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Ava: Is this about Vanessa?
Ah, that was her name.
Me: Yes.
Ava: She seemed really nice, and she was open to your idea of a relationship. She even has a kid. I don’t understand.
I stared at the phone in disbelief. Had she not fully checked anything?
Ava: Adrian?
I clicked her name at the top of the text messages and hit the call button, bringing the already freezing metal and glass of the phone up to my ear. Two rings later, her voice filled my ear, and as much as it fueled me with a new sense of anger, more than anything it calmed me down.
“What happened?” she asked. In the background, a whooshing sound like wind or rain filled the gaps between her words.
“She…” I glanced over my shoulder as I crossed an intersection, double-checking that she wasn’t heading in the same direction as me. “She doesn’t have a kid, Ava. She has apomeranian.”
Silence met my words, and I lifted the phone to check that the call hadn’t dropped. But then there was a squeak of something wet against the tile and the whooshing stopped.Is she in the shower?
I didn’t want to admit to myself how relieved I was that my jacket covered my crotch. The idea of her standing there, naked, dripping wet, on the other end of the phone made it hard to think.
“But…she said she had a kid. Four years old, I think she said, named Veronica. I thought it was cute she was sticking with the V names.”
“She has apomeraniannamed Veronica,” I said, sidestepping a man on a skateboard who absolutely should have been on the road and not the sidewalk. Ava’s breathy, surprised laugh crept down the phone line, and for a moment, I didn’t care that it was cold and wet out. Scaffolding lined the walkway, and I stepped into the gap, leaning against the wall between two shops under the street lamps. I wasn’t going to give her a chance to reply. “Putting that to one side for a moment, can you explain to me why you bothered answering the phone when you’re clearly in the shower?”
Another second of silence met me, and this time, it felt charged. “Because you called,” she said.
Because you called.Jesus.
A man passed me as I started to speak, and I dropped my voice. “You must be cold,” I teased. “Haven’t heard you get out yet.”
“Adrian,” she groaned, and although I knew damn well it was a complaint and nothing more, I couldn’t help but wish it was something else. Our last interaction hadn’t gone well, and even though this was stupid, and there was a part of me that was still annoyed about her choice for my date this evening, it was almost…refreshing to speak to her. Like it was righting the wrong from last week when we’d argued in my office.
“I’m sorry,” I laughed. “I’ll drop it. Just please put a fucking towel on so I can stop imagining you standing there naked.”
Whatever she said was so garbled that I couldn’t quite make it out, but a second later, there was a squeak of a shower door, and the light breaths she took made me assume she was doing what I’d asked. “Happy now?”
“Do you want me to be honest?”
“No.”
“Then I’m thrilled that you’re in a towel,” I chuckled. “Anyway, I’m sorry to derail us. But for the record, moving forward, Ava, I’d prefer someone who doesn’t refer to their dog as a child tothatextent. And maybe someone who doesn’t smell that strongly of cotton candy.”
“God, she did smell really sweet. Noted.”
Chapter 13
Ava
The temptation to murder my own father had never been more present in my mind.
I stood in the doorway of the kitchen in my tank top, cardigan, and oversized joggers, my hair tied up in a messily made bun. Dad had offered for me to spend the weekend in his penthouse, and when he’d invited me downstairs forfamily dinner, I didn’t think that meant anything more than he and I and whatever he’d decided to cook.
I hadn’t expected to find Adrian leaning against the kitchen island with a glass of wine in his hand, midway through a fit of laughter, in a white button-up shirt and a pair of nice jeans.
His eyes met mine, and I nearly fucking bolted.
“Dad—”
