Why Not Now? (The Blue Vista Crew #2)

4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Derek

I think about Ava a lot more than is strictly wise over the next few days. I’ve almost convinced myself I’d imagined her reaction to me and mine to her, except the way my stomach feels at the thought of seeing her again this afternoon calls me a liar. She’s supposed to come to Blue Vista later to take some pictures of our Christmas decorations. It’s been nine days since she was here for the last wedding—not that I’m counting. When I woke up this morning, I chose my nicest pair of slacks, a charcoal grey button-up shirt, and black boots. I usually wear jeans and a t-shirt if there’s no event going on.

Before I head in to work, though, I stop at my sister Gina’s house with a bag of food from Lis. I enter without knocking, calling out to her as I toe off my boots.

“In the kitchen,” she calls back, and I follow the sound of her voice, finding her sitting at her table with my one-month-old nephew, Travis. She’s nursing him while drinking something hot, tea probably.

“What’s this?” she asks as I set a bag on her counter.

“I don’t know. A bunch of stuff from Lis. I was volun-told to bring it over. She’s got a card in there explaining what everything is and what to do with it.”

Travis unlatches, peering over at me as soon as I start speaking. Gina adjusts herself and hands him to me before going to the bag to sort through it. My nephew gazes up at me in concern. He’s always very concerned.

“Hey, tiny man. You giving your momma grief?” I ask him, taking a seat at the dining table. “She needs her sleep, you know.”

“He doesn’t care,” Gina says. She puts a couple trays of food into her freezer, then pulls out a container of muffins. “Yes! I was hoping she’d make more of these. Can you ask her for the recipe for me?”

I grab my phone and pass it to my sister. “Send her a message.”

She does and sits across from me, taking a sip of her tea.

“You want to shower or nap or something?” I ask. “I’ve got a few hours.”

“Not right now. I’m tired, but I won’t be able to sleep. Too much on my mind.”

I nod. “Dad called you, too?”

Usually, our dad stays out of our lives like we stay out of his, ever since he walked out on Mom when I was only five. Gina was six and our oldest sister, Trish, was eight. He calls occasionally, only when he wants something. Yesterday, he’d called me for the first time in four years.

“Yesterday,” she confirms, then grimaces. “I feel bad not answering. Especially now with Travis here.”

“You don’t need the stress, Gina. You should block the number.”

She laughs. “I don’t need to. Walter did it for me. He said the same thing. ‘Stress is bad for the baby,’ he said. He asked if I wanted to talk to him and when I told him no, he took my phone and blocked the number.”

“Good. Walter’s a good guy.” Both of my sisters’ husbands are good guys, in fact.

She gazes at Travis, whose eyes are closed, his breathing even. “I know.” Then she gives me a frank look. “Have you blocked the number?”

Trish changed her number a few years back so he can’t call her anymore, but Gina and I have held onto ours. I’m not sure why Gina has, but I’ve realized recently that I kept mine because I was waiting for a call that never came.

“No,” I say.

She reaches across the table, placing a hand on my arm. “You don’t need to let him in, Derek. Don’t feel guilty about that.”

I shake my head, not looking up from Travis’ sleeping face. “I don’t feel guilty. I guess I just think someone should keep a way to contact him, and I’m the one with the least going on.”

Gina leans back and snorts.

“Whose fault is that? Have you dated anyone new lately?”

“My love life has nothing to do with Dad.”

My sister crosses her arms over her chest, one eyebrow lifted. “You sure about that? Are you telling me his leaving has nothing to do with you moving from woman to woman without ever letting anyone in?”

“That’s right. It has to do with Ava.”

Gina’s mouth drops open. “You haven’t brought that name up in years,” she says.

I look back down at Travis, not wanting to see her face when I say this. “She’s working at Blue Vista.”

“Derek Alexander Moritz! I cannot believe you didn’t tell me this. How long has she been working there?”

I shake my head. “It’s not what you think. She’s a contractor. A sub-sub-contractor, actually. She works for that photographer I told you about. She helped with Daze and Sophie’s wedding in September and was there about a week and a half ago.”

