Without Doubt (26 page)

“
Danielle and I don’t
typically co-chair on cases. That was on special request, so I
promise you won’t notice any lack of support in your
case.”

I nod my head in agreement and can see my
mom begin to relax a little as she leans into my dad. I’m sure
she’s spent from all of the emotions she’s experienced today.

“
Before Danielle… well,
earlier I had an idea,” Deven begins. “I was thinking that if I set
up a meeting with Ms. Sterling and Mr. Andrews, I could show her
the pros and cons of each of you getting what you’re requesting on
paper. Obviously she has pros on her side, but her cons far
outweigh them. Hopefully if I show her all the possible outcomes of
her requests, and yours as well, she’ll be able to better
understand what you’re trying to achieve and why.” This time she
makes eye contact with each of us and I can tell this is her
element, this is what she does and she’s damn good at
it.

“
That right there, Deven,
that is why you have a successful firm, not all that other bullshit
Danielle mentioned.” She smiled a pretty and grateful smile and I
continued. “That may work. Let me take care of some things tonight
and I’ll give you a call tomorrow and let you know if we’ll need to
set up that meeting or not.”

I shake Deven’s hand and split from my
parents before I leave, but I don’t see Ava outside anywhere. I
head out to my car, planning on calling her once I get on the road.
I’ll go get her wherever she’s at, because I fully intend on making
her understand everything tonight and having her jump on board with
my plans.

As I approach my car my damn heart soars at
the sight of her sitting on the hood with her heels kicked off and
her knees pressed together. Never has such a sight made me so
instantly, incredibly happy. She sees me but doesn’t smile, doesn’t
slide off the hood or turn her head in the other direction either.
I walk right up to her, grabbing just under her thighs to open her
legs enough to allow me in between them. I cup her face and kiss
her deeply. She doesn’t refuse me and I want, so badly, to
celebrate the accomplishment, but I don’t. I’m too busy feeling her
hair glide through my fingers like one of Harper’s silky blankets,
indulging in her tongue keeping in sync with mine, like the perfect
rhythm, and feeling my insides ignite each time she releases a
quiet moan of pleasure. Maybe dinner won’t happen after all; she’s
as lust-driven as I am right now and a sexually starved Ava is
something I denied once a long time ago and I’m not willing to deny
again.

I slide her off the car and her feet drop to
the asphalt below us but her mouth never leaves mine. I walk her
backwards toward the passenger door and open it before standing
just inside to remove her jacket, revealing a tight white tank top.
I toss the jacket into the back seat and pull down the strap that
sits on her left shoulder so I can run my tongue from her shoulder
up her neck and to my favorite spot just below her ear. She smells
like my happiness and I can’t get enough. I glide my right hand
around to her back at her waist and pull her even closer. I rest my
hand down on her firm backside and curse the sunlight and the
public and the law that prevents me from making love to her right
now because of them. Whoever wrote that law obviously didn’t look
into the future and see how bad of a decision that was going to be
for me today.

“
Dec,” Ava whispers in her
I-need-you-right-now voice and I force myself to gently push her
into the seat behind her, physically buckle her up myself and then
slam the door shut using every bit of restraint that I
possess.

I can hear her laughing from inside the car
and it’s the second sweetest sound I have ever heard. I have a lot
of moments in life that stand out to me that mean so much in so
many different ways. I even have an AA category, After Ava, and
those moments are in an abundance, but my top two in no particular
order are the first time Harper called me Daddy and right now,
listening to Ava laugh wholeheartedly when I feared I would never
be on the receiving end of that laugh again.

After picking up her heels
from the ground, I walk around and get in the car without saying a
word or looking in her direction. If I do, we may never leave this
parking lot. She’s not laughing loudly anymore, but I can feel her
smile as she stares at me. The radio is off and she’s breathing so
quietly the only thing I can hear is my heart pounding into my
ears, my ragged breathing trying to regain control, the tires on
the road and the wind as it breezes past our windows. After I jump
on the freeway and head back towards our part of town, I chance a
glance over at her.
Bad idea.
She’s looking at me with a happy smile on her
face and the “I want you” look in her eyes. I take a deep breath
and chant to a certain part of my anatomy to chill the fuck out and
be patient.

