Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Trevor
Sitting at Donovan’s for a late lunch, I glance around. Nobody is looking at us strangely anymore. Have they already moved on to the next thing to gossip about? But then something occurs to me.
“Who knows about the baby?” I ask. “I kind of let it slip to Jason yesterday. I had no idea you hadn’t told anyone. I knew you hadn’t before, but I figured after I left…”
I shake my head, still feeling all kinds of guilt over the way I’ve behaved.
“Water under the bridge, remember?” She laces her fingers with mine. “Some of my friends know. A few more than before. But that’s it.”
“I told Carter the other day when he brought me the letters. Word is going to get out. I think we should tell my parents. I think we should tell everyone.”
She looks at me oddly, eyes wide with a slow smile spreading across her face.
“What?”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you reference them as your parents and not Chuck and Dawn.” She squeezes my hand. “You’re different.”
“It’s because of you. Your willingness to accept me for who I am now, not just who I was. It’s freeing somehow. And it makes me not want to resist the past so much.”
Her eyes glaze over with tears. “I’m different too.”
“Yeah? How?”
“I no longer feel guilty about wanting this new, sexy, roguish man you’ve become.”
I touch a hand to my chest, feigning abhorrence. “Are you saying I wasn’t sexy before, Mrs. Criss? Because based on some of those diary entries you read to me, you couldn’t get enough of me.”
She giggles, and that sultry dimple that I pray our daughter inherits comes out to play. “Oh, you’ve always been sexy, just not in such a dangerous kind of way.”
“You think I’m dangerous?”
“Dangerous good, not dangerous bad.”
I laugh. “I didn’t know being dangerous could be a good thing.”
“Neither did I.” She scoots so close our thighs touch. “But I really like it.”
“Babe, you’re going to get me hard right here in this booth if you don’t stop it.”
She bites her lip, grinning like a schoolgirl. “You’ve never called me babe before.”
“Really? What did I call you? Oh, right, Sweet Ava, was it?”
Her head shakes. “That was only in the letters. You called me honey. I always thought it was a bit old-fashioned, but it’s what your dad has always called your mom. You called me sweetheart once or twice since you’ve been back, but I assumed it was a slip of the tongue, so I didn’t say anything.”
I look her square in the eyes. “Well, what’s it going to be? You choose.”
She shrugs and does that sexy little lip-biting thing again.
I laugh. “Babe it is.”
This earns me another appearance of her dimple.
“What did you call me?” I ask.
“Trevor,” she says. “Or Trev.” She chuckles. “Not very original.”
I kick her sneaker with my boot. “You called me baby once. That first day under the tree. After you kissed me and you thought I got my memory back.”
“That had never happened before. I think I was overcome by the moment. Is there something you prefer?”
“Well, let’s see. You tend to call me Trev when you want my dick inside you. And you definitely call me Trev when you come. So, yeah, I’m gonna go with that. I mean, you call me God too, but I’m thinking that might be a tad inappropriate for everyday use.”
She blushes and looks around to see if anyone heard me.
I chuckle. “Is that the sort of dangerous you’re talking about, babe?”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Deal with it,” I say with zero guilt whatsoever, surmising this may in fact be another new trait.
She smirks then smiles. “Gladly.”
“Now, how about we call my parents and ask if they can get together for dinner?”
Mom is crying. And not just happy crying, blubbering idiot crying. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve called her Mom, or if it’s because she just found out she’s going to be a grandmother. Probably a little of both.
Ava is pulled into a hug by my dad as Mom’s arms surround me. Then we switch it up and Dad grips me tightly and pats my back. “I knew you had it in you to step up and do the right thing.”
“This is definitely not just about the baby,” I assure them, as well as Ava. “I’d have come to my senses with or without her.”
“Her?” Mom squeals. “It’s a girl?”
More hugging.
I think I’ve gotten more hugs from her in the past five minutes than in the past few months. Probably because I was always so standoffish and she didn’t want to come on too strong. I appreciate that about her and my dad, that they gave me the time to figure things out for myself.
