Page 44

COLE

W e pulled into the Waldorf Astoria in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. A valet opened our doors as we parked.

Avery turned and gaped at me. “I was thinking we’d be at, like, the Holiday Inn or something.”

“Not for our first real date. I wanted to spoil you,” I said.

The valet unloaded our bags as we stepped inside to check in.

Avery tugged at my sleeve. “Can you afford this place? It looks super expensive.”

That brought back the annoying thoughts of how much money I’d doled out to keep the pack afloat.

“I’m not broke, Avery,” I snapped.

She scowled. “No need to be a dick about it. I was only asking. I don’t want you overspending to impress me or something. I’ve never cared about money, and that hasn’t changed. You should know that.”

She looked affronted, and I heaved out an exasperated breath. That had been a prickish retort. What the hell was wrong with me?

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to sound like an ass. Money’s been on my mind a lot is all. This thing with the pack isn’t going to ruin me, but it will take a while to rebuild my portfolio. That’s all.”

She nodded, but still looked hesitant, and I kicked myself for it.

“This place is expensive,” I acknowledged, putting a reassuring arm around her shoulders. “But it won’t hurt my pockets to show you a good time. That’s all I can say. I’ll try to not let the issues back home bother me while we’re here. All right?”

“You’re right. I won’t bring it up again,” she said, relaxing and giving a smile.

We settled into our room, but throughout the process of freshening up, I still felt like a jerk for the way I’d reacted down in the lobby.

This was supposed to be a special time, and we’d been in the hotel for all of one minute before I snapped at her—and over something as shallow as money.

Hopefully, what I had planned for tonight would make up for it.

“Did you have any thoughts on dinner?” Avery asked, leaning her head out of the bathroom to look at me.

“I’ve already made reservations,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “Fancy. Where are we going?”

Recalling the fiasco with the steak and shrimp the other night, I hoped I’d made a good choice with the restaurant I picked.

“The Oceanaire Seafood Room?” I said, framing it as a question rather than a statement.

“Are you serious? ” The smile that spread across her face sent a wave of relief through me. “I haven’t eaten there in… well, you know how long.”

It was the nicest seafood place in Atlanta, and Avery loved seafood. At least, she had back in the day. I’d taken her to that exact restaurant after prom at her request.

“Good,” I said. “I was worried you’d stopped eating anything from the sea with Ashton’s allergy.”

She ran a brush through her hair and rolled her eyes at me. “ That was a painful conversation with his pediatrician. No more crab, no more oysters, no shrimp or scallops. Ugh. I can still do fish, which is great, but man, I’ve missed a really good lobster tail and butter.”

Even from across the room, my enhanced hearing picked up the gurgle of her rumbling stomach.

“Well, let’s get dressed and head out,” I said. “Reservation is in forty minutes, but it’ll be about a twenty-minute drive with traffic.”

An hour later, we sat at a white-tableclothed table, a plate of iced oysters and a couple glasses of wine before us. The strain of earlier had faded, and Avery and I were back in a good place, laughing and chatting as we slurped the oysters.

“God, this is amazing,” Avery said, setting aside an empty oyster shell.

“Glad you approve.” I took a sip of wine. “So, what have you been up to in the last sixteen years?”

Avery chuckled at that and pulled her phone out. “Raising this little psycho. Wanna see pictures of Ashton when he was little?”

Did I? Of course. I leaned forward as she turned her phone around to swipe through the pictures.

“This was the day I came home from the hospital with him.”

A much younger but no less beautiful Avery held a small, tightly bundled Ashton in her arms. She was gazing down at the baby with the most intense love I’d ever seen in my life.

“This was his first day of kindergarten. That’s the day he learned to ride a bike. Oh, this was when he was ten, and I took him to Disney World.”

A gap-toothed Ashton smiled at the camera, a pair of Mickey Mouse ears on his head as he pointed up at the massive castle.

A deep, painful ache filled my chest as years passed by with the flick of a finger.

A life snapping by, frame by frame, like a flip book.

All the things I missed. I imagined myself holding Ashton’s hand and walking down Disney Main Street or going on Space Mountain with him.

Things I would never do. Christmases of pretending to be Santa and seeing the wonder in his eyes as he saw the gifts beneath the tree.

That magic of childhood was mostly gone now. Vanished. A lifetime I missed because I was fucking stupid. Without my father’s meddling, things might have turned out differently.

