Though it pained her greatly, she drove to her home rather than his. She would drown her sorrows with Ben and Jerry and get back to work on the blanket she was knitting for her new niece or nephew. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a life separate from him.
Ella trudged up the stairs, mentally and physically exhausted from the week at work and the emotional ups and downs of her time with Gavin. She made a beeline for the freezer, where her pint of Cherry Garcia sitting next to his pint of Cake Batter made her miss him fiercely.
She pulled the lid off her pint and dug a spoon into the creamy goodness. Taking the ice cream with her, she went into her bedroom, kicked off the heels she’d worn to work and changed into flannel pajama pants, a long-sleeve T-shirt and her favorite moccasin slippers. Tonight was all about comfort anywhere she could find it.
Settled on the sofa with her ice cream and a down comforter over her lap, Ella pulled out her knitting bag and got to work on the blanket, determined to focus on the project rather than wondering where Gavin was, what he was doing and whether he regretted taking off the way he had earlier.
Anger and frustration fueled her work as the multicolored yarn came together in rich pattern of pinks, blues and yellows. She couldn’t wait for the baby to arrive, to have someone new to love, to watch him or her grow up and be part of his or her life from the first day. Though she’d hoped to be a mother many times over by now, being an aunt would have to do, and she planned to be the best aunt ever to Max’s baby as well as Hannah’s.
A sob escaped from Ella’s tightly clenched jaw. She dropped a stitch and tossed aside the blanket in aggravation. It was a bad night when Ben and Jerry were unable to work their usual magic and when she started dropping stitches. That hadn’t happened since she was first learning. Her grandma Sarah, who’d said she was a knitting prodigy, would be appalled, a thought that had Ella actively sobbing.
A soft knock on the door startled her out of the pity party. She swiped at the tears that refused to stop coming, even when she tried to mop them up with the comforter.
A second knock brought her to her feet. “Who is it?”
“Me.”
She contained the powerful urge to run to the door, to throw it open, to jump into his arms. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“I’m not really in the mood to talk. It’s been a long day.”
“Ella, please open the door. Give me the chance to apologize. Please?”
Sighing, she went to the door, leaned her head against it for a long moment before she turned the knob. The first thing she saw and smelled were roses—lots of roses in every imaginable color—pink, red, white, yellow, coral.
“I didn’t know what color represented ‘I’m sorry for being a dick’ so I got one of each color hoping the right one is in there somewhere. And oh fuck, you’ve been crying. God, Ella, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not crying because of you. It’s because I dropped a stitch, and I never drop stitches, even when I was angry-knitting that sweater for you.”
He leaned against the doorframe, a small smile occupying his exquisitely handsome face. “Angry knitting. Is that a thing?”
“It is when you’re involved.” She turned away from him and returned to her post on the sofa, tugging the comforter over her lap. “Come in and shut the door before Mrs. Abernathy comes up here to see what’s going on.”
He closed the door and went to the kitchen. “Where do you keep vases?”
“Under the sink.”
While he saw to putting the flowers in water, she scooped up another mouthful of ice cream, needing all the fortification she could get to deal with him. The roses had been a nice touch. She had to give him that. And they probably hadn’t been easy to find this time of night in their remote corner of Vermont.