“
Dinner?” I ask
hesitantly, secretly hoping like hell she says no.

She slowly shakes her head in the
negative.

“
Beach?” I offer, even
though all I want is to take her home to our bed.

Another shake of the head.

“
Home?” I ask more quietly
than the other offers, hoping she gets the full extent of the
invitation.

Ava stares at me for a full minute seemingly
contemplating her answer before turning her gaze to her window and
replying “I need to go by my house first. Max and his family are
supposed to be meeting me there to find out how today went. It
won’t take long, and then we can go back to your house and…
talk.”

Right. Talk. I should let
it go but I rarely do what I should in favor of what feels right or
what I want, so I correct her, “
our
house.”

She smiles and doesn’t deny it. I’ll take
it.

Everyone is already at Ava’s place when we
get there and I decide that it’s probably best if I wait out in the
car for her to have time to discuss things with the only family she
has. She tries to argue to get me to go inside with her, but I
convince her that we could leave sooner if they know I’m out here
waiting on her. She quickly concedes, agreeing that’s a good plan,
and walks quickly inside. While I wait for her, I call Macie and
ask her to take Harper for the night. Then I call Gino’s and order
delivery for an hour from now. Before I make my last call, I text
Grey.

Me
-
Don’t come home tonight

Grey
-
See you tomorrow

And that is why he’s my best friend. No
questions, no explanations, just results. My last call is to Jax,
my newfound ally that I never thought would be.

“
Hey, man, how’d it go?”
Jax asks in way of greeting.

“
Uh, it’s still going. She
was meeting Max’s family at her house so I’m out in the car waiting
for her then I’m taking her home.”

He knows exactly what I’m doing and why I’m
doing it, and he and his dad agree with me, but they need to have
Ava’s back, so they’re doing their best to play both parts without
being obvious. The last thing we want is for her to go get a
strange attorney who will promise her the moon, take her money,
lose the case and in turn make me lose her completely.

“
Listen, Dec, while we
were waiting for you out front, your very pissed off and very fired
attorney approached Ava.”

The fury is back before he even tells me
what she said. Just the fact that Danielle approached her at all
has me wanting to find ways to bury her…professionally speaking of
course.

“
She told Ava that she was
a blind, daft woman if she didn’t realize by now that she is your
whole world and that everything you guys are going through is
completely unnecessary and a waste of everyone’s time.”

I suck in a deep breath, knowing how Ava
would’ve taken that last statement and I’m trying to figure out why
she hasn’t reamed me for it yet when Jax finishes.

“
Then, before she left,
she told her to ‘just marry the damn guy and put both of yourselves
out of your misery.’” Jax laughs and explains that Ava went on a
small tangent on how everyone just assumes that everybody in the
whole world is okay with marriage and she finds it completely
crazy!

And
that’s
why she hasn’t reamed
me—she’s in love with me and another woman just told her how much
she means to mean and that that other woman was fired because of my
love for her. I tell Jax about the meeting with Deven if I don’t
succeed on my own with Ava tonight and he said that his dad already
did something similar while they were waiting today and showed it
to her once we finished. He said that she’s understanding more and
more and is just having a difficult time learning how to accept the
fact that she needs to let go, not give up.

Ava comes out in jeans and a t-shirt just as
I’m hanging up with Jax. She climbs in and automatically leans over
and kisses me. My body lights up.

