Viv grinned. “Wait, so why doesn’t he want you to tell Blake who you are?”
Ava shrugged. “I’m sure he has a good reason.”
She had a pretty good idea it was because of the feelings the teen had surrounding the shooting. She remembered Blake telling her that a therapist she went to had said that her psyche may have fused the two traumas together. But since that was told to her in a session, even though it was an informal one, she wouldn’t betray Blake’s confidence, even to her own sisters.
“So, how are you?” Audrey reached out and touched Ava’s forearm. “After seeing him again?”
“I just…” Ava took a deep breath and tried to verbalize what she was feeling. “I’ve imagined seeing him again in thousands of different scenarios, but I just wasn’t prepared to run into him here, in Hope Falls. I feel like there’s so much I want to ask him, or say to him, or I don’t know...I just feel like I blew it.”
“Well, don’t you worry your pretty little head because you are going to get a do-over.” Viv held up a card. “We have a date with Joe Friday this afternoon.”
“We do?”
“Yeah, I told you when you came in. He stopped by this morning because he heard about the possible roofie situation.”
“The what?” Audrey asked.
“Oh right, you were a spoilsport and went home early last night.”
“I had morning shifts all last week, I was tired,” Audrey defended herself.
Ava’s phone beeped and she pulled it out and saw that it was her alarm indicating she had fifteen minutes to get back to Mountain Ridge.
“I have to go.”
“What time do you get off?”
“Um, two.” Today was a short day.
“Great, I’ll pick you up and we can go to the station together. Oh, and wear something...cute,” Viv said pointedly.
Ava looked down at what she was wearing. She had on a blue Mountain Ridge shirt, jeans and tennis shoes.
“This isn’t actually a date,” she clarified.
Viv tilted her head sideways and her eyes narrowed, “Isn’t it, though?”
“I have to go.” Ava made sure to grab her bag from behind the counter and as she walked out of the shop, she couldn’t help but think her sister might be right. Not about the date part. She was going to a police station to put in a report of potentially being drugged.
This wasn’t a date.
