What if this was one of those times Matthew randomly dropped by my office? What if he got my message and wanted to find me, lock the door, and finish what we didn't a few days earlier.
"Umm, n-not too long," I stammered. "He's ... we're..."
She rolled her eyes. "I can see why you've impressed him so much. Are you always this articulate?"
Just like that, I felt my spine straighten out with a quick snap, and I opened my mouth to unleash on her when the deep sound of someone clearing his throat made me jump. Logan Ward stood in the doorway to my office, and I almost threw up from relief.
"Sorry," he said gruffly, giving Ashley a brief, uninterested flick of his eyes, "am I interrupting something? I can come back."
"Logan," I answered, flustered beyond belief and heart lurching at the way my sister was glancing back and forth between us with narrowed, suspicious eyes. "No, it's fine."
I walked toward him, pressing my hand to my roiling, unsteady stomach, and he zeroed right in on my hand. Logan had never seen me as anything other than unruffled.
"Are you okay?" he asked, sounding concerned.
Shiiiiiiit.
Because he sounded like a boyfriend.
Ashley hummed behind my back, and I pinched my eyes shut.
Except.
Hang on.
In my wobbly brain, a terrible yet brilliant idea bloomed. I opened my eyes and gave him an apologetic look. Please, I mouthed, and his dark eyebrows bent in.
I wasn't stupid. I knew this could backfire if Logan opened his grumpy ass mouth. But he was hot. Actually, Logan was one of the hottest guys on the team, especially because he had that whole grouchy, brooding thing going for him.
"Ashley," I said, keeping my eyes trained on Logan's. "This is Logan Ward. He's ... he's the one who sent me the flowers."
His mouth dropped open, but I glared effectively enough that he snapped his jaw shut.
"Oh," she drawled. "I've never met one of Ava's boyfriends. Not that she's had many," she added under her breath.
"Uhh," he muttered, blinking rapidly, then stepping into my office. "Nice to meet you."
He didn't touch me as he held out a hand to Ashley, for which I was thankful. I just needed her out of here, and Logan was the perfect excuse.
Ashley assessed him slowly as she took his hand in hers, and I knew what she was seeing. Dark hair, scruffy, hard jaw, wide, muscled chest, and tan skin. Really tall, really built, and really hot. For a momentary decoy boyfriend, I could've done worse.
"The pleasure is mine," she told him. And then she smiled at me. Actually, really, not faking it smiled at me. Then she winked. "Nice work," she said out of the corner of her mouth.
W.T.F.
Logan pulled his hand back and cleared his throat.
I wanted to puke all over my shiny black shoes.
"I can come back," Logan said again, giving me a weird, prolonged look.
"No, absolutely not," Ashley all but cooed. "I hope we'll see you at the ceremony, Logan. Ava has never brought anyone around our family before. And you look like a man who would wear a tuxedo well."
"It's black tie?" I asked incredulously. "It's a vow renewal, Ashley."
She was unrepentant, shrugging lightly as she lifted one eyebrow. "But it's mine, and this is what Adam and I wanted."
Logan gave me a quick look, and I shook my head. "Umm, Ava and I haven't had a chance to talk about it yet."
Before I knew what was happening, Ashley leaned in to hug me and whispered in my ear. "Ava, he is gorgeous. And the way he's looking at you? Holy hell!"
"Uh-huh," I said weakly, patting her on the back and praying desperately that I didn't pass out. I needed her out of this building.
"I better go," Ashley said. "Ava, why don't you meet me for drinks tonight at eight? I'll text you my hotel address. That way I can go over how you can help for the ceremony before I head back home tomorrow evening."
"Uhh," was all I managed.
My sister faced Logan, leaning up to air kiss next to both of his cheeks. He couldn't have looked more uncomfortable if she had pulled a gun on him.
"Logan, it was so wonderful to meet you. I hope it's not the last time."