“September?” she whisper-shouts in deference to her sleeping son. “You saw your ex-girlfriend in September and didn’t say anything to me? We’re supposed to be friends.”

I laugh. “It’s not a big deal. I’ve been over her for years now.”

“Liar. Must I remind you? You left her, Derek.”

“Because she told me to!” I say, quieting when Travis startles. “What was I supposed to do? Ignore her?”

“Did you try to fight for her?” Gina asks.

“I tried. For weeks, I tried. She kept pushing me away until finally she told me to leave. I haven’t changed my phone number in over ten years. She could have reached out at any time. She never did, Gina.”

“If you don’t regret how it ended, if you’re over her , why are you so worked up now?”

She has a point. I’m far more worked up than I should be. I don’t think I want Ava back as my girlfriend—just the idea causes my heart to race with anxiety. But some part of me desperately wants my best friend back. That’s what we’d been for so long, before everything blew up.

“Maybe you’re right,” I say, calming down and scrubbing a hand over my face. “Do people deserve a second chance?”

“Are you talking about Dad, Ava, or yourself?”

I glare at my sister, but she’s always been able to see right through me. I sigh. “I almost kissed her at that last wedding.”

“Do you want her back?” she asks gently, far more gently than I deserve.

“No. Maybe?” I groan, tipping my head up. “I want her in my life.”

“Tread carefully, Derek. I remember how it ended last time. You were wrecked.”

“I know, Gina.” I take a breath. “Is it wrong that I miss her?”

She smiles. “You guys were really close. I’m not surprised at all that you miss her. When are you going to see her next?”

“Today. She’s coming to take some promo shots.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Do you think we could be friends again?” I ask. “I could invite her over with the others tonight.”

Gina knows I host a game night on the last Monday of every month.

“You could try. If she says no, you know where you stand and you move on from there.”

I nod, decided. We spend the rest of our time together chatting. Eventually, I put Travis down to continue his nap and fill Gina’s dishwasher before I head to Blue Vista.

It’s after 3pm when Spencer leans against my doorframe. Earlier, I’d asked him to tell me when Ava arrives and that I intend to invite her to game night. He still hasn’t asked about what happened between me and Ava, beyond what I’d told him before.

“She’s here. She started on the roof.”

I nearly knock over my coffee in my haste to stand.

“Shit. Fuck.” I grab the cup, preventing it from spilling over my desk, then take a second to compose myself.

Obviously, Spencer laughs at me. “You going to be okay, man?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“Right.”

I brush past him and climb the stairs to the roof, reminding myself I don’t need to rush, taking the stairs two at a time, anyway.

As soon as I see her, something inside me relaxes, almost like a pain I’ve gotten used to has eased.

“The one and only Ava Calligan,” I say, walking toward where she’s taking some pictures of the lights Spencer and I helped string up yesterday. “How’s it going?”

She looks around the rooftop as though unsure who I’m talking to, but we’re alone.

“Going okay,” she says. “What’s up?”

I note she has again said things are okay. It’s not the usual bright answer she would have for me if she was actually happy, but the one she would give me when she doesn’t really want to tell me what’s wrong.

Instead of prying, I take a deep breath and plunge in. “What are you up to tonight? My friends are coming over to hang out. We’ll play games, have some drinks. I think Lis is making something. Wondered if you wanted to join us.”

“Join you and your friends?”

“Sure.”

She searches my face, looking for something, but I don’t know what.

“Why?” she asks.

“Why not? We were friends once.”

She keeps watching me, like she’s waiting for me to explain why I want to do this, but I don’t have an answer. I don’t want to tell her I remember how close we’d once been, how it had felt for someone to know me better than I knew myself. And I really don’t want to admit how a part of me wants that relationship back.

“I’ll think about it,” she says, then returns to her photos.

I look out at the rooftop, our tents set up so we can host events out here even on days when it rains, which will happen a lot over the next few months, though it isn’t raining today. We don’t have to worry too much about snow in Vancouver. If it snows—which it almost never does until January, if at all—it’s usually gone within a day.

The tents are done up with blinking white lights and sparkling blue and silver garlands. We’d mounted bunches of holly to the spots where the garland is tied to the railings. In the middle of the space, we’d hung a spray of mistletoe, tied with a red ribbon.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I ask. We did an exceptional job this year.

