Just look at the past few days. He’d barely been home. If Jenna hadn’t been there, he would have had to ask Logan and Emma if she could stay with them. But they had their own family and he never wanted Blake to feel like she was being dumped on people. With Jenna in town, she never would.
“Okay, good. Thanks.” She smiled, but he could see that it wasn’t quite reaching her eyes. There was something else she wasn’t telling him.
“What? What is it?”
She took a deep breath and said, “I know that I messed up all those years ago and I’m sorry but…I mean…I know you’ll always care about me and be there for me, but do you think…is there any chance that we could get back to what we had? Or even better than what we had?”
“Jenna, I do care about you and always will, but I’m not in love with you.” Asher honestly wasn’t sure if he ever had been. He’d loved her, but compared to what he felt for Ava, that love seemed so tame. But he didn’t think he needed to share that with his ex-wife.
“Right. I thought that would be the answer.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “But hey, it was worth a shot. Well…” She clapped her hands together as she abruptly stood and grabbed her phone off the couch cushion beside her. “I’m going to head out to the back patio to take the call. It’s better reception out there.”
Asher watched her go and when the sliding glass door shut he pulled out his phone to call Ava. He needed to tell her about the conversation he’d just had before she found out from someone else that his ex-wife was looking for jobs and places to live in Hope Falls.
He was scrolling through his contacts when he heard Blake’s voice coming from the top of the stairs. “Is something going on with you and Dr. A?”
He turned to her and asked, “Why would you say that?”
“Just tell me the truth, Dad. Is there something going on with you and Dr. A?”
“What did Noah tell you?” Asher knew there was something about that kid he didn’t like. He might be fifteen, but he was old enough to know about guy code. The code that is the opposite of if you see something, say something. Guy code was if you see something that’s none of your damn business, keep your damn mouth shut. The kid had thrown him under the bus.
“Noah?” Blake’s face scrunched up as if she had no idea why he’d brought Noah into this and she walked down to the bottom of the stairs. “What does Noah have to do with this?”
Asher quickly realized the error of his ways. “Nothing.”
“No, Dad! Not nothing! There’re too many secrets in this family! What would Noah have to tell me?!” she shouted at him.
Asher sighed and stood up to face her and the music. “Noah was delivering a pizza to Ava, or um, Dr. A, and I was there.”
“Noah saw you with her and he didn’t tell me?!” she shrieked.
Shit.It looked like he was the one who had just broken guy code and thrown Noah under the bus.
But if it wasn’t Noah then…
“Why did you ask me if there was something going on between us?”
Blake crossed her arms and he saw tears pooling in her bottom lids. First Jenna, now Blake. He wasn’t sure if he could handle this emotional round two.
“I asked you because Rayna was at Sue Ann’s and she heard Kelly ask Viv if you two were seeing each other because of how you were acting at that stupid dance thingy, and Rayna said Viv smiled.”
“She smiled?”
“Yes! And then I woke up, and heard Mom crying and then…” She swallowed and it was an audible gulp as one single, lone tear slid down her left cheek as her bottom lip quivered. It was the most heartbreaking thing he’d ever seen. “Then I heard you tell Mom that you don’t want be with her and I knew!”
“Blake…” He tried to remain calm and not let the emotions he was feeling cloud the conversation. All he wanted to do was pull his baby girl into his arms and promise her anything just so she’d stop crying, but he knew that he couldn’t do that. “Ava has nothing to do with how I feel about your mom. I care about your mom. I love her as a friend.”
“Yeah, because of Dr. A. But if you weren’t seeing her then you and Mom could be together!”
“That’s not true, Blake.”
“Yes, it is! It is true!” Blake shouted as Jenna walked back in through the sliding doors.
As soon as Blake saw her mom come inside, she burst into tears and ran up the stairs.
Jenna didn’t seem to be alarmed by their daughter’s outburst. “What did I miss?”
“She heard us talking. I don’t know how much, but she did hear that we weren’t going to get together and she thinks it’s Ava’s fault.”