by Claire Adams
“Huh,” Ava said, not sounding too interested in it. She wandered over to a small patch of dandelions and started playing with them.
I grabbed the orange ball and put it back in my pocket. Then, I went back to figuring out more of the commands that Vixen had been taught. “I didn’t even realize he could do all of that,” Sadie said laughingly when I’d finished up a general routine. “He knows ‘jump’ and ‘jump higher’? Who taught him that?”
“Probably someone who was very bored,” Danielle joked.
We all sat around enjoying the afternoon, with Sadie and I alternating on who was giving Vixen commands. Finally, she stood up, giving me a hug. “We should head home. Danielle’s mom is in town, and she wants to take us to dinner.”
“Have fun,” I said, smiling at them. “It was good seeing you again.”
“Thanks for all your help,” Sadie said. “I’m going to be bothering you again soon, probably.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her, waving away her thanks. “I enjoy doing this stuff. Seriously.”
The two women and the service dog left, with Vixen following right at Sadie’s heel, ready to help as commanded. I was left alone with Harper and Ava.
I glanced over at them, my heart swelling as I watched Harper bend down to scoop up her daughter, tossing her up in the air and catching her easily, while Ava squealed. Eventually, she put the girl down and came back over to sit next to me. I put my arm around her shoulders, feeling utterly content.
21
Harper
I glanced over at Ace when he put his arm around me, smiling at him. “Thanks for this,” I told him.
“For what?” Ace asked, sounding genuinely confused, as though he didn’t realize what a nice thing he’d done.
I laughed. “Well, I’m pretty sure you made Ava’s life today,” I told him.
Sure enough, Ava darted over. “Mama, that puppy was the best,” she said. “He was smart, and he was nice, and if I get a robot leg can I have one, too?”
Ace snorted, and I sighed. “I don’t think you want a robot leg,” I told Ava. “You like your human legs so you can run all around the park after the doggies, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but with a robot leg I’d be faster!” Ava said, convinced in her little three-year-old mind that that was the truth.
I grinned and shook my head. “We’ll have to talk about it,” I said. “A dog is a big responsibility.”
I knew Ava couldn’t understand that yet. I would have to try to think of a way to explain it to her. Maybe if I equated it to having a new brother or sister—but then she might want one of those, too.
I glanced over at Ace. Not that I was opposed to having more kids, maybe. But not right now. I wasn’t ready for that yet. And Ace didn’t even know that he had one kid already.
“Fine,” Ava said, pouting a little. But then she was off chasing after the pigeons again.
“She’s got a lot of energy,” Ace commented.
“She does,” I agreed, shaking my head.
“Sorry if I made her want a dog,” Ace said, sounding sheepish. “I didn’t realize you were bringing her, or I would have warned you. I am glad she had fun, though.”
“You were great with her,” I said automatically. It was true. Watching him explain to Ava that Vixen was a working dog and that we couldn’t pet her but we could play fetch with her, had been wonderful. It gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, we could make this work, the three of us.
Not that I really dared to hope, not yet. I needed to let Ace know who Ava really was, what her relationship to him was. But I didn’t want to do it in front of other people. And now I didn’t want to spoil a good day. It was a no-win situation.
“Anyway, she’s been talking a lot about doggies lately,” I told him. “I was already wondering if we could introduce one of your training dogs to her. But I’m afraid to let Ava get too attached to what’s going to become someone else’s dog.”
“That’s fair,” Ace said, nodding as he watched Ava bounce around.
“I’d get her a dog if I thought we could handle it,” I told Ace, even though I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to defend my decision. It was none of his business if we got a dog or not.
“If you can handle that, I’m pretty sure you can handle anything,” Ace said, pointing at Ava and laughing.
I grinned as well. “Probably,” I agreed. “You haven’t seen her when she’s had sugar yet, though.” I shrugged. “The thing is, even though I’m not really traveling for work anymore, I’m still bouncing all around the city most days. And I take Ava with me for a lot of it, but I also have to leave her with friends or my mom for some of it. I couldn’t dump a dog on them as well. And I definitely couldn’t take the dog with me for all my interviews.”
“That makes sense,” Ace said. He glanced over, his brow furrowing. “But you don’t have to defend yourself to me. I hope you don’t feel like you have to.”
I wanted to lean in and kiss him. I wasn’t entirely sure where the urge came from, but it was so sweet to hear him say those words. I held back, though, knowing that Ava could see.
Speak of the devil, Ava came bounding over. “Mama, I’m hungry,” she complained. “When is it snack time?”
I glanced at my watch. We had been there in the park for longer than I’d realized. “I should have brought a picnic,” I said ruefully, shaking my head.
“Come on, why don’t I take you ladies for pizza?” Ace suggested. “There’s a great place just around the corner. Huge dollar slices.”
“That sounds great,” I said, even though we’d just ordered pizza the other night. I wanted to keep spending time with Ace. Anyway, it wasn’t like Ava was going to complain about having pizza again.
“Sorry I dragged you out here,” Ace said as we walked through the park. “I just really wanted to see you, and I couldn’t think of a better way to make it work today.”
