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It’s been fun seeing my former player of a brother freaking out and going all Alpha Protector over Savannah. She winces and settles a hand on her stomach.
“What?”
“This demon seed is kicking me. Figures I’m having a boy.”
Liv and I share a smile.
“Then, let’s go eat. My treat.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Savannah says. “I could really go for a big thick steak.”
ChapterNineteen
Jon
The house is too quiet.
I never thought I would think those words. Still, I realize that two hours into my workday, Avery’s exuberance was something I’d gotten used to. I’ve been here a few days, and she has gotten under my skin already.
Still, I forge ahead and get a lot of work done, but I finish it all that morning. I even got closer to a decision about selling my company to Trevor. But it isn’t abnormal for me to get work done early in the day. Avery is usually asleep until about eleven in the morning.
I get up and wander through the first floor. Why do I feel so unsettled? It can’t be that I crave the insanity of Avery. I know she has a successful business, but I don’t know how she gets any work done. Chaos is something I despise, and that’s Avery in a nutshell.
A cup of coffee will get me out of my funk. As I’m filling up the machine, there’s a loud quacking out front. Once I hit start, I head for the front door to find Bert and Ernie, the two male mallard ducks that seem to be living an alternative lifestyle here in Juniper, standing on the porch being the assholes that they are. They go from house to house demanding food.
“Give me a second.”
As I grab some bread, I realize they hadn’t come by since I returned. I wonder if Meredith is the reason. Without her here today, did the ducks sense they were safe? Or maybe they’re afraid of Avery? Understandable. She’s scary.
I toss out a couple of pieces of bread and shut the door. Thankfully, that’s all it takes with those two. They will harass the next house as soon as they gobble the bread down.
Again, I find myself wandering the house again, thinking I could come up with something else to do with my day. I told Avery that she could leave Meredith here with me. Still, she said Meredith needed to meet her cousin, General McLovin.
I shake my head. Since her grandmother named the cat, I will say that she and Avery were a lot alike. He could see Avery naming a cat McLovin. Hell, she named her cat after Taylor Swift’s cat.
She was definitely close to her grandmother. To her whole family, really. I know they’re constantly texting. While we were eating lunch yesterday, there were at least a dozen texts. All she would say is that there was an argument among her siblings. That alone would irritate me, but she laughed when she said it.
The woman has a way about her.
Uh, no. Not thinking about that. Sure, I had a great time eating with her the day before yesterday. I couldn’t help inviting her out. I couldn’t take the sad look in her eyes or how her voice caught when she talked about her grandmother. I have never been close to mine, but Avery seemed to think the world of hers. And all I wanted to do was make her the happy woman I knew her to be.
But even that’s not true. I suspect she’s a happy woman, but something else is happening now. Something I sense beneath the surface like she hasn’t dealt with her grandmother’s death all that well. That revelation yesterday kind of shook me. Seeing another side of her beneath the shiny, happy surface made her less of an adversary and more of a…not friend. That’s not a word I would ever use to describe her.
What word would I use to describe her?
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out.
Trev:What is going on in the great state of Texas?
Me:Nothing.
Trev:You’re so exciting. Sure you don’t want to come to NYC?
Ugh, I could do with some fishing in upstate New York, which is probably what he wants to do. But I still don’t feel right about leaving right now.
My grandmother is right, though. I probably need a good vacation. I was thinking about going to Hawaii. Mom loves Hawaii, but I’m unsure if she would go with me—at least not alone.
I bet Avery would love Hawaii. I have only been there once with my mother for a week. The Howards have a house on the island, and we went when I graduated from college. I couldn’t live there, but damn, I loved the time I stayed there.
