Ava stepped into the circle of his arm and he pulled her up tight against his side; not protective, just affectionate. He wanted to touch her. He was feeling the magnetism of that ring, too.
“Baby, this is Sly Hammond. Sly, my wife: Ava.”
“Hi.” She reached to accept his shake – hard, deep, old calluses like Mercy: a mechanic too – and saw the tiny flicker of surprise in his face. He hadn’t known the president’s daughter that Mercy was bringing would be Mrs. Lécuyer. He reminded her, a little, of Walsh, and the comparison put her at ease “I really appreciate you letting us stay for a while,” she said.
He nodded in response. “Come on in. Lay made enough food for fifteen people.” Tiny eye roll, little half-smile. A man who loved his wife.
They followed Sly up the three wooden stairs into a laundry room that fed into a kitchen. The smell hit Ava first: warm, homey, chicken and bread smells. Her stomach growled, reminding her that her last meal had been a Slim Jim and a Coke.
They entered a kitchen that was in the process of being remodeled: original but repainted white cabinets and dated appliances over new beige tile, topped with shiny new light fixtures. A blonde little boy sat in the center of the room, stacking wooden blocks with fierce concentration. A baby slept in a battery powered swing. And at the stove, a petite brunette was denuding stalks of rosemary over a steaming cookie sheet. Ava spotted two chicken potpies before the woman turned to them, her smile sweet, her eyes large and green.
Her gaze cut over to her husband first, like a fast reflex. Not an MC old lady, no, but Ava recognized the signs of a woman who lived with an outlaw, that need of confirmation, one last check that these were guests and not threats. Then she smiled at them.
“Mercy, you take up way too much space in my kitchen,” she said, eyes sparkling with good humor. She looked at Ava. “Hi, I’m Layla.”
“Ava.” She accepted the other woman’s handshake; Layla had little hands.
“Mercy’s wife,” Sly said, and Layla’s eyes went wide, moving between Ava and Mercy.
“Really now?” She laughed, her sideways grin knowing. “Champagne with dinner?”
Mercy actually looked sheepish. “Yeah, that’d be good.”
Layla, Ava learned as they sat down to dinner, was twenty-seven, loved to cook, was the daughter of one of Sly’s dearest friends, and ran the desk at the family garage she half-owned, King Customs in Alpharetta, Georgia. Their boys were toddler, Mick, and one-month-old, Wesson, named after Smith & Wesson, whom they called Wes. Their early dinner was chicken potpie, salad, potatoes, and homemade gravy, along with the promised champagne. Ava picked at her food, and noticed Layla doing the same, most of her energy consumed by helping Mick. The circumstances of their flight from Knoxville weren’t mentioned at all.
“Ava,” Layla said, tearing a dinner roll into bites for Mick, “Sly says you’re in grad school?”
Ava nodded and sipped at her champagne to push the potpie down her throat. It was delicious, but she was a little nervous, and the flaky crust was sticking on its way down. “At Tennessee,” she said. “Creative writing.”
Layla’s brows went up, expression sharpening with real interest. “You’re a writer?”
Ava nodded.
“Iloveto read.”
“She uses my good work bench as a bookshelf,” Sly said.
Layla made a halfhearted swat at his arm and continued, undeterred. “What do you write? Novels? Short stories? What genre?”
Ava wanted to squirm in her chair, self-conscious with her writing in front of others. “Short stories mostly, right now,” she said. “But I’d love to write a novel, someday…” She hadn’t thought about her future much in the last few days. Mercy’s leg brushed up against hers under the table; whatever direction the weeks, months, years ahead took, she had him now. She had a husband. She…
The sudden rush of happy thoughts sent an excited shiver through her, and her voice strengthened as Layla drew her out of her shell with more and more questions about school, her writing, her plans.
“Let me help,” she said when they were finished, stacking Mercy’s plate on top of hers.
“That’d be great.”
“You want a beer?” Sly asked Mercy.
“Yeah.”
“Here, hold my baby.”
Ava watched from the counter, biting on her smile, as tiny Wes was put in Mercy’s arms and he accepted the bundle as if it were priceless and breakable – which it was. She watched them leave the room, Sly calling Mick along, her heart gooey at the sight of her man with a baby in his arms. He would have been a good father.Wouldbe, still, in the future.
“You’ve got that look,” Layla said.
Ava tore her eyes from the now-empty doorway and began loading the dishwasher as Layla filled the sink with hot water and suds to wash the pots and pans. “What look?” she asked, playing innocent, feeling her ears warm. She’d been busted.
