Chapter 19
With the power out and every topic of conversation exhausted, Ava was starting to feel the strain. Gracie had been good for the most part but, perhaps sensing her nerves, the baby had started to get restless. Nothing was satisfying her and she started crying.
“What’s the matter, little one?” Chay asked, coming over and taking her from Ava. “Too much snow and darkness?”
“It is for me,” Ava admitted, following behind Chay and Gracie. “I think I’m fine with a blizzard until the fun snacks are gone.”
“We had fun snacks?” he asked her, deadpan.
“Oh, yeah, some really healthy fruit gummies and chocolate pudding cups,” she said, naming the snacks she had put in Gracie’s diaper bag before they’d come to Chay’s last night.
“And I’m just now learning about them?”
“Honestly, you seemed too cool for the pudding cups,” she said, feeling better just joking around with him.
“No one is too cool for pudding cups. I haven’t seen any evidence of them in the recycling bin…that means you still have some. Let’s see ’em.”
“Maybe I don’t want to share,” she said, going to the food bag she’d packed.
“You like sharing. That’s one of your core values,” he said.
He wasn’t entirely wrong. “How do you know that?”
“I’m an observant kind of guy—also, you keep pushing your way into my life. Hard to miss that you like sharing.”
She fished out the pudding cups, which were still attached.
Bending them back and forth she heard the satisfying snap as they broke apart.
Trying really hard to be chill, but in this moment it was hard.
Had Chay picked up on her frustration with the storm and the fact that she was moments away from losing it? She hoped not.
He was all cool with the storm—actually seemed to be thriving in it. It was like nothing fazed him. It didn’t matter if the power went out or Gracie cried or if Ava was on the verge of a meltdown, Chay just rolled with it.
“Doesn’t this bother you?” she asked.
“Not really. I mean, it’s inconvenient. I had been saving Bad Boys for Life for tonight. You need more cop drama.”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. Bad Boys was fun, but what she’d really loved about watching it with Chay was how much he enjoyed it. Like when he’d grabbed her hand and said, “This part is the best.” Stuff like that.
“I definitely don’t need more drama. No one likes drama.”
“Ah, that’s true. But watching it play out on the big screen…that’s not bad,” he said.
He had a point. She handed him a pudding cup and then a spoon. “Watch this one, she likes to put her fingers in the pudding.”
“That’s because it’s so tasty, right, bug?”
“Bug?”
He shrugged as he moved to the couch and sat down holding Gracie on one side.
“She needs a nickname.”
“Sell it to me,” Ava said as she sat on the opposite end. Then realized that Chay was going to feed some of the pudding to Gracie. She hurried to grab a bib and put it on the baby. “She’s a messy eater. Now, about the nickname…”
Chay leaned back, peeling the foil from the top of the pudding cup. Scraping his finger over it, he held his finger out to Gracie, who grabbed it and shoved it in her mouth.
Making them both laugh.
“She’s cute as a bug,” he said. “That’s it. Nothing more. What do you think?”
Bug…she wouldn’t have chosen it, but it did suit Gracie. “I think it’s perfect.”
She concentrated on eating her pudding and not on pointing out that he was bonding with Gracie again. He’d said he’d consider adoption and Ava had to leave it at that.
“So where are these gummies you spoke of?”
“We can’t eat them all at once,” she said.
“We can. You said yourself the good snacks go first.”
“You don’t have any snacks in this house,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, I tend to binge eat if I keep them around. I’m a sucker for anything dark chocolate,” he admitted.
“Really? You seem so controlled. I wouldn’t have pegged you for that kind of behavior.”
He put his cup and spoon on the end table; Gracie was now chewing on her bib. “We didn’t have money when I was with my mom, and I was always hungry. So when I got to grandmother’s house, I wasn’t sure the food would always be there. I’d eat as much as I could in case that was my last meal.”
“Oh, Chay.”
“It’s fine. Grandmother always made sure there was extra food in the house so I’d learn that I didn’t have to overeat, which eventually I did, but the junk food bingeing…that’s stuck around.”
That made her like him a lot more. He was so complicated and interesting and every detail he shared so matter-of-factly made her love him that much more.
And she did love him. She wasn’t sure she was ready to say it out loud or admit it to anyone else. But the feelings were growing stronger and stronger every day.
