25. Ava

Chapter 25

Ava

" A va. Please. Think about this for two seconds."

I set down the steaming cup of peppermint tea in front of Emily as she lounged on my cracked, vintage leather couch. She was fully dressed for the office despite me deciding we would work from my apartment today, and although she looked absolutely incredible in a full, dark pink pantsuit, it clashed with my pajamas and made it feel a bit like I was being talked down to by a therapist.

"He's twenty years older than you."

"I'm well aware of that," I said, trying to keep the snark in my voice to a minimum as I sunk into the matching chair opposite her. "It doesn't bother me."

"Just because it doesn't bother you doesn't mean it won't bother other people," she explained. Her braid fell over her shoulder as she leaned forward, wrapping her fingers around the hot mug. "Others will question it. Constantly. "

"Like you're doing now?" I snapped, and her mouth shut. "It's no one else's business. It doesn't matter if they have a problem with it."

"I get that. I do. And please understand that I'm talking to you about this as your friend, as your confidant , and I don't want to upset you. I'm genuinely thrilled for you, but I'm worried, too. You guys have such different lives and I don't want that to come between you, but you should be aware that there are risks here for that kind of thing."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "What do you mean?"

"Well, for one, he was a fully grown adult when 9/11 happened and you were still in diapers," she deadpanned. "He has a different perspective on the world. Hell, he probably has a different perspective on this city . One that probably clashes with yours, at least a little."

"I can handle clashes in perspective. I'm not five years old on the playground fighting over toys any more." The longer I stared at the swirling steam of my cup of black filter coffee, the more her words sunk in. She wasn't wrong , necessarily. There was an inherent oddity in the idea that he was a legal adult before I was even born.

"I know."

I sighed and lifted my cup to my lips, wincing as the contents burned my tongue. Fucking ouch. "Look," I said. "If Adrian was anyone else, if he was the same person he is now, but in the body of a man my age, it wouldn't change anything. I'd still want him. I'd still be drawn to him. And maybe that's naive of me to assume that, because he probably wasn't as well-rounded twenty years ago as he is now, but I honestly don't think it would change a thing. He would still be him. And he's who I want."

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

"I can't change the fact that he's the person I stumbled into blindly. I can't change my stupid, incessant teenage crush that I had on him, and I can't change how that's playing into things now. But in all honesty, if I had a time machine and could pluck anyone out of a crowd to do all of this again with and feel the same way about, I wouldn't. I'd choose him. Over and over again."

Her shoulders sagged as she leaned back, resting her cup of tea on her knee. "I love that. Genuinely. It makes me insanely happy, even though I don't look it," she said, huffing out a weak chuckle. "But you know I have to ask about the other part of this."

I averted my gaze. "Lucas?"

"Yeah. You're twenty-five. Are you ready to be a mom to an eight-year-old?"

I'd spent a lot of time thinking about that since I'd left Adrian's yesterday. He'd kept me with him up until the moment he'd gotten a call from Grace to let him know that they were on their way, and even then, he hadn't wanted me to leave. But we'd agreed it was the right thing to do so we wouldn't confuse Lucas.

But it was still a heavy topic, one that I didn't take lightly even though Adrian had insisted we'd figure it out. I had enough of my own issues from growing up in a family that wasn't happy, and I didn't want to inflict any unintentional trauma on the kid by taking on responsibilities I wasn't certain about.

"Honestly, I don't know," I sighed. "And I know that's a make or break for him. I love Lucas, he's great, but the fear of ruining his childhood by just being in proximity and doing the wrong thing at the wrong time is…terrifying. It's not like I don't want to be a mom at all, but I never expected to have to make that choice just because of someone I wanted to be with."

"Do you feel like you're ready to have a kid at all?"

I shrugged. "Maybe. When is anyone really ready , you know? My mom had me when she was seventeen, she wasn't ready , but she and my dad figured it out until they stopped working well together. And I'm…"

"Insane?" Em laughed.

"A little," I chuckled. "But I mean I'm not terrified of being a mother. I'm terrified of filling someone else's shoes."

"Do you think he'd be okay with you not filling that role immediately?" She sipped at her tea, and her lack of a wince from the heat of it made me irrationally jealous. "Like, do you think you guys could take it slow for a while, and once you feel certain, he could bring you in?"

I shook my head. "That's not what he's looking for. You know that. He wants someone who can help him raise Lucas."

"Yeah, but he also wants someone he doesn't have to love."

Fuck. I knew it would come up —she'd helped me with his file, had done the initial interview. She knew this. "I think…I think he's changed his mind about that."

"For you?"

"Yeah. For me."

————

Why I'd agreed to Adrian's somewhat last-minute invitation to come over for dinner with him and Lucas was beyond me. He'd be insane to try to broach the topic with his son about me this early, and I'd made entirely sure that wasn't his plan before I'd said yes. But even over text message three hours before he wanted me to arrive, he seemed overly carefree about the situation.

