Ava nods and tries to smile. “I did! He was so surprised. Then I told him if you weren’t okay when you found you, that he was going to have to answer to me. And then I said your father was going to be furious when he finds out, and I know Matthias has explained to him by now what that means since he didn’t look like he knew what I was talking about.”
“Oh, you’re the best friend a girl could ever have, Ava. I love you.”
“I love you too, Eden. So this has been your home for the past two years?” she asks as she looks around at the penthouse.
Sheepishly, I admit the truth. “Not exactly. I’ve only been here for a couple months.”
My best friend shakes her head in confusion. “Wait, I don’t understand. You and Marius have been married for that long, so where were you living before here?”
I lower my gaze to the floor. “I was living at my parents’ house. Marius was living at your house or in hotels when he was on shoots.”
When she doesn’t say anything to that bizarre revelation, I lift my head and see her expression full of questions. “I know. It’s strange.”
“It’s not strange. I just don’t understand. You got married and then didn’t live together? Why? Because you were keeping everything secret?”
God, I wish the answer was that simple.
I look around at my beautiful home and sigh. “It’s hard to explain. I don’t know, honestly. We got back after getting married, and then he had a job he had to go to and I had to go back to work. So he left, and when he returned from wherever he was on whatever shoot he went on, we spent time together, but then he’d leave again for work. Then last spring when everything with Ronan happened, he wanted to keep an eye on him, so he started hanging out a lot more at your house.”
Even I know that explanation isn’t great. It’s not that Marius and I ever came right out and said we didn’t want to live together. Things just conspired to make it not happen.
“I wish I knew, Eden. I would have told him he should be home spending time with his wife.”
“He felt he had to watch over Ronan, and I understand that. To his credit, the first time I said I didn’t want to sleep in hotels anymore, no matter how nice they were, Marius bought me this place.”
She smiles and asks, “Want to give me a tour of your gorgeous home?”
“No. Maybe later. Right now, I just want to crawl into bed and pretend this day never happened.”
“Then we’ll both do that.”
We walk upstairs to the bedroom Marius and I share, and Ava stops dead as soon as she sees the enormous master suite. “Oh my God! This bedroom is bigger than the house I grew up in.”
I wave away her comment. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s big. Yeah. But it’s not bigger than the entire house you lived in, Ava.”
She looks over toward the king size bed in front of a bank of huge windows. “Your bed looks almost lost in here, and it’s huge too!” Then she turns to look at the fifty inch TV across from the bed. “And look at that TV!”
I know what she’s trying to do, but listing all the great things about this place isn’t distracting me like she thinks it is. I climb into bed and unpause the TV so my episode of Air Disasters starts again.
When your life comes down around you, at least your favorite show is there for you.
Ava kicks off her shoes and climbs under the covers with me. “Do you remember that time I slept over your house in eleventh grade when you broke up with that boy you were dating? We gorged ourselves on rocky road ice cream that night and stayed up until dawn. Want to do that again?”
I love my best friend, but none of this is working. I just want to feel bad. It’s sounds wrong, but right now, all I want to do is wallow is my misery.
“Not really. I think I’d just like to watch my show and feel terrible.”
She snuggles up against me so her head is resting on my shoulder. “Got it. No ice cream. Just hanging out. Let me guess. This is an episode with that guy in it, right?”
“Right.”
“So I’ll get to see him finally?”
I turn to my left to look at her and force a smile. “Yes, and I don’t think I need to remind you that I’m in a very delicate stateright now, so if you think he’s ugly or anything even remotely negative, please keep it to yourself, okay?”
She smiles so sweetly that I know I don’t have to worry. “As long as you like him, who am I to say otherwise? Now show me this man who makes you so happy.”
We watch TV for another five minutes before he appears, and I point at the screen. “That’s him.”
