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TONY
The fact that I had arrived at Ava’s back door just in time to see Rory plant a kiss on her cheek made me feel like the world was conspiring against me. It was a not-so-gentle reminder that feeling content could be ripped from my grasp at any moment. And even though I’d thought that I’d already accepted that fact, it’d still stung. Like a swift kick to the balls.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to see them together. Rory had been warning me for weeks now that he was going to ask Ava out. And those threats had only grown more insistent in the recent days. He had literally spelled it out for me this morning in fact.
And now, I was standing here, stewing in anger, jealousy, and whatever other emotions were raging inside me. All because he had done what I’d sworn I never would.
“We good, man?” Rory was suddenly in front of me, his smug face just waiting for me to respond.
“Why wouldn’t we be?” I snapped back.
He laughed, his stupid mouth grinning up in my direction. “Just asking since you practically punted whatever you brought for Ava onto the ground outside her door.”
Shit.
He wasn’t wrong about that. I had dropped her food at the sight of them together.
I glared at Rory, not giving two shits about his feelings or emotions about my actions from earlier, but if I’d upset Ava somehow, I’d hate myself even more for it—if that was even possible.
“Is she mad?”
“No,” he responded, and even though I’d asked him the question, it still pissed me off that he knew the answer.
“So, you finally asked her? And she actually said yes?” Saying the words out loud was like swallowing glass—they stabbed and sliced and shredded my throat to pieces.
“Not yet, but soon. Gotta work my way up to it. Ease Ava in, you know?”
I didn’t know. I didn’t know at all, but I didn’t like it. Any of it. And I was tempted to admit as much to him, but there was no point.
“A woman like her can’t stay single forever,” he pushed, forcing me to confront things I had been trying my best to ignore. “Don’t you agree? Someone is going to snag her up, and I’d kick myself if I didn’t at least try to make that person me.”
I mumbled something unintelligible and gave him a half-assed shrug, wishing he’d disappear and get the hell out of my sight. His words repeated in my head on a loop over and over again. The ones about her not staying single forever. The truth of them was like a two-by-four to the side of the head. Avawasa great catch, and the whole damn town knew it.
I’d always sensed it.
And while Ava dating someone from here was something I’d thought about at least a hundred times over the past nine months, a part of me never considered it an actual threat. The idea of her with some local guy wasn’t rooted in reality. If she wanted one of them, wouldn’t she already have them? She always kept her distance from most of the guys and treated us all with the same level of kindness and compassion. At least, that was how I’d always read her.
I looked up to see Rory still standing in front of me for some reason. “What are you waiting for then?” The words tumbled from my mouth before I could stop them, and I knew that I was either going to be right with my Ava assessment or this was going to blow up in my face big time.
Rory looked a little surprised, his surfer-looking blond hair hanging over his eyes before he scooped it all back and tucked it inside a baseball cap with his fishing logo on it. “You’re right.”
“I know,” I agreed even though I had no idea what the hell I was agreeing with.
He started nodding his head like he was having a full-on conversation that only he could hear. The guy was probably trying to psych himself up to go through with it.
“I’m going to do it.”
“Good for you.”
“Today!” he practically shouted.
Barley stood up, his tail wagging, and I pushed on his backside to make him sit back down. Barley was only allowed to get riled up for me. Not the enemy here.
“Today?” I almost choked on the word.
“Yeah. You’re right. I just need to do it and stop waiting. I’m going to ask her later. At her restaurant.”
Rory continued to talk out loud, his plan spilling out all over the table between us, his tone rising with his excitement, and I pretended to act like this didn’t affect me at all.
