“The kidnapping of this woman and her son.” I shook my head. “God, some of the details are so awful. But the police found them, in the end, and it was a good ending. They’re going to be okay.” I paused. “But it does make me want to hug Miss Ava here and never let her go.”
Ava squirmed as I reached over and tickled her, her face breaking out into the most adorable grin.
“I thought you weren’t taking stories like that anymore,” Mom said. “You were sticking mostly to the smaller stories.”
“Not because I want to,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s just what they’ve been giving me lately. Most of the best stories go to their full-time staff.”
“Have you thought about going back to work for them full-time?” Mom asked curiously. “I mean, obviously you couldn’t disappear to the Middle East for another six months or anything like that—you have a family now. But what’s your long-term plan with them?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. The horrible truth was that it felt like my career had really been going somewhere before I’d found out that I was pregnant with Ava, and then it had just sort of stalled. I’d never recovered. Not that I regretted having Ava. I wouldn’t trade one day with her for any sort of article lead. But at the same time, this wasn’t what I would ever have expected.
Again, it made me wonder about Ace. Maybe he had changed too, just as much as I had. Or was that just wishful thinking?
“How was your date the other night?” Mom asked suddenly.
I gave her a guilty look. “What date?” I asked, trying to sound innocent. But I knew she wasn’t buying it.
“Oh come on. You were wearing makeup when you dropped Ava off. You never wear makeup anymore.” She said it matter-of-factly, and I had to admit that she was right.
I shrugged. “It was good.” I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. “It was really good, actually.” The date itself had been good. And the rest of the night had been the cherry on top of it all. I liked thinking of Ace as my boyfriend now. I felt lucky to call him that. Even if I didn’t know what it meant for either of our futures.
What I’d secretly liked the most was that Ace had called me, the day after. I’d been busy, and I hadn’t really been able to appreciate it at the time, but it had been good to hear his voice. To hear that he wasn’t having second thoughts about us and that he wanted to tell me about his day. Speaking of which, I made a mental note to call him back once I left Mom’s. I owed him a chat, and maybe we could set up our next date.
Mom wasn’t done with me yet, though. “Was it the guy from the TV?” she asked pointedly. “The one?” She was staring at Ava when she said it, her meaning obvious, even if I hadn’t already gathered it from her words. I wanted to toss out some flippant reply about how, no, I wasn’t dating the dude on the Weather Channel. But instead, I just shrugged.
“Yeah, it was him,” I told her.
Mom tsked. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said.
“I don’t,” I admitted. “But I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“Did you at least tell him?” Mom asked sharply.
“Not yet,” I said defensively. I knew she thought I should have already told Ace that Ava was his. As far as she was concerned, I should have told him about her before she was ever even born. But I wanted to do things a different way. And I was old enough not to have to feel like she was judging me over it.
I shrugged. “I’m going to tell him. Just not yet. We’re taking things slow.”
“Taking things slow,” Mom said, snorting derisively to show what she thought about that. She lifted Ava off her lap and sat her next to me on the couch, shaking her head as she moved back into the kitchen, taking my empty plate with her. I could hear her scrubbing away
in the sink back there, and I sighed.
Ava giggled. “Grammie’s mad,” she said, clearly not understanding the gravity of the situation.
But to be honest, I didn’t really care that Mom was mad at me. It wasn’t her life, and it wasn’t her decision. I didn’t want to scare Ace away before we even had a chance to figure out what we might have together. Even if in the end, he decided that it was all too much and that he wasn’t interested in it, even if he left me broken and crying, I needed to see this through.
And I needed to do things in my own way.
Ava crawled into my lap, curling up against my chest. “Nap time?” she asked.
I laughed. If only she could possibly understand how badly I needed a nap right then. “Yeah, kiddo,” I said, turning sideways on the couch and kicking my feet up, still keeping her pressed close to me. “It’s nap time.” I closed my eyes and was dead asleep within minutes.
18
Ace
I listened to yet another message from Harper on my phone, smiling as she talked about her busy schedule for the day. Things had been hectic on both of our ends since Friday, and now we had resorted to playing phone tag. But I still looked forward to every one of her messages. I just liked hearing her voice.
I called her back and got her voicemail again. “Hey, I know you’re busy today, but I just wanted to say hey and let you know that I was thinking about you,” I said. It was cheesy. Not the usual sort of thing that I would say to someone. But it was true. “Anyway, about to head in to examine all the chaos in my head with my shrink. And then back to work for the afternoon. Talk to you soon, I hope. Bye.”