The Ex Effect

by Karla Sorensen

"Flowers and cheese, eh? I figured you'd go for chocolate, not curds."

  Ava laughed. “Oh, I manage to find that everywhere I go, don’t you worry.”

  A memory had me chuckling under my breath. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, and from the way she bit the side of her lip, I could tell she wanted to ask. I leaned toward her. “I vaguely remember someone slipping a king-size Hershey bar into my duffel bag once with a note that said it would help me be strong for our game against Cal.”

  Ava groaned and covered her face with one hand. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

  “How old were you?”

  She blew out a slow breath and shook her head. “Maybe fifteen.”

  “So thoughtful,” I teased, nudging her with my shoulder again. “We beat Cal that year too. Maybe we lost my junior year because someone didn’t give me a chocolate bar.”

  “I snagged money from my dad’s wallet to buy you that,” she said conspiratorially. I was laughing, but after a second her face smoothed out. “He didn’t notice. No surprise there, I suppose.”

  A frown pulled down the corners of my lips when we were forced to break apart because a large family walked through the market. No, no surprise there. As often as I’d been there during those years, sometimes it seemed like I was the only one who paid attention to her.

  I stopped walking to hand a vendor a wad of cash for a small bouquet of red and orange blooms that caught my eye. The small Asian woman behind the counter wrapped them deftly in white paper and handed them to me with a smile and a nod.

  "What?" I asked when Ava gave me a curious look.

  Her mouth opened, then closed. She shook her head as I tucked the flowers under my arm. "Nothing," she said finally. "Just ... observing."

  "You used to do that a lot."

  Ava's dark eyebrows lifted briefly in concession, and her smile was wry. "I suppose I did."

  When my memories of Ava as a slightly gawky, hovering-on-the-edges-of-the-room teenager juxtaposed with the woman in front of me , it made for a blurry reality. I remembered her being curious and quiet, and sweet but reserved—probably out of necessity. Ashley had always been the one in the spotlight, leaving no room for anyone else.

  Even now, although she directed so much within the Wolves organization, Ava was the one on the sidelines and not center stage. I wondered how much of her upbringing influenced that.

  Either way, it almost felt like a challenge to see what this Ava was like when she no longer hid behind her job.

  She was the quarterback, her camera the O-line in front of her, and I couldn't tell which direction she was going to move in. For a man like me, competitive to the very marrow in my bones, it was a challenge I couldn't ignore.

  "Are you really going to make them throw fish at my head?" I asked when her face made it clear she didn't want to dwell on her observational skills. It was something in the set of her jaw, I realized. When I wasn't pushing her on anything related to the past, it relaxed a bit.

  "Oh, come on," she said, nudging me with her shoulder. "It's a Seattle tradition. They're famous for it."

  Warily, I watched men wearing aprons and big rubber gloves heft a fish over the heads of two giggling girls. "Yeah, but I'm six five," I replied, giving her the side-eye. "If I get a face full of salmon, you’ll owe me big time, Baker."

  Ava tipped her head back and laughed.

  She was readying her camera to catch every horrifying second, talking at the same time with one of the guys behind the counter, who assured me that they were professionals, when Ava's phone went off.

  With one finger held up, she moved to the side and answered it. "Ava Baker."

  She cut me a look that I didn't understand.

  "Uh-huh." With a twist of her slim wrist, she stared hard at her watch. "Yeah, we can do that. I'm shooting a piece with Hawkins right now, so that's no problem." She nodded. "Absolutely. Thanks for thinking of us."

  She disconnected the call and shook her head at the fish guys, who groaned dramatically.

  "We're going to have to cut your tourist day short," she said.

  Ava tucked her phone back into the camera bag and gave me a small smile. I couldn't read whether it was disappointed or not.

  "Sick of me already?"

  She barked out a laugh. "Don't fish for compliments; it's not attractive." She moved to the side so people could walk past us. The pun, considering where we were standing, made me chuckle.