He gave her a tight smile, and we both stood dumbfounded as she waltzed out of my office. I sank into the chair across from my desk and dropped my head in my hands.
"Holy shit," I said under my breath. I almost forgot Ward was in the room with me until he spoke again.
"Ava," Logan grumbled curiously, "what the hell is going on?"
Chapter Fifteen
Ava
Such a good question.
What the hell was going on?
I covered my mouth with still shaky fingers and glanced up at Logan. Arms crossed over his chest, inscrutable-as-always look on his face, guy who just saved my ass Logan.
"That was my sister, Ashley."
No part of his entire body moved, except one dark eyebrow.
Translation: No shit, Ava.
I sat up and blew out a slow breath. If I told Logan the entire story, I'd have to spill the beans about Matthew and me; something we hadn't discussed. Logan wasn't friendly, per se, but the guys who knew him respected the hell out of him. Sure, he'd made my job a living hell from day one because he was about as easy to train as a banana, and he wasn't going out of his way to make Matthew comfortable, but he deserved at least a slice of the truth for what he'd just done.
"W-we don't have a great relationship. We never have." My head dropped back, and I stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. "And I'm dating someone new." I gestured weakly at the flowers. He gave them a long, inscrutable look but didn't say anything. "Someone I'm not ready to ... tell her about."
"Why not?"
Hysterical laughter came crawling up my throat, and I swallowed violently to keep it inside. If I'd had to list a hundred people I could've possibly had this conversation with, Logan Ward wouldn't have come close to making the cut.
"Logan?" I asked, holding his gaze as steadily as I ever had. "You know how you hate talking to media, and you give me attitude at every turn when I ask you to do the simplest task that might make my job easier?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, I'm cashing in all the imaginary tokens that those moments have gained me over the years. Because this is just not a subject I feel like discussing with you."
His dark eyes narrowed a little on my face, but he didn't say anything at first. Then he glanced away, and I got the feeling I'd made him uncomfortable somehow.
"I can't blame you there," he muttered.
Wearily, I stood and made my way back behind my desk, giving the beautiful flowers a lingering glance as I sat. Ashley had left the card face up on my desk, and I reached forward to grab it, not eager for Logan to see what it said.
"I really am sorry. I'm not trying to be difficult," I told him. "It's just ... do you have siblings, Logan?"
"Five."
"What now?"
"I have five siblings."
My mouth dropped open. How did I not know this? "Since when?"
He rolled his eyes a little. "Since, I don't know, thirty-three years ago when my brother was born, followed later by my four sisters over a six-year span."
I blinked for about twenty seconds before I was able to talk, and he waited silently the entire time. His lips might have even been curved slightly with amusement at my shocked reaction.
It wasn't atypical for me not to know family histories or who players had in their life because it rarely held any relevance for my job.
"Okay," I said slowly. "Do you get along them?"
"Not my brother." His tone was even, but his eyes were hard. "I want to punch him in the throat whenever we're in the same room."
That was a feeling that I could understand.
"So you understand my reluctance to discuss her, or why I'm in this shitty position in the first place."
He nodded, then scratched at his jaw. "What ceremony was she talking about? I was on
ly half-listening."
"Oh," I interjected quickly, "just forget she said that. It's nothing."
"Okay." Logan leaned forward and dropped a paper on my desk. "I came to drop off that thing you needed for the interview I don't want to do."
A reluctant smile tugged on my lips. "Thanks."
He started walking out of my office, then stopped and glanced back at me. "Listen, siblings suck sometimes. I don't know your sister, and I don't even really know you that well. But if I can help, let me know."
Surprise had my eyes widening. "Uhh, thanks."
Logan nodded and left my office. The air was sucked out of my lungs like someone had attached a vacuum to my mouth, and I slouched forward until my forehead hit the surface of my desk.
First, I needed to find Matthew and tell him what happened.
Second, I needed to have a little chat with the front desk about how random sister drop-ins were not allowed to walk in unannounced.
