Page 81 of You're So Vine
I look her straight in her laughing blue eyes and say what I should have said many hours ago.
“I love you, too.”
“Good,” she says with a smile.
And then her smile falters a little, and she dips her head down to her coffee mug, blows again, but doesn’t sip.
The last fuzz of sleep leaves my brain, and everything is suddenly crystal clear. Today’s the day Ava finds out her MRI results. And I haven’t even mentioned it. Okay, so telling Ava I love her is important, but this is important and urgent.
“Doc called yet?”
Ava turns to me with a faint smile. “It’s eight in the morning. Not even Doc Wilson can hustle people along that fast.” She shrugs one shoulder. “I’d say noon at the earliest.”
I recognize that tactic. Setting your expectations as low as possible, in the hope of keeping disappointment to a minimum.
“Doc is a hustler,” I say. “He won’t allow you to wait a minute longer than you should.”
Ava holds her coffee mug tight and breathes in. “I know,” she says on the exhale. “But what do I do until then? Every one of those minutes is going to be like an hour.”
And I have to leave her to go to work because I haveto. I’ve used up all my favors in that regard.
But then, every cloud…
“Why don’t you come with me to the vineyard?” I suggest. “It’s mostly maintenance work, so kind of boring. But you could hang out with Shelby … and Nate, I guess.”
“Busy, busy Nate,” Ava says with a wry grin. “Though being busy isn’t all bad.”
She sounds a little wistful. I wish I could offer her something better than a morning watching me check tanks and tinker with the tractor. I wish I could make all her worries go away.
“Okay, I’ll come,” she says. “But first, something very important.”
My gut clenches. Is she about to revisit last night? I don’t honestly think I’ve got the strength.
Ava reaches over and sits her mug on the floor by the bed. Then, in one quick movement, she pulls the flannel shirt up and over her head, so she’s entirely naked. The blood that’s overheating my brain does a U-turn and rushes south. I place my coffee mug on the floor, too.
But just to be sure…
“The important thing is sex, right?”
Ava smiles. “I love that we prioritize clear communication in our relationship.”
She shifts closer, and runs her hand over my abdomen, causing every muscle to jump like they’ve been wired into the mains.
“And I love you, too,” she adds. “But no talk now, only this.”
Ava bends her head and runs her tongue up the length of my—
Whatever limited ability I had to talk before, it goes right out the window.
* * *
As soon as we pull up outside the vineyard office, Nate strides over to meet us.
“Well?” is his greeting.
“Nice to see you, too,” says Ava. “And no, nothing from Doc. Time to practise the virtue of patience, big brother.”
“Good thing that runs in our family,” he says with a grimace.
