Page 126 of Sawyer

I drop my hand to my side so she can’t see me make a fist. “I’m sorry. Co-parenting is not for the faint of heart.”

“No shit,” she says with a scoff. She looks down at her hands, which are clasped on her lap. Then she looks up at me. “We fought about you, actually.”

My stomach heaves. “Did I do something?”

“No! My God, Sawyer. You’ve done nothing except be awesome.” She elbows her hat out of the way and reaches for my hand, tangling our fingers. “Dan is just jealous. You’re the first guy I’ve really dated since we got divorced, and I think it threw him for a loop.”

“Did you tell him about me?”

“Junie did. She brought you up because … how could she not? You’ve been around so much, and you’ve been just so wonderful to both of us.”

My turn to swallow. “I am pretty great.”

“You’re the best. Truly. And that’s where I made my mistake. I should’ve told him about you earlier?—”

“You get to decide these things, Ava,” I reply, my pulse skidding at the idea that she wants to tell her ex about me. That feels like a big step. “This is your life, not his. You tell him when you’re ready.”

Ava’s eyes are glassy when they meet mine. “But it’s all our lives, isn’t it? Because you’re a part of June’s life now, Sawyer.” She squeezes my hand. “I hope a big part. And I should’ve told Dan about us, because he’s going to be seeing a lot of you.”

Holy.

Shit.

For several beats I can’t speak. I just search Ava’s face, blinking a hundred times a minute to keep my own tears from spilling over. I don’t wanna cry, I just?—

Goddamn it, let yourself cry. This is a good moment.

I bring our joined hands to my lips. “He’s got a problem with that, he can come to me.”

“You mean that?”

“Aw, pretty girl, I mean that.” I close my eyes and take a deep, shuddering breath.

“He asked to see my phone.”

“What?” My eyes bulge open.

“I can’t make this shit up. He wanted to see the texts you’d sent me. And then he called me a slut, because that’s his MO—hating on me.”

I am speechless.

Legitimately speechless for several heartbeats while I absorb this news.

“He didn’t actually say the whole word,” Ava continues. “I stopped him before he could. But the implication was there. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel … not great.”

“Never.” The word comes out as a growl.

Ava’s eyebrows pop up. “Never what?”

“He never talks to you like that. Ever. He ever speaks to you that way again, he’ll deal with me. You got it?”

She looks at me for a long beat, her eyelashes fluttering. “Okay. Thank you. That makes me feel better. A lot better.”

“Good. Did you show him the texts?”

“Hell no. He has no right to see them. Again, I think he was just trying to upset me. He’s been holding on to this grudge against me since we split—he thinks I was the one who ended our marriage. To be fair, I did hire a lawyer first. But that was only when I knew our relationship was over. I’d tried for years to make it work, but I realized Dan was never going to let me out of the cage he’d put me in. He didn’t like that I was untamed, and he tried to change me. For a while, I let him. I believed him when he told me I was too emotional, too wild, too … unlovable. But over time, I realized that I wasn’t the problem. He was. He couldn’t figure out a way to love who I truly was.”

I grit my teeth. I see why Ava wouldn’t want to go down that road again. For her, marriage was a prison. Who in their right mind would seek that out?

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