Chapter 4
ANDERSON
Thank fuck I don’t work today.
After freezing my balls off, watching Ava’s car until it disappeared into the night, I couldn’t fall back asleep—not with the way she raced away after hearing whatever the person who called her said.
I tossed and turned until I finally decided just to cut my losses and start my day.
Turning the speed up on the treadmill, I ignore the urge to check my phone for the millionth time this morning, hoping to hear from Ava.
I texted her the second I was back in my bedroom last night.
Everything okay?
No response.
Just want to make sure you got home safe. You left pretty late
I’m here if you need anything
I regretted sending that last one the second I sent it.
It only took the first month of me and Ava fooling around to learn that the more I pulled, the more she pushed away.
My sneakers pound the running belt as I finish up my fifth mile. I only planned on doing five today, but my thoughts of Ava have my body buzzing.
The music in my headphones is already blasting as loud as it goes, my lungs burning with every step, but it doesn’t distract me from my thoughts.
Who was she on the phone with?
What did they say to piss her off so much?
In these past eight months of knowing Ava, I’ve only seen her mad a few times. Last night, though, she looked lethal—like she was ready to kill someone.
Sweat trickles down my bare chest, my T-shirt discarded and forgotten on the floor of my home gym.
My phone buzzes, and I grab onto the handles of the treadmill to avoid tripping and falling flat on my face.
Balancing on each side of the belt as it quickly rolls beneath me, I bring my phone to my face, my heart in my throat.
I need help finding valentines.
Fucking Jack.
My grumpy, man-of-very-little-words friend and coworker texts me maybe once a week, and he just so happens to reach out today of all days, while I’m waiting for a notification like my life depends on it.
I thought you already got Rumi and Evee their Valentine’s Day gifts
I did.
I roll my eyes at the response. I don’t know how his girlfriend handles Jack’s inability to string more than a few words together. Their daughter isn’t even two yet, and she says more words than he does.
Then why do you need valentines?
Are you talking about cards or gifts or what?
And for who?
Rumi said Ava needs twenty-two of them.
I pull the emergency cord to turn the treadmill off, taking the basement stairs two at a time as I type back my response.
I’m on my way!
This doesn’t require you coming over.
Ignoring his text, I toss my phone on my bed, strip off my shorts, and jump in the shower. It takes me ten minutes to get ready and get out the door, the bright February sun beating down and reflecting off the foot of snow on the neighborhood lawns.
I have no idea why I’m finding out from Jack that Ava needs valentines—or what that even entails, considering Jack didn’t answer my questions—but I don’t care.
If it gets me closer to her, I’m doing it without a second thought.
When I get to Jack and Rumi’s house, I waste no time knocking, punching in their key-code that I was given for emergencies—this definitely is one—and letting myself in.
“Hello?” I yell out through the foyer, toeing off my sneakers and walking into the kitchen.
“Anderson? I didn’t know you were coming over.
” Rumi, Jack’s girlfriend, greets me from where she sits at the kitchen island next to her daughter’s highchair.
Her long brown hair is pulled up in a ponytail, her purple hoodie matching the sleeper Evee has on, only hers is stained red from the strawberries she’s half-eating/half-playing with on her highchair tray.
“That’s because he wasn’t invited,” a voice grumbles from behind me. “But please, let yourself in.”
Jack rounds the kitchen island, planting a kiss on the side of Rumi’s head before leaning down to kiss Evee on the forehead.
His smile is wide until he turns to me, his usual look of indifference replacing it.
“You said Ava needed valentines?” I ask.
Jack nods but doesn’t elaborate.
I turn to Rumi. We’ve gotten close enough this last year that I can communicate without words when I need some elaboration from her boyfriend.
She sighs, popping one of Evee’s strawberry halves into her mouth. “Someone was supposed to keep that errand to himself.” Rumi’s blue eyes shoot to Jack, who just shrugs, but he looks a little guilty—like he let me in on a secret he wasn’t supposed to share.
Rumi and Ava are best friends—like, tell each other everything, trauma-bond after surviving toxic relationships, raise Rumi’s daughter for the first year of her life together, kind of best friends.
And by the way Rumi is looking at me, with equal parts pity and mischief, the same way she always does when I bring up Ava around her, I know she is about to keep me in the dark while also giving me just enough to go on.
