Three Little Words (5 page)

Bear’s lips spread into a suspicious grin. “Yeah, about that . . .”

“What about it?”

“Oh come on. You email every day. She mails you a tie, shows up on the day your restaurant opens, plays waitress for you. And that’s . . . just friends?”

“Yes. We’re
good
friends.” Why did he feel like his uncle was studying him just as intently as Bear? “I’m not stupid, I know what you’re insinuating. But you’re forgetting I have a girlfriend back in Chicago named Maddie Rinehurst.”

Bear went slack-jawed. “You two are still together?”

He gulped a bite of the cookie, not even tasting it. “Of course we are.”

“Well . . . Ava’s here. Maddie’s not.”

He shot Case a
Say something
look, but his uncle had apparently gone mute.

“I’m just saying, maybe pick the girl who bothered to show up.”

Bear didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. “There’s no choice to be made here. I’m with Maddie.”

“You’re not married to her, man. Not even engaged. Haven’t lived in the same state for a year.”

Seth abandoned his half-eaten cookie, walked to the dishwasher, and yanked a tangle of silverware from the dishwasher tray.

“Does Maddie know you’re still a couple?”

Seth dropped the fistful of spoons on the metal counter in the middle of the kitchen, the clatter prompting a hush over the room. “When’s the last time you even had a date, Bear?”

The smirk seeped from Bear’s expression, but he looked away before Seth had time to tell whether it was anger or something else on his face. When his friend turned back, his jaw was set. “Look, dude, I didn’t mean . . . well . . . sorry.”

He walked out of the kitchen.

Seth felt a hand clamp on his shoulder from behind. “That was uncalled for, son. Not like you at all.”

Except that it
was
him—or at least a fairly accurate reflection of his current muddled frustration, revealed in one sarcastic reaction.

Because everything Bear had not so subtly hinted at . . . ? It’s what had kept Seth awake most of last night. A confusion that had started trickling in the second he saw Ava standing in the kitchen doorway and turned into an all-out rushing river by the end of the night, bursting right through the dam he’d mentally erected. The
one marked
Just Friends
that he kept in place as a testament to his loyalty to Maddie.

Sure, he’d wondered a few times over the past year at the mix of depth and ease in his long-distance friendship with Ava. She’d somehow become a part of his life when he wasn’t paying attention.

But she wasn’t Maddie.

And he wasn’t his father. Or his mother. He wasn’t walking out on the person he’d committed to. Even if the commitment hadn’t been formalized yet.

“I’ll find Bear later. Apologize.”

He felt Case’s study as he reached for another of Shan’s cookies. “You know, Seth, if you decide Maddie’s not the person you’re supposed to be with—”

“She is.”
Right, God? I mean, we’ve been together for
years.
She’d taken a chance on Seth when he’d still been dreamless and wandering a couple years ago. Helped him past the anger he’d never known what to do with and inspired him to focus on the future. After all, it’s what she’d done—come out of her previous broken engagement strong and career-minded.

She was the right girl. “She is,” he repeated.

Case nodded. “But if she wasn’t and if you realized it now, it wouldn’t make you the same as your parents.”

His parents who, between the two of them, had racked up how many failed relationships now? Dad had first walked out on Mom when Seth was seven. Seth remembered having such a protective instinct toward his mom after that, thinking Dad was just the worst.

But then Mom had remarried a couple years later and this time
she
’d
been the one to walk out when it didn’t turn out to be the happily ever after she’d hoped for. Later Mom and Dad had randomly gotten back together for a few years. Seth never had figured out which parent walked away that time.

That had been three years ago. He’d come home to help Mom pack up her house and get ready for a move out of state. And it’s when he’d salvaged all the cobblestone now on display up front, the first seed of a dream he hadn’t known he even had at that point.

“Maybe it’s not exactly the same,” he said to his uncle now. “But I’m committed to Maddie. The plan has always been that we’d get engaged after the restaurant opens. It’s open now. I’d bet money she’s banking on a proposal next time I see her.”

