Two
Here. He was here. How could she have been so stupid as to think he wouldn’t be? Of course he was here. Knoxville had been his home for years. All those ill-fated years when she’d been growing up and he’d been watching out for her, when no one had suspected a thing…until the scandal of it all had erupted, bleeding all over everything, leaving stains behind no amount of bleach had been able to scrub out.
Bleach, she thought with a maniacal inner laugh. Mercy was always in need of a gallon of bleach.
“Ouch,” Ronnie said, and she realized she was digging her fingernails into the back of his hand.
“Sorry.” She let go of him, and used both hands to smooth her hair back, lift it away from her neck so the breeze could cool the skin and help calm her nerves. She needed a drink; she needed ten drinks. How in the hell was she supposed to face everyone in this clubhouse when her wicked lover was just across the room, and every soul between them knew all the sordid details of the past?
She didn’t know, but she didn’t have a choice at this point. Her mom was waiting, and so were Bonita and Jaclyn, Nell and Mina. Then there would be her dad, and all her surrogate uncles.
She didn’t have time for Mercy; she’d fall to bits if she allowed herself one more second to dwell on him. Back, down, away – she crammed him and her history with him into a far mental corner. No, not you, not now, not ever again. She gave herself a good shake and dropped her hair, turned a brittle smile up to Ronnie.
Oh, God, Ronnie. Her poor boyfriend who wasn’t cut out for any of this. She had to get her shit together, for Ronnie if not for herself.
“You alright?” she asked him.
His brows knotted together, forehead crinkling. “Yeah. Are you?”
“I’m great!” She hated how insincere that sounded, but all she could do was reach for his hand again and lead the way into the clubhouse. “Come on, my mom can’t wait to meet you.”
Inside, the house was cool and smelled liked lemon furniture polish. They stepped into the foyer, which was tricked out to hold the outdoor paraphernalia of a whole pack of men. Long horizontal coatracks bolted into the wall, low bench with plenty of boot storage, a shoe-cleaning brush, umbrella stand – for the intrepid umbrella-wielding biker – and a hand-lettered sign that read “Forget the Dog, Beware of Owner.”
“Dog?” Ronnie asked. “Do they have a–”
As if on cue, Ares came barreling around the corner, nails scratching at the linoleum as he sought purchase and then hurtled toward them.
“Jesus Christ!” Ronnie grabbed her arm, like he was preparing to drag her away to safety.
Ava shook him off, laughing, and dropped to her knees to greet the exuberant German Shepard.
He was, in her eyes, the most beautiful dog, his thick coat layered in rich browns and blacks, his black nose gleaming at the end of his long black snout, his eyes bright and sparking with recognition and joy. She loved his pointed ears, the lustrous ruff spilling down his chest, his heavy paws, his swishing furry tail. He was a gorgeous dog, with a gorgeous set of curving ivory teeth that glimmered in the incoming sunlight as he rushed into her arms and swatted her with a playful paw, licking at her face, his tail thumping hard against the floor.
“Hi, baby!” Ava gave him a rigorous petting, dropping a kiss between his keen black eyes. “How are you, huh? You good? You look good.”
“Ava? Baby?” A hopeful female voice called from deeper inside. “Is that you?”
Maggie.
“Hi, Mom!” she called back, standing with one last pat for Ares. The big dog shook his collar, tag jangling, and headed into the common room, leading the way as always.
She cast a glance toward Ronnie – his eyes were round and white-rimmed, his complexion stark against his dark brows and hair – then followed Ares.
The foyer fed into a short hall, two doors branching off on either side. To the right was a small sitting room with tastefully bland furniture and a small round table set between two windows, a chair on either side. The boys called it the “business room” because it was where they entertained clients who weren’t associated with the MC in any sort of official sense. Only members were allowed in the chapel. Everyone else was brought here.
To the left, a tricked out home gym, with every kind of weight and exercise machine anyone could ever hope to need.
