Touch & Go (17 page)

The room was just exactly what she'd described. Only…less.

That Ava would even joke about calling this her home pissed Sam off. There was nothing
homey
about it.

Yeah, she had the basic necessities for survival, but the things that made Ava smile, the things she loved—she hadn't brought any of them. Her closet was filled with clothes. The small kitchen area had a box of cereal, a sleeve of Oreos, three bananas, and a bottle of vitamins. He opened the fridge and found two eggs and a half-gallon of milk, period. Another step into the apartment and he was at her desk/everything else table, where she had two framed pictures: one of her parents, Ford, him, and Ava all sitting on the front steps of the house she'd grown up in; the other a group shot with the whole gang taken at Maggie's gallery opening. And so far as he could tell, that was the sum total of what was personal to Ava in this room.

“It's actually very nice. Comfortable. You just aren't used to it.”

He nodded, trying to keep his cool. “But you are? You're good with this.”

For six fucking weeks, she'd been living like this.

She walked over to the window and opened the drapes to let in more light. “Honestly, I'm almost never here. I work late. I work weekends. So it's really just a handy convenience.”

“You're here now. It's not even five.”

“Normally I'd be working. But today…” she started to explain, looking anywhere but at him. “I was doing…something else.”

Something else.

He blinked, tension ripping through him as the possibilities narrowed.

She'd told him she'd been on a date, but was it more?

Was there a guy? A guy she'd taken a day off of work to be with?

A guy who lived in San Diego and who maybe she liked enough not to want to leave?

The blood was starting to pump too fast past his ears and his jaw felt like it was about to pop.

What the fuck was this all about?

Ava had dated tons of guys. Not so many seriously, sure. But for the most part, he didn't get bent out of shape about the ones who took her out or what happened between them.

Only right now—
Jesus,
Sam felt like he wanted to break something. A lot of somethings…starting with whoever the fuck this guy was she'd been out with.

He needed to get a grip.

“Sam?” she asked, looking nervous. And why wouldn't she—he was about to erupt right there in front of her like a total psycho.

“Hey,” he started, pushing every bit of calm, easy, and casual he could muster into the word. “Mind if I take a minute to clean up? Long flight.”

Ava nodded quickly, sitting back on her bed and then springing up from it like the damn thing was on fire. “Sure. You bet.”

Locked within her bathroom, he ran the tap and washed his face. Her makeup, hair accessories, and toothbrush sat in the kind of neatly regimented stacks he'd never find at home, and right there next to it was her birth control pills.

His fists clenched at his sides as he breathed through what felt like a knife to his gut.

Stupid.

She was a grown woman. What they'd had was over and she'd told him herself she wanted to move on.

Besides, she'd been on those pills before they even hooked up. Just because she was still taking them didn't mean they were getting any use.

He stared at the circular case a minute more, trying to talk himself down from what he was about to do. From walking back into her room and demanding to know who it was. What exactly had been happening with this guy and whether she'd been with him.
Christ,
whether she loved him.

He wasn't going to do any of that, though, because he didn't have any right.

Cranking the tap off, he took a couple of deep breaths, even doing that yoga breathing shit Ava had told him about the year before. When he was certain he had it together, he stepped back into her room, took one look at her bed, and felt his hold on reason slipping fast.

Don't do it, man.

Don't
—“So who's the guy?”

Ava blinked, her lips parting and then pursing closed as her brows pulled together. “You mean…from today?”

So she had taken the day off to be with
him.

But then why weren't they still together, unless he was planning to pick her up later? Maybe she was supposed to be getting ready for a big night out. Or a quiet night in.

His molars ground hard as he remembered the less-than-quiet sounds of having Ava beneath him. The way she sighed and gasped, and how his name rode her lips, louder and louder and louder until she screamed.

“I don't know, how many are there?”

This time she pushed up from her chair, her eyes wary as she walked over to him. “I was going to wait on this, but since you're here, I think we need to talk.”

Oh Jesus,
she was in love with him! She'd fallen in love with some guy from fucking San Diego. His chest felt like someone had cracked his rib cage.

“Sam, here, sit down,” she said, pulling the single wooden chair over from the table.

He didn't want to sit. “Just tell me.”

A knock sounded at her door and both their heads turned in slow motion. Ava looked like she was about to have a heart attack. But he couldn't tell if it was because of what she was about to tell him, or because of whom she expected to find on the other side of the door.

