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I figure I’ll ask the cashier about Ava once I get up front. Or maybe the cashier is Ava. She’s younger, and she’s got blonde hair…but to be honest, I have no idea what Ava Maxwell might look like these days. It’s been a good ten years since the last time I saw her, and I didn’t pay her much attention back then.
There are still three people ahead of me in line when I see movement in the display case I’m standing next to. I glance up and see someone is restocking some cookies, and when my eyes move up further…
I draw in a sharp breath as I recognize the woman.
“Cookie?” I say, and when she glances up, her eyes meet mine.
“Grayson,” she says, surprise clear in her tone as her eyes widen. “What are you doing here?”
“You work here?”
She nods. “These are my cookies,” she says proudly, and she grabs one and hands it over the glass display to me. Our fingers brush when our hands touch, and I’m still in shock that she’s actually here. I found her when I wasn’t even looking.
“Then you must know Ava Maxwell. Her older brother is a friend of mine, and he asked me to check in on her since he’s back in New York. Is she here?” I ask.
“Ava!” a voice yells from the back, and her eyes widen as she turns toward the voice and then back at me.
She snags her bottom lip between her teeth, her fingers gripping the tray she was holding even more tightly.
She clears her throat, her cheeks turn pink, and that’s when I put it together.
“Oh fuck,” I murmur as the realization hits me.
The lady in front of me corralling her three kids turns around and glares at me.
“You’re little Ava Maxwell?” I ask, my voice hoarse with disbelief.
My Cookie is…Ava?
Reality hits me clean in the face.
The woman I had an instant connection with and immediately wanted more than just one night is my best friend’s little sister.
Of course we had an instant connection. We know each other. Well, sort of. I knew who she was when she was fifteen, and she knew who I was even though she didn’t really know me at all.
Her jaw opens and shuts a few times as she grapples with an explanation.
There isn’t one other than the fact that she lied to me.
“Ava!” the same voice yells over the loud din of the bakery. Someone who looks vaguely familiar, as if she was at the bar with Ava last weekend, rushes up to her. “Your dough is ready, and Dom just took out another batch.”
She’s clearly busy at this bakery, and I’m sort of at a loss as to what to do.
I set the cookie she handed me on the top of the glass display case, give her one last long look of utter disappointment, and I walk out of the bakery, my chest feeling tight as all the hope I walked in this place with is completely shattered.
Chapter 16: Ava Maxwell
The Delusional Phase
“Grayson, wait!” I yell after him. I wipe my hands on the apron tied around my waist as I run out to the parking lot.
Poppy will probably yell at me, but I don’t care.
This matters.
He stops and turns around to face me. “Your brother told me to check in on you. I don’t think this is what he meant.” He’s hissing at me, clearly disappointed that I didn’t fess up to who I was.
“You know what we shared was special, Gray. You know it was. You wouldn’t have given me the time of day if I would’ve told you who I was.” While his voice is a hiss, mine is a plea.