Beyond, the hall opened up, into a common room that ran the entire width of the house. She’d thought it a wonderland as a child; as an adult, that sense hadn’t dulled. It still brought a smile to her lips.
The cinderblock walls were an unobtrusive gray, with one accent wall behind the bar that was painted black, a mural of the Lean Dogs’ black running dog on his white field framed on bottom by the rows of liquor bottles, on top by the overhead shelf where the coffee mugs and stemless wineglasses were stored.
The bar itself was a heavy horseshoe of stained wood, brass footrails, overhead racks, beer taps, beer cooler, and one of those lift-up panels through which to access it all, a feature Ava had adored since her earliest childhood. The upper racks were strung with colored Christmas lights year round. The bottles, shellacked with sunlight, glimmered in candy-colored splendor.
The rest of the massive common room was dedicated to comfy couches and chairs, little conversation nooks, a foosball table, two pool tables, several round dining tables. Coffee tables and end tables were heaped with bike magazines and old Playboys. Worn rugs bore the dirt of thousands of booted footsteps. Ares had a plush dog bed in a corner, beside his food and water dishes.
Beyond the common room were storerooms, dorms for crashing, and the chapel, where official MC meetings were held. But this was where the party was, where the cards were played, where the dancing girls did their thing on crazy Friday nights, where everything friendly and social and fraternal happened.
Today, the room was draped with black and white crepe streamers; helium balloons – also black and white – rustled in the drafts of the AC.
Ava spotted her mom up on a stepstool, taping one end of a banner that read “Congratulations, James! We Love You!” while Jackie held the other end. Bonita and Mina were on the ground, telling them which end to lift higher so it was straight. Nell was filling more balloons from a helium tank.
Maggie turned, her long, wavy dark blonde hair shifting against her back, her smile radiant. Her constant beauty hadn’t eroded with time; it had merely been softened, her skin rich with the little lines of time, her eyes hazel and dazzling as ever.
Maggie Lowe, the girl who’d disgraced her entire family when she’d started one of her own. Her mother had wanted her to compete in beauty pageants as a teen; instead, she’d spent too much time hanging out in front of liquor stores, asking passersby to buy her a six-pack, and falling in love with a much older biker. Ghost kept a picture of her wedged in the frame of his dresser mirror at home, of her at sixteen, all glorious light hair and long legs and curvy hips in her ripped jeans and leather jacket, while she blew smoke at the camera through painted red lips. “She was jailbait,” Ghost had said. “And I figured there were worse things to get put away for.”
“Ava Rose!” she called. She slapped a last bit of tape on her corner of the banner and climbed down the stool, rushing forward as fast as Ava rushed toward her. Her hug was strong and warm, textured by the soft buffalo plaid shirt she wore over leggings and boots. “Did you have a nice drive?”
“It was great.” Ava stepped back, and her mother’s hands stayed on her arms, holding her in place.
‘Speaking of great.” Maggie looked her up and down. “Look at you, all girly. My little professional writer.”
“Mom.” Ava’s cheeks warmed. “I’m not even a little bit professional.”
“You got published, didn’t you?” Nell asked. “That’s pretty pro in my book.”
She’d had a short story published in an online magazine, which added up to so much nothing in the eyes of the actual pro writing world. But to her family back home, it was a big accomplishment.
“Welcome back, hon,” Nell added with a gap-toothed grin. “I expect lots more stories.”
Ava’s color deepened; she could feel its heat under her skin.
“Hey, sweetie,” Jackie called.
“Hi, Ava.” That was Mina.
Bonita turned, her mane of silver curls cascading over both shoulders, tumbling against her dark, sun-bronzed throat. “Hola, bambina. ¿Cómo estás?” She stepped forward, long black skirt swishing around her ankles, and pulled Ava into another hug, one Maggie could hardly let her go for.
“Bien. ¿Y usted?” Ava managed to remember some of her Spanish.
