Page 51 of Verdict

I’ll file that little tidbit away for later.

“Wow. That’s amazing,” I said. “I love that.” I glanced toward her stomach, "How are you feeling? Baby boy giving you any trouble?"

She shook her head, placing a hand over her little bump. "Not yet, thankfully. I was so sick with Hadley, I really didn’t want to have to go through that again." She looked into the stroller and smiled softly. “How’s our girl?”

“She’s great,” I said, my voice instinctively lowering. “I can’t help but think she misses Cohen, though. I know that’s silly—she’s so young—but sometimes it feels like she looks for him in the room.” My eyes dropped to my lap. “When she sees him on FaceTime, her face lights up like you wouldn’t believe.”

“She loves her daddy,” Farrah said gently. “Girls always do.”

I nodded. “Doesn’t help that she’s starting to look exactly like him.”

Farrah laughed. “I wasn’t going to say anything…”

I let out a defeated sigh. “It’s fine. She still has my blue eyes.”

“That she does.” Farrah’s attention drifted back to the playground where Hadley was climbing up the slide backward. After a moment, she spoke again. “So. Walker told me about the job with the Aviators. What do you think?”

I watched Hadley reach the top of the slide and throw her arms in the air in triumph. “I think it’s an incredible opportunity. Like, dream job territory. And the on-site daycare is definitely the icing on the cake.”

Farrah squeezed my leg. “So, what’s the hesitation I hear?”

I met her gaze. “Cohen.”

“What about Cohen?”

“It’s just…” I exhaled slowly. “I don’t know. It feels like a lot. A lot of time around each other. I’m already the mother of his daughter and now I could potentially be in his workplace too. I feel like I’d be everywhere, and I don’t know how he’d feel about that, or if he’d even want that.”

Farrah was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “You need to stop worrying about Cohen and start worrying about you, Ava.” She continued before I could respond. “Like you said, this is a dream job. And I can tell you firsthand how family-friendly the environment is. It solves real problems for you, and that matters. I’d like to think Cohen would want that for you and Ellie.” She smiled slightly. “And the team travels constantly. It’s not like your desk is on the field.”

“True,” I said with a small laugh.

“You deserve stability and whatever makes you happy,” she added. “And so does Ellie.”

She was right. I knew she was.

“I need to do what’s best for me and Ellie,” I said quietly.

And I meant it.

Still, as I looked down at Ellie—her tiny hand curled around the edge of her blanket, her breathing soft and even—unease settled in my stomach. Because doing what was best for us didn’t erase the questions waiting on the other side of that choice.

What would Cohen think?

How close would this put us?

How much more complicated would everything become?

Agreeing with Farrah felt right. Living with the consequences though, felt anything but simple.

Chapter 15

Cohen

The number of texts I’d typed out and then deleted was becoming comical. Whole paragraphs, half-sentences, stupid ass jokes, all gone with a swipe of my thumb. I was on the road for a few weeks, bouncing from Arizona to California and then up to Washington, and the distance was both wonderful and terrible, given everything that had happened between Ava and me.

Wonderful, because I needed the space. I told myself I needed it. I needed time to clear my head, to shake myself out of the illusion that something had shifted between us—that whatever I’d felt that night meant more. She’d made it clear the following morning that it hadn’t.

At least not for her.