I tell them about my quest to reinstate my physician’s license, how I delivered a baby at Carter’s cabin, and about how reading an old letter I’d written to Ava had me crawling back, tail between my legs.
And even though she didn’t have to, Ava comes clean and tells them about the loan and the embryo transfers.
They have zero negative reactions to it. I get the idea my parents would have been thrilled to have a small part of me had I truly been the one who died in that attack.
Ava shows them the ultrasound pictures, and it has me thinking…
“When do you go back to the doctor?”
“Not for a few weeks.”
“I want to go with you. I want to see the baby live and in person.”
With a slight shake of her head, she says, “I won’t be having another ultrasound until the visit after that. Around twenty weeks will be the next one.”
“I’m coming,” I say. “And you’ll be getting another ultrasound. I have no idea if I was capable of convincing people before, but I promise you, I can be very convincing now.”
Ava snickers loudly as we share a look. Is she thinking what I am?
That I convinced her to take me back after what a douchebag I’d been?
Convinced her to let me sleep in her bed the very night I returned?
And that I convinced her to give this whole thing a go even after she’d pretty much decided it wasn’t going to happen?
“Plus,” I say with a cocky grin. “I’m kind of sort of a doctor, and doctors do each other favors.” I snort. “I think.”
“I think you can do whatever you set your mind to,” Dad says. “I’m proud of you, son. I hope you know that.”
And for the first time since I’ve known him, I don’t shy away. In fact, I revel in it. I’m his son. He’s my dad. In all honesty, I could have drawn far worse cards in the parent department. They’ve been nothing but loving, patient, and supportive.
“Of course you can come,” Ava says. “I’m happy you want to be a part of it. I’m sure Dr. Russo won’t mind doing an unscheduled ultrasound given the circumstances.”
“These delightful circumstances”—Mom motions to Ava’s belly—“have me thinking you’ll need a bigger place. That apartment of yours is going to be claustrophobic once there are three of you.”
“Yeah, well, with me not even working at the moment, there’s not much chance of us getting a house.”
“Not to mention the debt I got us into,” Ava adds.
I rub my hand down her thigh. “For all the right reasons, babe.”
My parents share a conspiratorial look.
I narrow my eyes. “What are you two up to?”
“Your mother and I talked about this long ago. It’s ridiculous for the two of us to have all this space. We don’t need four bedrooms. Especially since we only live here in the summer. We’ll take the apartment. You take the house.”
“Mom, Dad, I appreciate the offer, but that’s just not in our budget right now.” I squeeze Ava’s hand so she knows I’m not in any way mad at her about it.
“We aren’t suggesting you buy the house from us. We’re suggesting we simply swap spaces. The apartment would be perfect for us. Not to mention it’ll be a lot more convenient for us to help out in the coffee house once the baby comes.”
“I, uh…” I look at Ava, who is as surprised as I am. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say it’s a deal,” Dad says. “In a year or two or ten, when you’re in a position to do so, we’ll make it all legal and legit. Heck, maybe by then you won’t even want our house. But it just makes sense right now.”
Mom puts a hand on Ava’s shoulder. “Say yes. It’ll make us happy knowing a family, your family, is living in the house Trevor grew up in.”
Ava and I look at each other and seem to have an entire conversation without words. Did we used to? Then we both smile, and I think she even bounces in her seat a little.
“Yes,” I say. I reach out to shake Dad’s hand but get pulled into a hug. “And thank you. It’s very kind and generous of you.”
“You’re family, Trevor. You and Ava, and that little baby. This is what families do for each other.”
My insides turn to mush. I think I might even feel tears clogging my throat as I repeat the same words to them I said to Ava last night.
“I’m so glad it’s you,” I tell them. “I’m glad you’re my parents.”
I’m pretty sure all of us are crying in one way or another as we make plans to swap our households.