“Wonderful,” the president’s wife answered in her musical, accented English. “Even better now that you’re here.”
Ava smiled. It was impossible not to love Bonita at first sight. Tall and voluptuous, she’d been stunning as a young woman, and beautiful even now that her hair was all silver and her eyes crinkled to dancing black slits when she laughed. James had met her on a run to Texas; she’d been serving cervezas at the cantina where the crew had stopped for lunch, a local spot the boys would revisit four or five times before their business was concluded and they headed back to Tennessee. When James left, Bonita left with him, arms wrapped around him on the back of his bike. Her real name was Sofia, but James called her beautiful; when he’d learned the Spanish word for it, the nickname had stuck. She’d ruled as biker queen under the name Bonita for twenty-five years.
This handful of women, the brave few – they were the old ladies. Not club girls, not strippers or Friday night entertainment; they were the wives, the tried and true, the loyal helpmates and partners. All of them in this room now were old ladies…except for Ava. She was the only club daughter – the only one who’d stuck around, anyway. And once upon a time, she’d entertained the foolish idea that she too would don the title of wife, and join the ranks of her mother and friends.
That had been before…
“Ay Dios mio,” Bonita said. “Who is this young man? Muy guapo.” Her eyes and mouth were open in shocked delight. “Maggie, you didn’t say she was bringing a man home!”
“I’m guessing you’re Ronnie,” Maggie said, folding her arms and cocking her hips at an angle that was somehow regal, if hips could be such a thing.
Ronnie, in more comfortable territory now, extended a well-groomed hand. “Yes, ma’am. Ronnie Archer.”
Maggie accepted his shake; Ava recognized the pleased twist to her mother’s smile. “Did she warn you what you were walking into tonight?”
Ronnie half-smiled and tipped his head. “A retirement party of some sort, right?”
Nell laughed and another balloon began to fill with a hiss of released gas as she fitted it to the nozzle. “That’s close enough, I guess,” she said. “But I promise you, honey, you ain’t never seen a retirement party quite like this.”
To punctuate the statement, a clatter of wheels behind them heralded a hangaround pushing a wheeled trolley of beer cases in from the back hall. He had two friends behind him with similar trollies, stacked to the top with Budweiser, Miller, and Michelob. All domestic, no imports.
“We’re expecting almost two-hundred,” Jackie said. She pulled a strip of tape from between her teeth and secured her half of the banner. She hopped down from the stool and shook out her short cap of straight red hair. “We’ve got guys from as far as New Hampshire, and some of NOLA’s here.”
She glanced up the moment the last words left her lips, gaze coming to Ava. “Oh, by the way…”
“Aidan told me,” Ava said with a sigh. “It’s fine.”
Jackie winced, the freckles across her nose scrunching. “Sorry.”
“There’ll be too many people here for it to matter,” Mina said. Little pixie Mina with her hip-length dark hair and soft doe eyes. Always helpful, always sweet.
Nell knotted a ribbon around her latest balloon and sent it careening through the air toward a cluster of its friends with a bump from the heel of her hand. She pulled a bored face and swatted at the air. “No one remembers all that and no one cares about it. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.”
“Right.” Ava nodded. “I’m not worried.”
When she met her mother’s gaze, Maggie was giving her the pained look that always accompanied this topic of conversation, that wealth of maternal sympathy and sadness.
“I’m not,” Ava insisted, and knew Maggie didn’t buy it for a second. She didn’t buy it herself, if she was honest.
Bonita turned to Maggie. “Are you sending her home?” Then to Ava. “Could you bring back your madre’s silverware – what do you call it–?”
“Caddy,” Maggie said.
“Yes, caddy. Could you bring it?”
“Sent home?” Ava asked.
“I thought you could unload your bags,” Maggie said, “and I need you to bring me a change of clothes. Is that alright?”
Ava nodded. Ditching her bags at the house was a good idea. “Sure.”
