Page 11 of Call You Mine
“Hello?” I yell out through the foyer, toeing off my sneakers and walking into the kitchen.
“Anderson? I didn’t know you were coming over.” Rumi, Jack’s girlfriend, greets me from where she sits at the kitchen island next to her daughter’s highchair. Her long brown hair is pulled up in a ponytail, her purple hoodie matching thesleeper Evee has on, only hers is stained red from the strawberries she’s half-eating/half-playing with on her highchair tray.
“That’s because he wasn’t invited,” a voice grumbles from behind me. “But please, let yourself in.”
Jack rounds the kitchen island, planting a kiss on the side of Rumi’s head before leaning down to kiss Evee on the forehead.
His smile is wide until he turns to me, his usual look of indifference replacing it.
“You said Ava needed valentines?” I ask.
Jack nods but doesn’t elaborate.
I turn to Rumi. We’ve gotten close enough this last year that I can communicate without words when I need some elaboration from her boyfriend.
She sighs, popping one of Evee’s strawberry halves into her mouth. “Someonewas supposed to keep that errand to himself.” Rumi’s blue eyes shoot to Jack, who just shrugs, but he looks a little guilty—like he let me in on a secret he wasn’t supposed to share.
Rumi and Ava are best friends—like,tell each other everything, trauma-bond after surviving toxic relationships, raise Rumi’s daughter for the first year of her lifetogether, kind of best friends.
And by the way Rumi is looking at me, with equal parts pity and mischief, the same way she always does when I bring up Ava around her, I know she is about to keep me in the dark while also giving mejustenough to go on.
“You know those sets of valentines that you can buy for kids to hand out to their class?” she asks, her eyes gazing at her daughter as the baby says something resembling the word “strawberry” over and over again, giving her a smile.
One glance at Jack shows he’s barely listening to us—too enamored with Evee.
Looking back at Rumi, I nod eagerly, desperate for any and all information about Ava I can get.
“She needs some for her younger sister. She’s taking her to school late today since Georgie needed some sleep, but it’s her Valentine’s Day party, and Ava said she didn’t want to miss it.”
My mouth opens to ask one of the dozen questions that immediately flood my brain, but before I can settle on one, Rumi stops me before I can start.
“And before you ask, Ava didn’t have time to give me the whole story since she had customers coming in the second she opened Hey Honey’s this morning,” she explains, “but shedidsay that something happened with their mom, so Georgie will be staying with Ava and Emerson for a couple of days.”
I snap my lips shut, and I can’t help but wonder if this has something to do with the phone call Ava got last night. My stomach twists at the thought of Ava dealing with whatever happened to her mom. Is she sick? Is she going to be okay? I need to find out, so I can figure out how to help.
Once again, I’m about to ask, but Rumi beats me to it. “And that’s all I’m going to say.” She puts her hands up, quickly shutting me down before I even have the opportunity to speak. She pulls Evee out of her high chair and walks straight out of the kitchen. “She’ll be waiting at Hey Honey’s!” she yells over her shoulder before leaving the room completely.
I turn to Jack, knowing full well that Rumi knows more but is refusing to tell me. “Rumi will kill me if I tell you anything else,” Jack says, grabbing the tray of Evee’s highchair and turning toward the sink.
I sigh. “Oh, come on. At least tell me why Ava needsyouto get them for her.”
Jack turns on the faucet, running water over the plastic tray. “She asked Rumi, but Rumi has her Mommy and Me dance class with Evee, so she asked me to do it.”
“Why not ask Emerson?” I ask, wondering why Avawouldn’t ask her other best friend to do her a favor—especially since they live together.
Jack places the tray on a towel on the counter and wipes his hands on his pants. “My sister has a shift at Hey Honey’s and then is doing the last round of interviews for Ava with the three potential new baristas.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of all this. My first thought is how Ava already spreads herself so thin, and now she has whatever is happening with her mom,andtaking care of her sister to worry about.
It’s no wonder she only ever has time for me in the middle of the night.
“So Emerson is covering the interviews, so Ava can drop her sister off at school? With the valentines?”
Jack claps his hands together. “Way to use your context clues, Scooby-Doo,” he deadpans, but I ignore the dig—too focused on how I’m going to get Ava to open up to me about what’s going on, this strong urge to help her, protect her, taking over my entire mind.
I tuck my hands in the front pocket of my jeans. “I knew Ava had sisters, but I didn’t realize one was young enough to still be in school.”
I say it more to myself than to Jack, but he answers anyway. “I didn’t know until today, but you know Ava. She keeps a lot to herself.”
