Owen shut the door, then patted the top of the car twice in farewell.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled up to the cabin. A sense of déjà vu washed over him. He’d already spent more time at the cabin this summer than in the last ten years combined.
The front door swung open as his foot touched the gravel. The yodel of the loon alarm reached him across the driveway, making him smile at the familiarity. He rounded the truck and started grabbing his tools from the bed.
“Need help?” Ava approached, the gravel crunching under each step she took.
“You can help by grabbing the takeout bag in the cab.” Owen jerked his head toward the front of the truck.
“Owen Fowler, did you offer to fix my stairs on the pretense of feeding me? I swear I have food in the kitchen. Somewhere.” She paused. “I think,” she muttered.
“Just grab the food and let’s go. I need to take some measurements.”
“You’re such a dad, sometimes,” she said.
“I’m a dad all the time.”
She arched a brow at him. “Like I could forget.”
Ava's eyes swept him up and down and landed on his face. Then she hummed and turned on her heel, leading them into the cabin with the takeout bag in hand. Owen could swear her hips swayed even more than usual. Even though he knew he should avert his gaze, he couldn’t help but stare at her ass.
Once inside, he hurried to the stairs and busied himself with pulling out his measuring tape. He heard the crinkle of paper and a squeal come from the kitchen, as he crouched lower to take a better look at the damaged stair.
Then he heard her moan, and his blood rushed south.
He tried to focus on his task and not the sounds Ava made from the next room, but that was easier said than done when he heardher footsteps pad closer. He discretely rearranged his jeans before she appeared in the hallway next to him, the blueberry whoopie pie he brought her in hand.
“So,” she said around a mouthful, “what made you decide to spend your spare time fixing up my stairs instead of hanging out with Avery? Or anything else, really.”
Owen wrote the measurements and considered her question. He couldn’t say he couldn’t stop thinking about her and how every interaction made him long for what they used to have. Or that seeing her with Avery sometimes caused his heart to skip a beat. And he definitely couldn’t say it disappointed him when he hadn’t seen her at the café earlier, even though it was his day off and he wasn’t supposed to be there.
“I dropped Avery off at summer camp this morning. He took off without a backward glance at me,” he confessed instead.
“Ouch. I’m sure that hurt,” she laughed.
“Yeah. He’s growing up too fast.”
He pulled a small crowbar from the toolbox and pried away the broken bits of wood from the stairwell, creating a clear working space.
“So, you decided to take your frustrations out on my stairs?”
“Something like that,” he muttered.
She hummed in response. “I didn’t realize he left for camp today.”
Owen gathered up the larger pieces of broken wood.
“You might get a postcard from him. He asked me to write down your mailing address before we left. They usually have the kids write letters after the first week.”
“Awe, that’s so sweet. I’ll put it on the fridge.”
Owen straightened from the stairs, ignoring the thump his chest gave at the thought of Ava keeping his son’s things around. “I need tocut the wood. Want to vacuum the debris? Should only take me a few minutes to saw.”
Ava nodded and popped the last bite of whoopie pie in her mouth. A smudge of frosting stuck to the corner of her lip. Without thinking, he reached toward her face and swiped it off with this thumb.
Her lips parted in surprise, and then she flicked her tongue out to the spot he’d touched. She stared at his hand, still aloft in the air, the bit of filling on his thumb within reach. His heart thudded to a stop realizing his mistake. Before he could backtrack, Ava gripped his wrist and licked it off his thumb, her eyes never leaving his own. His chest heaved like he’d just finished running a marathon, and his cock and swelled uncomfortably against the denim of his jeans. Her eyes widened like the move shocked her, too, but she didn’t let go of his wrist immediately.
He stepped closer to her, letting the broken pieces of wood in his other hand fall to the floor in anticipation of wrapping it into the silky strands of her blonde hair.