Avery must have seen the look on my face, because she pulled the phone away. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No,” I said. “I want to see. It just makes me regret I wasn’t there for any of it. It makes me angry. Not at you. At myself, at my father, at Farrah, even though it wasn’t her fault. I’m mad at the whole world.”

Avery tucked her phone away, then took my hand. “The past is important, but so is the future. You can’t live your life for the past. That’s done. Gone and finished, as sad as it is to say. What you can do is live for the future. That hasn’t happened yet, and you can help create that. Right?”

A smile spread across my lips, and I nodded. “When did you get so philosophical?”

The server appeared with our food, and we released our hands.

“I’ve changed a lot,” she replied, and winked at me.

Avery had a lobster tail, and since I told her I’d splurge, she also got seared scallops. I ordered steak. I liked seafood, but I wasn’t a fiend for it like Avery was. After the staff cleared our entrée plates, I checked my watch as we waited for dessert.

“You have somewhere to be?” Avery asked, then drained her wine glass.

“Not really. A little surprise for after dinner.”

“More surprises? What am I going to do with you?”

“I have some ideas,” I said with a sly smile.

Avery grinned back at me, and I thought I saw a red hue color her cheeks. Before I could further that line of conversation, the server returned with a key lime pie for Avery and a chocolate torte for me.

“So, what’s this surprise?” Avery asked when we left the restaurant.

In the distance, I heard the familiar clip - clop of horseshoes striking pavement. A moment later, a carriage pulled up in front of us.

Avery gasped. “I didn’t even know they had these in Atlanta.”

Shrugging, I helped her into the carriage. “Crazy tourists will pay for anything.”

The carriage driver proceeded to take us on a tour of the city. The warm summer night air blew in through the windows, and the sparkling lights of the high-rise buildings illuminated the streets.

Avery snuggled against me as the carriage made its way through the streets. We sat mostly in silence, enjoying the ride and each other’s company. It was a beautiful night.

After the ride, the carriage took us back to the restaurant where the valet had my car waiting. Upon returning to the hotel, we found our room had been turned down, and my next surprise awaited us on the bed. A bucket of champagne and a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries.

“Cole Garrett,” Avery said, shaking her head in disbelief. “When did you have time to set all this up? I’ve never been wined and dined like this before by any of the guys I’ve dated.”

I grinned, but my wolf snarled at the thought of any other man putting his hands on her. It was childish, I knew. She’d had years to date, and so had I, but the thought didn’t sit well with me.

We sat on the bed, sipping the champagne and nibbling the strawberries.

“Can I ask how you and this Perry guy met?” I asked.

Now that Avery had a couple glasses of wine and a glass of champagne in her system, she appeared more relaxed than she had earlier.

She downed the rest of her current glass and said, “At a journalism conference, actually. I was writing articles for a new magazine at the time. I didn’t really consider myself a journalist, but it was an all-expenses-paid thing that was local, so I went.

Perry was a local news anchor. We met over drinks at the bar and sort of clicked, I guess.

“He wasn’t my usual type. He was handsome, sure, but not the way I liked.

We got along, though, and he was nice. At least back then.

I was sort of desperate for a long-term relationship, you know?

I’d spent years dating, but couldn’t seem to find anyone to give my heart to. ” She gave me a pointed look.

“Yeah. Again, sorry about that,” I said, shrugging helplessly. “I didn’t know this would happen.” I gave her an apologetic smile. “But deep down, I’m a little happy you didn’t move on. We wouldn’t be here right now, right?”

“This is true. Anyway, Perry and I dated for a while, then we moved in together and got engaged. I tried to love him as best I could, but I think I was always forcing it. Trying too hard to make it work, when anyone else would have seen it was a lost cause. I was never actually in love with him. I only played at being in love.” She barked a small laugh.

“I remember when he proposed, I was trying to cry.

I thought, People cry when they get engaged. Why am I not crying?

“Ashton despised Perry, though. That didn’t help things. Lots of tension between those two. It all came to a head when Ash broke Perry’s stupid cheating nose. I caught the guy balls-deep in our neighbor. God, Ashton saw it, too. It was awful.”

She rubbed her forehead, and more guilt poured through me. Inadvertent as it was, I’d caused that night. Without me leaving, she and Ashton never would have lived through it.