Either way, she stepped around him and walked over. The door opened and Sam thought he might puke on the spot. Or do some serious bodily harm. Only as it turned out, all he managed was to stare at a guy almost as tall as he was, dressed in a suit and pressing a bouquet of mixed roses into her hands as he waved a bottle of champagne between them.

“Drew, what are you—?” she started to ask, but the guy was a step ahead.

“They called while I was still in the car. We did it, Ava,” he answered, staring down at her like he couldn't look away. “I didn't think we'd be able to pull it together, but Chicago's agreed. Everything you asked for, we've got. So put on your best dress—I'm taking you out to celebrate.”

Before he realized his feet were even moving, Sam was headed for the door, his hand stuck out in greeting despite the way Drew took an uncomfortable step back when he saw him.

“Sam Farrow. What are we celebrating?”

Ava looked between them, her discomfort off the charts.

But Drew seemed to bounce back faster. “Oh, excuse me. I didn't realize Ava wasn't alone.” Then his brows pulled up and he looked to Ava, a curious smile on his face. “Wait,
Sam,
Sam? The best friend, Sam?”

Okay, so maybe this wasn't so bad. She'd been talking about him. Even in the context of just friends, that was something.

“Sorry, Drew Mitchel. Guess I feel like I already know you, Ava talked about you so much that first time she was out. Didn't realize you were coming in.”

Slinging an arm around Ava, who gaped up at him, he answered, “Neither did she. Last-minute thing. So what's this about a celebration?”

“You know we've been negotiating the terms of Ava's permanent transfer to this office,” Drew started, completely oblivious to the way Ava had all but stopped breathing or how Sam's smile had turned to concrete. “We've been back and forth the last few weeks, but this afternoon Chicago finally caved. So we're celebrating her new job—unless you guys already have plans, in which case, Ave, we'll take you out with the whole crew next week. Either way, the bubbly and flowers are for you.”

Sam looked down to where Ava was tucked beneath his arm, a cold numbness spreading through him where there should have been anger, rage. She'd lied to him. She'd lied and she was leaving him. For good.

“Wow. Congratulations, Ava.”

She didn't even look at him. “Drew, thank you so much for this. And for bringing my bag back,” she said, stepping out of Sam's hold to take the lot of what Drew was offering. “But I'll have to take a rain check on the celebration, if you don't mind.”

“Not at all,” he assured her. Then, as he backed down the hall, he said, “Good to finally meet you, Sam. Enjoy your visit.”

Ava closed the door and leaned back against it, the thick fringe of her lashes resting against her cheeks. “I was going to tell you. I wanted to wait until it was finalized, but when you showed up here, I was going to tell you right away.”

He wasn't sure if that was supposed to make him feel any better or not. That she hadn't
intended
for some total fucking stranger to clue him into the shit his best friend had been up to seemed small consolation.

She'd been
lying
to him.

Deceiving him and stringing him along, when all the while she'd been planning to leave for good.
Jesus Christ,
he couldn't believe it.

“Why?” he asked, barely able to form even that single word.

“I didn't want you to try to talk me out of it. I knew you would, and I couldn't deal with it.”

She couldn't deal with him. Yeah, he got it. Too hard to deal with the guy who was getting dumped, so better to just fucking blindside him. Make him feel like the worst kind of fool for believing her.

How the hell was it possible this kept happening to him?

That all the women he trusted, all the women he let into the part of him that was so hard to open up—they all left him. Ripped him to pieces and left him behind.

His mother. She'd promised she'd be back, but once her life straightened out, the safety of her own child wasn't important enough to her to come back for.

Shannon. She'd sworn she loved him. That her going to college while he went to work full-time wasn't going to change anything for them, but it hadn't taken more than two weeks before she'd been banging some frat boy while he'd been saving his money to go visit her.

Mrs. Meyers. It hadn't been her choice to leave—God help him, he knew that. But a part of him would never get over that last conversation they'd had. When he told her what happened when he'd shown up for a job a few towns over and found his mother by the pool in the backyard having lunch with her two teenage sons. She'd been laughing and happy, not a care in the world. No dark shadows crossing her eyes when she thought about the son she'd left behind. She hadn't recognized him. And when he told her who he was, she'd looked terrified. She'd begged him to go—not to ruin her life, her family.

