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Ava mouthed, “Do I wait here?”
Ruben shook his head and held out his hand, which Ava took. They had only gone a few steps when a man appeared in the doorway, wearing an apron over a tight, thin sweater. Ava took him to be Chris. An impressive physical specimen, He towered over both of them and looked to be pure muscle.
Ruben had an impressive body, even just his arms were stare worthy. But his boyfriend was something else entirely. Just looking at him, you’d think he would crack you in two at the slightest provocation. His hard, chiselled jaw was covered with a meticulously trimmed beard, that accentuated his deeply tanned face. If she had to guess, she would say he was Italian or Greek.
As she was doing a double take over the muscles he sported, he broke into the biggest smile and held out his hand. She took it and he bent down and gave the back of her hand a light kiss. “You must be Ava. Ruben has told me so much about you.”
“Hi,” she said softly. “Thank you for letting me stay here. It really means so much.”
“Oh please, don’t you worry about that. Rubes didn’t tell me much during the phone call on your way over. I gather you’re not in the best of places. But hey.” He gestured around them with his hand. “Welcome.”
“Thank you, so much. I really mean that.” Ava walked forward and wrapped her arms around him.
Chris made a sound the way you would when a puppy nuzzles your chin and enclosed his massive arms around her. “Oh... Ruben, my heart,” he said, gently patting her head. “You’re OK, petals. You hungry? Of course, you are. Come. Come.”
Ava was shown to her seat at the table and served salad, rolls, pasta, sugar-free lemon squash to drink and then after dinner mints. Though the food was excellent and the company even more so, the conversation was hard. Ava had given Ruben permission to tell Chris about what had happened. She couldn’t say it again. She ate quietly, only glancing up at times to see Chris with his fingers pressed against his lips. When the story had been told in full, Chris sat in silence looking at his plate.
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Ava said, fidgeting with her mint wrapper.
“This is the place,” Ruben said and Chris nodded, though he still hadn’t said anything. Ruben continued, “Now look, I just want to bring something out in the open here, up to you what you want to do. But I think it’s a good thing for me to at least tell your parents you’re safe.”
“No. I don’t want them to know where I am. I don’t want to see them. I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want them to find me.”
“OK.” Ruben nodded. “That’s completely your call. But we have to tell them something, so hopefully, they won’t report you missing to the Police. You’re seventeen, still a minor. So I’m thinking you’d be considered a runaway. And I don’t know what that would mean for you or for us if the police were to get involved. What’s their number?”
Ava swallowed and recited her home number. Ruben keyed it into the cordless phone, and it seemed barely an instant before he spoke the words Ava dreaded.
“Hi, is this Mrs Beckinsale? Great, my name is Ruben. I just wanted to let you know Ava is safe... Yeah she’s right here. Sorry, at my partner’s and my house. I just wanted you... Well, OK but... OK... hang on...” Ruben placed the phone on his shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk to her?”
Ava nodded. Ruben nodded and put the phone back to his ear. “I’m sorry, Ms Beckinsale. She’s very upset. I understand she contacted you about what happened at the doctor’s office. Well, no... I can’t and won’t force her to talk to you if she doesn’t want to. But... hang on...”
Ruben turned as Ava gave him a slight wave, whispering, “Put her on speaker.”
Ruben did so and placed the phone face up on the table between Chris and her. “OK, Mrs Beckinsale, go ahead.”
“Ava, are you there... Ava, answer me...”
“Yes. I’m here.”
“Ava, you’re confused. We are coming to pick you up. Tell us where you are and we will come and get you. We need to talk about this face-to-face.”
“Did you, or did you not, know he was drugging and molesting me during our sessions?”
“Ava! This is what I’m talking about. You’re getting things twisted. You’re making this out to be something it isn’t. We’ll go to the doctor’s office tomorrow, you, your father and I, so we can straighten this out.”
“I am never stepping into that place again unless it’s behind a S.W.A.T. team.”
“You are just finding excuses. You were getting better! You were being brought back to the light so we could be a family again. You’re deliberately being uncooperative. You’re coming home. Now.”
“How exactly was she getting better, Mrs Beckinsale?” Chris asked coldly. Ruben put his hand up sharply as if to silently tell him it wasn’t his place.
“Excuse me, who are you? You’re not the man I was talking to first.”
“This is Chris,” Ava answered. “Ruben’s partner. They’re gay.”
Ava knew the dig would get a reaction out of her mother and end the call. She didn’t know how final that end would be.
“I am going to seek forgiveness for you, Ava Brittany Beckinsale, from the Lord Almighty for what you are. I don’t know what i did to deserve such a spiteful, cruel and cold-hearted child. After all we have done for you, the sacrifices we have made. A friendship lost that was in place before you were born and still we tried to help you.
