by CJ Azevedo
“That right there, Deven, that is why you have a successful firm, not all that other bullshit Danielle mentioned.” She smiled a pretty and grateful smile and I continued. “That may work. Let me take care of some things tonight and I’ll give you a call tomorrow and let you know if we’ll need to set up that meeting or not.”
I shake Deven’s hand and split from my parents before I leave, but I don’t see Ava outside anywhere. I head out to my car, planning on calling her once I get on the road. I’ll go get her wherever she’s at, because I fully intend on making her understand everything tonight and having her jump on board with my plans.
As I approach my car my damn heart soars at the sight of her sitting on the hood with her heels kicked off and her knees pressed together. Never has such a sight made me so instantly, incredibly happy. She sees me but doesn’t smile, doesn’t slide off the hood or turn her head in the other direction either. I walk right up to her, grabbing just under her thighs to open her legs enough to allow me in between them. I cup her face and kiss her deeply. She doesn’t refuse me and I want, so badly, to celebrate the accomplishment, but I don’t. I’m too busy feeling her hair glide through my fingers like one of Harper’s silky blankets, indulging in her tongue keeping in sync with mine, like the perfect rhythm, and feeling my insides ignite each time she releases a quiet moan of pleasure. Maybe dinner won’t happen after all; she’s as lust-driven as I am right now and a sexually starved Ava is something I denied once a long time ago and I’m not willing to deny again.
I slide her off the car and her feet drop to the asphalt below us but her mouth never leaves mine. I walk her backwards toward the passenger door and open it before standing just inside to remove her jacket, revealing a tight white tank top. I toss the jacket into the back seat and pull down the strap that sits on her left shoulder so I can run my tongue from her shoulder up her neck and to my favorite spot just below her ear. She smells like my happiness and I can’t get enough. I glide my right hand around to her back at her waist and pull her even closer. I rest my hand down on her firm backside and curse the sunlight and the public and the law that prevents me from making love to her right now because of them. Whoever wrote that law obviously didn’t look into the future and see how bad of a decision that was going to be for me today.
“Dec,” Ava whispers in her I-need-you-right-now voice and I force myself to gently push her into the seat behind her, physically buckle her up myself and then slam the door shut using every bit of restraint that I possess.
I can hear her laughing from inside the car and it’s the second sweetest sound I have ever heard. I have a lot of moments in life that stand out to me that mean so much in so many different ways. I even have an AA category, After Ava, and those moments are in an abundance, but my top two in no particular order are the first time Harper called me Daddy and right now, listening to Ava laugh wholeheartedly when I feared I would never be on the receiving end of that laugh again.
After picking up her heels from the ground, I walk around and get in the car without saying a word or looking in her direction. If I do, we may never leave this parking lot. She’s not laughing loudly anymore, but I can feel her smile as she stares at me. The radio is off and she’s breathing so quietly the only thing I can hear is my heart pounding into my ears, my ragged breathing trying to regain control, the tires on the road and the wind as it breezes past our windows. After I jump on the freeway and head back towards our part of town, I chance a glance over at her. Bad idea. She’s looking at me with a happy smile on her face and the “I want you” look in her eyes. I take a deep breath and chant to a certain part of my anatomy to chill the fuck out and be patient.
“Dinner?” I ask hesitantly, secretly hoping like hell she says no.
She slowly shakes her head in the negative.
“Beach?” I offer, even though all I want is to take her home to our bed.
Another shake of the head.
“Home?” I ask more quietly than the other offers, hoping she gets the full extent of the invitation.
Ava stares at me for a full minute seemingly contemplating her answer before turning her gaze to her window and replying “I need to go by my house first. Max and his family are supposed to be meeting me there to find out how today went. It won’t take long, and then we can go back to your house and… talk.”
Right. Talk. I should let it go but I rarely do what I should in favor of what feels right or what I want, so I correct her, “our house.”
She smiles and doesn’t deny it. I’ll take it.
Everyone is already at Ava’s place when we get there and I decide that it’s probably best if I wait out in the car for her to have time to discuss things with the only family she has. She tries to argue to get me to go inside with her, but I convince her that we could leave sooner if they know I’m out here waiting on her. She quickly concedes, agreeing that’s a good plan, and walks quickly inside. While I wait for her, I call Macie and ask her to take Harper for the night. Then I call Gino’s and order delivery for an hour from now. Before I make my last call, I text Grey.
Me- Don’t come home tonight
Grey- See you tomorrow
And that is why he’s my best friend. No questions, no explanations, just results. My last call is to Jax, my newfound ally that I never thought would be.
“Hey, man, how’d it go?” Jax asks in way of greeting.
“Uh, it’s still going. She was meeting Max’s family at her house so I’m out in the car waiting for her then I’m taking her home.”
He knows exactly what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, and he and his dad agree with me, but they need to have Ava’s back, so they’re doing their best to play both parts without being obvious. The last thing we want is for her to go get a strange attorney who will promise her the moon, take her money, lose the case and in turn make me lose her completely.
