Ava handed it over. “Good?”
That was so not the response she’d been expecting. Ava hadn’t been joking when she’d said that Beth’s upcoming marriage had gotten her in a matchmaking mind-set. They couldn’t so much as go out for happy hour without Beth trying to set Ava up with the bus boy.
“Yup! Now that I know that dark-haired, blue-eyed cops with broad shoulders and a rugged jaw line aren’t your type, you have no reason to say no when I invite you out to dinner with me and Christian next weekend…and one of Christian’s co-workers, who’s blond, brown-eyed, and lanky.”
Ava groaned as she realized she’d walked right into Beth’s trap.
“Please? Gabe is really sweet. One of the good ones, I swear, and if it doesn’t work out, I won’t push, and you never have to see him again—”
Ava took a swallow of wine. A big one. “No.”
Beth stopped mid-rant, her blue eyes blinking in confusion. “No? That’s it?”
“I’m saying no, but saying it kindly. And not because I don’t trust you, but because I’m just not in a place to fall in love right now. Work is crazy.”
And actually, falling in love seems to be one thing I don’t seem capable of. Ever.
Beth sulked. “How about after you finish this big story?”
Ava sighed. Her best friend was like a dog with a bone. “Maybe. Maybe then.”
Beth grinned happily. “Yay!”
“Yeah,” Ava mumbled. “Yay.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell her friend, but Ava would bet serious money on the fact that she wouldn’t be falling for any of these guys that Beth seemed determined to set her up with. Not because they wouldn’t be perfectly nice.
In fact, sometimes nice was the problem. The nice ones never said it out loud on a first date, but they were the ones who were angling toward marriage and babies and things that Ava just wasn’t at all sure she was ready for. Or would ever be ready for.
Ava knew there was supposed to be some deep, dark secret…some festering reason why she didn’t want to get married, didn’t want to commit…but the truth was, it just didn’t appeal. It had never appealed. Maybe it was her parents’ stable, but symbiotic, relationship that had turned her off, or just one too many boring boyfriends over the years, but lately Ava had been finding the prospect of marriage more and more unappealing.
And the more she thought she was supposed to want it, the less she did.
She leaned forward and grabbed a handful of chips. “Beth, do you think I’m completely screwed up?”
“Well, if you are, nobody can blame you,” Beth said without hesitation. “Your family’s a piece of work.”
“So true,” Ava agreed as she munched on the chips.
“But,” Beth said, pointing a finger. “You are fabulous. You have to forget the crazy fam. Do what you want to do.”
Ava ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “Yeah, that’s kind of the problem.”
“Meaning?”
Meaning, what if I don’t know what I want to do?
But she wasn’t ready to say it. Not out loud. Not even to Beth.
So instead she changed the subject to the one and only thing that could deter Beth from her fix-Ava campaign…“Hey, what did you find out about that band Christian liked for the reception? Are they still available?”
As expected, Beth was only too happy to have the chance to talk wedding, and for the next hour, Ava was able to let herself forget, just for a little while, that despite her life looking pretty perfect on paper, she felt utterly and totally lost.
CHAPTER SIX
Luc crossed his arms over his chest and glared.
Ava Sims glared right back.
“No cameras,” Luc said. “That’s nonnegotiable.”
She narrowed her eyes as though to say everything’s negotiable.
And for a woman who looked like Ava, everything probably was.