There ensued an uncertain little silence.
“You can keep the hummus,” he said.
The wordhummus, Avalon thought, would be evocative from now on. Another of those jolts. A reminder that prior to this conversation, they’d said things to each other like “oh God Oh God” and “Avalon... please... have mercy, for fuck’s sake.”
“Thanks,” she said simply.
They regarded each other for another odd, indecisive moment.
“Okay then,” he said. “Thank you... good night.”
He gave her a chummy little shoulder punch, for all the world as if she were Morton Horton.
And let himself out.
“Hey, buddy.”
The Cat emerged from the shrubbery near the front door and then fell into a long-legged stride beside him like a Labrador. Funny, he had a cat who acted like a dog, and Ava had a dog who might as well be a cat.
And as he walked back to his house, Mac mulled whether he felt rejected. He kind of did.
Technically he had been, but it was also on the heels of the best sex he could remember having, which was reason alone to celebrate the evening. He had a hunch that the rejection might actually have something to do with him, and not Corbin.
And whatever had gone down all those years ago. Why she’d disappeared.
But he was thoughtful. Hedefinitelywanted that to happen again.
What he wanted was for Ava to get what she wanted. And somehow, he knew better than anyone precisely what that was. And it wasn’t only a little space.
She wanted a choice. She wanted something to go right in her world. She wanted, in fact, to restore her world to rightness, whether she really understood that or not.
He knew how easy it would be to seduce her again. He in fact was cocky enough to believe that he could go right back in there and do it again; casually loop his arms around her, lay a kiss against her warm, soft neck, and in seconds they’d have a conflagration on their hands. She wanted him; he wanted her. That wasn’t going to go away.
But that wasn’t how he wanted to do this. Any more than he’d build a bridge over shaky ground.
He’d learned patience, of a sort. He’d learned the value and safety of a step at a time.
And it was remarkable how often just doing the right thing led to getting exactly what you wanted.
And there was just the right amount of risk to keep it interesting: because doing the right thing in no way guaranteed he’d have her in his arms again.
Avalon chucked the just-washed lasagna tin into the recycling bin and dried the forks thoroughly, as if she was wiping away DNA evidence when she actually kind of wanted to frame them:Our First Lasagna.
Mainly because she was postponing the thing she needed to do.
She sat down at the table, put her phone in the middle of it, and stared down.
But somehow pressing that one speed-dial button was as emotionally fraught as punching in the nuclear codes.
“Avalon. Oh my God...honey...thank you for calling. Are you okay?”
Honeywas a weird word for Corbin. He normally would have dismissed it as very regressive. Corbin wasfullof that sort of exhausting bullshit.
Whereas when Mac had said it to her when she was stuck in the attic, somehow that dumb little word sounded like a promise that everything would be all right in the world.
But Corbin did sound worried and relieved.
“I’m fine.”A little sore between the legs after riding my groundskeeper, otherwise fine.