Chapter 26
AVA - ALREADY DECIDED
Harlan Gray didn’t storm into your life.
He didn’t crash through walls or light fires or demand space.
He just showed up. Quiet. Steady. Present.
And for someone like me, someone who had grown used to noise, to chaos, to people who made promises louder than they could keep, it was the stillness that caught me off guard.
These days, it wasn’t just stillness.
It was him leaning across the counter, brushing his fingers against mine, when he slid the coffee over. It was the way his lips ghosted over my temple when no one was looking. It was that low rumble of his voice when he muttered, “Morning, baby,” like his words were mine and mine alone.
I pretended it was routine. He pretended not to notice how my breath hitched.
Neither of us said the words we weren’t ready for, but they hovered there, thick as the autumn air pressing in through the cracked clinic windows.
Remi didn’t say much about it. But she noticed. Of course, she noticed.
“You like him,” she sing-songed once, flipping through a folder.
“I do.”
She looked up. Her expression softened, almost wistful. “You love him…”
I didn’t know if it was a question or a statement.
But I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t put it out there in the world. Not yet.
Because even as I leaned into Harlan’s steadiness, something else was shifting. Something colder.
Sergeant Erin Voss.
At first, I told myself I was being paranoid.
But Erin had a way of circling like a hawk.
She lingered too long outside the clinic doors.
Interrupted intakes without warning. Took over cases that should’ve been ours.
Once, she walked straight into my office mid-session, clipboard in hand, her fake smile sharper than any blade.
She called it “cross-referencing reports” or “jurisdictional overlap.” Bullshit.
I pulled Remi aside after the third time. “She’s fishing.”
“I know.”
“You think she’s trying to build a case against us?”
“I think she’s looking for a crack,” Remi said flatly. “So, she can shove a wedge in and blow the whole place wide open.”
“Why now?”
Remi didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
The clinic. The fundraiser. Harlan. Me. We were visible now in ways we hadn’t been before. And Erin didn’t like losing control.
That night, as I locked up, I caught Harlan waiting outside, leaning against his truck.
September air bit at my skin, the smell of woodsmoke already drifting in from the outskirts of town.
He didn’t say anything when I stepped out, just took my keys, brushed his thumb over my knuckles, and kissed me like he’d been waiting all day for the chance.
A steadying kiss, not greedy. Anchoring. Like coming home.
“Don’t let her get to you,” he murmured, meaning Erin.
I didn’t ask how he knew. I just leaned into him a moment longer than I meant to.
A week later, Jack showed up at the clinic unannounced. No suit. No legal folder. Just jeans and a gray Henley. He looked older, but not in the way that comes with wisdom. In the way that comes from carrying too much weight you never asked for.
Remi wasn’t in. Harlan had just left. It was just me and the slow tick of the front desk clock as Jack leaned against the wall, eyes on the floor like he didn’t know where to begin.
“You alright?” I asked, taking in the tension carved deep into his jaw.
He shrugged. “Define, alright.”
I waited.
Finally, he said, “It came in.”
I froze. “City DA offer?”
He nodded. “Official this time. Bigger caseload. More resources. Full relocation package. They want me in two months.”
I set down the chart in my hand. “Does Remi know?”
That’s when he looked at me.
And that’s when I saw it.
The hurt. The tired kind that doesn’t lash out, just seeps into your bones until everything feels too heavy.
“Does it matter?” he asked.
“Jack, come on. Of course, it matters.”
He gave a quiet, bitter laugh. “She’s already decided. She told me to go before I even said yes. Like… like I’m a car she’s giving back to the dealer. She's been pulling away since the first time it was discussed, when it was barely a maybe.”
“It’s not like that, and you know it. She’s trying to protect you.”
“Yeah?” His voice cracked. “What if I don’t want to be protected? What if I just want to be chosen? What if I want her to let me choose her?”
That landed too hard. Too real. Because we both knew what it felt like to never be someone’s first choice.
“I don’t think it’s about you,” I said gently.
“I know,” he replied grimly. “That’s the part that makes it worse.”
The silence between us stretched, full of everything we weren’t saying. Everything we’d both watched unravel.
Finally, he looked toward the door like he might bolt, then stopped.
“I’m taking the offer, Ava.”
“I know.”
He looked broken when he added, “I think I’ll always love her. But I won’t turn down my dream job for someone who won’t even ask me what I want or believe me when I tell her the truth. I wanted her to believe me when I said we’d never be her parents. That I’d never resent her. Not for a second.”
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. “I know.”
“Keep an eye on her,” he said. “She’ll pretend she’s okay. She’s good at that.”
I wiped my face. “I always do.”
He nodded once and stepped outside. The door clicked shut behind him.
I stood there in the quiet clinic, September wind pushing leaves against the glass, thinking about all the ways people try to love each other while bracing for the fall.
And all the ways the cracks still show, even when we pretend, they don’t.
That night, Harlan found me sitting on the clinic steps long after closing. He didn’t ask what happened. He just sat down beside me, slid his jacket over my shoulders, and laced his fingers with mine.
And I realized how easy it was to fall in love with someone who stayed. Someone who listened, even when I was quiet and saw all of me and still held my hand.