Page 190 of Heartache Duet

“Why not?”

“I don’t want him to know what we’re doing in here!”

“As if he doesn’t already know, and even if he did, he’d rather know we’re being safe.” I clear my throat, call out, “Dad!”

She covers my mouth, her eyes wide, then rolls to her side when Dad knocks on the door. “Connor?” he asks. “Did you need me?”

“I hate you,” she mouths.

I laugh under my breath. “Yeah, I was just seeing if you were home.”

“Oh, okay.”

Ava’s phone rings again, still Rhys, and this time Ava answers, puts it on speaker. “Hey, Rhys.”

“Ledger’s with you, right?”

“Yep.”

“Pool party at my house. Hurry your asses up.”

“All right,” Ava laughs out. “I’ll talk to my boyfriend and see if he wants to go.”

“He has no choice, A. He pussied out on last night’s party, and he needs to show up. He’s fucking captain.”

“Co-captain,” I cut in. “And it looks like you’re doing enough for the both of us on that front.”

“Ava,” Rhys deadpans.

“Yeah?”

His tone turns serious. “Tell your boyfriend he needs to at least make an appearance… for the team.”

Raising her eyebrows, Ava gives me that look that says, he’s right, Connor without saying a word, and so I tell Rhys, “I’ll be there soon… ish.”

Rhys hangs up without another word, and I turn to my side and ask, “How the fuck is he having a pool party when it’s cold out?”

“You haven’t seen his indoor pool?”

“There’s an indoor pool?”

“Yep. On the west wing.”

“They have wings?”

She ignores me and adds, “But it’s more of a beach than a pool. There’s sand and waves, and it somehow feels like summer, like the sun’s out even when it’s thirty degrees out.”

I ignore the nagging question of how she knows that and ask, “Do you miss it? The house and money?”

Her gaze fall, eyes moving to the space between us. “The house, yes, but mainly because of the memories it comes with. The money only because it would make our lives so much easier.”

“Whose house was it anyway?” I ask, moving closer and placing my hand on her hip. “Was it Trevor’s dad’s or your mom’s?”

“It was my grandparents’. They left it to Mom when they passed. It’s old money, like, great-great-great-great grandparents. It sucks that I’m not able to pass that on to our kids when we—I mean my…I—” She stops there, pink flushing her cheeks.

I push away the fantasies of a forever with her, even though I’ve thought about it more times than I’d like to admit.

“Mom told me her parents were pissed when she decided to join the marines. It came out of nowhere. She went to St. Luke’s, too.”

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