“Oh, wait,” Jackie said. “Would you mind stopping at the convenience store? I need another of those little Bic lighter sticks.”
“Okay.”
By the time she headed back to the truck, Ronnie in tow, she had a list of things she needed to buy and find. That was the thing about being the youngest, and not being an old lady, but a daughter: she was the go-fer.
“So if it’s not a retirement, then what is it?” Ronnie asked as they emerged into the sunlight of the parking lot.
“It is a retirement.” Ava checked her list with a little face. She’d be lucky if they got back before dark. “James is getting up there in age and his hip replacement didn’t go so well. So he can’t ride anymore, which means he needs to step down as president. My dad’s VP, so he’ll take his seat. James is retiring, yeah – and he’s also giving up his seat at the table, his right to vote on club issues, and all his power as president.” She glanced at Ronnie, trying to gauge the questions in his eyes. “That’s a big deal for him,” she said. “For the whole club.”
Ronnie sighed and it was a tired sound.
She felt a sharp twinge of guilt. He didn’t understand this world – didn’t want to, most like – and she wasn’t sure she possessed the objectivity or grace to help lead him into it slowly. Girls like her, she guessed, who came from shady families, married rich boys and pretended their relatives had never existed. They didn’t glory in their pasts the way she did, like pathetic children with unhealthy fetishes.
God, she disgusted herself sometimes. What would her professors think – the smiling dean who’d congratulated her over the phone for getting into the UT grad program – if they could see her in leather and denim, moving amongst a crowd of outlaws, while debauchery reigned and smoke rolled thick? What would Ronnie’s reaction be if he ever clapped eyes on the man who –
She stumbled to a halt. She might have grabbed at Ronnie’s arm for balance; she wasn’t sure. Her breath left her lungs in a sudden rush; her pulse became a hummingbird, beating in the tiny vessels of her ears.
In the parking lot, still lingering in front of her truck, Aidan and Tango had been joined by three of their brothers. Two of them were of average height and build, nondescript, but possessing of the usual amount of MC aura. The third, though…the sight of the third made her veins scream inside her skin; every nerve felt shredded.
Six-five, his build a blend between Marvel superhero and fleet track athlete, his hair a shining, silken jet that gleamed blue in certain lights, his features prominent, sharp, unforgiving, his skin like warm smooth cappuccino with his summer suntan, Felix Lécuyer towered over his fellow Dogs, his shadow a long black monument against the asphalt. He wore a white undershirt beneath his cut, his arms bare, the dog tattoo on his left bicep leaping as he raised one heavy arm and scratched at the back of his neck. Ava remembered the way those muscles felt when they shifted and bunched like that. She remembered exactly how strong he was, how heavy he was when he was on top of her and bearing her down into the mattress.
She remembered…everything. Every awful, excruciating detail of all of it. Her New Orleans Cajun former gator-hunting Felix, the club’s infamous info-extractor. Mercy; the boys all called him Mercy.
“What?” Ronnie asked. “If you keep doing that, someone’s going to think I got attacked by a whole pack of cats.”
She was digging her nails into him again. She let go like he’d slapped her hand away, folding her arms tight across her chest, sucking a deep breath and realizing she’d stopped breathing for about ten seconds. Her chest ached; her throat hurt; her eyes stung.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
Her voice had been so low, it was impossible that any of the Dogs had heard her. But Mercy’s head lifted, and his dark, unforgiving gaze slid across the lot until it touched her toes; it moved up her legs, along the ruffled hem of her skirt, across all the most secret parts of her that he knew intimately, up her throat, her shaking lips, and finally to her eyes, where they latched on and held tight.
She stopped breathing, and he maintained eye contact for a fathomless moment, his expression unreadable. Then he smiled at something one of his brothers had said, and returned his attention to Aidan.
No smile for her. No wave. Not even a nod of acknowledgement. Just that flat stare that she didn’t understand – had never understood. Mercy was jovial when he was around his fellow Dogs. But with her…God, she never knew what he was with her. Right now, he was indifferent, and that hurt like hell, like a knife sinking through her ribs.
