Page 25 of The Comeback

I turn back to Jenna. “You and Gabriella are calling each other now?”

“Sure. We’re friends. We text.” Her tone is so full of forced nonchalance that my suspicions rise right away. “Who’s your date with then?” she asks in a hurry.

“Why don’t you ask Gabriella?” I tease. Jenna swats at me from her chair, and Devin, who’s following Ruby up the sand back toward us, joins in my laughter. “Hayden Reid,” I reply. “I met her at the charity football game a couple weeks ago, remember?”

She nods. “Oh yeah. The girl everyone was saying you were dating. Are you? I thought you said you just hung out there and took that picture because Claire wanted you to.”

“We’re going on our first date tonight, actually, but we’ve been texting and talking since then. She’s cool.”

Jenna eyes me just as contemplatively as she did that house before. “All the moms in my playgroup follow her. I think she has a clothing line coming out or something? Athletic stuff like leggings and all that. My friend Riley won a couple of samples, and she loves them.” Jenna leans back into her chair and tips her sun hat down a little lower.

“You’re going out with someone Instagram famous?” Devin raises his eyebrows at me and smirks. “Must be a tough life, brother.”

I snort with laughter. “If by that you mean I’m forced into dates by my well-meaning manager, yes, it can be kind of tough.”

“Forced to date?” Jenna questions, scrunching her nose at me. “I thought you said Hayden was cool.”

“She is. I like her. I’m just not excited about how my love life will now be dissected online twice as much, that’s all. But Claire thinks it’s a good idea.”

Jenna frowns, but her sunglasses hide what must be the rest of her scowl. “Okay…”

“You’ve got at least a hundred pounds on Claire. I think you could take her,” Devin says, sitting back down in his chair, but with one eye on Ruby. She keeps crawling around and then sitting up and eyeing her sandy hands with an expression that looks like a mix between disgust and fascination.

“You’d think so,” I retort. “But she starts throwing around words like likability and franchise loyalty and the discussion ends pretty quickly.”

Devin grunts, which sums up my feelings pretty well.

“It’s different,” I say, “but I’m going to give it a chance.” I lean back, watching Hudson and Ian splash in the shallow waves.

Jenna’s expression relaxes. “I guess that’s fair. She doesn’t seem like your type, but I’ve only seen a couple of her posts that Riley showed me.” Ruby crawls over to her and pats her legs, so Jenna scoops her up into her lap. “The clothes do look really nice,” she murmurs.

“Want me to see if I can get you some?” I reach for Ruby, and she happily reaches back. She’s so snuggly, resting in my lap and leaning her head back against my chest. Ava’s been on my mind a lot recently, so I can’t help thinking that we would have all this by now. I wanted all this with her—so badly. More than I wanted football, and that’s saying something.

“No,” Jenna says, “it’s a first date. I don’t want to be that person right off the bat. Maybe when you get serious about her.” She laughs and I join her. I can’t picture it.

But maybe that’s because I never stopped picturing forever with Ava. Even after she walked out. Is that why the anger lingered? Because I couldn’t let go of that future?

“You’re right that she doesn’t seem like my type, but who knows?” I say. “Maybe it’s time to branch out from what I think my type is.”

“Maybe,” Jenna murmurs in a tone that says she doesn’t agree. Her comment earlier means she’s just as stuck on Ava as I’ve seemed to be the past couple of weeks.

“Why Ava?” I blurt. “What made you think we’d be getting back together just because she’s in town?”

Jenna grimaces. “Maybe just hope, Jett. I haven’t seen you as happy with anyone as you were with her.” She glares at the sand, though, and I wonder if she too is remembering how broken I was when Ava left, the total opposite of my happiness.

I look over at Devin, who nods along to what Jenna said. I’m sure they’ve discussed Ava thoroughly already, and their opinions probably align, as they do with a lot of things. It’s not that Devin just goes along with whatever Jenna says. It’s that they work so hard to make each other happy they don’t have a lot to disagree on.

“She made a big mistake back then,” Devin says, and a slight clench to his jaw tells me he’s still as protective of me as he was when I was younger. “But it’s easier for us not to let that define her. We weren’t in love with her like you were.”

“True,” Jenna says softly.

“Hmm,” I grunt. This is like the distance Miss Maggie was talking about, seeing it through Devin’s and Jenna’s eyes. They were upset too back then. Ava hurt me. But now they want to see me happy, even if Ava is what makes me happy. And the fact that it’s hard for them to imagine someone else, someone like Hayden, making me happy is my own fault. When Ava left, I put everything into football. I didn’t date anyone else in college, and my relationships since going pro have been few and far between. I want what Jenna and Devin have: their partnership with each other, kids, the family life. But I haven’t put any effort into that. No wonder it feels like the only real option any of us see is Ava, even if my relationship with her ended a long time ago.

Hudson and Ian call for one of their parents to come and play, and since Ruby is happy with me, both Devin and Jenna go down to play with the boys in the water. It leaves me to contemplate what Gabriella might have said to Jenna about me and Ava that has Jenna and Devin ready for Ava and me to get back together.

What they don’t understand is that there’s no point in letting something happen. That ship has already sailed. Ava and I aren’t meant to be like I once thought we were. If she had really loved me, she could have never left. So how can I trust she could ever love me enough to stay forever?

Jenna and Devin are gathering things up when I leave to go pick up Hayden at her condo. I try to shake the wary vibe I have about the date before I get there.

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