“Listen, Dec, while we were waiting for you out front, your very pissed off and very fired attorney approached Ava.”
The fury is back before he even tells me what she said. Just the fact that Danielle approached her at all has me wanting to find ways to bury her…professionally speaking of course.
“She told Ava that she was a blind, daft woman if she didn’t realize by now that she is your whole world and that everything you guys are going through is completely unnecessary and a waste of everyone’s time.”
I suck in a deep breath, knowing how Ava would’ve taken that last statement and I’m trying to figure out why she hasn’t reamed me for it yet when Jax finishes.
“Then, before she left, she told her to ‘just marry the damn guy and put both of yourselves out of your misery.’” Jax laughs and explains that Ava went on a small tangent on how everyone just assumes that everybody in the whole world is okay with marriage and she finds it completely crazy!
And that’s why she hasn’t reamed me—she’s in love with me and another woman just told her how much she means to mean and that that other woman was fired because of my love for her. I tell Jax about the meeting with Deven if I don’t succeed on my own with Ava tonight and he said that his dad already did something similar while they were waiting today and showed it to her once we finished. He said that she’s understanding more and more and is just having a difficult time learning how to accept the fact that she needs to let go, not give up.
Ava comes out in jeans and a t-shirt just as I’m hanging up with Jax. She climbs in and automatically leans over and kisses me. My body lights up.
Of course I miss the sex. I miss having a partner at Harper’s dinnertime and bedtime when she is more than a handful. I miss my woman’s touch as I’m shaving in the morning, how our bed is always made and the throw pillows on the couch actually miraculously manage to stay on the couch instead of constantly being on the floor. These are very noticeable things that I miss on a regular basis with Ava not being home with us. But her getting in the car and her kissing me isn’t something I’ve allowed myself to even think about, let
alone miss and long for until this very moment and it suddenly seems crushing. A kiss. A simple kiss from her and I feel as though the last several months have come to a head and everything is about to crush my airway, not allowing me to breathe. Instead of starting the car, I open the door and step out. I brace my hands on the hood and bow my head, trying to even out my breathing and avoid what feels a helluva lot like an anxiety attack. Thankfully, Ava makes no move to get out of the car. Once my breathing returns to normal, I slip back in without uttering a word about what just happened. I back out and head towards our house. About ten minutes away, I slowly move my hand over and lay it on her thigh. She quietly exhales a small breath and smiles in my direction before setting her hand on my own. I think she may get it.
The sun is setting as I pull up the driveway and park the car. I get out and walk around to Ava’s side to open her door for her. She didn’t wait for me but that’s not unusual, she normally only waits when we go out on a date. I close the door behind her and grasp her hand as we walk up to the front door and go inside. I haven’t changed a thing since she walked out all those months ago. The evening she left, she packed majority of her things and a few pictures of Harper but left most of the pictures of the three of us and all of those are right where she left them. I know how this is going to sound, because I heard it from everyone that walks through the door until they understood that I was never giving up on her, but the shoes she kept by the back door while she was still living here are still sitting right next to the back door. I don’t know what she’s going to say to that, but it’s the least of my worries of her freaking out on my weirdness; our bedroom and bathroom are way worse.
Ava looks around but doesn’t seem surprised at all and I find myself relieved. When she picks up Harper from here she always calls ahead of time and asks me to have her ready and she never comes inside, she always stands on the front steps while we go over everything for that week. Now she’s here, back home, inspecting it thoughtfully as I hang my coat up in the closet and remove my shoes.
“Dinner should be here soon; would you like a glass of wine?” I ask her quietly, the silence in the house near deafening.
She nods without looking back at me, kicking off her own shoes and walking over to the fireplace mantel to look at the pictures she took and framed and placed there. I pad silently to the kitchen and uncork a bottle of Pinot Grigio before pouring her a glass. I opt for a Jack and coke and then carry the drinks to the living room to sit next to her on the sofa. We never sit in this room and it feels uncomfortable. The last time we were together in this room, our worlds were flipped upside down and essentially stolen from us. Just as all of this is crossing my mind, Ava looks over at me with a sad smile on her glossy lips and asks, “Do you want to go sit in the family room?”
I’m not sure why I didn’t suggest it, I guess maybe I’m trying not to rock the boat. “Hell yeah, this room sucks.”
She laughs and then agrees. “Yeah, it really does.”
Once we settle on the comfy couch in the family room off the kitchen, Ava curls up into my side and I finally feel whole again. We just might actually survive this.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ava
The second that infuriating attorney told me Macie fired her on my behalf and that Dec was fighting for me and not against me and told me to stop being a blind, daft woman, it all sort of fell into place for me. I’ve been against marriage for so many years for many different reasons, one of which being bound by a contract (that makes no sense to me—what business is it of the state’s on what I do or don’t do in my relationship) and two, losing control of my own decisions and choices and having to consult with the other party tied to that contract. In reality, with Declan, I wouldn’t be giving up my control of decision making but instead having my partner to help me make the right decisions for our family. Dec has never removed my choices from me and I can see now that by him gaining sole legal custody of Harper, he’s protecting my ability to make my choices and decisions concerning our little girl. Marriage may mean words are announced by an officiant and official papers signed by witnesses, but to me it means what Dec and I already have. We are a family unit, Dec and I are solid partners, best friends, and that can’t be broken. I’m tired of trying to remember who I’m fighting with and for what when he’s offering everything I’ve ever wanted and needed on a shiny silver platter.
