Frisk Me(12)

His mother pressed her palms to his cheeks and studied his face. “You’ll be careful, won’t you, Luca?”

He rolled his eyes. It was a common refrain in a family of cops. “Yes, ma’am. I always am.”

Not that it always matters. Sometimes you could be as careful as can be, and you still…

“I mean be careful with this Sims woman,” Maria said softly.

Luc frowned. “Ma. She’s a little annoying, but she’s not exactly a threat.”

His mother opened her mouth, looking like she wanted to say more, but then she caught Tony’s eye and fell silent.

Luc shifted his attention to his father, who was watching him with the same worried expression his mother had used.

Luc had the strangest sense that he was missing something. Missing something crucial.

But he didn’t have a clue what it was.





CHAPTER FIVE



Ava, your mom’s calling.”

Ava groaned as she stepped into her yoga pants and hopped repeatedly to wiggle them up over her hips. “Ignore it!” she called from the bedroom.

Scooping her hair into a messy bun, she headed out into her tiny living room just in time to watch her best friend hit the Decline button on Ava’s phone.

Beth picked up her glass of wine and flopped back on Ava’s couch, her bright orange hair bouncing around her shoulders. “Is it wrong, how much I enjoyed doing that?”

“Nah,” Ava said, scooping her own wineglass off the coffee table and settling into the chair across from her friend, tucking her legs up beneath her. “It’s acceptable for you to not like her. She’s not your mother.”

“Thank God for that,” Beth muttered.

Ava grinned at her friend’s honesty. Beth’s no-BS policy was one of the many reasons the two women had been nearly inseparable since their first meeting.

Ava had met Beth Salvers, a Brooklyn native, her first months in the city.

It had been Ava’s twenty-third birthday, and she hadn’t known a soul, but that didn’t stop her from putting on a too-short sequin dress and hitting up one of the fancy bars a few blocks from her apartment.

She’d meant to treat herself to a drink or two before heading home for a thrilling night of Friends reruns.

The bartender had carded her, then insisted that the first drink was on him. The tiny blue-eyed redhead sitting next to Ava at the bar had insisted that the second drink was on her. Beth had just been stood up on a blind date and was looking for a man-bashing partner.

Ava didn’t have a man to bash…but she was in desperate need of a friend. The rest was history.

But the only man-bashing Beth was doing these days was when her fiancé didn’t sound properly enthused about thrilling topics like flower arrangements and venue and the weight of card stock for their save-the-date cards.

In a few months, Beth was marrying Christian Channing, and while Ava was wildly happy for her friend, she couldn’t help feeling a little…ditched.

Their single-girl anthem had been her and Beth’s jam for several years of friendship. All of that had changed when Beth met Christian at a charity event last year. And although the two women were closer than ever, Ava was also aware that she sometimes held back from Beth when it came to talking about men. Beth wasn’t one of those annoying friends that expected everyone to be happily coupled up because she was, but talking about a bad date wasn’t the same when you knew the other person had been cuddling the love of her life while you’d been stuck with a whopper of a dinner bill because the guy’d “forgotten” his wallet.

Still, there were some things Ava and Beth still had in common…

Griping over Ava’s mother was one of them.

Ava didn’t dislike her mom. Of course she didn’t. She loved her. But Viv Sims could be…difficult. Something Beth had gotten a close-up look at whenever Ava’s mom came to visit the city. Beth was a kindergarten teacher, which most people melted over, but Vivian Sims managed to find about a dozen different ways to belittle Beth’s chosen profession.

There’s not much challenge in that then, is there, dear?

Well I can see why you don’t bother much with your clothes. They must get positively ruined with grubby handprints.

It’s just as well. Having a face for the camera is as much a curse as it is a blessing, right, Ava?

Ava really couldn’t blame her best friend for disliking her mother. Still, while Beth had no reason to feel guilty about screening Viv’s calls, Ava did feel guilty. She tried to call her parents every Sunday, but she’d been avoiding them for two weeks now.

Ever since she found out about the America’s Hero segment.

Her parents would be thrilled, which would have most daughters diving for the phone.

But her parents’ excitement over the story was precisely the reason Ava didn’t want to tell them. Strange as it sounded, some gut-level part of Ava rebelled at the idea of doing what her parents expected of her. Which made no sense. Their goals had always been Ava’s goals. Sure, they were the ones who had nudged her toward the path of anchorwoman, but Ava had been the one to pursue it.

It was just…

She wasn’t ready to tell them. Wasn’t ready to listen to all of the “this is your big break!” enthusiasm until she was sure how she felt about it.