Chapter 13 The Step #2
The sound cut off when Ava looked up and saw him standing there.
“Working on a project?” Owen asked. She was more relaxed today in a pair of leggings and another oversized t-shirt he assumed came from her dad’s closet.
The way she tied the shirt off to the side emphasized the curve of her hips.
His fingers itched to sink into their softness, the way he wanted to the night he picked up Avery from the cabin.
Ava lowered her phone and gestured at the wall of wood in front of them. “Thought I’d try to fix the broken step today.” She paused. “Hey, you’re handy with stuff, right? What kind of wood should I get? I just need enough to replace the stair tread, I think.”
Owen tried not to smile. Unless Ava had taken up woodworking in the last decade, there was no way she knew what she was doing.
“Do you know how to fix a stair step?”
Ava frowned. “Not really, but I’ve been watching some videos, and I think I can figure it out. It’s not like it can be that hard,” she said.
A snort slipped out of Owen, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“Don’t laugh at me. Not all of us grew up learning how to saw and hammer crap,” she said. “And Dad wasn’t handy. His toolbox has like five tools. The hammer still has the price tag on it.”
Her brown eyes crinkled as she spoke, and the familiar expression made his chest ache. He had an uncontrollable urge to want to fix all her problems, even though he no longer had that right. His brain and his heart had differing opinions on the matter.
“Okay, put that stuff back, and I’ll meet you at the checkout,” he said.
Owen sized up the lumber and reached for the pine. He could use it for both the cabin step and the table at the café.
“Wait, what? Don’t I need this stuff to fix it?”
“You don’t. I already have everything. We just need lumber. Lucky for you, I came here to buy some, anyway.”
Ava let out a laugh. “I see where Avery gets it from now. You both have a habit of inviting yourselves places.” She paused. “I guess Summer does that too. Must be a Fowler family trait I never noticed.”
Owen removed a plank from the wall and rested it on the floor beside him. He rubbed the back of his neck as embarrassment flooded him. “Is Avery bothering you? I can tell him to leave you alone.”
Ava waved him off. “No, no, Avery’s fine. He’s not a bother at all. I think it’s cute how excited he gets when he sees me. It’s so sweet.”
A slight blush took over her face, as if his embarrassment had transferred to her. The phone still in her hand vibrated with a phone call. She looked down at the screen and gave him a grimace. “Need to take this. It’s work,” she said. “I’ll meet you up front?”
At Owen’s nod, she accepted the call and turned to walk back the way she came, leaving Owen to stare after her.
His gaze was drawn to her hips, and he remembered the softness of her curves in his grip.
He shook himself of the thought and hefted up the plank of wood to carry it to checkout.
He bought the materials and loaded them into the bed of his truck, this time spotting the Subaru he’d missed in the parking lot.
Owen walked back to the store, opening the door just in time for Ava to step out. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. When her eyes adjusted, she shot him a look. “You didn’t wait for me. I was going to pay,” she said.
Owen shrugged and let the door swing shut. “Needed the materials anyway. It’s not a big deal.”
“I really do think I could fix it myself,” she muttered.
Ava started for her car and Owen trailed behind, walking her to her door.
“But now you don’t have to. I need to grab my tools and then I’ll be at the cabin in twenty.”
Ava unlocked the car and opened the door. Owen caught the frame and held it open for her to get inside. She peered up at him once she settled in the seat.
“I’ll see you then,” she said.
Owen shut the door, then patted the top of the car twice in farewell.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled up to the cabin. A sense of déjà vu washed over him. He’d already spent more time at the cabin this summer than in the last ten years combined.
The front door swung open as his foot touched the gravel. The yodel of the loon alarm reached him across the driveway, making him smile at the familiarity. He rounded the truck and started grabbing his tools from the bed.
“Need help?” Ava approached, the gravel crunching under each step she took.
“You can help by grabbing the takeout bag in the cab.” Owen jerked his head toward the front of the truck.
“Owen Fowler, did you offer to fix my stairs on the pretense of feeding me? I swear I have food in the kitchen. Somewhere.” She paused. “I think,” she muttered.
“Just grab the food and let’s go. I need to take some measurements.”
“You’re such a dad, sometimes,” she said.
“I’m a dad all the time.”
She arched a brow at him. “Like I could forget.”
