Just Like First Love

Ch. 5

Adam King just continued to look down at me. Smiling as though all was right in the world. As though my heart was not just shattered into a million pieces.

"Hey, Adam," I whispered looking down at my feet.

He chuckled, "well, don't sound so excited to see me Ava Grace. You certainly know how to check a man's ego."

I shyly looked up at him to see him still smiling. I nervously started looking elsewhere. "No, I'm sorry. It's nice to see you. I'm just.. Um... just it's a bad day is all."

He grips my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "I'm sorry A.G., guess you heard about Lindsay and Wes. Honestly, you'd think they'd have some dignity to wait a bit after you and Hayes broke up."

I continued to look everywhere but at him. "Um, ya, um. I don't know," looking back at my feet, "technically Weston and I never broke up. Guess I didn't even deserve that."

Gripping my chin with his fingers, he forced my eyes up to him. There, I saw nothing but empathy. Sadness. For me. "I'm sorry A.G., he's not a real man. A real man would never treat his woman like that. I wanted to tell you for months while they were sneaking around..but, ya know, Lindsay's my sister."

Months?

I took a quivering breath. How did I not know the kind of man Weston was. I knew as we got older he started to develop bad boy tendencies: skipping class, causing trouble for teachers, sneaking out of the house doing god knows what at night. Of course. He was seeing Lindsay at night. Making his mom worry just so he could sneak around behind my back.

My quivering breath turned into another wracking sob. Adam quickly wrapped me in his arms, holding me.

"Hey, let's get out of here."

To this day, I still regret that I said those words.

A couple hours later, completely lost in my thoughts, Tommy came over.

"You realize it's almost 6 o'clock. You've been here for 4 hours now. I'm closing up."

4 hours? Already?

"Ok, Tommy, geesh. I'll clean up," I teased him.

At that moment a shrill, beautiful sound rang out across the shop.

"Daddy!!"

"There's my princess! Come here, Ronnie." Tommy scooped up his daughter as she ran into his arms. Jealousy tinged at my heart. For goodness sakes, Ava, she's 7 get a hold of yourself.

"Well, look at you Ave. Really, you didn't have to dress up for me." I looked at my outfit now covered in grease. Just the way I like it. I then looked up to the person who spoke even though I recognized that voice by the way my body vibrated to it.

My only response was a scoff.

Of course, he just smirked at my response.

"Come on, Ava, let's get this cleaned up. I want to take my daughter out for ice cream sometime tonight." Of course, Ronnie squealed with excitement at this news.

"Ya ya Tommy, I'm getting it."

"Hmmm."

"What, Weston?" Knowing full well what the "hmmm" was leading to.

"I was just wondering if you would ever get that excited if I asked you to ice cream."

I swear my heart stopped. I involuntarily licked my lips and I know he caught on to that.