“Which is when? For an almost-engaged man, you sure don’t see much of your fiancée-to-be. She didn’t even . . .”

Case didn’t finish. Didn’t have to. Maddie hadn’t even come last night—that’s what he’d been thinking, right?

“It’s not her fault. Honestly, I’m not even sure I asked her.” And yet, he’d invited Ava.

And
that
 . . . that’s what had bothered him most as he tried to sleep last night. The guilt. Not only at inviting Ava, but the way he’d watched her as she waitressed. Noticing more than he should. The ease with which she’d slipped into the role in his restaurant in his town. The smiles she doled out with every delivered plate. How good she looked in Shan’s borrowed apron.

He’d noticed all that and more while they made it through his opening night.

And it wasn’t right.

But he couldn’t just ignore her now that she was here. Nor did he want to. Having her around, another friend in town, it would be great. He just . . . What?

I just have to be
careful. That’s all.

“I’m telling you, Seth, it’s the wrong color.”

Seth watched Ava slap paint onto the east wall of the apartment over The Red Door. Man, it was so easy to tell whenever she was annoyed. Whatever she happened to be doing in her moment of irritation, she’d do it with an extra dose of force. Scrubbing a counter top? She’d scrub harder. Drinking pop. She’d gulp it faster.

And at the moment she was putting way more muscle than needed into slicking that paint roller up and down the wall.

“You’re supposed to paint in a W pattern, Ave.”

She turned around and with a huffy exhale blew the blond hair flopping over her forehead out of her face. “Where’d you learn that? HGTV?
Better Homes &
Gardens
?”

He dipped his roller into the silver tray filled with bright red paint. Candy Apple Red, according to the can. He had to agree that in the cloud-filtered morning sun it seemed a little bold—but he wasn’t going to admit that to Ava. “I didn’t learn it, I just know it. Everybody knows it.”

“I didn’t know it,” Raegan said as she waltzed into the room. “I brought beverages.”

Ava flashed him a
See?
look and abandoned her roller in favor of the Diet Coke Raegan held out.

Had she really been here two weeks already? The days had flown—probably because he spent so much of them downstairs at the restaurant. Why had he thought once the place was up and running, it wouldn’t consume so much of his time? One of these days
he was going to have to appoint an assistant manager and entrust his baby to someone else.

Today was an attempted step in that direction. Ava had convinced him to stay away from The Red Door for a full day—and they decided to start it by painting the apartment living room. Although, did the floor above the restaurant count as
away
?

“Earth to Seth.” Raegan held a water bottle in front of his face.

“Thanks.” He dropped his paint roller and twisted open the bottle.

“You’ve got to get more sleep, Seth. You were completely zoning out. You’re working too hard.”

Ava hopped onto the card table they’d set up in the middle of the apartment’s living room and put her feet on a folding chair. “That’s what I’ve been telling him.”

The tarp they’d thrown over the hardwood floor crunched and wrinkled under his feet. “Your concern is touching, ladies, but I’m fine. After all, I’m the one drinking the healthy beverage.” He narrowed his eyes toward Ava’s Diet Coke.

“There you go again. If it’s not arguing about the wall color, it’s what you’re drinking.” Raegan waved one arm. “Or who’s better at basketball. Or whether capris are a legit clothing choice.”

Seth set his water bottle on the table. “They can’t decide whether they want to be shorts or pants. They’re pointless.”

Ava grinned. “Why do you care? Men don’t wear capris.”

Raegan pointed at both of them. “I’m just saying, you guys argue about everything. Maybe if you weren’t so worn out, Seth, you would get along more.”

“Debating is our way. And I’m not worn out. I’m fine.”

