Page 39 of A Little Too Late
Reed glances at me. “Perhaps we can hammer that out together,” he says.
I stand up quickly, taking the hint. “I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me this afternoon.”
My face burns as I walk out. Reed didn’t have to do this—he’s looking out for me, and honestly, it makes him harder to hate.
Although I’m still going to try.
CHAPTER 15
I JUST WORK HERE
REED
I sit there for another hour, chiseling a number of small concessions out of the Sharpes. By the time I’m done, I imagine they’ll use my photo for target practice next time they get out their guns.
But it’s worth it. At the end, I’m finally satisfied with the leaseback clause on the house and a few other items on my wish list. If my father wants to sell to these yokels, he’s going to get good terms. At least I can go back to California with a clear conscience, if not a clear head.
Unfortunately, I can’t stop worrying about Ava. Even with a two-year contract, I still feel like I’m feeding her to the sharks.
She isn’t worried, though. This is what she wants. So I ask the Sharpes to put three weeks’ vacation—annually—into the deal memo. “And three personal days,” I add.
Sharpe gives me a dark look, but he adds it to his notes.
When the meeting is adjourned, I go looking for Ava, because I need to give her the good news. At least that’s what I tell myself.
I’mnotjust seeking her out because she looks hot in her red dress, or because I can’t stop remembering the look in her eye last night when she was telling me how much she missed me.
Nope. This is strictly a business visit.
I find Ava sitting at her desk. She’s holding something under a carefully aimed task lamp. As she patiently manipulates the object, her frown reminds me of the girl I met when she was only twenty-one, squinting while she drew an exquisite owl or a fox onto her latest art project.
“Hey there,” I say with as much nonchalance as a guy can muster for the only girl he ever loved. “I have some good…” The sentence dies on my tongue when I realize what she’s holding. I sputter, “W-where did yougetthat?”
She lifts her pretty eyes, and they’re confused. “The mug?”
I nod, my eyes still glued to it.
“Found it in a box of old crockery that someone stashed in a storage locker. And I loved it so much that I took it home with me. There’s a saying painted on the bottom—on theinside. It says—”
“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides,” I say, my voice hoarse.
Ava makes a noise of pure surprise. “How did you…” She looks down at the mug, and swallows hard. “Wait. Was thisyours?It looks handmade.”
I nod. And then I tell her something that I never managed to tell her before. “My mother made it. She loved pottery.”
Ava gapes at me. Then she looks down at the broken thing in her hand. “Your dead mothermadethis for you. And I broke it.”
I take another deep breath and try to shovel a heap of emotions back down my gullet. “Ava, this isn’t on you. But can you show me where you found it? There were two more of them—in different colors—one for each of my brothers. With…”
“…different sayings inside,” she finishes my sentence. “Yeah. Come on.” She shuts off the light and grabs her coat off a hook. “Follow me.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m toting a cardboard box out of a storage shed behind an employee apartment building. “Up here,” Ava says, leading me up the exterior staircase to the second floor. “I have the other two mugs in my kitchen.”
I follow her upstairs, shamelessly admiring the view of her backside. “I used to come up here in high school,” I tell her. “There was a ski tech living on the second floor who was willing to buy beer for me and Weston. He probably overcharged us.”
Ava looks over her shoulder to give me a tiny smile as she reaches the second-floor walkway. She passes two doors and stops in front of the third one. “I still can’t get over the fact that your mother was a potter.” She unlocks the door to her unit, but before she steps inside, she gives me an appraising look. “Seems like something you might have mentioned that day we met in pottery class.”
“Oh, I know it.” I follow her inside the apartment. “But there I was, sitting next to averypretty girl who was better at pottery than I was. Didn’t seem like something to brag about.”