She made a sound, some small whimpering sound, and Ronnie asked, “Ava, what’s going on with you all of a sudden?”
“Nothing,” she snapped. “Come on.”
With an effort like nothing she’d known before, she fixed her gaze downward and marched to her truck. She threw up a hand and nodded when Aidan asked if she was making a run to the house. “Sure,” she said when he asked her to bring his iPod back. She hit the remote unlock on her F-150’s key fob and yanked her door open. Slid in, started it, waited for Ronnie and then threw it into gear, all without having to glance at Mercy again.
But when she checked her rearview mirror, she caught a glimpse of his imposing figure, stamped against the corrugated steel of the bike shop.
Coming home for this party had been a mistake.
Then again, when had she ever done anything that wasn’t?
When Ava pulled into Leroy’s on Main, she parked in front of one of the three gas pumps. “I might as well fill up while we’re here,” she said with a sigh, turning off the engine and reaching for her shopping list in the cup holder.
Ronnie gave her a blank, judging look. She could feel the curiosity and doubt coming off him in waves. “I can pump while you shop,” he offered.
She nodded. “Thanks.” She passed him her credit card and climbed out of the truck with purse and list in hand. “I won’t be long.”
Leroy’s had been around since Maggie was a little girl, a mom-and-pop grocery, dollar store, gas station combo, its shelves full of all sorts of odds and ends, overstuffed in a charming, small town sort of way that was completely lost on the college yuppies. The kids all went to the Seven-Eleven. The Dogs, and the Teague family in particular, were patrons of Leroy’s.
Ava didn’t realize it had been five years since she’d last graced its door until she heard the little bell above jangle and was hit with the smell of the small deli counter in back. Her eyes soaked in the sight of yellowed linoleum, packed shelves, neon signs, candy-colored drinks behind frosted cooler doors, hand-sketched signs advertising the week’s specials. She heard the slow churning of the Slurpee machine, the whine of the neon bulbs, hum of the coolers, electronic whizzing of lotto tickets printing. She smelled the deli: fresh bread, salami, pepperoni, pasta salad, vinegar, olives. She halted just inside the door, as the air conditioning rushed over her skin and her adolescence stole over her and made her shiver and smile. Ronnie, she thought with an inward lamentation, would never understand her completely, because she would never be a girl who hated her roots and wanted to leave them in the dirt. Even something as simple as walking into Leroy’s brought her past rushing back in Technicolor portrait. It was never her family or her life that had caused her pain, but the world outside of it. The world…and the man she’d loved.
No, she told herself. You’re past that.
With a mental shake, she glanced at her list and struck out through the maze of aisles, finding the Bic lighter, the rubber bands, the cupcake paper cups, the five jars of salsa for the chips that had already been bought. She stopped at a cooler and pulled out a twenty ounce Coke that she uncapped right there and took a swig of. When her basket would hold no more, and she’d checked off all the items the old ladies had given her, she cruised past the deli counter. There would be food at the party, yes, but getting to it would prove a monumental task. The guys would savage the offerings like a pack of hyenas.
A teenage girl with sleepy eyes took her order for two turkey subs on wheat and wrapped the vinegar-drenched sandwiches in wax paper, bagged them in plastic. Laden like a pack mule, she snagged another Coke for Ronnie, headed to the counter…and froze in her tracks.
Behind the register, glancing up at her with typical retail disinterest, was a very pretty, very familiar blonde boy with wide athlete’s shoulders and sunshine-colored hair.
“Carter?” Ava asked, stunned.
The boredom abandoned his features, replaced by shock. “Ava?”
The neon signage in the window flickered once, twice, three times…
Ava gathered her composure and set her basket up on the counter. “I thought you had a full ride to Texas A&M,” she blurted before she could stop herself. “I didn’t expect to see you in here.”
