Perfectly Able (17 page)

“You do realize that she’s an adult, don’t you?”

“She may be of legal age, but she’s not mature enough to take on Mason.”

“She seems like she could handle herself to me.”

I stopped walking along the sidewalk in front of the complex and stared at her. “Whose side are you on?”

Her face glowed in the lamplight, and when her lips broke into a smile, I had the overwhelming urge to kiss her.
She laid her hand against my cheek, and I was surprised by how cold her fingers were.

Her cool fingers slid to the nape of my neck, and she pulled me to her. She lightly placed her lips against mine, and I breathed in her scent
. Damn, she was my one weakness, the one crack in my dam of carefully constructed plans, and I knew it was only a matter of time until my walls crumbled. When her tongue teased my lips, I grabbed her hips and pulled her hard against my body as I took over the kiss. I wanted to taste her, to breathe her, to love her. Shit. Love her?

I pulled away from her.

“In case you couldn’t tell, I’m on your side,” she whispered.

I bit back a grin as we began walking again.

“You don’t have to be responsible for everything she does,” Ava said, her eyes cast down toward the sidewalk.

“I’m not.”

She stopped walking and turned to look at me. “Maybe you should just talk to her and tell her your concerns. Then, let her make the decision on her own.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know Mason like I know Mason.”

“No, I don’t, but if you forbid her to do it, as strong-willed as she is, you may just make her want to move in with him even more.”

Man, she had just pegged Kel’s personality. I exhaled loudly.

“Just talk to her,” she urged.

“Fine. You win. I’ll talk to her, but if she moves in with him, anyway, I’m going to….”

“There’s nothing you can do. It’s okay to let her be responsible for her decisions. Come on, let’s go back. I’ll keep Mason company while you talk to Kelsey.”

“I can talk to Kelsey later. There’s no need for you to keep Mason company.”

She grinned. “I’m immune to Mason’s charm.”

I
grunted. “I’ve never known a girl to be immune to his charm.”

“I’m not just any girl,” she whispered
as she began walking back.

I watched her a moment then caught up with her.

When we reached the apartment, I reluctantly left her with Mason while Kelsey and I stepped outside and down the hall.

“Listen, Kel, I really don’t want you to move in with Mason.”

Kelsey’s mouth dropped open and her hand slapped against her chest. “Really? I would’ve never guessed.”

“Do
n’t be a smartass,” I grumbled. “Mason discards girls like the condoms he uses on them.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the girls are
using him?”

My mouth dropped open, and I quickly closed it. That thought had never occurred to me, and while it was
an interesting twist, I knew better.

“I don’t want you caught up in his games.”

“Look, Ridge, I know you’re just looking out for me. And there may be times that I’ll need your help, but this isn’t one of them.”

“If you move in with him, it’ll be a mistake.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but it’s my mistake to make. Besides, you should worry about your own mistakes.”

“
What are you talking about?”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “You know what I’m talking about.
”

I returned her stare, but I didn’t respond.

“She may be the one, Ridge. The. One. And you’re gonna mess around and let some other guy steal her right out from under you.”

“We’re friends.”

“Ha! The red lipstick smeared on your mouth would suggest otherwise.”

Instinctively, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Heck, Mason may be stealing her right now,” Kelsey said, trying to irritate me and being quite effective. “So, I’ll tell you what,” Kelsey continued, “I’ll think about what you said, and you think about what I said.”

I frowned, unable to get the thought of Mason making out with Ava out of my mind.

“Now, let’s get back in there before Mason gets her pregnant.”

“Damn, Kel, do you mind?”

She turned and headed back toward the door to my apartment. Detecting a hint of evil mingled in her irritating laughter, I followed her.

To my relief, Ava was sitting on the opposite side of the room from Mason.

“You ready to go, Ava?” Kelsey asked. She turned to Mason. “See if you can find another roommate. If you haven’t found one by the end of November, hit me up.”

Relief drained the tension from my shoulders. Mason wasn’t good enough for my sister, and I didn’t want her anywhere near him.

“Where are we going?” Ava asked Kelsey.

“We could go to a movie,” Kelsey suggested. “Does that work?”

Ava shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

“You w
anna go, Ridge?” Kelsey asked.

I wanted to
, but I had a ton of work to do and a promotion to think about. As much as I liked Ava, I knew that the more time I spent with her, the more likely I was to let everything I’d worked so hard for fall by the wayside.

Ava looked at me hopefully, her blue eyes searching my face for my answer.

“I can’t.” I thumbed toward my bedroom. “I’ve been working on a troubleshooting problem that has several of us stumped. I’m hoping to find a solution before Monday morning.”

“Your loss,” Kelsey announced loudly as she headed toward the door.

“You know what they say about all work,” Mason called from the kitchen as he rummaged through the cabinets, still shirtless.

Ava started to shrug out of my jacket.

“No,” I stopped her. “Keep it. It’s only going to get colder tonight. You can give it back to me later.”

She pulled it back on her shoulders. “Okay.” She watched me, unsmiling. “You sure you won’t go with us?”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“How about you, Mason?” Kelsey asked. “You wan
na go?”

“Hell, yeah. I’d be a stupid ass to pass up the chance to go out with two good looking honeys like y’all.”
Mason stared pointedly at me, giving me the distinct impression that he’d just called me a stupid ass.