Ava shrugs. “I guess so. If you like that kind of thing.”

I turn my attention to her, staring until she finally looks at me. “Who are you and what have you done with Ava?”

“What?”

“You love Christmas.”

She looks down at her camera but doesn’t take any more pictures. “Things change.”

“What changed? How do you go from the girl who wants Christmas to be every day of the year to someone who doesn’t care at all?”

She hesitates, then looks back up at me, her head tilted. “I just haven’t had any good Christmases lately to carry that cheer forward.”

“Since when?” Something inside me is shouting that I need to fix this. How could she have lost her love for Christmas? How do I give it back to her?

“Since the last one with you, I guess.” She looks away, taking a few steps toward the other end of the rooftop. “When Mom and Dad were still alive. Making sure Christmas is good for Lacey is kind of exhausting. Getting her presents, the decorations, the dinner.” She shakes her head. “It’s more of a chore now.”

Has no one ever helped her? No other boyfriends or friends? Why hadn’t they noticed? Why hadn’t they done something? Has she never let anyone?

“Well, I’ll have to change that,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

She stops walking and looks back at me. I note the way her eyes stray to my shoulders, and I swallow and remind myself I’m not doing this to try to sleep with her. I’m doing this because we were friends and I’m more certain than ever that she still refuses to ask for help.

She clears her throat, meeting my eyes again. “What exactly are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to remind you why you loved Christmas.”

She rubs a hand over her face and, for the first time, I notice how tired she looks. She takes another few steps away from me. “Derek, that’s nice of you and all, but I’m really busy.”

“I’ll work around your schedule,” I offer. I don’t want to make her life more difficult, but I do want to give her this one thing.

“Why is this so important to you?” she asks, turning toward me.

I draw in a breath. “We were friends once, Ava. I’d like for us to be friends again. Get me your schedule. I’ll find some spots in your overly detailed plan for the month to do a few fun Christmas things. Just a few.”

“What do you mean, my overly detailed plan?”

I give her my most skeptical look.

“Maybe I don’t do that anymore,” she says, lifting her chin.

I snort. “Ava. People change. They don’t change that much. You’ve probably got the next thirty or so days planned down to the minute. What app do you use?”

She narrows her eyes and glares at me. Then she huffs. “TaskMaster.”

I laugh at her. It’s been a long time since we were friends, since I’d known everything about her and she’d known everything about me. But it’s nice to know I still know some things.

“Print it out,” I tell her. “Bring it over tonight. Lacey can come, too, if she wants. We’re a pretty tame group.”

Ava shakes her head. “She has gymnastics Monday nights.”

“She’s still doing that?” I ask. “That’s great. Well, everyone will show up around six. Once I have your schedule, I’ll sort out the rest.”

She purses her lips. “I don’t have any extra money to spend on doing a whole bunch of Christmas events.”

“If there’s an entrance fee, I’ll pay it.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t let you do that.”

“Yes, you can. Think of it as a make good for the last several years when we should have been friends and weren’t.”

She stares at me. I wonder if she regrets how things ended between us. I wonder if she wishes we could go back in time and start all over again. Figure out where it went wrong. Because coming up on nine years later, I still have trouble figuring it out.

“It would be nice to have a friend,” she says so quietly, I almost don’t hear her. Then, louder, she says, “Nothing too expensive. There’s plenty of Christmas things to do that are cheap.”

I nod, holding up one hand. “Scout’s honour.”

“You were never a boy scout, Derek,” she says dryly.

I grin, striding over to where she’s stopped in the middle of the rooftop. “You’re going to have such a good time this Christmas, you’re going to beg me to take you out next year as well.” I kiss her cheek and when I back away, she’s looking at me with wide eyes filled with the same desire that sparks in my blood. I wink and point above her head to where we’ve hung that sprig of mistletoe. “See you tonight, sweetheart.”

I turn and make my way downstairs again. Only after I’ve left the building and made it to my car, starting toward my house, do I realize I’ve mentioned begging and called her sweetheart, two things that featured in our past relationship.