Chapter 14
AVA - AVOIDING HIM
If I had a nickel for every time a man told me to calm down, I’d have enough to fund our damn clinic myself.
I was elbows-deep in paperwork when I heard the front door chime.
Remi looked up from the file she was flipping through at the front desk. She tried to play it off, but her body went tense. “You expecting someone?”
I didn’t answer. Because I wasn't expecting anyone... But I had a feeling about who it was. And I was avoiding him.
Boots on clean tile echoed through the room. The faintest waft of aftershave that clung to authority like a second skin. And that calm, steady cadence I’d come to associate with one person in particular. My pulse jumped before I could stop it, traitorous and annoying.
“Chief,” I said, not looking up. “We’re closed for walk-ins.”
“I’m not a walk-in,” Harlan said, stepping into view.
He held a case folder in one hand, the other resting at his hip like he wasn’t sure if this visit was official or personal. He filled the doorway without even trying, too tall, too steady, and damn me, part of me noticed.
I stood, palms flat on the desk. “What do you need?”
He looked at me, then around the room like he was scanning for backup. “Had a referral come in through county services. A woman from the shelter downtown. Your clinic was listed as her trauma intake.”
I blinked. “And you needed to bring that information in person?”
He paused. “I wanted to make sure it got into the right hands.”
“You could’ve emailed it. Called. Sent a carrier pigeon.”
One corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a smirk, and it hit me harder than it should have.
“Ava.” Remi tried.
“No.” My voice sharpened. “Because every time you show up lately, it’s either to clean up your officers’ messes or to tell us why your hands are tied.”
Harlan shifted his weight, leaning just slightly closer. Not threatening, never that. But his presence was heavy, steady, like a wall I couldn’t knock down no matter how hard I swung.
“You think I came here to waste your time?” he asked, voice low.
“I think you don’t know the first thing about my time.”
His brows pulled tight. “That’s not fair.”
“Neither is seventeen-year-olds with bruises shaped like fingerprints. Neither is a domestic call that ends with the abuser laughing while your officers write up a report that goes nowhere. Tell me again about what’s fair, Chief.”
Harlan’s sharp jaw ticked. That tiny muscle flex distracted me more than I’d ever admit. “You think I don’t care? That I'm not doing my job?”
“I think you’re not doing enough.”
His eyes locked on mine, hard and unflinching. There was heat in it — anger, yes, but something else I didn’t want to name. The silence stretched, humming in the air like static.
“You think I can be everywhere at once?” he said finally, voice dropping into that gravelly register that always did something I hated to me.
I didn’t blink. “No. I think you should be somewhere that matters.”
That landed. I saw it hit, just for a second, before he threw his hands up.
“We’re stretched thin, Ava. You may think that anything you touch is top priority.
But I have more to deal with than just you, Ms. Sinclair.
.. Do you know what’s on my desk? MC brawls, cartel whispers, officers burning out, and to add to that shit, I have people like you throwing gasoline every time there's a spark.”
“People like me... People like me... Are you fucking kidding me right now, Chief? Maybe start by telling your officers to stop setting fires and start fixing things.”
Something flickered in his expression. Almost like he wanted to argue, but the words caught on his tongue. Instead, he stepped closer, close enough that I caught the warmth of his aftershave, the faint scrape of stubble along his jaw.
“Ava,” he said, softer this time. Almost a warning. Almost pleading.
And maybe that was worse than the fight.
“Enough.” Remi’s voice cut through the room. Not loud. But firm.
She stepped between us like gravity, calm and grounded in that way only she could be when the rest of us were splintering.
“We’ve all had a long week... well couple of months,” she said. “And screaming across the front desk doesn’t make the system less broken. It doesn't fix things.”
I looked at her. Her pink sundress, which she said was Valentine's Day appropriate, a soft white wrap and worn-out boots. Her eyes held too many storms. She wasn’t scolding me, but she wasn’t backing me either.
She was holding the line. Like always.
And today I didn't like it.
Harlan glanced between us, then offered the file toward her. She took it without a word.
A beat passed. Then two.
And I couldn’t stand being in the same room anymore.
“Close up when you’re done,” I told Remi, grabbing my bag. “I need air.”
Neither of them stopped me. I didn’t expect them to.
I left the clinic like I was on fire, because sometimes that was the only way I knew how to walk away.
And the worst part?
I wasn’t even mad at him.
I was mad that part of me still wanted him to follow. That some reckless, hungry piece of me liked the way his voice sounded when it broke against mine. That maybe, if I threw enough rage his way, he’d finally see the cracks and do more than patch the edges.
But the cracks were everywhere.
And I was running out of glue.