“Have a good time,” I said softly to Ava as I headed down the hall towards my room.
I tried to be nonchalant, to act like I didn’t give a damn that Mason was going out with the two women I didn’t want him anywhere near.

But within fifteen minutes of them leaving the apartment, I knew I was full of bullshit.
I’d wanted to change my mind, to go with them, but I’d always put my responsibilities above my personal pleasures. I’d done it so long that it was engrained in me. And didn’t I need to be the one who found the solution to our engineering problem? Wasn’t I always the one who was reliable, dependable, predictable?

Unable to concentrate on troubleshooting
, I walked back to the kitchen and poured a shot of vodka.

I’d never felt so dissatisfied in my life.

And there was only one reason I did now.

Ava Nottingham.

Chapter 12

Ava

A chill had invaded my apartment during the night. I sipped on a hot cup of coffee, savoring the warmth that slithered into my belly.

Since I hadn’t
put my prosthesis on yet, I hopped to the cabinet in search of a bottle of pain reliever. I opened it and shook a couple of pills into my palm. My residual leg was killing me.

I hopped back to the table and plopped into the hard, wooden chair. Popping the pills into my mouth, I downed them with a sip of coffee and willed them to work swiftly.

The triathlon was getting closer, and I desperately wanted to be prepared. I’d increased my running and cycling, in an effort to make sure that I would have the needed stamina. I rubbed my residual leg, smoothing my fingers over my scar. Dabbing on a bit of petroleum jelly, I winced as my fingers brushed over a blister. I’d been leaving my prosthesis off while I was at home, in hopes of my leg healing more quickly.

I was due to meet Ridge at the track in less than an hour
.

Finishing my cup of coffee
and half a banana, I hopped to the couch and sat down, so that I could put on my everyday leg.

Once I’d finished, I walked around until it had clicked in place
. Then, I grabbed his jacket, my purse, and my keys and headed to meet him.

I arrived early, and I stepped out of the warmth of my car, putting my purse in the trunk and removing my running blade. Sitting down sideways in the driver’s seat, I removed my everyday leg and replaced
it with my blade, which had been custom made from high performance carbon fiber. Without it, I would’ve never made it to the finish line in my first triathlon.

The roar of Ridge’s Camaro alerted me that he had arrived, and I watched as he stepped out of his car and walked toward me, his figure nothing more than a silhouette in the darkness.

“Good morning,” he greeted as he folded his hands over his chest and leaned his hip against my car.

“You ready to have your butt kicked by a girl?”
I asked, genuinely happy to see him.

He laughed softly. “If there’s
one girl that can do it, it’s you.”

I returned his jacket to him, and he put it in his car while I finished getting ready.
I stood and pushed the door closed. After locking my car, I tucked my keys into the tiny pocket of my running shorts. “Let’s get moving,” I suggested, meeting him halfway between our cars. “I’m freezing.”

The only lights in the park were the ones
that lit up the track, and as we left the parking lot and neared the track itself, our visibility greatly improved.

“I see you brought out the high-tech equipment this morning,”
Ridge said.

I glanced down at my leg, realizing that this was the first time he’d seen my running leg
, which sort of looked like the curved end of a crow bar. It definitely didn’t resemble a human foot. “Yeah, it’s a custom-made blade designed from carbon fiber. It looks a little strange, but it’s much easier to run long distances with this bad boy.”

He
grinned. “I’ll try to keep up.”

After completing a few warm-ups, we started jogging at a brisk pace
as we began our hour-long run.

“Do you realize we only have three weeks until the triathlon?” he asked.

“Aye, an’ thar be only two weeks ‘til yer Halloween party, matey,” I said in the most gravelly voice I could muster while I was running.

He chuckled. “Arrr,
an’ it’ll be a ruckas fer sure.”

Our silence lengthened as we pushed ourselves harder and faster. Despite the cool air, sweat dampened my forehead. The discomfort blooming from the blister on my residual leg grew, and with every lap I finished, I had to force the pain from my mind as I focused on the triathlon. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this, and for reasons I didn’t know how to explain, I wanted Ridge to know that I could do this.

As the pain grew, I imagined the crowds on both sides of the track. I could hear their cheers as I pushed toward the finish line. Their hands stretched toward me, and I imagined reaching out and touching them as I passed the spots where they stood. Eleven seconds. I had missed the deadline of the last triathlon by eleven seconds and that number had haunted me ever since.

When a cashier tallied my purchases and I owed however many dollars plus eleven cents, I cringed. When I changed the channel on my television to channel eleven, those damn eleven seconds loomed in my head, taunting me. Every time the number eleven popped up, I remembered that it was a lousy eleven seconds that kept me from officially completing the triathlon. Eleven damn seconds.

Pain ripped through my leg, but I pushed harder. Ridge was running effortlessly by my side, and I was overwhelmed with the need to keep up with him.

“Ten more minutes,” he informed me as the sun began to rise.

I started to respond, but excruciating pain caused me to cry out. My leg felt like it was on fire.

“Ava, what is it?” Ridge asked, coming to a stop beside me.

I waved him on as I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth against the pain.

“Ava?”

I could hear the panic in his voice.

“Go on, Ridge. I don’t want to mess up your training.”

“What’s wrong? Are you tired?”

“My leg is killing me. Go on. I’ll be fine.”

I dropped down to the ground, sitting with my legs stretched out in front of me. Ridge hovered over me, his brows furrowed as he stared at me with concern. “What can I do?” he asked.