He'd been stunned, too shocked to do anything more than nod and walk out the way he'd come. But as he left, he couldn't help but catalog the framed photos along the way. The smiles and laughs. The growing family. And in all of them the boy not shown. The son left behind to fend for himself against a violent drunk while his mother had built her new happy family.

He'd gone to Mrs. Meyers instead of Ava that day because she was a mom and he thought maybe she would be able to help him understand. But she hadn't been able to understand herself. So what she'd done instead was wrap him in her arms and tell him that she loved him like he was her own son. That no matter how old he got, no matter what path he chose, if he ever needed a mother, to remember he had one in her. She'd be there for him.

Three days later she was gone, without anything but a freak highway accident to blame.

But with Ava he'd been so sure it wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. They'd grown up together. He knew her better maybe than he knew himself.

Only now as he stared at the woman who was doing the one thing he would have sworn she'd never do, he had to face facts.

Maybe he didn't know Ava so well after all.

He wasn't saying anything.

That was the worst. Sam never shied away from his feelings or opinions, at least not with her. But in this, she knew he felt betrayed. Because
he'd been betrayed
.

It hadn't been her intention, and she'd have done anything to prevent things from turning out the way they had, but there was no going back now.

“Sam, say something,” she pleaded, her belly churning with dread and the sick, certain knowledge of loss.

It had been coming anyway, but naïvely, she thought she had more time.

Picking up the framed snapshot of her family, Sam walked over to her window; then, looking out, he set the photo on the nightstand next to her bed.

“I don't get it,” he finally said, his voice low and angry. “Obviously, this is about me. About us. About
you
wanting to get away from
me.
”

God,
she hated that he even thought it, and even more that, in a way, it was true.

“But what I don't get is what I did that was so terrible you'd rather give up your only remaining family, all of your friends, and the life you've been building and protecting for as many years as I can remember than have to deal with me.”

Her throat was thick with the tears filling her eyes.

He was waiting for her answer, the muscle in his jaw jumping with every second that passed.

How had she ever thought she'd be able to explain this to him? To make him understand?

“It's not that,” she started,desperately. Only what could she say?

His face blanked as he met her eyes. “Did you fall in love with someone out here?”

“Sam, no.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“No!”

“Are you sick? Is there something wrong with you?”

“No!”

“Then what? Tell me,” he demanded. “Did you just wake up one morning and realize after twenty years that you couldn't stand the sight of me?”

“Sam, no,” she sobbed, the pain in his eyes killing her. “It's not what you think—”

“Then what the fuck is it!” he roared, his anger hitting her in a blast so hot, all she could do was react.

“I'm in love with you!” she fired back, tears spilling down her cheeks as the words tore through all the walls and defenses she'd locked them behind for as long as she'd been aware of the truth herself.

But he still didn't understand. “Yeah, and I love you, too, but what the hell does that have to do with—”

“No, Sam. I'm
in love
with you,” she said, her hand pressing hard against her breaking heart. “
That's
why I have to leave.”

Sam's breath punched out of him as if he'd taken a physical blow, knocking the air and bitterness and rage right out of him and replacing it with an anguish and guilt that ran soul deep.

“Jesus, Ava.” He shook his head, ran a hand over his face, and looked back at where she stood, exposed and devastated, across from him. “I didn't know.”

“I didn't want you to.”

And then he was crossing to her, drawing her into the comfort of a hold that had been there through her entire life. Strong and warm, and so familiar, all she could do was melt into it as the tears slid one after another down her cheeks.

She was losing this. Whether Sam tried to hold on to her or not, she had to let him go.

“I'm sorry, Sam. I didn't want to hurt you. I thought getting away for a while would be enough, but it's not.”

The arms around her tightened. “Don't. I'm the one who fucked this up. I should have left you alone after that first goddamned kiss. I could have stopped it a hundred times, but it felt too good, and I was too damned selfish to consider the consequences. Too arrogant to believe anything could come between us.”

“No,” she protested, because there was no way Sam was going to take this on himself. She'd been the one with all the information. She was the one who should have known better.

“I know you're freaking out right now, because you've been trying to deal with this yourself. But you don't have to. We can get through this together, Ava.”

Pulling back from his arms, she peered up at him. “I don't think we can. Sam, if I ever want a real life of my own—
a family of my own,
with a husband, and babies—I have to stop pretending that being in love with you doesn't matter. Because it does. It's breaking my heart. And with you right there to compare to, no other man is ever going to measure up.”

