Page 26 of Vegas Baby!

Ava laughed, and whenever I caught her looking longingly at something, I added it to the cart. Bryce had already given permission; might as well use it to make sure she was comfortable while she stayed with us.

I coaxed her into a few extras: a new sheet set and the fuzziest blanket poncho I had ever laid eyes on that she immediately tugged over her head.

“If you go to New York,” I said while she was elbows-deep in a mountain of decorative plushies shaped like succulents, “can I come with?”

She tilted her head, taking me in. “It’s Bryce’s place there so you would have to ask him, but I’m fine if you want to come. We have a lot more getting to know each other to do.”

Those words were another relief. Her being bonded to Jesse and Bryce created extra competition for me, but I was nothing if not determined. If she ended up not wanting me, I would have to make peace with that, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

She leaned against me as we stood in line to pay, relaxing when I wrapped my arm over her shoulders. Her sweet pecan praline scent was a gentle cloud around her, peaceful and content. After the baby was born and weaned, her scent would probably shift. I wasn’t sure how much of the creaminess was because of the pregnancy and how much was her natural scent. Either way she was delicious, and my crisp apple scent blended with her praline, making the two of us smell like the caramel apples I always got at the state fair as a kid.

“Question.”

“Answer.” She stuck her tongue out at me.

Too fucking cute. “So I know you told me that you were working on a community housing project with a nonprofit in San Jose. Would you be interested in continuing that work?”

“Definitely. I really loved it for the time that I did it,” she replied.

“My mom runs a nonprofit here. A big one. I could reach out to her, get you connected.”

Ava chewed her lip. “If we stay here, I would love that.”

“She’ll want to meet you anyway. She can be a bit prickly at first, but she warms up fast, and I know she’s going to love you the second she meets you.”

“How do you know that?”

I didn’t give a shit if it was fate or hormones, or what the fuck ever. Being around Ava was a peace I hadn’t anticipated, and I planned on sticking around as long as she let me.

“Because—” I kissed the top of her head. “—I’m well on my way to that myself.”

Iwas fucking up so hard and I couldn’t seem to stop myself. How had I managed to stress Ava out so much that Jesse had whisked her away so she wouldn’t even have to see me? We’d been so close growing up and now she could barely look at me.

It was my fault.

The second I had gotten the opportunity to get out and away from my mom, I had jumped on it. At the time I hadn’t caredhow far it took me from everything I knew, but now it was biting me in the ass.

I knew it was better for both of us that I had gone when I did. Ava might have liked me back then, but my mom got me so fucking twisted up in self-loathing and misery that I knew I would’ve inevitably dumped all of that on a partner. No one deserved that, let alone Ava.

I had done so much self-work and mountains of therapy since leaving California. I was so much better now than I was, but my little blast from the past with Ava had dredged up a lot of memories that I had long since buried.

Ava and Nathan’s house had been a refuge for me growing up. I had been over there more often than I was at my own home. Nathan hadn’t really enjoyed Little Ava trailing after us, but she was cute as hell as a kid with a serious case of hero worship for her older brother. I had always tried to include her in our less dangerous shenanigans. She was fun to have around even if it did mean sometimes participating in tea parties and letting her style my hair. It was a taste of a world I had never gotten to experience with a deadbeat dad who had booked it when I was eight and a mom who had slipped into alcoholism not long after that. Luckily, Nathan and Ava’s mom was willing to mama bear for the entire neighborhood.

Ava was in the vast majority of my happy childhood memories. She was a bright spot I had always cherished even though I couldn’t have made myself go back there. Having her be here and finding out she was my scent matched omega, had ripped open a lot of wounds I had thought were closed. I needed to get a hold of myself or I was going to lose her again.

My whole body ached with the need to hold her.

I had walked away from that life once and she had walked right back in. Fate was giving me another chance and I wasn’t going to squander it. Before, I had needed help that she couldn’tgive me, being a child herself, and now she needed help. I’d be damned if I didn’t do everything I could to help her when I was in a position to do so. If I had faced my demons earlier, I could’ve saved her a lot of pain.

Luke:

Please come back

I’ll behave

I hated sending the message to Jesse. It needed to be done, though. Bryce and I had gotten off on a shitty foot, and Micah was right. I couldn’t expect Ava to push out a bondmate for me. I shouldn’t even be considering asking her to.

Jesse:

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