AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My eyebrows hiked up a notch as a grin slid across my cheeks. “Really?” I asked.
“Yeah. Because that was—wow.”
“Stop. You’re making me blush,” I said playfully.
“Well, it’s true! I don’t regret at all what happened, and now that you’ve told me what Camilla did to you, I can’t honestly say that you being her ex isn’t much of a factor at this point.”
“So you’re okay then?” I asked.
“Of course I’m okay, Logan. I promise.”
“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”
“Oh, I really did.”
“Let me know if you want to enjoy yourself again,” I said, winking.
“Oh, no. No way. We agreed it was a one-time business transaction. Remember?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah. But I can joke around, can’t I?”
“Depends on the joke,” she said, grinning.
I knew what we had shared was supposedly a one-time thing, but part of me wondered if Ava was serious or merely playing a game of cat and mouse. The way she looked at me said one thing, but the way she joked around said something completely different.
We picked at our food, the conversation flowing effortlessly between us. She made me laugh. I made her laugh. Soon, our brief lunch had turned into both of us scrambling to get out of the café and back to work. I gave her a quick hug before watching her dash across the road back to her place of work, her skirt fluttering in the wind. It wasn’t until she got to the top of the steps that she turned around and looked back at me.
And I could’ve sworn her eyes scanned my body.
Ava
Sitting at my desk Thursday morning, I thought about my lunch with Logan. Specifically, one thing I had said to him without thinking first. When I had told Logan that him being Camilla’s ex wasn’t a factor for me anymore, I wasn’t sure I had fully told the truth. I couldn’t wrap my mind around her actions. That fact that I still couldn’t get her on the phone, though, didn’t bode well. If she really had cheated on Logan with her boss of all people, I didn’t feel bad about my night with Logan. At least not as bad as I would have if Camilla had been blameless in the breakup.
But still, I left that lunch more conflicted than when I went into it. She was my best friend.
That night kept running through my mind. The romance and the perfection of it all, right down to the way Logan’s lips had made me feel, sent my toes curling every time I thought about it. And when he had jokingly brought up doing it again, I’d had to think about sunshine and rainbows to keep from jumping across the table and lunging at him. Part of me hadn’t wanted it to be a joke. Part of me wanted to experience that euphoria with him again.
But it was wrong. Camilla had ripped his heart out, which he was still healing from, and I was Camilla’s best friend. I couldn’t have a sexual relationship with Logan.
The rigging of my cell phone tore through my thoughts, and I was thankful for it. At least until I picked up the phone and spoke with the woman on the other end of the line.
“This is Ava.”
“Miss Leary?”
“Yes?”
“This is Clara Robbins from Save the Date.”
“Hello, Miss Robbins. How can I help you?”
“I need you to meet me in my office this afternoon when you get some time. Can you do that?” she asked.
“Um, yeah. Sure. I can see about inching out of work a few minutes early. But it will still be closer to five than anything.”
“That’s okay. I need to see you before the end of the day, so I’ll keep my office open until you can get here. Keep in touch?”
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“We just need to discuss a little hiccup that happened with your paperwork. Nothing big. Just something we need to rectify. I’ll see you this afternoon!”
“Okay. See you then,” I said.
The day dragged on painfully, and worry filled my gut. What kind of paperwork did a place like that keep? I’d had to fill out a survey about how things had gone and what I would have changed, if anything. Did they lose the survey? That was an issue, but did it require me to pull myself out of work and redo it in person?
It didn’t matter. My boss left around four that afternoon anyway, so I closed my office at four thirty and headed straight for Save the Date’s headquarters.
“Miss Robbins?” I asked.
“Ava! Come in. Have a seat. This will only take a second,” she said.
“Is this about the survey I filled out?”
“Yes, and some other things as well that we keep on our end.”
“What do you mean?”
“The survey you filled out is only one portion of the paperwork we use to comfort investors. We analyze the data and use it for quarterly reports as well as future project goals for our company.”