I could handle tiptoeing around Lucas. We'd basically done that already back in the Hamptons, but we also hadn't acted on our instincts fully then—the temptation had been overwhelming, sure, but it wasn't as easy to slip up as it could be with this. I just had to make it long enough for Lucas to go to bed.

The moment I typed the code that gave me access to his floor into the elevator, my phone chimed in my bag.

Adrian: I'm so sorry. I need to stay a little later at work. Damage control.

Adrian: I'll be out as soon as I can, but I understand if you want to cancel.

I stared down at my phone as the elevator rose rapidly. Ten seconds in, my ears popped, and I wondered if I was passing his office at lightspeed on the way up to his penthouse.

Me: I'm in the elevator. Do you want me to go?

His reply was almost immediate.

Adrian: Fuck no, I don't want you to go. Stay. I want to see you. I was just trying to be polite.

Adrian: Lucas and Grace are up there. If you're okay to wait around with them, I'll try to be as quick as I can.

The elevator slowed, stopped, and dinged on the sixtieth floor. The doors opened up to the private foyer, the same one I'd knelt on days ago, and it took everything in me to shove those memories down as I stepped out of the metal cube.

Me: I want to see you too. I'll wait. :)

Heavy footsteps grew louder and louder on the other side of the door.

"DADDY?"

Shit. I have to be the one to tell him?

Taking a deep breath and hesitantly opening the door, I came face to face with a boy half my height, with curly black hair and his father's blue eyes, a little set of glasses resting on his nose. His smile didn't falter, but his brows furrowed as he took me in.

"Hi, Ava," he said, but the way he said my name sounded more like a question than a greeting.

"Hi, Lucas." I grinned at him as I shut the door behind me, desperately trying not to show how uneasy this made me. "Your dad is still in his office. He's got a little more work to do but then he'll be up."

His nose scrunched up, and his glasses wiggled. He looked adorable in them—like a miniature version of his dad. "Did he send you to tell me that?"

I shook my head. "Nope. I'm having dinner with you guys tonight if you're okay with that."

His mouth popped open in surprise, his brows raised straight up his forehead, and he did a little happy dance. "Yay! Dinner with Ava!"

He grabbed my hand immediately, and within seconds, he was hauling me through the hallway and past the couch I'd spent far too much time on with Adrian. "Those new glasses?"

Lucas shook his head, his loose curls bouncing. As we passed Grace in the kitchen, I gave a little wave, and she answered back with a small nod and a smile that told me Adrian had at least warned her . "Nope! I gotta wear them to read like my dad. Can you help me with my homework?"

————

Four hours later, I'd eaten chicken parmesan, helped Lucas finish his homework, and watched an entire Legos movie with him. It was nearing ten in the evening.

Adrian still hadn't come up.

Me: Adrian?

Me: Lucas is saying his bedtime is 1 AM. I do not believe him.

Me: Are you okay?

Grace had already packed up and gone home after I gave her the green light. I didn't know what else to do short of calling Adrian or going down there with Lucas in tow. The nausea in my stomach came more from worry than it did from irritation, and in a last-ditch effort, I snuck away from a yawning Lucas to call his father.

It took four rings for him to pick up.

"Fuck, I'm so sorry," Adrian said. In four little words, I could hear the overwhelming stress in his voice, could feel the realization hitting him about what time it was and what had happened.

"It's okay," I insisted. "Grace went home about an hour ago. We're just watching TV. Are you all right?"

"I'm just…I'm dealing with a lot. I'm really sorry, Aves," he sighed. "Actually—fuck this. I'm coming up now. I'll deal with it tomorrow."

"Are you sure?"

I could hear the sound of his computer shutting and his chair squeaking. "Yeah. I'll see you in a few." He hesitated for a moment, and a second later a light, barely-there laugh echoed down the phone. "And for the record, no, his bedtime is nine. But it's not on you to police that."

He said a quick goodbye before hanging up, and as I rounded the corner of the private little alcove I'd stood in, a photo that hung on the wall opposite caught my eye in the low light. I lit the space with the flashlight from my phone, and to my absolute surprise, found a version of my father from at least ten years ago, if not more.

And beside him, a younger Adrian.

They stood in the backyard of the house my mother still lived in, my dad in his barbecuing apron and a set of tongs in one hand, Adrian in stars-and-stripes shorts and a plain white shirt. It must have been the Fourth of July—I couldn't see him wearing those for any other reason.

There wasn't a single crease on his face, and every little gray hair that ran through the black that I'd come to adore was absent. It was nearly the exact same version of him that I'd obsessed over as a teenager.

My chest tightened. I'd always been fond of him. Obviously . But looking at him like this, seeing a version of him in the past, comparing that to who he was now and who we were…there wasn't a part of me that felt I could explain how it made me feel even if I wanted to. It made a lump crop up in my throat, made my eyes water, made a blockage form in my nose.

This was Adrian before Jan. Before Lucas. Before us.

And for some reason unbeknownst to me, it solidified everything. I could be what he needed, if he wanted that. I could love him, if I wanted that. I was probably way too far along the path than I should be, and I only had my teenage infatuation to blame.