Ava
‘How are you feeling?’ I ask, resting the stem of my glass on Kate’s pregnant belly.
‘I’m pregnant, fat, and I’m eating like a fucking horse.’ She blows her cheeks out and motions popping them. ‘Tell me how you are. How’s yoga going?’
‘Great.’ I smile, reminded of the image I had. ‘It beats therapy by a mile. At my last session, I was so spaced out, and I saw Jesse and the twins when they were babies.’
‘That’s great!’
I nod, sipping my drink.
‘And how are things with you and Jesse?’
I inhale and take a quick peek into the bar area where my husband is standing with his friends, but his attention is far from on them. ‘Good.’
‘And?’ she prompts.
I shrug. ‘He’s being very attentive. In between his rants about dresses, drinking and anything else that displeases him. Which is a lot.’
Kate laughs, holding her belly, and then flinches. ‘Ouch.’
I immediately bolt forward, my hands over hers on her tummy. ‘What is it? You okay?’
She shuffles in her seat, grimacing. ‘It’s nothing. Just the baby lying awkwardly.’ Brushing away my hands, she settles and gives me her undivided attention again. ‘It’s—’
I hold my hand up, stopping her. ‘I know what you’re going to say. I’ve figured out very quickly that he’s a bit of a control freak.’
‘A bit?’
‘A lot,’ I relent, taking my glass to my lips, thoughtful. ‘It’s just . . . weird, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’
I wave my glass through the air, indicating everything around me. ‘Up here.’ I tap the side of my head. ‘I’m still early twenties, rocking youth and pursuing my career.’ I look down my lace-clad body. ‘But here I’m thirty-eight, married to what can only be described as an ogre, and I have eleven-year-old twins. Eleven!’ I flop back in my seat, once again utterly shell-shocked by what is my life.
After way too long a silence, I sip my drink as I look at Kate. She’s smiling. ‘You know, I saw all these emotions in you once before.’ She waits a moment for me to ask when, but I don’t. I don’t need to. ‘Ava.’ With one hand on mine, the other on her gigantic belly, she shuffles in closer. I look Kate straight in her vivid blue eyes, wondering where she’s hiding the past sixteen years because, frankly, she looks no different. The pregnant belly aside. ‘For the record, you look fucking fabulous,’ she says. Reaching up, she pushes a stray strand behind my ear, her smile knowing. She’s read my mind, but I still pout, a little put out that I’m much older than I want to be. ‘How do you feel about him?’
‘Jesse?’
‘No, the Lord Almighty.’ The roll of her eyes is dramatic.
‘He is the Lord Almighty.’ I laugh softly, casting my gaze to him at the bar. He’s still watching me, though something tells me the glass of bubbles in my hand isn’t the reason why. I can see curiosity scattered across his face, the signature creases that I’ve become familiar with spanning his forehead. I breathe in, unable to help admiring the fine form of a man who is my husband. He has a sexy, magnetic appeal that demands attention, and for the most part, he knows it. He’s a god, no denying it, and I am married to him. Though past all his cocky arrogance, there’s a vulnerability. A weakness. I am the cause of that weakness. His love for me.
I study him as he studies me, his big body relaxed against the bar. My eyes go off on a tangent, roaming the vast length of him, all the way down to his Grensons, and back up again until I get to his face. That face. I sigh, relaxing, a smile breaking free when his green eyes shine, glimmer, and sparkle madly, his devilish smirk faint but apparent. He’s aware of the inspection he’s under, and, as always, he’s taking too much pleasure from my inability to keep my damn eyes under control. I shake my head faintly on a little laugh, and he winks, kissing the air. ‘Arrogant pig,’ I mouth.
‘I love you, too,’ he mouths back, making me laugh out loud and quickly return my focus to Kate before I inflate his huge ego even more. The man’s a case. When I find my friend, I also find a cheesy grin around another one of those bloody canapés.
‘Tell me you don’t adore that man,’ she demands. ‘Tell me it isn’t ingrained into you like every one of your internal organs. Tell me you don’t need him to survive.’
‘I can’t,’ I admit, though the idea is crazy if true.
I look at him and feel electric inside. He touches me, and my veins charge with heat. In his arms, I feel at home. Like nothing can hurt me. And I know for sure that it can’t.
‘I didn’t know what I felt at first,’ I admit. ‘Attraction, for sure, but trying to get my head around this man being my husband was frightening.’ I smile when Kate takes my hand and holds it in a sign of support. ‘I saw something in him, something that I should have been wary of, yet I was more intrigued by him. He’s told me things that are unbelievable, yet I believe them.’ Kate doesn’t ask what things, as I suspect she knows. ‘I just feel myself leaning on him in all ways, and I know it’s the right thing to do. I can’t explain it. I feel protective of him, even though I know he can more than look after himself. But more protective of his ways, like a need to defend how he is. Because I know why he’s like that. The Manor, his uncle, his brother. The scars on his stomach, just the thought of him being hurt, no matter in what way.’ At the mention of the scars, Kate inhales, flinching. ‘I know,’ I agree. ‘I was so mad when he told me how he’d sustained the injuries. I know he claims to have been nothing before he met me, empty and lost, but still. He shouldn’t have been so careless with his life.’
‘Careless?’
‘Not wearing his leathers when he rode his bike,’ I prompt, and she nods slowly, looking across to Jesse with the disappointment I feel myself.
‘He’s a silly man,’ she muses, starting to get up from her seat, the effort too much, even with my helping hand. ‘I need to pee for the thousandth time in an hour.’
‘Want me to come?’
‘Trust me, you don’t want to hear me pee. I sound like a carthorse.’
‘So you’re eating like a horse, peeing like a horse. You gonna start galloping?’ I smile when she chuckles.
‘Sam’s gonna have to roll me out of this joint.’ She stretches, standing tall, her palms in her back pushing her hips forward. ‘Oh, God,’ she groans, the sound pure pleasure. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. You want a drink?’
‘Yes, but don’t let Jesse see it.’
‘I’ll smuggle it through in my gigantic knickers.’ She wanders off, and I fall into thought again, at the same time admiring Jesse. Falling in love with him so quickly seems like an outlandish possibility.
But it happened once before.
And it’s happening once again.