Page 12 of Call You Mine
That’s the understatement of the year.
I’ve had her naked in my bed dozens of times, and I still can’t even get her to tell me the simplest things about her—her middle name, her favorite color, the time of year she likes the most.
“Can you at least tell me what happened to her mom?”
“Rumi didn’t tell me.”
Fuck.
For Rumi not to tell Jack something, that means it’s bad.
While those two tell each other everything, their relationshipbeing one completely built on trust because of being friends before dating, Rumi and Ava have an impenetrable bond—and I’ve seen it in action since meeting them last summer.
So, if Ava asked Rumi not to tell anyone about what happened, Rumi is taking whatever Ava shared with her to the grave.
I take in all the information I do have, desperate for more, but knowing I need to get it from Ava.
She may not want to be more than friends-with-benefits, or fuck buddies, orwhatevershe considers us—she may keep fighting me every time I try to break down those walls of hers—but I’m not going to stop until she lets me in.
I blow out a breath, turning toward the front door. “Let’s go get these valentines.”
“Oh, look what the cat dragged in.” Ava’s long, auburn hair is pulled back in the same bun she had last night, and her arms cross when she sees me and Jack approaching the counter at the coffee shop.
“So nice to see you too, love,” I offer with a smile, but I can’t ignore how tired she looks. And is that the same hoodie under her apron that she had on last night?
Did she get any sleep?
“Rumi said you needed these,” Jack says, dropping the plastic bag on the counter. It took three different stores to find enough valentines for a class of twenty-two, but I’ve done enough last-minute runs for my younger brothers over the years. I know exactly what stops to hit.
“Oh my God, thank you.” Ava reaches for the bag and peeks inside. “Hopefully, these will be up to Georgie’s standards.”
“Your sister?” I ask, even though I already know, havingfiled the name away when Rumi mentioned it—keeping it in the same place in my brain that remembers when Ava mentioned her sister Phoebe, the first-year labor and delivery nurse who introduced Rumi and Ava, and her sister Jasmine, who I overheard recently is studying abroad.
Ava nods. “She’s staying with me for a little while.” Her voice is clipped, a mask of nonchalance. She glances down at the counter in front of her, adjusting the stack of coffee cups and lids, so they’re perfectly in line before she turns back to Jack. “How’s Evee’s first dance class going?”
The corners of Jack’s lips turn up as he reaches into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling out his phone. “Rumi sent me this.”
Ava’s eyes soften as she looks at the picture of Evee in her pink leotard and ballet skirt.
“Damn, I miss that kid.”
Jack chuckles. “It’s been what, a week?”
Ava rolls her eyes. “Going from seeing that girl every day for ayearto once a week hasn’t been too easy on this ol’ heart of mine.”
I’ve learned most of what I know about Ava through Jack and Rumi—hovering on the sidelines, watching their relationship unfold, and picking up pieces of her story along the way. I actually met her on their first official date.
At some point that night, I asked how she and Rumi knew each other, and Ava told me about how Rumi moved in with her when Evee was still a newborn, how the two of them basically raised her together that first year, figuring it out side by side.
“Sounds like you traded in one kid for another,” Jack says, and I’m tempted to add something to the conversation, but instead volley my eyes back and forth between the two.
“I think the newborn trenches might be easier than the thirteen-year-old angst,” she jokes, reaching over the counterto fix the stack of Hey Honey’s stickers in front of the register. “I’m just glad Emerson doesn’t mind.”
“What don’t I mind?” Jack’s sister comes out from the Employees Only door behind the counter, her tattooed arms carrying bags of espresso beans, her dark hair pulled back by a bandana, aside from her blunt bangs hanging just above her eyes.
Ava bumps her shoulder with Emerson’s. “Just telling the guys how thankful I am that you’re okay with Georgie staying with us for a few days.”
Emerson chuckles, letting the espresso bags fall from her arms onto the counter and putting her hands on her hips. “No one else I’d rather co-parent an angsty middle-schooler with.”
