Page 12 of The Comeback

I punch Colby in the arm. “You’re lucky I’m in a suit.”

He grins. “Too soon?” I roll my eyes and he sobers a moment later. “Hey, I wouldn’t have met Gab if it weren’t for social media. And online she looks like a lot of those other influencers, but we know differently. I’m just saying, don’t shut it down out of hand. Claire means well and Hayden might be great. It has to be better than you causing drama with Gabriella’s precious wedding planner.”

There’s a hint of warning in that statement that surprises me, but we reach the dining room before I can ask him about it. Colby moves forward to stand with Gabriella. She beams at him, and in my peripheral I notice a photographer and a quick flash, capturing the moment. It makes me stop and think. Someone else, not Colby or Gabriella, will likely post that picture, but it doesn’t make the love in Gabriella’s eyes any less real. Or their relationship. I remember Colby telling me about Gabriella when he first came across her while scrolling one day, a random suggestion from the app, probably because they both lived in Houston. I thought he was crazy when he DMed her. But he’s right. Gabriella’s much more than an online personality. How can I reconcile the genuine parts of me and real connections with fans without sacrificing too much of the privacy I value?

I settle into my seat at the top of the table, of course, near Colby, Gabriella, her parents, and the governor and his wife. I glance down the long table, filled with a couple dozen family and friends and more than a handful of football players, and find Ava near the middle, chatting and smiling with people she probably doesn’t even know. It reminds me of how comfortable she was no matter what football thing I brought her to in the four years we dated. Party? She was chatting with whoever stopped near her. Awards banquet? She had the coach’s wife falling all over her. She’s friendly and she cares about people. She has what it takes to be the wife of a professional athlete in spades, which is probably why she’s such a great event planner. I have to admit the atmosphere is perfect. Soft instrumental music plays in the background. I recognized a cover of a popular song earlier, which fits the modern vibe of the evening. I also know she put all this together in a week. That’s talent.

When dinner is over and the guests move to the Diaz’s backyard to enjoy the beautiful evening, I can’t hold myself back from seeking Ava out. We’re going to have to talk. We can’t spend the next two months dancing around each other. I glance at Colby and think about his half-joking warning about causing drama with Ava. I can have a conversation with her without stirring up stuff. That’s what we need to do, act like we’re old friends until it becomes true.

I pull my suit coat off and drape it over a nearby chair. Now that I’m outside in the hot air and not inside the air-conditioned home, it’s too much. Fans blow a cool breeze over the large backyard, where some people sit in outdoor furniture on the stone patio next to the house and others mingle in the grass. Lights are strung around to provide ambient lighting. The effect is soft and romantic, perfect for Colby and Gabriella’s celebration.

I would’ve thought that seven years apart meant Ava wasn’t attuned to me the way she was before, but she turns as I approach where she’s standing alone underneath a wooden pergola lined with the same lights that dot the whole backyard. Unlike before, I can’t read anything in her expression. I try to dismiss the unease that’s been boiling under the surface, so I hope my expression is as calm as hers.

But how can it be when half my brain is back at that night, her standing in the tiny living room? The whole apartment was the size of a shoebox and cheap enough that my housing allowance covered it so I didn’t need roommates. Ava and I spent every evening we could there together, enough that she joked about barely knowing the women she lived with.

The living room was one small square with the kitchen, so we’d squeezed in a little love seat (really more of an oversized chair, but we didn’t mind), a stamp-sized dining table with two folding chairs (had to be folding so we could put them away; otherwise, we couldn’t walk around in the room), and the laughably sized TV we’d mounted on the wall to save space.

By the time she started her speech on how it was best that we take a break for a while, I’d backed myself up against the wall between the living room and the one bedroom and still wasn’t very far from her. How does one “take a break” from the love of their life? How does someone walk away from the person they’re supposed to marry? Maybe that’s the problem. All this time and I still can’t wrap my brain around it.

I slow my steps and take a few seconds to refocus, practicing one of the techniques I use on the field when distractions are overwhelming me: What can I control? Myself, my reactions, my attitude. The past is done. I couldn’t stop Ava from leaving, much as I had tried to in my imagination.

“I’m sorry about the other night,” she says as I approach. “I didn’t realize the call was going. When I saw … when I saw it was you, I sort of forgot about it.”

“Don’t worry about it. I understand. It took me by surprise too.” I force my shoulders to relax.

She puts her hands in the pockets of the pants she’s wearing, and I think she’s leaning away. I must be putting off more tension than I thought. I try to see her and our past from a distance, a story someone told me. Just two high school sweethearts, like Colby said, one of many that didn’t make it work in the long run.

“I bet. I didn’t know it was Jenna’s place.” She looks at the ground, tapping her foot against the stone that’s set in a spiral pattern under the pergola. “Gabriella arranged everything.”

“That house is great. You’ll love staying there.” I don’t point out that Gabriella probably hid it from her on purpose. Jenna admitted to me that she approached Gabriella after I mentioned that she was looking for a place to rent out for her planner—in annoyance, probably, over such a big wedding at an inopportune time—and Gabriella never told Jenna the name of the planner.

“It’s really nice. I love having the beach right there. I’d ask why Jenna and Devin aren’t living there, but it’s only a two bedroom. They have three kids now?” She doesn’t look up from studying the stone.

“Yeah, it’s a little small.” I lean back against one of the posts of the pergola, arms folded over my chest until I realize that probably makes me look hostile. I straighten again.

“Gabriella says you have a place nearby?”

I catch the worry in that statement. “Not too close to you.” I give her a wry smile. “Just up the road from Jenna. Even though Kemah is small, I spend most of my time in Houston.”

She looks up. “Oh, I…” She waves off my statement but doesn’t finish hers, clearing her throat instead.

One of the fans moves the air around us, and a familiar scent floats by me, flowery with hints of vanilla and lavender. It’s the smell of Ava’s shampoo. Inexplicably I want to stride to her, take her in my arms, and bury my face in her hair. Part of me thinks it would be so easy to just push past the tension between us, let go of what she did, and just fall into each other.

“Does Jenna have other houses? Other GetAwayHomes?” Ava asks, pulling me from my temporary bout of insanity.

“Not yet. She hopes to soon, but she won’t let me help.” I give Ava a mock scowl that makes her laugh, and the insanity threatens to creep back in. This is potent. I force myself to remember how much time has passed, how much we’ve both probably changed.

“That sounds like her. Remember that time the oil in her car needed to be changed, but she wanted to do it so Devin didn’t have to worry about it since he was in the middle of finals?” Ava grins at me and my mouth automatically pulls up in response. There are some other automatic things my lips want to do, but I strangle the urge.

“She kept telling me to get out of the garage because she had it handled,” I say, the memory of Jenna’s insistence turning my smile warm. That was right after I graduated from high school. Ava and I were already spending every moment we could together before I left for fall camp at UNR in August.

She shakes her head, her smile wistful. “You snuck in when she went inside to get lunch and drained the oil. She was so mad when she caught you.” Ava tilts her head at me, amusement sparkling in her eyes at the lecture she probably remembers Jenna giving me about respecting her. “You always wanted to be the one taking care of people.”

I’m glad that’s how she remembers me, because the memory of me as a know-it-all eighteen-year-old is uncomfortable. But there’s a sadness to her tone that I can’t quite decipher. I’m sure she’s referring to the fact that I insisted on helping pay her rent and for food when she came to UNR my junior year. But why the sadness? Because she ended up leaving? Does she connect it all somehow?

“Jenna was right to tell me off.”

Ava laughs again, a short, happy sound, and then she shrugs. “Probably.”

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