaf.
Now that he’d told her about Elise, there was a new dynamic between them. She didn’t have any claim on him at all—they were just friends—and whatever the new feelings she had for him that had crept in were, he didn’t know about them. She could push it all back down.
She was capable of being his best friend again, right? She’d done it for years when they were kids.
“Well, the reason I came over was to tell you that I’m staying another week,” Ava said as breezily as she could.
Interest shot across his face.
“So I can go to church with you on Sunday if you still wanna go.”
“Of course,” he replied, gesturing toward the sofa.
She took a seat, and he lowered himself down beside her.
They locked eyes. There was definitely something unfinished between them.
It was as if they were meant to be together, in whatever form it could be, like two magnets that had been taken away from one another, and the minute they were in the same vicinity— snap !
They were right back where they belonged.
An adoring smile played on his lips, twisting her stomach.
Needing to get her feelings under control, she opted for friendly banter. “You know what this apartment needs?”
“What?” Lucas asked, not taking his eyes off her.
“A cat.”
He laughed. “I’m not able to take care of a cat.”
“Sure you could.”
He waved an arm across the space. “I live in one big room. Where would I put a litter box? In the middle of the floor?”
She cut her eyes at him. “You’re creative. You could figure it out if you wanted to.”
“I don’t want to.”
“It would keep you company.”
“Unless it’s going to surprise me with dinner and help me pick up around my apartment, it won’t earn its keep.”
“A cat would provide other benefits,” she countered.
“Like?”
“Like curling up in your lap after a long day and cuddling next to you at night.”
His eyes roamed the ceiling as he shook his head.
Friends. She could do this. Like everything in her life right now, she just had to get her head around her new reality. “Well, I’ll have lots of time to convince you of that if we’re going to stay in touch—which we are .”
He finally allowed a genuine smile.
Her heart ached at the thought of only having a week more with him.
Ava didn’t know how they’d manage the distance, but she was sure she’d be better at it than she was last time.
But if she was going to have her best friend back, Ava wanted to know whatever it was he’d been dealing with. Would he finally explain?
“You promised to tell me everything if I went to church with you.”
Lucas didn’t answer.
She shifted toward him on the sofa, putting herself into his line of sight. “If you tell me your thing, I’ll tell you mine.”
He took in a deep breath and slowly let out the air. “Can’t we just start from here and not look back?”
“I want to know everything I’ve missed—the good and the bad.”
His jaw clenched.
She squeezed his hand. “I was your first best friend, and I’m still your best friend if you want me to be,” she said with an encouraging grin. “You can tell me.”
He took a measured drink of wine; then his shoulders dropped in surrender.
“All right.” He set his wine on the table and faced her.
Silent words hung on his lips as if the message was a struggle to get out.
Anxiety visibly fell upon him, making him look years older than he usually did, his sparkle absent.
“Eight months ago … It was the first surgery of the day. I was implanting electrodes in the patient to ease tremors he was experiencing after a traumatic brain injury. He’d made a pretty amazing recovery from a terrible forklift accident, and he was hoping to go back to work at some point, if we could stop the tremors.
While the procedure was complicated, everything was routine, nothing at all out of the ordinary.