“That’s fine!” I said. “Seriously, you made Ava’s day. And I liked watching you work.” I paused. “You’re really patient. With Vixen, and with Sadie. And with Ava.” It was a quality that I’d never noticed in him before. I wondered if it was just that now I was finally considering him as a father, where I had never had a reason to do so back in Kuwait.
We grabbed a few slices of pizza and some soda and sat down in the window seats at the pizzeria. It was one of those hole-in-the-wall places that by all rights should have gone out of business years ago, but somehow the family kept it alive. I liked it immediately, and I wondered why I had never been in there before.
Ace ended up sitting in the middle with me on one side and Ava on the other. I’d protested at first, pointing out that Ava needed her pizza cut up into bites and that I should be ready next to her with napkins, just in case.
“I can do all that,” Ace said, as though it was obvious. He didn’t move to change seats.
“Are you sure?” I asked. It was stupid; if he said he could do it, then he could do it. I just couldn’t help thinking that Ace had once said that he didn’t want to have kids. It wasn’t fair for him to have to do those things for Ava.
But then again, he seemed to like doing them. Here he was, volunteering to help her out. He winked at me. “Take a little break, Mama,” he told me. “You still look like you’ve been wearing yourself out this week.”
I smiled at him. “I have been,” I admitted. “I could use a long, hot bubble bath this evening. But instead, I’m going to go home and finish up a bunch of work.”
I watched the two of them as we ate. Every time Ava’s hands started to get too gooey, Ace was there with a napkin. He expertly divided her pizza up into bite-sized pieces. “Have you done this before?” I asked suspiciously.
Ace looked up, startled at my accusation. Then, he shook his head. “No, but sometimes with the dogs, we have to treat them pretty similar,” he said.
“Are you equating my daughter with a dog?” I asked mock-sternly, and Ace laughed.
I had almost
called her our daughter. I was going to have to watch what I said around him. And around Ava.
I swallowed hard. I wanted to tell him, right then. The timing felt right. And he really didn’t seem like he would mind. I didn’t know what had changed since Kuwait, but he seemed like he was here now, like he was ready to settle down and have a family.
But maybe I was reading too much into his actions. Maybe it was just that he was good with kids but never wanted one of his own. And things between him and I were still too shaky. We hadn’t spent any private time together in over a week now, and who knew when we’d get the chance, with our busy schedules, to spend time together again.
No, I wouldn’t tell him now. I was just making excuses; I knew that. But I wasn’t ready for him to know, not just yet. And I probably shouldn’t tell him where Ava could hear. She was clever, and she’d understand enough of the words. She’d put it together.
If I told Ace and he decided he didn’t want anything to do with her, I didn’t want her to think that she’d done something wrong.
After lunch, we walked slowly back home. Ace waved goodbye from the end of his street. I wanted to kiss him again, that same desire swelling up inside of me. But Ava was still there—distracted by a couple butterflies, but still there. I wasn’t ready to kiss him in front of her just yet.
Ava and I continued slowly back to the house. “Mama?” Ava asked, slipping her hand into mine as we went. Her tiny little brow furrowed as she frowned, clearly thinking deep—or at least as deeply as her three-year-old mind could.
“What’s up, honey bunch?” I asked, scooping Ava up into my arms and holding her close.
“Is Mr. Ace your boyfriend?” she asked.
I nearly dropped her. “What makes you say that?” I asked cautiously, not entirely sure how to respond. Should I tell her? I felt like the more important secret was her father’s identity, and I hadn’t revealed that secret yet.
Ava shrugged unconcernedly. “He was nice,” she said. “And you smiled at him.”
And wasn’t that love, in the eyes of a three-year-old: he was nice, and you smiled at him.
I had to smile at the innocence of that. But I still didn’t know what to say. “He’s a boy, and he’s a friend,” I said cautiously. I wondered whether that was going to be enough for her or if she’d demand more information.
But she just shrugged. “Huh. Okay,” she said.
I breathed out slowly, trying not to make my sigh of relief too obvious. I was reminded again how complicated this whole thing was going to get if Ace and I really started dating. Ava was smart, and soon she’d start asking questions. Questions that were more difficult to answer than the ones about Sadie’s leg or whether Ace was my boyfriend. Questions I wasn’t sure I was prepared to deal with.
I remembered when Mom had asked me if I knew what I was doing, after my first date with “the man from the TV.” Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
If things didn’t work out between Ace and me, I didn’t want Ava to think that any of it was her fault. And I definitely didn’t want her to feel like she had to choose sides. It had seemed like we were managing to put a nice family together, but I didn’t know if that was really what Ace wanted.
And even if it was what he thought he might want, I didn’t know how he would feel once he found out that Ava was his daughter—a fact that I’d been hiding from him for three years now.
But we were barely in the house when I got a text from Ace, thanking me for hanging out and asking if I would go on a real date with him sometime this week, schedules permitting. I immediately responded yes; it wasn’t even a question.
