17. Ava

Chapter 17

Ava

D ad had my office finished up over the weekend, so there was at least one happy ending there.

"We've got six more male clients," Emily said, her fingers counting off each of the updates she had for me. "The website's up and running, too, so we can start to vet people before they fill in their questionnaires. I've run a few ads on Instagram, and we've had a ton of female sign-ups. I've marked a few of them down for you in the binder that I think could be a good fit for Adrian."

I wanted to throw up.

"You don't look happy."

"I'm not," I said. I rested my head in the palms of my hands, resisting the urge to slam my head against something hard.

"Bad weekend with him?"

I shook my head.

"Oh no. You slept with him again."

"No. I didn't," I mumbled.

"Oh," she lilted, dragging out the sound. "You didn't sleep with him, and you regret it."

The backs of my eyes burned as I lifted my head in the overwhelming glow of the fluorescent lights. It shouldn't have bothered me as much as it did, but I'd never felt so frustrated in my goddamn life than I did when he'd stopped and walked Grace back to her bedroom. It felt like I'd stepped into a fever dream when he'd come back and suggested we go to bed before we did something we'd regret.

Because I did regret this. I regretted doing nothing when I had the chance.

"I feel like he's fucking edging me, but it's my emotions," I explained, taking a deep breath to calm the rising tide in my chest. I'd barely been able to calm down since it happened.

"Edging can be fun," Emily said.

"Yeah, during sex . Which we didn't have," I snapped. "This was so much easier last month when I hadn't been building him up in my head, when I could pretend like we barely knew each other, when sex wasn't this thing hanging over my head like a banshee screaming at me."

"Oh, Aves," Emily cooed, her hand wrapping around my forearm and squeezing gently. "I'm sorry. That can't be easy."

"It's not," I said. "And now I have to find him a fucking match, because it couldn't just be easy, could it? I couldn't have just had a fun little fling with him and moved on. No, my father had to get me involved in his life. With his son . And I'm going to have to pick out women for him that I think he'll like when I'd rather shove my fingers into my fucking eyes, and I'll have to be okay with it."

————

The sun had long since set in the quiet retreat of my office, and Emily had already gone home by the time I'd picked three somewhat satisfactory choices.

The first was an art major. She had a parrot, but he could probably deal with that. She liked children.

The second was a history major, but she was a curator at the MOMA. She liked children, too.

And the third was a film buff with an interest in photography, traveling, and teaching. More importantly: she liked children.

I didn't want to give him any of them. And if I was honest, maybe I'd overlooked some of the red flags in the others without realizing I had done it on purpose. But this felt different, and despite each one of them confirming a day and a time this upcoming weekend, I didn't want to tell him. I didn't want to have to do any of this.

I couldn't even bring myself to text him. His potential response churned my stomach, and I couldn't handle the idea of seeing it right away. E-mail would have to do.

I wrote out something short and sweet, a quick message to let him know that he should find someone to take Lucas for the weekend so he wouldn't need to worry about coming and going from his apartment. I wrote out the times, the schedules, their names, and the locations. I wanted to change every single one to my name, to my address. But I didn't.

I stared at it for far too long before hitting send.