Before I realize it, my glass is almost empty. Dec’s been silently letting me work through my words in my head. This is one of the reasons I believe we were created for each other, sometimes… we just know.
“I assume you haven’t been sleeping with anyone since I moved out?” I ask. No need to beat around the bush, after all, we’ve gone through more stress in our short relationship than a lot of couples will ever have to experience, let’s just get it out in the open now right? Right.
“Uhh, your assumption is correct, I have not slept with anyone since you took a small break from our home.” Apparently he’s in a bit of denial about the status of our relationship, especially judging by the fact that he hasn’t changed anything here in the house even though I did, in fact, move out.
“Can I also assume that you still feel the same way about me as you did before all of this took place?” I’m fairly confident in what his reply is going to be but I’m not 100% certain, so I opt to not look at him for this answer.
“Sunshine, look at me.” My strong, possessive man has made an appearance and my body lights up like an inferno.
I love when this Declan shows up. My head is still bowed as I tilt it in his direction and cut my eyes toward him beneath my lashes. But that’s not good enough.
An irritated noise resounds from the back of his throat as he takes my chin in between his thumb and forefinger to tilt my head up in the direction of his gaze. “I honestly didn’t think it was possible, but I love you even more than the day all this shit started.” He sets our glasses on the end table behind him before continuing. “Ava, you shock the shit outta me all the time. Just when I think you’ve proven yourself to be tough, you go and live through something and show complete resilience. If just some of the moms in this world showed half as much of your tenacity when it comes to the care and protection of their children, our world would be amazing. You have to know that I will never take that away from you. I just want to be a part of it, Ava, with you and with Harper. I want our family back and I want to know that our daughter can keep the mom she knows and loves without worrying about it anymore. Please, Sunshine, let me give that to you, to us.” He’s staring so deeply into my eyes I can feel it tinkering its way into my soul.
I’m lost to him and I know without doubt that I don’t ever want to be found without him; I never want to be alone again. “I’ll sign the papers. As long as you keep your promise and they go directly into the safe and they’re only brought out in an emergency, non-ideal situation,” I say with as I close my eyes. I get my family back, exactly what I want, but a tiny, scared part of me recognizes that I just gave up the last bit of control I had, even if it did have a time limit on it. I don’t have long to dwell on it, though, because before I realize it, I’m lying flat on my back and Dec is heavily on top of me.
His large hands gently but firmly grab onto either side of my face before he lowers his forehead to mine and closes his eyes. His breathing is heavy, as is mine. When he rests his lips against mine, I’m fully prepared to share a warm and passionate kiss, to reunite properly, but that’s not what he gives me. He just leaves them sitting there, connecting, fusing together but not moving. After a moment, he props himself up on his elbows and pulls back enough to rub his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Ugh, I’m sorry. My fuckin’ allergies are driving me crazy tonight,” he says in a gruff voice as he sniffles.
I look into bloodshot eyes as he removes his hands. My badass boyfriend was moved to tears by my agreement. His sorry excuse of allergies is comical but he’s being dead serious, silently pleading with me not
to call him on it and there is no way on God’s green earth that I would do that right now. My hands slide along his gorgeous face up to his hair and tangle together at his nape before I pull him back down to kiss me again. I realize in this moment that he’s told me he loves me twice tonight and not once have I returned the sentiment.
“Dec?” I can’t hold it in anymore. I went from telling him several times a day every day that I love him to not saying it all for months.
“Yes,” he whispers in his raspy voice, his lips brushing against mine as he leans back in to actually kiss me this time.
“I love you, babe, and I have missed you so much,” I say, my own tears once again falling from the corners of my eyes.
Declan makes a noise I was once used to hearing, then lifts me off the couch and carries me through the dining room, through the formal living area, to the foyer and up the stairs. He’s kissing everywhere his mouth can reach me and I’m laughing uncontrollably. I don’t remember the last time I felt like I could burst from happiness, but I do know that it was because of this man. Just before we reach the top landing, the doorbell rings and Dec freezes, his teeth nipping at my jaw, frozen in place.
“Shit, the food’s here.” He sets me down and kisses me softly on my lips. “Why don’t you go ahead and get ready for bed and I’ll bring the food up; we’ll eat in the bedroom tonight. Sound good?”
It does sound good, but me being ready for bed is me being naked. I’m pretty sure I’m not being presumptuous; that that’ll be okay with Dec, but I can’t eat naked, it’s weird. I tell him okay anyway and make my way to our…his…no, our bedroom when I hear him yell at me to stop.