I could feel a goofy smile spread across my face, and I remembered what Ava had said. He’s a nice man, and you smiled at him.
I could feel the familiar tingle of anticipation hit me. I didn’t really understand why I couldn’t seem to stay away from him. But on the other hand, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to stop seeing him.
I had to tell him about Ava, though. Soon.
For now, I had an article that needed to be written and another set of questions to write for the next day’s interview. Let me know when you’re free this week, Ace texted me. Again, I couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
22
Ace
I stared down at the flowers in my hand, wondering once more if maybe that was going overboard. I didn’t really know what the protocol was for dates, to be honest. It had been a while. And I’d never seriously dated anyone.
I shook my head and knocked on the door. Harper would like the flowers; I was pretty sure. It wasn’t really a question of that. I just didn’t want her to feel like I was moving too fast. But then again, she had been the one to bring Ava along on our last little meet-up, so maybe we were both moving faster than we’d originally agreed.
When the door opened, I frowned and took a step back, making sure I had the right place. I didn’t recognize the woman standing there, a thin blonde in a bright sundress, and as far as I knew, Harper and Ava lived alone.
“Well, hello there,” the woman said, smirking at me as she blatantly eyed me up and down. She slowly smiled, while I looked back at her in confusion, trying to figure out who she might be.
Fortunately, Harper appeared a second later, pushing the other woman to the side. “I said I’d answer it,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Busybody.”
The last was muttered under her breath, but it was clear enough for all of us to hear. The other woman burst out laughing and gave Harper a hug. “Have fun,” she said, and the way she said it was unmistakably lewd.
Harper rolled her eyes. She grabbed the flowers, giving them a precursory sniff before passing them off to the other woman. Then, she caught my arm, dragging me out of the apartment. “Maisie is going to talk your ear off if we stay too long,” she told me in an undertone.
“That’s Maisie?” I asked, glancing back over my shoulder to get another look at Harper’s best friend. But the door was already closed between us.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” Harper asked. “I swear, it’s everything that I always imagined having a sister would be like. She lives just to embarrass me.” But then, her face softened. “She’s so good to me, though. To us, Ava and me. She’s saved my butt more than once.”
“She seems nice,” I said. I caught Harper’s hand just before we left her building, pulling her to a stop facing me. I leaned in and gave her a quick kiss. “It’s good to see you,” I told her. “You look great.”
And she really did. I’d told her, when we’d arranged this, that she should dress nice, that I was going to treat her right. And she had pulled out all the stops, putting on a sexy, red flared dress that made her look some interesting mix of sexy and cute. The dress was low-cut, a tasteful amount of cleavage showing, and the bottom swayed as she walked in her high black heels.
It sounded so stupid, but I had gotten used to seeing her in casual clothes, both in Kuwait and back here. Seeing her pull out all the stops like that really turned me on.
And we weren’t even to the restaurant yet.
Harper smiled shyly up at me. “It’s good to see you, too,” she said. “And thanks for the flowers. They’re beautiful.”
I smiled right back at her and then cleared my throat. “So, shall we?”
“Where are we going anyway?” Harper asked.
“It’s a surprise,” I told her.
I hadn’t been sure where to take her, and I’d ended up asking Sadie and Danielle for advice. I wasn’t familiar with the city, and it wasn’t like I was going to go try out a bunch of fancy restaurants on my own. I wanted the night to be special; I didn’t want just to go online and make a reservation at the first place I saw.
But Sadie had had the perfect idea. One of her friends, she said, put together these little pop-up shop restaurant nights. Some of them were strictly casual: he might partner with a bar that didn’t normally serve food, offering a menu of sliders and fries for the night to accompany beer.
The one we were going to that night, though, was a lot fancier. It was at the top of a local hotel, and Sadie had assured me there would be candlelight, a romantic atmosphere, and quiet music. And a great view of the city. The tables were limited, but she’d managed to get us on the list. I couldn’t wait to see Harper’s face when she saw the place.
Although I was still worried that she’d see it and think I was going too fast. If so, though, we’d leave and go find somewhere else.
I tried not to be too nervous, but I knew she noticed the way I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel on the drive over, unable to sit still.
We pulled up outside the hotel, and I gave the keys to the valet. Harper looked quizzically over at me. “I thought we were going for dinner,” she said.
“We are,” I said, smiling at her. I was enjoying the surprise of it.
“Room service?” Harper quipped as I led her over to the elevator.
“Not quite,” I said. “Although that could have been fun.” I led her into the elevator and hit the button for the rooftop.
When we walked out of the elevator, Harper’s eyes lit up. “Wow,” she said, looking around. I looked around as well. The lighting was soft and sultry, making the bright lights of the city stand out even more intensely. There were gauzy burgundy curtains cutting up the space, making each table seem like its own private area. Candles shimmered around the perimeter and twinkled from each tabletop. It was everything that Sadie had told me it would be.
“Come on,” I said, putting an arm around Harper’s shoulder and steering her over to the hostess. “Table for two, under Ace Bradley.”
“Right this way, please.” We were led to a table in the back, with an amazing view of the skyscrapers.