The ringing of my phone had my lifting my head, but my whimper of defeat returned when I saw it was my mom. Vaguely, like mists of fog that I couldn't touch, I remembered how happy I'd been that morning. Quite desperately, I wanted to rewind time to waking up in Matthew's bed and clutch that feeling to my now aching chest like it would make all this go away.
"Hi, Mom," I said into the phone.
"You have a boyfriend?" she started in a rush.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I see you talked to Ashley. Thanks for the heads-up on that visit, by the way."
"You know she likes an entrance," she chided. "Besides, how often does your family get to surprise you?"
Approximately never, which was why I wanted to move away from California in the first place.
"Oh, it was a surprise all right."
"Quite a looker, she tells me. Tall, right? How did you meet? Oh, I suppose you met through the team."
In the past fifteen seconds, my mother just asked me more personal questions about my life than she had in the past two months. I stared glumly at the flowers as she chattered in my ear. Chattered excitedly, even. Not a word about the vow renewal. Not a word about Ashley except what information she'd relayed.
My throat tightened up because I wanted to feel excited about this. I wanted to feel pleasantly overwhelmed that my mom cared so much about the man in my life. But I couldn't because I couldn't foresee a single way to tell them the truth.
"Ava," she said forcefully. "Are you still there?"
I blinked. "Yeah, sorry."
"You're not telling me anything about him."
My hand traced the edge of the card from the flowers, and I screwed my eyes shut, forcing Logan and Ashley and everything else out of my head except Matthew.
"He's ... he's amazing," I told her quietly. "Kind and funny and supportive. We're together all the time outside of work, and I can't imagine ever getting sick of him."
She hummed, a happy little sound I'd never heard from my mom. I was officially in the Twilight Zone. "And he's a player?"
I sniffed, feeling the full weight of my relationship with Matthew in the face of my family for the very first time. It didn't feel good. It felt impossible. And it also felt impossible—now that I knew what it was like with him—not to have him in my life.
Something that was supposed to be fun and good and easy suddenly wasn't easy at all. My staunch refusal to discuss this exact thing went from self-protection to a cage of my own making with no exit in sight.
My eyes burned hot, and I swallowed back unexpected tears.
Thankfully, my voice came out steady when I answered. "Uh-huh, he's a player."
"So he does well then, financially."
I almost laughed. Of course, she'd list that as a positive characteristic. "Yeah, he does all right."
If I told her that his two-year contract with Washington was worth twenty-six million dollars, not to mention all his endorsements, she'd stroke out. My dad, Ashley, and Adam Hughes the Third didn't come close to touching what Matthew made, even if they combined their salaries.
"I want to meet him," she said.
"Nope." It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
"Ava Marie Baker, we've never met a boyfriend of yours, and we will all be in the area for the ceremony. There's no reason we can't."
I'd had too much emotional whiplash already that day to even try to filter myself. I laughed under my breath, unable to believe I was even having this conversation. "You've never asked me about anyone I'm dating. Ever. Why do you even want to meet him?"
Thankfully, my mom didn't argue. If she had, I might have thrown my phone against the wall. "Because if he's important to you, then he might be part of this family. If he's making you happy, don't you think we'd be curious about him?"
I exhaled roughly. "No, Mom, I didn't think you would be curious at all. Prior history and all."
She cleared her throat primly. "Well, there's nothing I can do about the past. But if he's still around when we're there, your father and I want to meet him. Minimally, a kind, funny, supportive boyfriend would want to come with you to your sister's vow renewal. Right?"
Having your words thrown back at you like weapons was super fun. Especially when I couldn't argue. Frustration had my vocal cords frozen as I tried to steady myself. The last thing I would do was cry on this phone call with my mom. But I wanted to.
Normally, I could reach out and grab the reins, steady myself with ease. Put on the game face for any situation. But my hands were slippery, and my emotions were ping-ponging violently, unable to stick to one single place where I could pin them down.