Mostly fine. There was still that lingering sense of frustration toward Maddie, who had never asked about his restaurant’s grand opening. They’d talked several times in the past two weeks, and probably it was ridiculous he hadn’t just brought up the restaurant’s opening himself, but some silly piece of him wanted her to bring it up . . . to remember.

It bugged him that she hadn’t. And it bugged him that it bugged him. He should be above that. After all, she had her own career, her own crazy-busy schedule.

And anyway, after this much time had gone by, he couldn’t really backtrack his way into mentioning it now. What would he say?
Oh,
by the way, you
must’ve forgotten, but The Red Door opened two weeks
ago. Everything’s great. Thanks for asking.
Or, well, not.

“He’s zoning again, Ava.”

He blinked at the sound of Raegan’s laughter. Ava was smiling, but she wasn’t laughing. It was almost as if she read his mind.

For all he knew, she did. She’d slipped so easily into his day-to-day life in Maple Valley. She jumped into the second-floor renovation with gusto, helping to turn what’d been a mostly empty shell of a space into more and more of a livable place. She’d picked up a few shifts at the restaurant, too.

And though they’d both worked long days, they still managed to grab meals together, once in a while take walks in the evenings, take turns winning games of basketball at the hoop in Case’s driveway.

She was becoming a fixture in Maple Valley, in his world.

And he was torn between gratefulness and concern.

Raegan stood over one of the paint trays now, peering down and wrinkling her nose. “You know, I think I have to agree with Ava. It’s the wrong color.”

“You always side with Ava.”

Ava shrugged and slurped from her pop can. “Can’t help it that I’m always right.”

“Always?”

“Fine. Usually.” She set her can on the table and hopped down. “But seriously, Seth, it’s not too late to go with a different color. Red’s just not right for this space. You have all this rich woodworking around the floors and ceiling and windows, and it’s going to get lost in such a bold color.”

He looked around the space. Shortly after National Bank had moved into its new location, someone had attempted to turn this second floor into two separate apartments. They hadn’t gotten very far—though fortunately they’d reworked the electricity and plumbing. He was thankful he didn’t have to do that part.

But other than some poorly placed drywall, not much else had been completed. So the first thing they did was get Case and Bear’s help to take down a couple interior walls and open up the space. Then Ava had worked on stripping out the old wallpaper and ordering new appliances.

The paint color was the first thing upon which they’d disagreed.

He finished off his water and reclaimed his paint roller. “I bet it’ll look good when it’s done.”

“Why are you being so pigheaded about this? I know I’m not an interior designer or anything, whereas you designed an entire restaurant, and I know I usually argue with you just for the sake of arguing, but this time, I really think I’m right.”

He rolled paint over the wall, brash streaks of red coloring over the white primer base. “The living room in Maddie’s apartment in Chicago has red walls.” Why did his voice come out so tinny?

He didn’t have to look over his shoulder to see the understanding drop into place. They hadn’t talked all that much about Maddie. Oh, sure, he’d asked Ava to help him plan a proposal. But the couple times one or the other of them had brought it up, the topic always fizzled out before it went anywhere.

“Well, lucky for me you guys only have two paint rollers, so I’ll let you get back to work.” Raegan stopped in the doorway. “Oh, but first, just so you know, Shan bet me twenty dollars Seth wouldn’t make it all day without checking in at the restaurant. Ava, if you could make sure he stays up here, my bank account and I would appreciate it.”

“Done.”

Seth turned in time to see his cousin disappear, and then Ava’s ponytail swung behind her as she picked up her roller. “Back to work, I go.”

He watched her for a moment, mix of athleticism and grace in her movements. That was Ava, true to lithe form.

“Hey, Ave?”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “Yeah?”

“I’m really glad you’re here.”

She grinned, paused, and then in a flash of movement flicked paint at him. It landed on his shirt in a splotch of red.

“Real mature, Kingsley.” But he’d meant what he said. He really did like having her here. A ready-made best friend and confidante. Yeah, he had Bear. And Raegan and Case were great family to have around.

