15. AVA
AVA
Midnight Blue Lace
The spare key is no longer under the ceramic pot by my front door.
I crouch and check. The pot is exactly where it's always been, third from the left, the one with the dead succulent I keep meaning to replace.
From inside my house comes the sound of footsteps. That means Kai is in my house.
I push the door open.
He’s standing at my stove.
He's in a grey henley with the sleeves shoved past his elbows. Dark joggers sit low enough to expose the cut of muscle above his hips. His feet are bare on my kitchen tile.
The lamp above the stove catches the tattoos winding down his left forearm, the black ink shifting with every flex of his wrist as he adjusts the burner.
His back is to me. Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. The henley stretches across the ridge of muscle between his shoulder blades in a way that makes my mouth dry.
My chest does a slow, dangerous expanding thing, like a lock opening from the inside.
No.
I clamp down on it immediately because that spreading warmth at the sight of this man barefoot in my kitchen is the exact feeling my mother described having every time my father came back.
Biscuit rockets past my legs and throws herself at Kai, tail going in circles, body wiggling so hard she nearly takes herself out. She stares up at him with adoring brown eyes.
Kai turns. The henley collar is stretched loose, showing the hollow of his throat, and I have to stop staring at it.
His face stops me.
The quiet authority he usually has is gone. His brown eyes are dull. His jaw is locked into a clench that makes the muscles beneath his beard look carved from stone.
Whatever happened at the rink today took something from him he hasn't gotten back.
He bends down and scratches behind Biscuit’s flopped ear. The faintest softening crosses his face.
"She remembers me," he says.
“Of course. She’s brilliant like that.” I step inside. "Are you cooking in my kitchen?"
"Was about to heat up some food. Your fridge had expired yogurt and half a banana. I went to the store.”
I lift the bags of Thai takeout I picked up on the way.
"So did I."
We stare at each other, each holding groceries we bought for the other person.
I feel warmth pushing against the walls I've built. Two people who thought of each other at the same time without being asked.
I set my bags down next to his on the counter. Our groceries sit side by side like they belong together.
I wonder if I should have given him my address. My home is the one space in LA that's entirely mine. No clients, no obligations, no performing.
The couch cushions are dented from my body. The bookshelves are organized by my mood, not alphabet or author. There's a photo of Lucy and me at sixteen on the fridge, braces gleaming, arms slung around each other.
Kai is standing in the middle of all of it. It’s the first time I’ve invited him over, and I can't decide if I want to push him out or pull him closer.
"Sit down,” I say, trying my best not to look at him. “I'll sort the food."
"I already started something."
"Then I'll finish it. Sit."
He doesn't argue. That tells me more than anything he could say.
Kai doesn't take orders. He negotiates until the other person believes the compromise was their idea.
I plate his roast chicken next to my pad see ew, creating a meal no one would ever order on purpose. Kai takes his plate without so much as a glance.
Biscuit positions herself between us on the couch. Her warm body presses against both our thighs, tail sweeping back and forth.
"You already ate," I tell her, remembering the bowl she was licking clean when I picked her up from my neighbor’s.
She doesn't move. I cave and toss her a piece of chicken.
Great parenting, Ava. Real authority.
Kai eats without talking. I watch him from the corner of my eye, tracking how he chews like he’s being forced to eat.
I lean forward to grab water from the coffee table and my arm brushes his. The contact is brief, accidental, the inside of my forearm dragging across the back of his hand. Heat blooms from my arm up to my shoulder.
I sit back too fast.
"Tell me what happened," I say.
"I'm eating."
He sets the fork down, stares into the distance. He looks so sad that I know I have to do something about it. Maybe playing with Biscuit will loosen him up.
“Watch this,” I say.
I set my plate down and slide off the couch onto the floor. Biscuit's ears perk.
"Biscuit. Tricks."
Biscuit leaps to attention. Her ears go up, her body rigid with focus. I grab a treat from the bag on the coffee table and hold it up.
"Spin."
She spins. I toss her the treat.
"Shake."
She offers her paw. Another treat.
"Play dead."
She hurls herself onto the floor with a theatrical flop, one ear covering her eye, tongue out, paw curled.
“Go to him,” I say, pointing to Kai.
Biscuit recovers from her death scene and trots over to Kai, shoving her nose under his hand.
