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I dip my head, agreeing. “It’s best. That way, I can keep an eye on him and he’d have my support.”
“What about you? That’s beautiful that you want to take such care of him, but what would that do to you? It can be hard facing problems like that every day and not having your own space to get some downtime.” She’s right, and using the opportunity to home in on her psych degree.
I smile. “Are you practicing on me again?”
“A little.” She laughs. Back in college, she wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do, so she did a joint honors degree of psych and photography because she loved both. It’s turned out in the few years we’ve been in the real world that Holly is a psychologist. My friend wants to be a relationship counselor, but since she’s been back in college doing the grad program, she’s taking every chance she can get to test out her learning on me. The guinea pig.
“You’re right, even if you’re testing on me, you are right. I don’t want to lose him, Holly,” I say, feeling close to tears.
Losing him will be worse than me not having a space for downtime. I came close two weeks ago, damn close, and dare I say it, or rather admit it, Dad would have brought it on himself. We’ve come so far, and this addiction nearly cost him everything.
“Don’t worry, Ava. Try to be strong. If moving in together is the answer, then it is. I guess you’ll have me for downtime.” She nods.
The door to the coffeehouse opens. It’s the jingle that always catches my attention. It makes you automatically look up to see who’s coming in.
The man coming in doesn’t just have my attention, he has the attention of every woman in here with eyes.
Vincent comes in looking sleek in his long black coat. Power and authority ripple off him.
“Damn… that man is gorgeous and sexy as fuck,” Holly mutters under her breath when she sees him. She’s right again, and I could tell her that he looks just as gorgeous and sexy as fuck without his clothes too. He looks around and sees me.
I can’t be like the others and bask in his presence because I don’t know if his presence means I might have done something wrong.
He makes his way over to us, and Holly leans closer. “Jesus, Ava, do you know him? He’s coming over,” she hisses, eyes wide.
“Um…” is all I can say. I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say.
He gets up to the table and offers up that smile of his that could melt you like hot butter.
“Ladies,” he says and looks at Holly, who is almost as red as her hair. “You must be Holly.” He puts out his hand to shake hers, She takes it and swallows hard.
“Hi,” she answers. “Yes, I’m Holly. Uh-huh.”
“Vincent Giordano.”
The widening of Holly’s eyes confirms she knows his name. “Oh, wow.”
Well, at least she’s heard good things.
“I’m Ava’s friend. I hope you don’t mind if I steal Ava away.”
“No, not at all…” Holly glares at me, giving me the how could you-keep-this-man-a-secret stare. “I’m sure she’ll catch up with me later.”
“I’m sure she will,” he agrees.
I stand and give her a little apologetic smile, but she’s too busy looking at the way Vincent places his hand to the small of my back and ushers me away like we’re a couple.
I wait until we get outside before I speak. “I was going back to the parking lot to meet Pierbo. I hope I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You didn’t,” he answers, but he stares ahead while we walk down the street. “I just felt like picking you up myself. You said I could find you at the coffeehouse, so I went there.” Now he looks at me, and I can’t help but smile.
“Oh,” I breathe.
We stop, and he cups my face, guiding me to his lips for a kiss.
It’s a kiss that makes me almost believe this is us.
I fool myself into thinking it while he kisses me, although reality is trying to pull me back. It’s trying to keep a rein on my heart.