  "That was SportsCenter,” she explained. “They had someone drop out for a broadcast tonight, and they want to do a short interview with you and Logan Ward via satellite. They're highlighting defenses right now, and with the traction you got for the NFL Network piece, they want to do one of their own." She glanced down at her watch again. "But we need to have you showered, shaved, changed, and back at the office in about"—she tsked—"two hours. Can you manage that?"

  I rubbed at my jaw, and her eyes tracked the movement. "A shave too?"

  Her eyes narrowed, and I laughed.

  "Yeah, I can manage that."

  She exhaled, clearly relieved. "Good. You're the easy part, though. Let's grab an Uber to save time. I'll call Logan on the way. That will be the hard part."

  "Yeah?"

  Ava hummed. "Remember how you said half the guys were terrified of me?"

  I nodded.

  "He's not one of them."

  Her face was smooth as she said that, with no hint of anger or annoyance, but the tightness in her eyes was enough that I reached for the wrapped flowers under my arm and held them out to her.

  "Here," I told her.

  Now her face went blank as she took them from me, her mouth opening and closing again. "You didn't get these for me, though," she said, but her lips tugged up in a smile regardless.

  Hadn’t I?

  I shrugged. "You'll enjoy them more than I will. Besides, I know you'll get home and eat some chocolate. You might as well add another indulgence to the end of your day."

  Ava's cheeks pinked slightly, but she kept her face aimed away from me.

  Maybe it was a strange impulse to give her the flowers, but it didn't feel wrong. And I was a big believer in following those instincts.

  It made her smile, and that made me feel good. That was enough.

  The Uber pulled up in front of us at the curb, the driver's eyes bugging out of his head when he saw me open the door for Ava. I smiled politely, waiting for her long, tan legs to disappear before I attempted to get in after her without banging my head on the edge of the door. My seat belt clicked into place, and we still hadn't moved. When I looked up, the driver was staring unabashedly in the rearview mirror.

  Ava sighed. "You can get a selfie with him and an autograph if you get us there in less than ten minutes."

  "Deal," he answered, and the tires squealed as we took off.

  "I hate wearing ties."

  This from Logan Ward, one hour and fifty minutes after Ava got the phone call.

  We were sitting in a large room, surrounded by lights and people wearing headsets, holding clipboards and makeup brushes, with two massive cameras pointing in our direction. He fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat, no tie in sight. I dropped my hand from mine and glanced over at him.

  Before I could speak, Ava appeared from the darkness created by all the bright lights aimed at us. "I know you hate ties, Logan. Everyone on the team knows you hate ties."

  "Not everyone," he grumbled, narrowing his eyes at mine.

  Most players had been welcoming. Most guys had sought me out in the building to say hi or sent me a text welcoming me to the team, but not Logan. I'd been the captain for all but my rookie year at my old team. The cursory handshake and curt "Welcome to Washington" he gave me on my first day hadn't sat well with me. And here we were, doing an interview that Ava politely demanded of us, even though those three words were all he'd spoken to me.

  Maybe he wasn't terrified of Ava, but he'd still shown up.

  Her phone call with him had been qu
ick and her voice fierce.

  Ward, I don't care if you're bleeding out in the emergency room right now. Tell them to stitch your ass up, because you will be in nice clothes, in the studio, in two hours. Do you understand me?

  Whatever he said had made her close her eyes and breathe slowly for ten counts, then she said fine and hung up. When would I stop noticing how different she was? How changed she was?

  Standing in front of me, batting my hand away from the knot of my tie, Ava was the only bright thing in the entire room. Both Logan and I were wearing dark colors. The room was all shades of black, white, and silver as we waited for the interviewer to show up on the video feed.

  Her dress was some vivid reddish pink that probably had a fancy name, and her heels were skyscraper tall and bright yellow. It probably shouldn't have looked good, but it did. While she reached her hand out to fix the knot of my tie and lean back to study it with a critical eye, I still struggled to reconcile this Ava with the Ava I'd known so long ago. That Ava wore T-shirts and jean shorts. This Ava was sleek and polished, all solid punches of color and subtle sexiness that made my skin feel two sizes too small.

