Then Aidan let me go and stepped back.
“Well, we’ve solved your problem, Dane,” he said, his voice as cold as ever. “Go to Japan, or don’t. It doesn’t matter, because you’re not a Tower partner anymore. I’m kicking you out of the company as of now. You’re done.”
Twenty-Three
Ava
* * *
The beach house was beautiful.
It had once been a modest house, maybe fifty years ago when this stretch of Long Beach Island was nothing but small bungalows and fishing shacks. Over the years it had been updated, renovated, and lovingly cared for. The main room was bright and cozy, lined with large windows that looked down the short road to the ocean. The bedrooms were clean and snug, the kitchen clean. Behind the house was a large roofed terrace and a pool. Everything about it was perfect. And for a little while at least, it was mine.
Once I unpacked, I didn’t think about much. Something about this place made you leave your life behind, as if you were a new person. I stocked the kitchen, I napped, I watched Netflix, I napped some more. I ate healthy food, because I had some money right now and I might be feeding a baby. I didn’t drink. I slept.
On the second day I swam in the pool, letting the water wash over me. When I was standing in the bathroom drying myself off, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I looked pretty good—rested and relaxed, my skin glowing with sun—but the blonde hair was all wrong. Just…wrong, like I had the hair color of a w
oman I didn’t know.
I got dressed, went to the local CVS, and bought brown hair color in a box. On a whim, I added dark purple nail polish and a good pair of hair-trimming scissors to my basket. Then, trying not to think about anything much, I added three different home pregnancy tests and checked out.
Back at the beach house, I put the pregnancy tests on the bathroom counter, still in the boxes, neatly lined up. I wasn’t ready for them yet. Then I took a nap, wondering if frequent napping was an early sign of pregnancy, or whether I just liked napping.
I awoke with an idea swirling in the back of my mind, something new and scary and a little exciting. I mulled it over, glancing frequently at the three pregnancy tests in their tidy line as I opened the hair color box and dyed my hair brown again. I used the scissors to trim some of my ends and layers—anyone who has worked fourteen hours on a photo shoot, sometimes with a dozen models, knows how to do an emergency bang fix. I carefully cleaned the hair and the dye garbage from Dane’s nice bathroom, and then I removed my nail polish and replaced it with dark purple.
The entire process took nearly two hours, but when I was finished I put on a navy blue sundress, stood in front of the mirror, and thought, That woman looks like me.
Then I took out my laptop, opened up a notebook program, and began to write ideas.
On the third day, I went back to town and bought a sketchpad and a few pencils. I sat next to the pool, under the covered verandah, and sketched for hours, going through half of the sketchpad. Twice I went inside, to the bathroom, and looked at the pregnancy tests. Both times I went back outside without touching them and returned to sketching my ideas.
I should probably take the tests. Answer my questions. Decide my future. Leave this quiet period of not-thinking and start making plans.
But I didn’t want to do it without Dane.
I missed him all the time, even when I was napping, or in not-thinking mode, or sketching. The missing was an ache deep in my belly that had nothing to do with hunger or worry or even pregnancy. It was because I didn’t have Dane here, the sound of his voice and the touch of his skin, his big, muscled body against mine. I missed him because if I had a baby growing inside me, it wasn’t just mine, it was ours. I had left him to get some space, but I had come to this house—Dane’s house—because I still wanted to be close to him. I had been too far away from him for too long.
On the fourth day, the sky clouded over and threatened rain. I sat by the pool for a while, sketching, and then I went inside and stared at the three pregnancy tests again, lined up neatly on the counter. I picked up my phone and dialed Dane.
“Ava,” he said when he picked up. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’ve been resting. And thinking.”
“What have you been thinking about?”
“I bought home pregnancy tests,” I said. “I have them sitting on your bathroom counter right now. I’ve been staring at them for days, but I haven’t touched them because I wasn’t ready.”
He seemed to get it, like he always did. “And now?”
I blinked, never taking my eyes off the tests. “I’m ready,” I said. “I want to find out if I’m pregnant. If we’re pregnant.”
“Don’t do it without me,” Dane said, because he always—always—knew what I was thinking. “I’m coming. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
Twenty-Four
Dane
* * *