that joke would be funny?’
She laughed. ‘The entire time I kept it going?’
She laughed harder when he threw the empty juice bottle at her, and she caught it triumphantly.
‘You’re going to have to try better than that.’
‘Yeah, well, let me first get over the heart attack I’ve just had.’
She chuckled to herself as he prepared their food, still muttering, but when he brought over her plate—chicken, a portion of lasagne, potato salad, coleslaw—she gaped.
‘Who do you think you’re feeding? The South African army?’
‘You said you were hungry.’
‘Yeah, but I meant for a normal human-sized person.’ She dug into the meal anyway, almost hearing the food echo as it dropped into her empty stomach. ‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully.
‘Yeah, no problem.’
A companionable silence fell over them as they ate, and for the first time Ava realised how tired—and hungry—Noah must be. She saw the dark tint under his eyes, the slight creases around them.
‘You should go to bed,’ she said softly. ‘You look exhausted.’
‘Thanks.’
He gave her a small smile that had her heart flipping over.
‘You don’t look too great yourself.’
‘Ah, I’ve missed this insult-for-insult thing we’ve always had.’
‘Hmm...’ he said, non-committal, and took another bite of lasagne, watching her all the time.
She refused to shift in her seat. Refused to look away. Even though she desperately wanted to do both. Tension ticked up.
‘You didn’t say it before,’ he said after he’d swallowed.
‘What?’
‘That you missed me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Now she did shift. ‘It’s not just something you say when you see someone after a long time.’
‘It’s exactly the kind of thing you say when you see someone after a long time.’
‘Yes, well...’
She left it at that, unsure of what else to say. The conversation was wading into dangerous waters and she, for one, had no interest in swimming. She just wanted to stand safely in the sand and frolic on the beach. She just wanted to feel the sun on her skin and maybe put her toes in the water.
But swimming held no appeal to her.
‘Is it because—’
‘Noah,’ she interrupted with a half-smile. ‘We’ve been through enough today. I think we should probably leave this conversation for another time.’
He studied her, and again she refused to let him see how uncomfortable it made her.
‘Sure,’ he said, and then he nodded at her plate. ‘Are you done with that?’
Noah woke to a house that was significantly less festive than the one he’d gone to sleep in. But, he thought, as he took in the tinsel that now hung only over his fireplace—along with the stockings and the lights—and the significantly fewer Christmas-related items around the house, it was perfect.
He didn’t know what to say when he found Ava by his Christmas tree. She had tinsel over each shoulder, draped around her neck, too, and was taking some of the ornaments off the ridiculously overdone tree.
Just as he had the night before, he watched her. She was muttering to herself, occasionally bopping her head as if she were listening to music only she could hear. It was so homely it was almost enticing, and he had to step back, out of her range of view, to deal with how that made him feel.
He wasn’t interested in homely. He’d thought he’d once had homely—until he’d been old enough to realise the man he’d seen in his parents’ bedroom when he was younger hadn’t been his mother’s friend. It hadn’t been his father either. But by the time he’d been old enough to realise that his mother had passed away and his anger had seemed pointless.
Not that that had stopped the anger from finding a home, he thought, as he remembered the women who had come in and out of his life—of his father’s life—after his mother’s death. The women who’d never stayed long but had always left his father with that sad look on his face.
The same look his father had had when he’d confirmed that Noah’s mother had cheated on him the one time they’d spoken about it.
If that hadn’t put Noah off homely, his own attempt at it had taught him a lesson. A lesson his heart and his mind still hadn’t forgiven him for.
So what was wrong with him now? Why did he feel drawn to the image Ava was creating by that Christmas tree?
He’d been back all of two weeks. He’d been reunited with her all of twenty-four hours. Barely that. Maybe that was why he felt as if something were wrong. Because it was. There was no possible way he could want something he’d never wanted before after only two weeks. There was no possible way he could want it with a woman he’d only been back in touch with for barely twenty-four hours after seven years.
What about the eighteen years before that? And what about that kiss?
His spine stiffened. Ava had told him last night that she didn’t want to talk about the kiss. Not explicitly, but he’d got the picture. And he couldn’t blame her. The only reason he’d even brought it up was because he’d thought she’d want to talk about it.
But, no. It seemed they were going to pretend it hadn’t happened.
He took a moment to compose himself—it took longer than he would have liked—and then strolled into the living room.
‘Mrs Claus?’ He forced a cheer he didn’t feel into his voice. ‘Is that you?’
‘Why, yes, little elf, it is.’
She turned to him, eyes twinkling, and he was immediately drawn back into the memory he’d just tried to suppress...
‘Jaden is taking for ever.’
‘His speciality,’ Noah replied. ‘He and Monica are probably making out somewhere.’
Ava’s face twisted in disgust. ‘Why would you put that image in my head? I’m perfectly happy thinking about my brother as a monk.’
Noah snorted. ‘Jaden is not a monk.’
‘Stop it.’
‘You’re an adult now, Ava,’ he said with a smirk. ‘At least, almost.’
‘I’m eighteen.’
‘Like I said—almost an adult.’
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Just because I don’t want to hear about my brother’s sex habits doesn’t mean I’m not an adult.’
‘You’re eighteen.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, and you were such a kid when you were eighteen.’
He had been, he thought. He’d made all kinds of stupid decisions between the age of eighteen and now. Most notably falling hard and fast for a woman who had no intention of committing to him. Worse yet, a woman who had shown him he was at risk of following in his father’s footsteps.
‘We should probably head to the pools without him,’ Noah said after a few more minutes. ‘We don’t want to get there and have them turn us away.’
Ava nodded and walked ahead of him along the path to the pools. It was going to be thirty-eight