Page 40 of Secondhand Smoke

The stroller came closer, plastic wheels bumping over the cracks in the sidewalk. “Why are you messing with Sam all of a sudden?” Ava asked, dropping her voice to a low, soothing pitch that reminded him suddenly of Maggie.

He let his hands fall to his sides, giving her aback offglance that she ignored. “I’m not.”

“That’s why she ran off like that, then. All your not-messing.”

“Ava…” he said in warning.

“She’s in love with you, you know.”

That stopped him fast. “What?”

Ava studied him like a bird might, head tilted to the side, dark eyes narrowed. “She’s never said anything, but I can tell. She gets that look, that faraway one people have when it hurts to look at someone.” She smiled. “Caught that look on my face in windows and dessert spoons often enough back in the day to recognize it when I see it.”

He heard her words, but his brain wasn’t computing them. “What?” he repeated, tone becoming desperate, unfamiliar to his ears.

“Honestly, I don’t know why she’d waste her time on you,” Ava said with a shrug. “We all know you don’t care about education and responsibility. But she probably can’t help it. Hell – it may go all the way back to high school. That kind of first love crush is almost impossible to get over.” Another sad smile, because she understood all too well.

Aidan didn’t understand, though. His head was pounding. “Sam doesn’t – she couldn’t – there’s no way–”

“No accounting for taste, I guess.” Ava grew more serious. “But what were you doing just now?”

He gave her a vicious frown. “What’d it look like, genius?”

“Like you’re taking advantage, because you’re lost, and you’re hurting, and Sam suddenly looks like a soft place to land,” she said baldly, without flinching.

“It’s not like that.”

“So explain it to me.”

“Fuck you.”

She didn’t shrink away, of course she didn’t. Ava – shooter of men in the face, mother of two half-demons, both of whom were staring at him at this point, even Cal somehow disapproving in his own baby way.

“Does she know what’s going on with Tonya?”

He wasn’t prepared for the fresh, hot surge of anger that boiled up in his chest. He took a step closer to his sister, aiming a finger at her chest. “No, she doesn’t, and don’t you tell her, understand? Don’t tell her anything.”

“She’s my friend, and I can’t sit by and watch you deceive her just for fun.”

“It’s not for fun. It’s…” Something came unhinged in his mind. A sharp pain in his head, somewhere deep he couldn’t touch; he felt something break and give way. The stress – of Tonya, the baby he wasn’t going to ever get to meet, the dead dealers, freakingGreg– overwhelmed him in that moment, and he hated the way his anger turned to something raw and desperate. But he was powerless to do anything about it.

“I’m gonna tell her,” he said in a breathless rush. “About Tonya, about everything. I am, I swear. I don’t wanna lie to her. But I can’t tell her right now. I have to wait for the right time, for–”

“You have to wait until she’s so hopelessly attached she couldn’t walk away from you?”

“Ava! Jesus Christ, I’m serious!” He reached for her, planning on taking her by the shoulders, but a fast mental image of Mercy knocking all of his teeth out pulled him up short. Instead he curled his hands into fists. “You can’t tell her yet. Please! Not yet. Wait and let me tell her.”

He was breathing like he’d run a race, chest heaving. He felt the hot slide of perspiration down his back and shivered despite it. He had to hear her relent, absolutely had to. He had maybe one chance with Sam, and he couldn’t afford to blow it.

Ava looked at him a long moment, pushing the stroller back and forth absently when Cal started to fuss. “You’re dead damn serious, aren’t you?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“Why now?” she asked, smoothing her expression to something thoughtful. “Sam and I have been friends for almost two years. Why do you want her all of a sudden?”

Hot shame passed through him. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt like more of an idiot, not even when he’d been sitting across from Tonya in that booth at Stella’s. That sort of regret was normal – making a mistake, kicking himself for it. But this, with Sam – that was about realizing he’d missed something.

He missed a lot of things, didn’t he?

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