Carter Michaels, star quarterback of Knoxville, graduate of her class, a once-enemy turned hasty-ally to her in high school, she’d figured she would never see him again, not when he had such a bright football future ahead of him.
He glanced down at the counter, his cheeks coloring. “Yeah…about that…I kind of tore my ACL to shreds. No more scholarship, no more college. My dad flipped his shit.”
“Oh, damn,” she breathed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean–”
“It’s fine.” He shrugged and offered a lame smile. “Life’s not a fairytale, ya know?” He reached for her basket, scanner in hand. “Are you in town for the party tonight?”
Without asking him how he knew about the Lean Dogs’ comings and goings, she said, “I’m back for grad school. The timing just worked out with the party.”
“Oh.” The scanner beeped as he ran her purchases through. “So you got your undergrad degree, then.”
“English at UGA.” She winced. Crap, why was she rubbing it in?
He nodded. “That’s great.”
“So…” What to say, what to say. “You work here at Leroy’s now.”
“Yeah.” He punched buttons on the register. “That’ll be forty-oh-seven.”
She fished for the cash in her purse, hardly able to tear her eyes from him. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Kids with shining stars and bright futures, kids totally unattached to the MC, weren’t supposed to end up selling deli sandwiches for a living. She’d expected to see Carter on ESPN one day, but never back here, back home.
“Um…” she began, and Carter cut her off.
“You don’t have to pretend you care.” He slipped the fifty dollars she’d handed him into the register and fished out her change, eyes still downcast.
“But…”
“Nine-ninety-three’s your change.” He slid it across the counter to her. “Have a nice day and come back to Leroy’s,” he said in a flat monotone.
“Carter–”
“It’s fine, Ava.” He gave her a tight, insincere smile across the counter. “Have fun at the party tonight.”
“You can come, if you want to.” She gathered her bags. “I think Leah…”
But he was shaking his head. “It was nice seeing you again.”
He looked so defeated and weary, she hated to walk away. But Ronnie was waiting, done pumping gas and leaning against the tailgate of her truck, fiddling with his phone.
“Nice to see you, too,” she echoed, pushing back through the door.
Ronnie straightened as she approached the truck, phone going back in his pocket. “All set?”
“Yeah. I got us dinner.” She shook the bag. “Let’s head back to Casa de Teague.”
Ronnie kept his thoughts to himself until she was sliding her key into the back door of the brick ranch house where she’d grown up. They stood on a narrow concrete patio, surrounded by blooming magenta crape myrtles that danced in the afternoon breeze, the light lacy across her hands as she turned the lock and then then knob, leading the way into the Teague residence.
“Ava,” he said, and his tone made her stop and turn to face him. He was frowning, his handsome face creased in odd places; she’d never seen him this perplexed before. “What’s wrong with you? You were fine, and then you just weren’t.” His head dipped, his eyes bright and knowing. “When your brother mentioned whoever that Mercy person is – that is a person, right? And not the dog? I honest to God can’t tell.”
She felt her lips form a smile, but she was deep inside her own head, somewhere back behind her face and whatever mannequin expression it managed to propel toward him. “I’m just tired,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong.”
“Okay, clearly, I don’t know jack shit about all this biker nonsense” – a part of her recoiled against that phrasing – “but I know you well enough to know that something’s up. It was like someone flipped a switch back there at the…the…”
“Clubhouse.”
“Yeah.” He reached for a lock of her dark brown hair and gave it a little tug. “You’re not yourself.”
Maybe, she thought bitterly, you don’t know when I’m being “myself.” You wouldn’t like me if you ever saw the real me.
“It’s just nostalgia kicking in,” she lied. “Being back home again.” And she slipped out of his grasp before he could say anything else.
