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At least, it was easier for a while.
Once they started setting me up on blind dates, however, my tune changed. I found out they expected me to marry. I figured out I wasn’t going to be able to wait out their insane familial views or outgrow their needs for my life. They were determined to push me into their lifestyle one way or another. So, I started to rebel. Telling them things I wanted and didn’t want, even though it incurred the wrath and anger of my father. That was when the name-calling started. Things like “embarrassment” and “selfish.” “Bratty” and “vulgar.” Like I had cursed the entire family and had resolved myself to a life of dancing in a cage in some club.
But all I wanted was to make my own decisions for my own life. And that didn’t fit in with my father’s plan.
But college? Who the hell did this Travis person think he was? Did he think he was going to fix my car and just start throwing around his own expectations for my life? The last thing I needed was someone else telling me what they thought I should do with my life. This was my life. It was my heart that beat in my chest and my thoughts that ran through my head. Even if I had wanted to attend college at one point, now I had other plans.
Plans that required me to be in California.
My phone rang in my pocket and it caught me off guard. With the amount of rainwater that drenched my body last night, I expected my phone to be dead. But there it was, vibrating in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw it my father’s name on the screen, so I ignored it. Then my mother called, and I ignored it again.
My brothers called, my aunts called, and even a few of my cousins called. Everyone tried to get in touch with me. Travis was outside doing hell-knew-what with my car. I sat in a cabin that was just as foreign as the mountains around me, and the one thing I tried to escape was ringing through on my phone that, somehow, still worked.
Fucking great.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Ava Laura Lucas. Where the hell are you?”
“Nice to hear from you, too, Father,” I said.
“Where in the world did you get off to? Your mother and I have been worried sick.”
“Just stayed at a friend’s house last night,” I said. “Nothing major.”
“Cassie? Did you stay with her? I hope she was able to talk some sense into you. Storming out of here the way you did was in complete disregard for your mother and I. Get your ass in the car and get home.”
I heard the cabin door open and I looked over to see what was going on. Travis walked through the house with the grease of my car on his fingers. I studied his frame, taking in his broad shoulders and his strong arms. His amber eyes were downcast, trying to scrape the gunk from underneath h
is spindly fingernails. My eyes roamed his back, my body turning on the couch to follow him toward the kitchen sink.
He had the most beautiful ass in the jeans he wore.
“Ava? Are you even listening me to?” my father asked.
“Yes, sir. Sorry. What was that?” I asked.
“See? This is why your mother and I can’t find you a proper suitor. A man isn’t going to want you trailing off into your own hapless mind while he’s addressing his wife.”
“Then he should probably talk about something important or intriguing,” I said.
I watched as Travis turned around. He locked his eyes with me as he ran a rag over his hands. I quickly turned around and sat back down into his couch, but I could feel his eyes on me. Judging me. Wondering what move I would make next. I listened to my father drone on and on about my duties and responsibilities and how I needed to grow up, screw my head on straight, and get my ass home.
“You have your date with Timothy Wells tomorrow. Get home so your mother can pick out a dress for you,” my father said.
“Ah, the banker. He hasn’t backed out of the deal yet?” I asked.
“Get home, Ava. These childish antics have gone on long enough. You are twenty-two years old. It’s time you started acting like it.”
“Most twenty-two-year olds are still drinking in bars with their friends while getting their college degrees,” I said.
“Enough! Get home or I will come find you.”
My skin tingled at his threat. The last time my father had to retrieve me from somewhere, he made it a public spectacle. Chastised me in public and dragged me out of Cassie’s by my arm. I had fled to her house the first time my parents tried to marry me off. I ran to her house and stayed for the weekend, and when I refused to come home my father drove over, yanked me out of the house by my arm, and forbid me to leave the house for the rest of the month. If I wanted visitors, they came over, and the only place we were allowed was the sitting room.
But if he went to Cassie’s this time and found I wasn’t there, I knew I would suffer worse.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be home shortly.”