  Especially when she raised her face to mine and the lighting around us made the green of her eyes look exactly the same shade as fresh cut grass. It was the same color as a football field, one of the only places I truly felt at home.

  My eyebrows pulled in as if the fact I'd even noticed was strange. She made one more pull to the edge of my tie and nodded.

  "Thanks," I told her in a rough voice when she stepped back.

  "Can't have a crooked tie on camera." Her glance at Logan was loaded with annoyance, and I bit back a smile.

  "That would be awful," he muttered. "Why am I here again?"

  My eyes flicked back and forth between them, and I fought the instinct to smack the back of his head as I would've with my former teammates. But Ava's eyes narrowed on him, and I sat back in my chair.

  Ava let out a slow, controlled breath. "Remember when the guy from KIRO asked you about whether you planned to retire this year, and instead of answering, you stared at him for a full thirty seconds before walking away?"

  "Yeah," Logan answered warily.

  "And I had to spend thirty minutes reaming out your ass from here to Tokyo because it started a campaign on Twitter of how the front office should force you to retire because you were such a raging asshole to Seattle's most beloved sports reporter?"

  Logan cleared his throat.

  "That pleasant incident aside," she continued, "it's because you're one of the captains, and if you bailed on another interview, I've planned forty-seven new ways to dispose of your body, Ward."

  My laughter was instant, especially when Logan simply let out a slow, controlled sigh of his own. Apparently, this was nothing new between them. I had to remind myself that Ava had been dealing with Logan, and men just like him, for years. It was impossible to be around players and their egos for that long without developing a thick skin. She caught my eye and winked. Apparently, Ava's skin was like Teflon.

  Another thing that was new.

  Over the years I spent with Ashley, every time I saw her or her parents toss some thoughtless comment in Ava's direction about how she didn't fit in or how she was different than her sister, there was a visible wound in her eyes and a downturn of her mouth.

  This Ava seemed impervious, and I added it to the list of things I wondered about her. When had that shield slammed down? It must have been sometime after Ashley and I broke up.

  An assistant walked over to us and started asking Logan a few questions, so Ava directed her attention fully in my direction.

  Those eyes. It would take me all day, but I kept wanting to think of names for the shade of green they were.

  "Need anything? I can't imagine this will take too long. They only need to fill about five minutes, so I think they'll just ask you both a couple of questions. Nothing too specific. Nothing you haven't covered already."

  I shook my head. "It'll be fine."

  Ava gave me a smile and a slow shake of her head. "If only everyone on the team made my job this easy, Matthew Hawkins. You're going to make it look like I actually know what I'm doing."

  "You fishing for compliments, Slim?" I teased.

  She didn't answer, only lifted one dark eyebrow.

  The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. "I've gotta tell you, I'm having a hard time getting used to this version of you."

  Her entire body froze, so subtly that I might not have noticed it if I wasn't paying such close attention.

  "What version?" she whispered. "I'm still me."

  "You are still you," I assured her, cutting my eyes over to Logan to make sure he wasn't listening. I shook my head slightly when the words didn't come as easily as I wanted. "You have the same humor, the same smarts ..."

  When my voice trailed off, she curled her lips up in a bemused smile. "Seems like someone isn't sure what to say."

  I laughed. "I just wish I hadn't said it here," I told her, gesturing around the room. I took a deep breath and held her gaze. "Grown-up Ava has been a pleasant surprise, that's all."

  Her eyes took on a glow; the kind of happy, pleased glow that did strange things to her face. Her skin lit up like a light bulb went on somewhere in her body that I couldn't see.

  I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell her more about what I saw in her just to keep that glow going. Ava should look like that all the time. And just as I opened my mouth to tell her that, her phone went off in her hand, and both of our eyes went to it naturally.

  Iron shutters going down over her face couldn't have had a more instantaneous effect. She stared at the screen just long enough that I saw the first few words of the text.