The back door of the house led straight into the eat-in kitchen, the largest room in the house. Maggie had trimmed it in white cabinets and black granite; she’d finally, Ava saw, replaced the linoleum with wide Mexican tile. The table was a rectangular farm-style relic Ghost had brought home from an antique shop, an anniversary present for Maggie. The counters were cluttered with appliances, potted succulents; African violets in painted ceramic pots stood in the windowsill above the sink. Maggie’s wood recipe box was open and recipe cards remained scattered across the counter where she’d left them. Beside the door, a spare pair of Ghost’s boots and Maggie’s garden clogs occupied the wire shoe rack. A eucalyptus wreath graced the wall above the cordless phone, topped with a placard that read “God Bless This Kitchen.” The heady scent of bacon lingered in the air currents, remnant of breakfast.
“This is home,” Ava said as she passed through. “We’ll put our bags in my room.”
“It’s nice.”
Not even a third as nice as the mini mansion where his parents lived in Georgia. “Thanks.”
She led him through the small but cozy family room, down the hall and to her bedroom. It was the way she’d left it five years ago, its old familiar self every Christmas and summer when she’d come home. Mint green walls, sunny yellow comforter and white pillows. Her bedframe was a rich dark hardwood, an old family heirloom that squeaked – she’d had it tested in that department. Matching dressing table and dresser framed one corner, the closet door the other. Above her bed, a watercolor painting of a blooming spring meadow had always soothed her to sleep. The nightstand bore a lamp with beaded shade, a clock radio, and a small ceramic jewelry box she’d made in the eleventh grade.
Ronnie stopped at the end of the bed, hands going in his pockets. He opened his mouth to speak, and Ava beat him to the punch.
“You don’t have to say it’s nice. It’s just my room, and it’s nothing special.”
He sighed. “Shit, Ava, what–”
“Nothing.” She pushed down the handle of her rolling suitcase and went to her closet, pushing the accordion door back harder than she needed to.
She heard him step up behind her, his loafers making soft noises against the carpet. “Look–”
A knock at the back door, rapid-fire and insistent.
Ronnie stayed behind as she walked to answer it, for which she was thankful. Out of usual caution, she peeked through the kitchen window to see who was standing on the patio. Her father had raised no dummy when it came to being careful.
For the first time since hearing that New Orleans was in town, she grinned and meant it. Ava flipped the locks and pulled the door wide, just in time to catch Leah Cook’s crushing hug.
“Aavvaaaaa!” Leah shrieked, bouncing on her toes.
Ava laughed. “I take it Mom called you.”
“Yes!” As quickly as she’d attacked, Leah retreated, pushing back, and smacked Ava lightly across the arm. “Which you were supposed to do the second you rolled across the city limit line.”
“I was distracted,” she defended, and laughed again at her friend’s mock outrage.
Leah, very tiny and South Korean, looked like a little anime doll on almost every occasion. She favored bright colors and flamboyant hairstyles. The adopted daughter of a local coffee shop owner, she almost smelled like Arabica beans and bounced off the walls like she was made from them.
Today, she was in a hot pink miniskirt, black tights, chunky heeled sandals, and a white t-shirt with WTF stamped across the chest. Her hair was full of bright blue streaks and was pulled into two high pigtails, the ends hanging down past her shoulders.
Leah’s eyes flipped wide; her mouth formed a little O. “Distracted…as in…” She leaned in close and dropped her voice, “Lord have Mercy, you were distracted?”
“No.” When would people stop saying his name out loud? Each time was a tiny gunshot through her heart. “There’s just a lot going on. The party and everything.”
Leah rolled her eyes, stepped the rest of the way into the house and heeled the door shut. “God, this party. Everyone in the city knows the Lean Dogs prez is stepping down at this point. I don’t know how it didn’t make the papers.”
“Everyone knows?” Ava bit her lip. “That could be bad…”
“Oh, don’t be paranoid.” Leah dragged out a stool at the breakfast bar and climbed onto it. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
“Um…just you saying that guarantees something will happen.”
“So?” Leah shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I thought you were all Writer Girl now.”