“You know those sets of valentines that you can buy for kids to hand out to their class?” she asks, her eyes gazing at her daughter as the baby says something resembling the word “strawberry” over and over again, giving her a smile.
One glance at Jack shows he’s barely listening to us—too enamored with Evee.
Looking back at Rumi, I nod eagerly, desperate for any and all information about Ava I can get.
“She needs some for her younger sister. She’s taking her to school late today since Georgie needed some sleep, but it’s her Valentine’s Day party, and Ava said she didn’t want to miss it.”
My mouth opens to ask one of the dozen questions that immediately flood my brain, but before I can settle on one, Rumi stops me before I can start.
“And before you ask, Ava didn’t have time to give me the whole story since she had customers coming in the second she opened Hey Honey’s this morning,” she explains, “but she did say that something happened with their mom, so Georgie will be staying with Ava and Emerson for a couple of days.”
I snap my lips shut, and I can’t help but wonder if this has something to do with the phone call Ava got last night. My stomach twists at the thought of Ava dealing with whatever happened to her mom. Is she sick? Is she going to be okay? I need to find out, so I can figure out how to help.
Once again, I’m about to ask, but Rumi beats me to it.
“And that’s all I’m going to say.” She puts her hands up, quickly shutting me down before I even have the opportunity to speak.
She pulls Evee out of her high chair and walks straight out of the kitchen.
“She’ll be waiting at Hey Honey’s!” she yells over her shoulder before leaving the room completely.
I turn to Jack, knowing full well that Rumi knows more but is refusing to tell me. “Rumi will kill me if I tell you anything else,” Jack says, grabbing the tray of Evee’s highchair and turning toward the sink.
I sigh. “Oh, come on. At least tell me why Ava needs you to get them for her.”
Jack turns on the faucet, running water over the plastic tray. “She asked Rumi, but Rumi has her Mommy and Me dance class with Evee, so she asked me to do it.”
“Why not ask Emerson?” I ask, wondering why Ava wouldn’t ask her other best friend to do her a favor—especially since they live together.
Jack places the tray on a towel on the counter and wipes his hands on his pants. “My sister has a shift at Hey Honey’s and then is doing the last round of interviews for Ava with the three potential new baristas.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of all this. My first thought is how Ava already spreads herself so thin, and now she has whatever is happening with her mom, and taking care of her sister to worry about.
It’s no wonder she only ever has time for me in the middle of the night.
“So Emerson is covering the interviews, so Ava can drop her sister off at school? With the valentines?”
Jack claps his hands together. “Way to use your context clues, Scooby-Doo,” he deadpans, but I ignore the dig—too focused on how I’m going to get Ava to open up to me about what’s going on, this strong urge to help her, protect her, taking over my entire mind.
I tuck my hands in the front pocket of my jeans. “I knew Ava had sisters, but I didn’t realize one was young enough to still be in school.”
I say it more to myself than to Jack, but he answers anyway. “I didn’t know until today, but you know Ava. She keeps a lot to herself.”
That’s the understatement of the year.
I’ve had her naked in my bed dozens of times, and I still can’t even get her to tell me the simplest things about her—her middle name, her favorite color, the time of year she likes the most.
“Can you at least tell me what happened to her mom?”
“Rumi didn’t tell me.”
Fuck.
For Rumi not to tell Jack something, that means it’s bad.
While those two tell each other everything, their relationship being one completely built on trust because of being friends before dating, Rumi and Ava have an impenetrable bond—and I’ve seen it in action since meeting them last summer.
So, if Ava asked Rumi not to tell anyone about what happened, Rumi is taking whatever Ava shared with her to the grave.
I take in all the information I do have, desperate for more, but knowing I need to get it from Ava.
She may not want to be more than friends-with-benefits, or fuck buddies, or whatever she considers us—she may keep fighting me every time I try to break down those walls of hers—but I’m not going to stop until she lets me in.
I blow out a breath, turning toward the front door. “Let’s go get these valentines.”
“Oh, look what the cat dragged in.” Ava’s long, auburn hair is pulled back in the same bun she had last night, and her arms cross when she sees me and Jack approaching the counter at the coffee shop.
“So nice to see you too, love,” I offer with a smile, but I can’t ignore how tired she looks. And is that the same hoodie under her apron that she had on last night?
Did she get any sleep?