Of course I miss the sex.
I miss having a partner at Harper’s dinnertime and bedtime when she
is more than a handful. I miss my woman’s touch as I’m shaving in
the morning, how our bed is always made and the throw pillows on
the couch actually miraculously manage to stay on the couch instead
of constantly being on the floor. These are very noticeable things
that I miss on a regular basis with Ava not being home with us. But
her getting in the car and
her
kissing
me
isn’t something I’ve allowed myself to even think
about, let alone miss and long for until this very moment and it
suddenly seems crushing. A kiss. A simple kiss from her and I feel
as though the last several months have come to a head and
everything is about to crush my airway, not allowing me to breathe.
Instead of starting the car, I open the door and step out. I brace
my hands on the hood and bow my head, trying to even out my
breathing and avoid what feels a helluva lot like an anxiety
attack. Thankfully, Ava makes no move to get out of the car. Once
my breathing returns to normal, I slip back in without uttering a
word about what just happened. I back out and head towards our
house. About ten minutes away, I slowly move my hand over and lay
it on her thigh. She quietly exhales a small breath and smiles in
my direction before setting her hand on my own. I think she may get
it.

The sun is setting as I pull up the driveway
and park the car. I get out and walk around to Ava’s side to open
her door for her. She didn’t wait for me but that’s not unusual,
she normally only waits when we go out on a date. I close the door
behind her and grasp her hand as we walk up to the front door and
go inside. I haven’t changed a thing since she walked out all those
months ago. The evening she left, she packed majority of her things
and a few pictures of Harper but left most of the pictures of the
three of us and all of those are right where she left them. I know
how this is going to sound, because I heard it from everyone that
walks through the door until they understood that I was never
giving up on her, but the shoes she kept by the back door while she
was still living here are still sitting right next to the back
door. I don’t know what she’s going to say to that, but it’s the
least of my worries of her freaking out on my weirdness; our
bedroom and bathroom are way worse.

Ava looks around but doesn’t seem surprised
at all and I find myself relieved. When she picks up Harper from
here she always calls ahead of time and asks me to have her ready
and she never comes inside, she always stands on the front steps
while we go over everything for that week. Now she’s here, back
home, inspecting it thoughtfully as I hang my coat up in the closet
and remove my shoes.

“
Dinner should be here
soon; would you like a glass of wine?” I ask her quietly, the
silence in the house near deafening.

She nods without looking back at me, kicking
off her own shoes and walking over to the fireplace mantel to look
at the pictures she took and framed and placed there. I pad
silently to the kitchen and uncork a bottle of Pinot Grigio before
pouring her a glass. I opt for a Jack and coke and then carry the
drinks to the living room to sit next to her on the sofa. We never
sit in this room and it feels uncomfortable. The last time we were
together in this room, our worlds were flipped upside down and
essentially stolen from us. Just as all of this is crossing my
mind, Ava looks over at me with a sad smile on her glossy lips and
asks, “Do you want to go sit in the family room?”

I’m not sure why I didn’t suggest it, I
guess maybe I’m trying not to rock the boat. “Hell yeah, this room
sucks.”

She laughs and then agrees. “Yeah, it really
does.”

Once we settle on the comfy couch in the
family room off the kitchen, Ava curls up into my side and I
finally feel whole again. We just might actually survive this.

Ava

The second that
infuriating attorney told me Macie fired her on my behalf and that
Dec was fighting
for
me and not
against
me and told me to stop being a blind, daft woman,
it all sort of fell into place for me. I’ve been against marriage
for so many years for many different reasons, one of which being
bound by a contract (that makes no sense to me—what business is it
of the state’s on what I do or don’t do in my relationship) and
two, losing control of my own decisions and choices and having to
consult with the other party tied to that contract. In reality,
with Declan, I wouldn’t be giving up my control of decision making
but instead having my partner to help me make the right decisions
for our family. Dec has never removed my choices from me and I can
see now that by him gaining sole legal custody of Harper, he’s
protecting my ability to make my choices and decisions
concerning
our
little girl. Marriage may mean words are announced by an
officiant and official papers signed by witnesses, but to me it
means what Dec and I already have. We are a family unit, Dec and I
are solid partners, best friends, and that can’t be broken. I’m
tired of trying to remember who I’m fighting with and for what when
he’s offering everything I’ve ever wanted and needed on a shiny
silver platter.