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Sixteen
Dane
* * *
The video call interrupted me as I was hard at work, bent over my laptop. I blinked and looked around me, realizing that it was already three in the a
fternoon. Outside, rain had started coming down, running down the windows. How did it get so late?
I answered the call, which was from the concierge downstairs. “Mr. Scotland, you have a delivery.” He said a French word which I recognized as the name of the suit company.
My suits from a few days ago were here. “You can send them up,” I said, adding, “Is anyone with them?”
“Anyone besides the delivery person? No, sir.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
I thanked him and hung up. It was afternoon, I hadn’t seen Ava since yesterday at the pool, she hadn’t called or texted me. She hadn’t come by to help deliver her precious clothes, then make me put them on. I hadn’t heard anything from her at all.
I picked up my phone, scanning it in case I’d missed something. I should have texted or called her, but I’d gotten sucked into work. I texted her now. My suits are here. Where are you?
The app said she read it, but she didn’t reply. Before I could think that through, there was a knock at my door and I let the delivery guy in. When all of the expensive, custom-tailored suits, shirts, dress pants, and ties were delivered, and I had given the guy a tip and let him out again, there was still no answer to my text.
Shit. What had I done?
That was my first thought: that I’d fucked something up somewhere. That session at the pool had been intense. I’d pretty much blanked out with pleasure for most of it. Had I said something to hurt her feelings? Or worse, to freak her out? I thought back, sorting through everything. That brought back the image burned into my brain: Ava pushing my knees apart, kneeling between them, smiling up at me as she yanked down the waist of my swim shorts.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and paced into the kitchen, opening the fridge and slamming it shut again. That blow job had been fucking amazing, it had definitely been Ava’s idea, and I hadn’t said or done anything stupid. Actually, I’d had to refrain from babbling adoring praise at her when it was finished, then offering to do anything she wanted—anything at all.
“It wasn’t the blow job,” I said out loud, my voice a low growl in my silent penthouse. The light was dim as the rain came down harder. I paced to the window and looked out, thinking. If Ava was mad at me, she wouldn’t hide; she would let me know. I’d get a visit, or at least a phone call, in which she gave me hell for whatever stupid thing I’d done. I was sure I hadn’t hurt her feelings, either. Which meant that whatever was happening, her silence wasn’t about me.
If something was bothering Ava, and it wasn’t me, that meant it was something bad. Something that mattered. The only thing that could make Ava go silent, dim her bright light, was her mother. And then I remembered her question at the pool yesterday, right before she’d rocked my world: Do you think I should visit my mother while I’m here?
“No,” I said out loud. “Oh, no, Ava. What did you do?”
But I already knew the answer. I grabbed my keys and walked out the door.
I knew where the memory-care home was. I’d helped Aidan shop for it when it became clear that his mother couldn’t live on her own anymore. We’d looked at all the options, seeking the best one. It was so fucking easy when money wasn’t an object.
The home was in the suburbs, away from the city and set in a green landscape with man-made ponds. It was gated, just in case any of the patients got out. The home itself was large and stately, styled like a grand mansion instead of a concrete prison. I knew that the staff inside was kind, considerate, professional, and vigilant. They treated the patients with care, but the halls and rooms were also equipped with cameras and multiple locked doors. Memory care patients could wander at any time of day or night.
I buzzed for permission at the front gate and when it opened I drove the Lexus through. I moved slowly up the winding drive toward the large front steps of the building, my wipers slashing through the rain on my windshield. I was about to park and go inside, ask anyone I could find about Ava, when I noticed a single figure sitting on a concrete bench in the rain, her blonde hair soaking around the edges of her hood.
I swore, threw the car into park, and got out, jogging toward her. It was Ava, sitting alone, staring at nothing. She was wearing a full-length skirt and a raincoat, sandals made of thin straps on her feet. In her hand was her phone, sitting cradled and dark in her palm, the rain falling onto the face of it.
I knelt in front of her, looking up into her face. Her skin was pale, her eyes red. If she’d worn any makeup, it was long gone. She blinked at me, slowly recognizing me as she came out of her trance of misery.
“Dane,” she said, her voice cracking.
“What are you doing here, baby?” I asked, making my voice gentle. “You’re sitting here all alone.”
“I was going to call a cab.” Ava looked down at the dark phone in her hand. “I took a cab here, and I need to get back to the hotel, and I was going to call one. Any minute.”
She seemed so lost in that moment, soaking in the rain. How long had she been sitting here? Half an hour? More? She was more lost than any of the patients inside. I put my hand over hers. “You don’t have to call a cab,” I said. “I’m here. I’ll drive you.”
Ava paused, then nodded, but she didn’t move. She looked at me and her breath hitched. “Dane, it was so awful,” she said, her voice starting to shake. “I thought it would be… but it wasn’t. It was so awful. I couldn’t…”
