Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

JETT

I have to shove down fear of my own in the face of the rising panic in Ava. She needs me to be calm right now, and I can do that for her. Thankfully, Colby returns to the room with Reeves, the team doctor, within thirty seconds. I have no idea why Gabriella extended the invite to him, but I'm grateful.

He's got a backpack with him and goes into doctor mode right away, checking Ava's breathing and heart rate. "Does she have an EpiPen?" he asks me.

I shake my head. "She isn't allergic to anything, as far as I know. And she said earlier she isn't, but maybe she was already in shock or something." I shrug, feeling way too helpless. The idea that I might harbor some feelings for her has been lingering on the edges of my brain, and I keep pushing it away. But part of me knows I wouldn't be so angry about our past if I wasn't still hung up on her, even a little. I wouldn't be panicking now, worrying irrationally about losing her for good.

Reeves glances at Colby. "Have Gabriella check her bag." He turns back to me. "We need to get her to a hospital for some blood tests and in case the reaction gets worse." He pulls out a phone, and though I mostly tune him out, I hear him requesting an ambulance .

Gabriella comes back into the room with Ava's bag. "There's no EpiPen in here," she reports.

Reeves nods. "It's likely then that she didn't know she was allergic to whatever she ate." He unzips his backpack on both sides, opening it up to reveal a myriad of medical things stuffed into pockets. He pulls an EpiPen from one of them.

Ava turns to me from where she's sitting on the side of the bed. Her eyes widen at the sight of me, like she's just noticed me there. "Jett," she slurs. "You're here." Good. Her loopy behavior says the Benadryl is kicking in. I relax the slightest bit.

Reeves frowns, though, and turns to me, his eyes questioning her reaction as he preps to give Ava the injection.

"I gave her Benadryl," I report, looking at my watch, but that's useless. I have no idea what time it was when I ushered her back into this bedroom. "Maybe, I don't know, ten, fifteen minutes ago. She always gets a bit loopy when she takes it. Well, I can assume she still does." If the situation wasn't so serious, I might laugh at the memory that pops into my head. Junior year, right after we started dating, a bunch of us went on a hike and we all got mauled by mosquitos. Ava's reaction was worse than everyone's, the bites growing to three times the size of mine. She'd taken a Benadryl on the ride back and then chattered the entire way back, admitting without shame how big her crush was on me and how cool she thought I was, all of it spilling out of her almost without her permission. She told me the next day, while blushing furiously—and beautifully—with embarrassment that she always got a little weird on Benadryl.

"She still does," Gabriella says, pulling me from the memory.

I take Ava's hands and focus her attention on me. If she doesn't have her own EpiPen, it probably means this will be a first for her. "Look at me, Ava," I say gently. "Focus on me."

She nods, squeezing my hands in hers as Reeves hits the injector against her thigh. Ava jumps at the impact and squeezes my hands harder. Reeves mouths, One … two … three before pulling it back. He rubs his fingers over the site. "You should start to feel better any second now," he tells Ava.

She lets go of my hands and reaches toward me, clutching my T-shirt in her fingers, and I have to physically restrain myself from pulling her into my arms and holding her until the paramedics come. I know it's just my protective instincts and our history, but it's a powerful combination.

"I didn't mean to eat any salt-and-vinegar chips, Jett." She says it so seriously that I swallow back a bark of laughter.

"I know, babe." That keeps slipping out, but I'm not too concerned. Chances are she won't remember any of this later. Colby and Gabriella might. I cringe.

"Babe," she murmurs again, like she did earlier. "I like that." She takes a breath, which to my uneducated ears sounds better than the wheezing she was doing before. Hopefully that means the medications are working.

I miss this between us. Well, not a drugged-up Ava, but things being easy. The moment I realized she was sick, my anger dropped away and I was back in college, my arm around her while she drifts off during a movie or late-night football game I insist on watching because I'm too keyed up to go to sleep.

"Jett," she says, and I'm leaning in close to her so her breath puffs against my cheek. I lean back a little so I can see her face, that same so-serious expression from a moment before.

"Yeah?" I ask, my eyebrows rising as I wonder what's coming next. A smile creeps onto my lips too.

She drops her voice to a whisper. "Your butt still looks so good in those football pants."

Colby snorts from the doorway. It wasn't a very quiet whisper. "Thanks, Ava," I say as the paramedics come in behind Colby. I gently uncurl her fingers from my T-shirt and back away so they can see to her.

I fold my arms as I stand next to Colby while the paramedics fire off questions to Reeves and everyone else in the room. I hate that I don't have more answers. I have no idea what Ava ate to cause this, and she was never allergic to anything before. She was supposed to be my wife, and I was supposed to know everything about her. For the first time since I toted her to this bedroom, anger spikes through me. And for the first time since she came back to town it's not because of what she did, it's because of what I don't have and I somehow still want. I push the thoughts away, concentrating on Reeves and the paramedics and dig deep for anything I might possibly remember that could help.

Gabriella stands in the doorway, ear to her phone, telling the paramedics that Ava's mom says she's not allergic to anything that she knows of.

I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. How did I not even think to call Ava's parents—or something? That would have been my first thought back when we were dating. And, considering the things that could have changed in the years since I last saw Ava, that should have been my first thought.

Gabriella has sent pretty much everyone home, so the entertainment room is empty except for Dalton and Reeves as I follow the gurney through the house and out the back door.

"I'm going to ride with her," Gabriella says, leaning up to kiss Colby on the cheek. "I'll call you later and update you." She glances between both of us, but I shake my head.

"I'll be right behind you," I say.