This was a narrative I couldn't control, and an outcome that I could not predict or influence in any way. Not as I sat in my office and listened to my mom's happy chattering.
It was the only reason I had to explain that desire to cry.
I wanted to cry big, giant, self-pitying, this freaking sucks tears because I had no clue what I was supposed to do with any of it.
So when she asked me if a kind, supportive man in my life would want to attend the ceremony with me, all I could do was answer truthfully.
"Right." Because it was true. If our situation was different, if he had no history with me before that first day in my office, Matthew would be by my side for all it. He'd refuse to let me deal with them alone. I tucked my lips between my teeth and breathed slowly. "Mom, I have a meeting I need to get to. I'll talk to you later."
I disconnected that call before she could say anything else.
All the work I'd done to keep myself and Matthew in a good place emotionally—a place that wasn't under the shadow of my family—was all for nothing. Because, like it or not, they'd ripped that shade off us.
One single, stubborn, rogue tear snuck out of my eye before I could stop it, and I dashed it away quickly. Almost as if it didn't make it very far down my face, then it didn't really happen, and I wasn't rapidly losing control of this situation.
Unfortunately, Matthew walked into my office at the precise moment I tried to erase it from existence. His face went from happy smile to obvious concern in a heartbeat.
"What's wrong?" he asked, closing and locking the door as soon as he cleared the doorway.
One tear became two. Two became three, and by the time he strode to my desk and hauled me out of my chair, the situation was not pretty in the slightest.
He folded me into his big, big arms while I cried. He didn't even know why I was crying, but he rubbed my back and kissed the top of my head without pressing me. Which, of course, made me cry even harder. This man was too good for me. He was too good to be saddled with someone who couldn't even introduce him as her boyfriend. Because I'd never called him that.
I was aiming for fun, easy, and good, refusing with a stubborn short-sightedness to delve into the hard shit that inevitably faced us. And he was still holding me like it could take all of it away even though he didn't know what it was.
"Thank you for the flowers," I said in a thick, tear-choked voice.
/> When he tilted my chin up, I almost had to look away from the misery etched on his face. "Should I have picked roses instead?"
My laugh was watery, and he used his thumb to wipe moisture off my cheekbones.
"You're killin' me, Slim. Something happened between that voicemail and now, and if it made you cry like this, I kinda want to break something if it would help make you feel better."
I rolled my forehead against his chest and breathed him in. "Ashley happened."
His body froze for just a beat, but then he smoothed a hand down my spine again. "What'd she say?"
My exhale was shaky and long before I looked up at his face again. "She showed up at my office about twenty minutes ago. Right after I got the flowers."
"She's here?"
I shook my head. "Not anymore. She left. But Logan walked in while she was here, and then Ashley left, and Logan left, and my mom called and said I need to take my boyfriend to the ceremony because Ashley saw the flowers and heard me leaving the voicemail ..."
"Hey," he interrupted, leaning down so he could hold my gaze steadily with his own. "Take a deep breath for me, okay?"
I did. Then another.
"Why the tears?" he asked.
My fingers picked at the collar of his white T-shirt where a thread was unraveling. "Talking to my mom, I just ... it's the first time I really understood how hard this was going to be."
Matthew nodded. He studied my face, which was probably streaked with mascara and eyeliner. Maybe fully made-up women could cry prettily in the movies, but that never, ever translated to real life.
"She sounded like she cared," I whispered brokenly, and his face softened in understanding. "She sounded like she cared about this man in my life who was making me happy, and I was telling her about you, and then I just ... had to get off the phone and cry like a crazy person because I couldn't think of a way to explain this in a way that would make sense to them."
"I'm so sorry," he murmured.
"Are we insane, Matthew?" I whispered, feeling a small swell of panic that I'd even dared to voice it. "What are we doing? You were engaged to her, and I'm starting to think that we are padded-room insane for thinking that we can find a way around this."
The Ex Effect Page 13