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I lose again.
Fuck this.
I cash in my chips and head back up to my room. I stare out the window at the Strip as I wonder if ten in the morning is too early to start drinking.
It is. I know this.
So instead of drinking, instead of calling Lincoln or Asher or Beckett or my dad…I head down to valet, get my truck, and start driving.
Chapter 18: Ava Maxwell
He’s Grayman
Another Saturday, another huge line out the door. It’s busier than usual, and my guess is because it’s spring break around the country, and for some reason people think it’s a good idea to bring their families to Vegas for spring break.
Vegas is not for the weak. Or for kids.
I’m glad Poppy’s bakery is doing so well, but I have to admit, sometimes I wish I’d saved my kitchen sink cookie recipe for my own place since they’re our most ordered bakery item. But at least Beckett talked me into writing up a contract before I baked my first batch for Poppy.
Beckett’s a good brother like that—always taking care of me. Always looking out for me. Always protecting me. Even to this damn day when he told Grayson to check up on me.
But he’s also a good lawyer, and I suppose I can’t get mad that he’d send Grayson to check on me and in the same breath be thankful that he’s taking care of me in other ways.
I grit my teeth as I decorate a birthday cake that’s scheduled for pickup before we close tonight. It’s still early, and I probably need to mix up another batch of cookies, but I want to finish this first.
“Ava, you’ve got a visitor,” Cora says, and she raises her brows pointedly.
My chest tightens. “Is it Grayson?”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head.
Dammit.
Wishful thinking, I guess.
I clear my throat and head out into the bakery, and I see Colin standing on the other side of the counter. I duck under it and storm through the bakery toward the door. I don’t want to talk to him in front of our customers, so I pull him out front and around the side of the building.
“What are you doing here?” I spit at him.
“I came to make this work.” He stands firm on that.
“Making it work isn’t interrupting my busiest day of the week with this nonsense when I’ve already told you to just. Go. Home.” I enunciate each word like it’s its own sentence at the end.
He’s getting angry, an emotion he’s never really directed at me before. In fact, he’s maybe overly even-keeled most of the time. I rarely see any sort of fight out of him at all, which makes perfect sense in his position as a law firm associate who mostly does research and will likely never see the light of a courtroom.
“My flight isn’t until tomorrow, and I don’t get why you’re being so unreasonable about all this. Why don’t you even want to try?”
“I’m not being unreasonable!” I yell at him.
He points at me. “That right there. Unreasonable. You’re yelling at me in a parking lot!”
I point back at him. Why’s he pointing at me? What the hell even is that? “Well now you’re yelling, too!”
Just as I say the words, a silver truck skids to a stop on the street in front of us, blocking the driveway.
And as the man driving the truck jumps down from the driver’s side and rushes over toward me, he looks like a damn superhero.
Maybe because he is a superhero.
