I can’t help but laugh. It sounds like something my brothers and I would have done as kids. “Is that allowed?” I ask.
Liam shrugs. “Mom wouldn’t have let them, but . . . Dad doesn’t say much about anything now.”
“Right.” I let out a long sigh, reaching to turn the sink faucet off. I wait for Liam to look at me, and when he does, I see the pain in his eyes. God, he looks so much like Melody. “Are you okay, kid?”
He looks down, old enough to have enough pride to want to hide his emotion. “I’m fine,” he says.
“It’s okay if you’re not.”
He looks through the window at the back of the house. “Is he ever gonna be as happy as he was?”
My heart throbs. “I don’t know,” I admit. “He loved your mom very much, and I think losing her is something that will change him forever.” A deep chasm of sadness spreads on Liam’s face, and I hate it. I hate what’s happened to them all. “The pain will get easier though,” I promise. “It will always be there, in his heart, and in yours. But it won’t always feel this heavy and dark. Your mom wouldn’t want you guys to hurt forever—she’d want you to remember her with happy feelings.”
“I don’t know if I can,” he says, looking up at me. A tear spills out of his eye and down his cheek. He’s quick to wipe it away.
“You will, Liam. It just takes time.” I bend down to pull him in for a hug, feeling his heart beat through his shirt, and think what a miracle it is that he exists. That the love my brother shared with his wife led to three new pieces of our family that I can’t imagine not having now. Pulling away, I grin at him. “Let’s go tell your brothers to knock it off, yeah? Your mom wouldn’t want those walls torn to shit.”
Liam nods. “Yeah.”
I getto Ava’s house five minutes before six, frowning at the cruiser parked in the driveway. I leave the truck running and hopout, heading for the front door and trying not to notice all the ways this place looks exactly as it did when we were kids. How I used to help her sneak out at night to go fool around in the rec room at home, or in the back of an empty movie theater.
God, I was so crazy about her back then. Picking her up for a date like this feels like a slip back in time, into another life when there was still so much hope for a future together. Icannotlet the allure of it get to me—we have a job to do, and that’s it. Nothing more. I won’t go down this road again.
I rap my knuckles against the cream-painted front door and wait. When it opens, it’s not Ava on the other side. Sheriff Joe glowers at me, still in uniform, resting his hands against his utility belt. “Kasey Bennett,” he booms nice and loud. He’s always been a bit of a showman. “Is there something I can help you with?”
Once upon a time, this man sure scared the shit out of me—but I haven’t been scared of him for a long, long time. “I’m here for Ava,” I say calmly, giving him my best dose of eye contact.
He frowns. “What business do you have with Ava?”
“Dad!” I hear Ava shout from somewhere deeper into the house. “He’s picking me up.” The sheriff’s frown drops lower just as Ava comes up behind him, squeezing past him through the open door. “Don’t wait up,” she says, not sparing him a glance.
Because she’s smiling up at me.
Beaming, actually.
For a heartbeat, time stops. I think I might fall right into it—that smile. I forgot how much I love it, how hard I used to work for it. She tucks an arm beneath mine, wrapping a hand around my bicep, and presses up onto her toes to kiss me on the cheek. I close my eyes as her lips make contact with my skin, and I think I might pass out.
We definitely didnotdiscuss kissing of any sort.
“Ready?” she asks. Her perfume wraps around me, vanilla and something sweet. Sugar cookies, maybe. Or frosting. She’s wearing heels again, but at least she smells like the Ava I know. That’s a win, right?
Wait, no.Wrong.
There’s no winning here, and I don’t care what she smells like. I don’t care that she’s wearing expensive-looking heels or a black dress that was made for a woman and not a girl. I don’t care that her hand is sliding down my arm, aimed for my hand, because it’s not real. She might be Ava, but she’s notmyAva.
I frown. Dammit, I don’t know why I let this shit get under my skin. She’s had an entire life out there in the world, and I just keep expecting her to be the same girl who left. I shouldn’t even want that—she left to become someone different. And it’s not fair to either of us that I’m so stuck in the past.
“You okay?” she asks, her blue eyes reflecting traces of orange from the setting sun. I realize we’re still on her porch, and I’m just . . .staringat her.
My eyes flick to her father before moving back to her. I force a smile, even a chuckle. “Of course,” I say. “Just happy to see you.” The words feel like a knife in the chest. I see the way it stabs her too, the lie in them. Her bright eyes go distant, but her smile stays put.
“We should go,” she says, tugging me toward my truck.
“Ava, what in the world are you doing?” Sheriff Joe chides from the doorway, still glowering.
She finally turns to look at him. “Going out.”
I toss him another glance and feel the weight of his disapproval. “I’ll take good care of her, sir,” I say, shooting him a wink.
