I jerk my thumb at the door. “Help yourself.”
“Seriously? You have mushrooms?”
Ava wiggles and dives for the ground. Beck does some gymnastics trick that should be physically impossible to keep her from landing on her head, and he comes up holding her upside down by one foot.
She giggles.
Then she growls at me, reminding me of Sloane, which makes my heart do that pitter-patter fucking annoying thing again.
Mind over emotions.
Mind over hormones.
Mind over wanting to be her hero.
I need to find this goddamn treasure and then figure out what’s next in my entire life.
And a woman will never bewhat’s next.
I do this thing where I get bored with something and move on. Not doing that in a relationship, so I just don’t do relationships.
Also, I’d have to trust a stranger with some of my deepest, darkest secrets.
Not happening. The end.
“Mush-ooms,” Ava says.
I bend over and look the toddler right in her blue eyes. “Life lesson, kiddo. Uncle Davis hears all, and he will always stock mushrooms for you.”
“You uggy,” she says.
Beck chokes and lifts her so her face is up near his face. “Ava. Where did you learn that word? We don’t like that word. That word is ug—oh. That’s where you learned that word.”
She flaps her arms, still upside down. “I fwy! Mush-ooms!”
I toss my axe aside and lead them inside, where I dig mushrooms out of my fridge and hand them over to my honorary niece, who’s shoved my computer out of the way at my small kitchenette table.
I open the blinds on the window over the table so she can look out at the colorful fall trees too.
Vanessa’s never having kids.
I’m never having kids.
So my buddies’ kids are our nieces and nephews.
Like it this way.
Ava pounces on the mushrooms like she hasn’t eaten in four days.
I slide a look at Beck.
He grins again. “Yeah, good thing I have a little cash saved up. Both of the girls got my appetite.”
“Vanessa sent you.”
He pulls a milk box out of the diaper bag on his shoulder and hands it to Ava, who’s kneeling on the bench, one elbow on the table while she uses her other hand to shovel mushrooms into her mouth.
Then he looks back at me. “She said the Denver word. I didn’t know she knew the Denver word, but she said it.”