“One summer we had strawberries in our garden. There were so many, and every day I’d go out and eat them off the plants.
Just as many as I could pick. I made myself sick with it and broke out in hives,” Ava said.
“My mom is very practical. ‘Well, now you know what happens when you give in to your greed.’”
Ava still thought about that when she was taking too much, wanting too much.
She felt a little bit of warning when it came to Gracie and Chay.
She wanted them as her family. It didn’t feel greedy at all, but what she needed to be happy.
That was always the thing that worried her.
She remembered how joyous she’d been in college.
Independence had suited her and her classes had been challenging and rewarding.
When she’d met Greg, it felt like her entire life was perfect and full.
Then he’d died. She knew that fate wasn’t out there watching her and balancing the scales of heartbreak and happiness, but there was another part of her that was wary of taking too much and losing it all again.
It was funny to watch Ava trying to stay centered as the night wore on.
The pudding cups cracked him up. He wouldn’t have pegged her as someone who liked those kind of snacks.
But really, who could say what snacks anyone liked?
He was addicted to Hot Cheetos, which was why he never bought them when he went to the grocery store.
Gracie was a little calmer now. Happily chewing on her bib while he watched Ava finishing up her pudding. She caught him staring as she licked the last bit from her spoon.
God, why was everything she did so sexy?
“The gummies?” he asked again, because truthfully he wasn’t sure what else to do to distract her and him. If it was just the two of them, he’d take her to bed and make love to her until she was exhausted.
But they had sweet little Gracie.
“You’re not giving that up.”
“Nope. Also I think it might be time for a rummy rematch,” he said. Knowing that they’d never really played. He could see that it was her affection for him and Bug that had her focused on trying to make them into a family. But he also knew himself and his limits.
Messing up with a kid wasn’t like overeating Hot Cheetos. He couldn’t just not show up for a few days. If he committed to adopting Gracie, he was going to have to be there on the tough days and the good ones.
Maybe because of his mom he wasn’t one to leave anything. He took on the tough cases and was a loyal friend long after others had moved on. Once he committed, he was all in. That’s why it was important for him to be very sure of himself before he thought about being Gracie’s father.
Or Ava’s man.
Though in his head, he couldn’t picture his life without her. Might be too late on that one. Or a Hot Cheetos situation where he had to stop going to Dark Canyon…which would make adopting Gracie tricky. Because there was no way Ava was walking out of Gracie’s life.
She got up and came back with two packs of natural fruit gummies. “These are healthy. Kind of defeats the entire good snacks thing.”
Chay made a face.
“Healthy doesn’t mean bad. They have real fruit juices, so I kid myself that these are part of my five a day.”
He couldn’t help laughing at the way she said it. “Or you could just have an apple. But no strawberries, right?”
Giving him a soft smile, she nodded. “Yeah, I have to limit myself to just one or two. But they are delicious. Here’s the thing with these,” she said, tossing him one of the bags. “I can eat as many of the strawberry-flavored ones as I like…there’s only two per pack.”
“Conducted a study on them?”
“It needed to be done. Plus, I was waiting for my oil to get changed. It’s like when you sense there’s more blue M&M’s than the others and you make a bet with your brother. You gotta know what you’re betting on.”
“Sounds like you suckered your brother into a bet,” Chay said.
“Only once. It’s sort of his fault for being gullible.”
“Or believing his older sister wouldn’t con him,” Chay pointed out.
“We were eight and six… I wasn’t as sweet back then,” she said as she opened her pack of gummies and dug into it.
He noticed she pulled out the two strawberry ones and set them aside.
“Saving the best for last?”
“Definitely. What about you?”
“Don’t hate me, but they all taste the same.” He poured a handful of them into his mouth at once. Fruit snacks didn’t do anything for him, but he liked that Ava enjoyed them.
“That’s so wrong, but I’ll give it you. Some of them do sort of taste the same, and I think I’m sense remembering strawberries when I eat the red ones.”
“I’d have to agree these don’t taste much like real fruit.” Gracie squirmed like she wanted to get down. So Chay put his snack down and took off the baby’s bib before putting her back on her blanket.
They had made enough space for her to crawl with a pillow barrier, and the light from the fire illuminated her blanket area.
“Thanks,” Ava said.
“For what?”
“Distracting me.”