Sam gave her a tender smile and swept the tears from her face with his thumbs. “Ava, you thinking that about me—there aren't words for how it makes me feel. But it's not going to be the case. This thing you're feeling is going to fade. And a year from now we're going to be laughing about it, maybe even with the guy who's actually worthy of—”

“Sam, you don't understand,” she said, her throat so full with emotion she could barely get the words out. “This isn't something new that I'm going fall out of as quickly as I fell into it.”

Chin pulled back, he shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

He already knew the worst of it.

Now he just needed to know the rest.

Resting her hand over the center of his chest, she met his eyes. “Sam, I've been in love with you since I was seven years old.”

“What? No.” He was hearing this wrong. “
No.
That's not how it—
Jesus Christ, Ava.
That's not how it is with us. It's never been like that.” His heart was starting to slam, a cold panic slicking through his veins, because she wouldn't—“Wait, you're telling me you've just figured it out, right? That looking back, you think it must have been love—even though, I'm telling you, you're wrong. Yeah, we've each had a few misplaced emotions over the years. A couple of crushes that needed to be tamped down. But Ava, you're confusing the real love that was between us with a romantic love.”

She had to be.
The alternative was too fucked up to even consider. But Ava was shaking her head, going on with the words he couldn't stand to hear.

“No, Sam. From the beginning. I think from the very first day.”

“You're my
friend,
Ava. My best fucking friend in the world.”

“And I knew if I told you, I'd lose that. That it would mess everything up between us. Between all of us. So I made sure I hid it. And most of the time, it wasn't a big deal. I knew where we stood, and I was totally okay with it. But when we kissed—”

His hands flew up and he backed away. “Jesus Christ, did you set that up?”

“No!” she gasped emphatically, somehow finding the gall to look offended.

Which was rich, after everything he'd just heard.

“But you knew. Before any of this happened, you knew how you felt about me. And you figured you'd just do it, anyway.” He turned around, finding nothing but wall and bed, and a space too small for any kind of escape without physically leaving the room.

Ava's hand was at his back, her voice concerned and pleading. “Yes, I knew, but I didn't think—”

“You didn't think that being in love with me might play into the success of some no-strings sex?” he demanded. “You didn't think that, weighed against our friendship—twenty years of friendship—a few meaningless fucks might not be worth it?”

Ava flinched at his words, retreating across the small room.

“I thought I could handle it, Sam. I thought—what was one kiss? A chance to experience something I'd dreamed about since kissing first made my radar.”

“But it wasn't just a kiss, was it?” he accused, images of that night flashing behind his eyes, along with tastes and textures, the smell of her skin, the sound of her gasp.

He shook his head, shoving it all away. Not wanting those memories tainted by the knowledge of Ava's blatant disregard for their friendship. But knowing it was too late to preserve them.

“No, it wasn't.” Her head hung low. “But you have to believe me—I never thought we were jeopardizing what we had. All I could think about was this was my one chance to know. My one opportunity to have what I'd wanted most in my whole life,
without
it getting in the way of our friendship.”

“Bullshit. You're telling me you never had a moment's doubt?”

“And you're telling me, in all those nights, you never did either?” she shot back at him.

“It's not the same,” he yelled. “I'm not in love with you! I had no idea!”

She looked like he'd slapped her, and the part of him that never wanted to stop looking out for her rose up from all that anger and betrayal, urging him to take her by the shoulders and demand to know how she could be so stupid, why she'd let her heart settle for him.

But then that stunned look burned off as her own anger rose and, head high, she took a step toward him.

“Then let me put this in terms you'll understand, Sam. You're a
fucking
idiot. I get how you could have missed it for the last twenty years. I've been hiding it since you were too young to even have a clue about that sort of thing. So between my having a damn lot of practice and you just accepting the status quo, it's understandable. But for a guy who claims to be my best friend, once we started sleeping together, once you were inside my body, looking so deep into my eyes I thought there was nothing I'd be able to hide from you, there's only one way you wouldn't see what was looking back at you—you didn't want to!”

“So now this is my fault,” he laughed humorously, leaning into the space between them. “Because I believed you. Because I was fucking stupid enough to think I had one person on this
fucking
planet I could trust!”

The last thing he saw was Ava's face crumbling as he stormed out of that shit hole she'd been calling home. He could barely breathe and was far past rational thought.

For once this month, he and Ava were of the same mind: the only way he was going to get through this was to put some distance between them. Ironic he had to cross the country to figure out why.