  Ashley: I can't believe you ...

  If I could have equated the instant pulse of silence between us to something, it would have been that old footage of a nuclear bomb going off. The plume of smoke billowing into the sky, mushrooming larger and larger until it obscured everything around it.

  Even though she angled the phone away before I could see anything else, she didn't pull her eyes off the words. It didn't even matter what must have come after the few words I saw. Maybe Ashley was being nice. I can't believe you haven't called me this week. Or I can't believe you didn't tell me you cut your hair. I can't believe you haven't watched this show yet. There were a million things it could have been.

  But I knew Ashley, or I used to. The type of self-absorbed person she was wouldn't just melt away magically. And even if I'd wondered, the look on Ava's face told me everything I needed to know.

  The Teflon I'd wondered about earlier wasn't some seamless armor around her. If there was even the smallest hole, the tiniest puncture, then her sister had direct access to it. Because that look in her eyes was exactly what I'd seen so many years ago. Ashley knew exactly what to say to make her sister feel small. Feel less.

  Not for the first time, I wish I'd never asked Ashley Baker out on that first date. The dumb college kid I was then had overlooked so many things about her because she was beautiful and smart and popular. Because the wealth of her family was dazzling. Because she made me feel interesting. Until none of that was enough. Until the ugliness underneath her beauty began to show more and more.

  Maybe I'd suffered for a while because of Ashley, but the person standing in front of me had put up with her for a lifetime.

  "Ava," I said quietly, lifting my hand to touch her.

  She stepped backward. Logan shifted in his seat, glancing down at my hand.

  Ava cleared her throat. Face blank, internal light now cold and dark, her lips in a hollow, plastic version of a smile. "Play nice, boys. They'll have the video feed ready to go in about two minutes. Logan, I know you hate answering questions, but please pretend you want to be here, okay?"

  I gave him a hard look. Logan never glanced at me once, but he must have seen enough in Ava's carefully blank face that he simply nodded. No smartass answer, no long-sufferin
g sigh. Just a nod.

  My shoulders relaxed, and I had to breathe through the sudden hot surge of protectiveness I'd felt toward Ava. It was clear she didn't need a protector with any of the guys on the team, but it didn't negate how instant, how visceral it had felt.

  But even if I'd wanted to dwell on it, I couldn't. We were given a countdown, and the video feed to the SportsCenter studio in New York filled the screen in front of us. Logan and I smiled, answering questions easily as though we were friends. As if the previous fifteen minutes hadn't happened at all.

  Once the camera cut off, I waited as patiently as possible for an assistant to take the microphone pack and unhook me from the wires they needed for sound. Once I was clear, I stood from my seat so fast, it fell backward, but it was too late.

  Ava was already gone.

  My instinct, the one I listened to without hesitation earlier, had my mind spinning and spinning. Maybe she was used to observing, to staying along the side and directing what happened in the spotlight—and maybe she was that without the influence of her family—but I still liked Ava, and I had enjoyed spending time with her.

  It was enough for me to want to learn more about the person she was now. Outside of the team, outside of her family.

  I wanted to figure her out. And I knew exactly how to do it.

  Chapter Seven

  Ava

  Let's get one thing straight. I'm no coward. Whatever word might come to mind at the memory of me all but fleeing down the hallway after that interview—chicken shit, wuss, scaredy-cat, wimp, etcetera—did not apply to me. Okay? Okay.

  I just ... didn't feel like having that conversation with Matthew just yet. The one where we talk about the irony that my sister—his faithless ex-fiancée—managed to wedge her way into a moment between us. Because that conversation he initiated three days ago was, without a doubt, a moment.

  In those three days, I'd relived his words at least eighty thousand times. In between my vigorous kickboxing classes where I did not imagine Ashley's face on the bag, in between the endless work I'd thrown myself into, and in between mouthfuls of Ben and Jerry's while I binged on the least romantic things I could find on Netflix (true crime documentaries, if you must know).