He scratches behind her ear and starts making her do tricks. It doesn’t take long before he’s sitting on the floor beside me, teaching her new commands. By the time he’s done, his shoulders are no more sagging and the eyes in his eyes have returned.
"Brennan put me on long-term injured reserve," he finally admits.
"When?"
"Last week. He didn't tell me until today. Let me suit up, get on the ice, skate with the team. Then pulled me off the ice."
"In front of everyone?"
"In front of everyone I've captained for years I can't remember." His hand stills on Biscuit's head. "My medical clearance wasn't enough. He thinks the amnesia makes me a liability."
I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them.
"What exactly did he say?"
"That four years of game knowledge missing makes me unfit for live play.
That minutes of drills aren't a game." His voice is too controlled, each word placed like he's bridling his temper.
"I ran every system he threw at me today, read every play before it developed, beat Wyatt twice in a footrace. But it wasn't enough."
He leans forward, elbows on his knees.
The position brings his face closer to mine. I can see the pulse in his neck, the slight dilation of his pupils.
"I've been playing since I was four," he says. "The first time, my dad flooded the backyard in winter because the rinks were booked solid with league games. The ice was never thick enough. I skated on frozen grass until the ice cracked and I fell through into mud.”
“Mud?”
“Yeah. It was two inches of cold dirt. My dad picked me up and said, 'Try again tomorrow.'"
I place my hand on his. “That’s adorable and tragic.”
"Everything after that was hockey. School was something I did between practices. Friends were teammates and summers were camps. My mother used to joke that I had ice in my veins instead of blood. She wasn't always joking."
His hand wraps around mine. His grip is tight, almost desperate.
"Hockey is the only thing I've ever been." His voice drops. "Take it from me and I don't know what's left."
My other hand finds his knee. I don't plan it. My palm just lands there, warm against the fabric of his joggers, and his quad muscle tenses under my touch.
"The rest of you is the man who rebuilt himself after a head injury," I say. "There’s no playbook for that. You wrote it yourself."
He doesn't respond. But his thumb traces a slow line across my knuckles, and I feel that touch all the way to my spine.
We stay like that for a while. Then I pull my laptop from the side table.
"What are you doing?" he frowns.
"We're making a plan."
"Ava..."
"You said Brennan wants private sessions. So let's figure out exactly what you can walk in there and prove." I open a blank document. "What have you still got?"
His lips twitch.
We work through it together. I type while he talks. Every time he names a strength, his voice firms. Every time he names a gap, his hand flexes on his thigh, and I have to stop myself from reaching for it again.
"Theo and Wyatt offered extra sessions," he says.
"Then we schedule them."
"We?"
"You need someone to organize this and you organize like a man who stores receipts in his pockets."
"I don't store receipts in my pockets."
"Don’t argue with me. I found seven in your jacket when I reorganized your closet."
He stares at me. "You went through my jacket pockets?"
"I went through your entire apartment, Kai. How do you think it got organized to your tastes?"
The warmth in his eyes deepen. His lips stretch into a slow grin.
Look away, Ava. You're staring at his mouth.
We work through the plan until Biscuit is asleep on her back between us, paws in the air.
I look at my laptop screen. The cursor blinks at the end of the list.
"Ava." Kai's voice becomes softer. "What did you want to tell me?"
My fingers freeze on the keyboard.
There's something I need to tell you in person.
I hear my own voice from the phone call, confident, determined. A woman who had her mind made up.
That woman didn't know he'd spend tonight sitting on her couch with the wreckage of his identity spread across his face. Didn't know he'd talk about falling through ice as a kid.
I notice the exhaustion carved into the lines around his eyes.
Telling Kai about the pregnancy would feel like dropping a boulder on a man who just crawled out from under one.
But that's the noble version.
The real reason is uglier. Telling him means handing him the power to leave.
Right now, in this warm kitchen with Biscuit snoring and our groceries mingling on the counter, I have him.
The moment I say the words, I become the woman who hid a pregnancy for months. He becomes a father who didn't know. And whatever fragile, terrifying thing is growing between us gets crushed under the weight of it.
I'm not ready to lose this. Not yet.
"It can wait," I say.
"You said it was important."
"It is. But tonight isn't the night."
He watches me with those steady brown eyes that miss nothing.
"Okay."
I close the laptop and stand. "I'm going to clean up and change. Stay."