Ava's eyes swept him up and down and landed on his face. Then she hummed and turned on her heel, leading them into the cabin with the takeout bag in hand. Owen could swear her hips swayed even more than usual. Even though he knew he should avert his gaze, he couldn’t help but stare at her ass.
Once inside, he hurried to the stairs and busied himself with pulling out his measuring tape. He heard the crinkle of paper and a squeal come from the kitchen, as he crouched lower to take a better look at the damaged stair.
Then he heard her moan, and his blood rushed south.
He tried to focus on his task and not the sounds Ava made from the next room, but that was easier said than done when he heard her footsteps pad closer. He discretely rearranged his jeans before she appeared in the hallway next to him, the blueberry whoopie pie he brought her in hand.
“So,” she said around a mouthful, “what made you decide to spend your spare time fixing up my stairs instead of hanging out with Avery? Or anything else, really.”
Owen wrote the measurements and considered her question.
He couldn’t say he couldn’t stop thinking about her and how every interaction made him long for what they used to have.
Or that seeing her with Avery sometimes caused his heart to skip a beat.
And he definitely couldn’t say it disappointed him when he hadn’t seen her at the café earlier, even though it was his day off and he wasn’t supposed to be there.
“I dropped Avery off at summer camp this morning. He took off without a backward glance at me,” he confessed instead.
“Ouch. I’m sure that hurt,” she laughed.
“Yeah. He’s growing up too fast.”
He pulled a small crowbar from the toolbox and pried away the broken bits of wood from the stairwell, creating a clear working space.
“So, you decided to take your frustrations out on my stairs?”
“Something like that,” he muttered.
She hummed in response. “I didn’t realize he left for camp today.”
Owen gathered up the larger pieces of broken wood.
“You might get a postcard from him. He asked me to write down your mailing address before we left. They usually have the kids write letters after the first week.”
“Awe, that’s so sweet. I’ll put it on the fridge.”
Owen straightened from the stairs, ignoring the thump his chest gave at the thought of Ava keeping his son’s things around. “I need to cut the wood. Want to vacuum the debris? Should only take me a few minutes to saw.”
Ava nodded and popped the last bite of whoopie pie in her mouth. A smudge of frosting stuck to the corner of her lip. Without thinking, he reached toward her face and swiped it off with this thumb.
Her lips parted in surprise, and then she flicked her tongue out to the spot he’d touched.
She stared at his hand, still aloft in the air, the bit of filling on his thumb within reach.
His heart thudded to a stop realizing his mistake.
Before he could backtrack, Ava gripped his wrist and licked it off his thumb, her eyes never leaving his own.
His chest heaved like he’d just finished running a marathon, and his cock and swelled uncomfortably against the denim of his jeans.
Her eyes widened like the move shocked her, too, but she didn’t let go of his wrist immediately.
He stepped closer to her, letting the broken pieces of wood in his other hand fall to the floor in anticipation of wrapping it into the silky strands of her blonde hair.
And then someone knocked on the front door.
Ava dropped his wrist and took a backward step. Confusion marred her face.
Owen stifled a groan of disappointment. “You should get that,” Owen said. He cleared his throat to remove the huskiness from his voice. “I’ll clean this up.”
“Right,” Ava whispered.
She turned on her heel and walked out of his sight to answer the door. Moments later, the loon yodel sounded from the opened door.
Owen kneeled on the floor to pick up the debris he’d dropped. Some pieces skittered under the nearby armchair. He reached a hand under the chair, blindly feeling around for any remnants. Instead, his hand connected with something smooth. A book.
Hidden under the armchair was a copy of the Birds of Maine Field Guide.
The glossy cover showed scratches, and the top corner was missing.
Ava probably didn’t know it was under there.
When he stood, something slipped out from between the pages.
He placed the book on the seat of the chair for Ava to find and bent over to grab the strip of paper off the floor.
Flipping it over revealed a photo strip of the two of them from when they were teenagers.
Owen smiled, tracing his thumb over the image of Ava kissing his cheek in the photo booth.
At the sound of the front door closing, Owen shoved it into his pocket to keep.
He doubted Ava even knew about the photo strip.
He crossed through the living room and down the hallway connecting the downstairs bathroom to the kitchen to throw away the scraps he’d gathered.
There he found Ava, still standing by the front door, staring down at a cardboard box in her hands.
Her upper back and shoulders were tense with unease.
Owen threw away the trash in his hand and approached her.
Something was wrong.