“Yeah, but this is my family.”
Leah ignored her, was instead wrestling something from her bag. “Here. I printed it out; I want you to sign it for me, in case it’s worth something one of these days.”
It was a printed copy of the online mag that had run her short story. Leah set it on the counter and smoothed it with one magenta-nailed hand. On the crinkled cover, Ava spotted her name in tiny black typeface: A.R. Teague, under the title of her piece, “Falling.”
“No one would give you a nickel for my signature,” she said.
Leah, rummaging through her purse for a pen, glanced up with a vicious scowl. “Yes they would. I would.”
“You and my mother.” Ava sighed and leaned forward to prop her elbows on the counter.
“Hey.” The pen – a purple Sharpie – landed on the counter with a click and Leah put on her best bossy pose, hands on her slender hips. “You’ve wanted to get published since we were four, Ava, and now you are, and you’re acting like it’s not a big deal.”
“It’s not.” Ava felt like a shit for saying it, but the words left her mouth anyway. “It’s just a small publication; I didn’t get paid; only about a hundred people will see it–”
“It’s your first gig!” Leah said. “Don’t take this the wrong way – but get over yourself.”
Ava grinned. “I missed you.”
“I know you did. No one in Athens would keep your feet nailed down on the ground.” She lifted her nose to a superior angle. “Lucky for you, you won’t have to brave grad school without me.”
“Lucky for me,” Ava repeated, smiling, shaking her head.
Leah sobered a fraction and dropped her voice. “Seriously, though, you haven’t had any more trouble with your old boy, have you? He’s not in town for the…”
Ava nodded.
“Oh, he is. Damn.” Her smooth black brows tucked together over her almond eyes. “Well, but you can’t have…”
“Run into him? Back at the clubhouse.”
“Shit.” She made a face. “And I’m guessing you’re…”
“I’m fine.”
“Right. Obviously.”
“Honestly, why does everyone think I’m going to fall to pieces?”
Leah’s nose scrunched up like a little button in a comical show of regret. “Because you kind of did. More than once.”
“That was years ago.” But her heart grabbed like it had been yesterday. Her palms grew damp and her chest tightened and Ava wondered if anyone ever truly conquered that kind of heartbreak, or if it settled in a person’s bones and flared up at a moment’s notice when the afflicted party came in contact with the original pathogen again. A disease – that’s what it had been like. Not love, but a corrosive sickness. “I’ve moved on,” she said, like she meant it.
Leah’s brows rose as if to say really? “I thought you were bringing a new guy with you.”
“She did.”
Ava nearly leapt from her skin at the sound of Ronnie’s voice from the entry behind her. The sting of guilt heated her face. Three times now in the last hour, she’d forgotten he existed.
Leah sat, gaping, and Ava hoped her own expression was less bewildered as she turned to face her boyfriend. “Did you get all set up?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He’d traded his polo shirt for a plain blue t-shirt, his khakis for jeans; he still wore the loafers. Ava knew he didn’t own a single pair of boots.
He looked at Leah and smiled politely. “Hi. I’m Ronnie.”
“Leah,” she answered, sounding dazed.
“Ronnie,” Ava said, “Leah’s my best friend from back in elementary school. We grew up together.”
“That’s great.” Another polite smile graced his beautiful face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Where’s the restroom?”
“Oh, I’ll show you–”
“You can just tell me.”
“Oh.” Now she’d done it. She hadn’t ever seen him like this, all closed off and disinterested. Three was the magic number: a man could only be removed from the equation so many times before he started to shut down. “It’s across the hall from my room.”
He nodded and retreated, loafers scuffing against the bright orange Mexican tile. A moment later, they heard the bathroom door close.
“I think you screwed up,” Leah said.
“Yeah,” Ava agreed. “I think I did.”
“Oh well.” The unbound magazine pages were thrust across the counter, the Sharpie perched on the cover. “Here. Sign it.”