But Ava . . . she just got him. Behind all their arguing was a mutual, genuine respect. That and she was constantly amusing—whether she was trying to be or not.

“So have you thought any more about what you want to do next? Keep teaching, apply for coaching jobs elsewhere?” He’d felt so sorry
for her when she’d finally confessed to him, on her second day in town, that the coaching opportunity had fallen through.

She’d written it in an email, of all things, from the bedroom right across the hallway in Case’s house. Why they’d kept emailing each other when they saw each other every day, he had no idea. Chalk it up to habit.

“I don’t think a female coaching a college football team is going to go over any better at any other school. Might be time to let that dream die.” Ava put down her paint roller and turned to him. “And what’s bothering me most of all isn’t even letting go of the dream. It’s the fact that the idea of letting go actually makes me feel a little . . . relieved.”

He could hear the layer of guilt rustling under her words. Saw it reflected in the way she rubbed one hand over her opposite arm. Her telltale move, as he’d discovered.

“If a person has a dream, they’re supposed to go after it with all they’ve got, right? And even when it gets hard, they keep pushing. That’s what you did.” She dropped her hand. “You didn’t look for an easy out. When you were in the beginning stages of opening The Red Door, when you ran up against one closed door, you either barreled through it or looked around until you found a different open one. You made it happen.”

He lowered his own roller into the paint tray and nudged the thing away with his foot. “Maybe it’s a different situation, though.” He halted, weighing his next words. “I ran into a lot of roadblocks with the diner—that’s true. But whenever I’d pray about it, there’d be just enough peace and confidence and . . . I don’t know, a knowing, I guess, to convince me that moving forward was still the right thing. Sometimes it was just a sliver—like a crack in a door. But there was always that faint light showing through the crack. I knew it was the right dream.”

She reached around behind her head to fiddle with her ponytail, eventually loosening it so it rested at the nape of her neck. “You’re saying you think coaching a football team may not be the right dream for me?”

“I’m saying maybe
you’re
thinking it may not be the right dream. And maybe that’s why the thought of letting it go comes with a sense of relief.”

She angled away. “It also comes with a sense of embarrassment. Because I’ve been talking about it for so long, working toward it, telling everybody one day . . . one day.”

He leaned sideways against the wall. “You can’t let the thought of what other people expect be your compass, Ava.”

“Yeah. Well.” She shrugged. “By the way, I think you might’ve just ruined your shirt.”

“Huh?” Oh. He jerked away from the wall, bringing with him an arm stained red.

Ava’s laughter made the ruined shirt worth it, though. She picked up the roller with a wide smile on her face. “So show me this W technique you’ve been pestering me about.”

Two weeks.

Two weeks in Maple Valley and Ava could name half the people in the little coffee shop that sat on the opposite side of the town square from The Red Door. Sunny, who ran the hardware store. The Jamisons, a cute older couple who ate at the restaurant at least three times a week. A newspaper reporter named Amelia. The girl with the Goth look working behind the coffee shop counter.

“I’m just saying, maybe rather than trying to get Maddie here, I should go to her.” Seth used a stir stick to dissolve the ridiculous amounts of sugar he’d added to his latte.

“You know you could just suck on some sugar cubes and skip the coffee altogether.” Ava sprinkled cinnamon over her chai tea, swallowing the urge to sing along to the NEEDTOBREATHE song floating over Coffee Coffee’s speakers.

She’d laughed about the name of the coffee shop ever since she saw it her first night in town. But if the name wasn’t entirely creative, the inside of the place definitely was. Leather couches in shades of green and purple and yellow, high espresso-colored tables with red-topped stools. And classic movie posters in black frames along the walls.

Best of all, it overlooked the picturesque river that cut through town.

“Sugar cubes don’t have caffeine, my friend.” Seth propped a lid on his cup and turned, hip leaning against the counter, to face Ava. “I need my caffeine.”