* * * * *

The phone ringing woke me up.

I rolled and nabbed it off the nightstand.

“Yo,” I muttered.

“Babe.”

Obviously, it was Luke.

I got up on an elbow. “Please tell me you aren’t calling from a police station.”

He laughed like what I said was extremely funny (which I thought it was not) then said again, “Babe.”

“What?”

“Ma called. She showed up at the loft again, wants to take us to breakfast. I told her I couldn’t go but she could take you. She’s heading to your place now.”

I shot into a sitting position. “Excuse me?” I asked.

“She’ll be there soon.”

“I can’t go to breakfast with Mrs. Stark. The girls and I have plans.”

“You gotta go. She’s lookin’ forward to it.”

Shit!

I knew what he was doing. He was stopping me from searching for Noah like I had tried to do with him earlier that morning.

And he was better at it.

“I cannot believe you,” I snapped.

“Ava Babe, you were sleeping. If you were all fired up to find Dexter you would be hunting. It’s just breakfast. You and the girls can go after Dexter when you’re done with Ma.”

“Call her back, tell her I have plans.”

“Can’t. She would be disappointed. I don’t like to disappoint her and I get the impression she wants time just with you.”

Mrs. Stark wanted time just with me? This was not good. In fact, this freaked me way the hell out.

“Call her back,” I repeated then I heard a knock on my door. “Shit!” I cried. “She’s already here.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” he told me as I jumped out of bed and started searching for my clothes.

“Impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible.”

“No, Luke, mark my words. This is impossible. I’m seriously pissed at you.”

“Ava.”

I pulled on my panties the phone in the crook of my neck. “You’re lucky I’m even speaking to you right now. Get ready. Once we’re off the phone this episode bought you at least forty-eight hours of the Ava Barlow Silent Treatment.”

“Jesus, you’re cute when you’re pissed,” he said and he sounded like he meant it.

Argh!

Without another word, I yanked the phone from my ear, pressed the off button and threw it on the bed. Then I pulled on my camisole and pajama shorts, rammed my glasses on my nose and ran downstairs.

I threw open the door and stared. Mom, Marilyn and Sofia were standing on my doorstep.

What… the… fuck?

“Oh my God!” Mom shrieked. “What happened to your face?”

Shit.

“Mom –” I started.

“Did Lucas Stark do that to you?” Marilyn asked, staring at me as she opened my screen door.

“Of course not,” I replied, pissed that she would think that and having a sinking feeling that she invoked Luke’s name. They knew.

“How did your face get like that?” Sofia asked, pushing in behind Marilyn, all of them shoving forward, all of them carrying suitcases.

Okay, it was so official, it could be written on a tablet of stone.

My life sucked.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked, trailing them into the living room.

“Ava, don’t change the subject. How did your face get like that?” Mom snapped.

We were standing in my living room. They had dropped their bags and they were all staring at me. All of them looked glamorous, dressed to the nines with glossy, two hundred dollar hair styles, designer clothes, handbags that cost the moon and stars and faces made up as if they had just bought a session at the MAC counter.

Hell and damnation.

“I have a situation,” I said, sounding like it was nothing. “I’m sorting it out.”

Me, Luke and half of Denver.

“Now,” I continued, sticking to my earlier theme. “What are you doing here?”

“Josie Stark called, said she had breakfast with you and Luke and that you two were seeing each other,” Mom told me, sounding put out. “She said it looked serious.”

Ee-yikes.

Mrs. Stark thought it was serious. It was, of course, serious. However, a week ago, it wasn’t supposed to be.

“She was pleased as punch,” Mom went on, now sounding extremely put out, which, for my Mom, was a very bad thing. “What I want to know is, why am I hearing this from Josie Stark? Why didn’t my own daughter tell me this news?”

“Mom –”

“Are you dating Luke?” Marilyn asked before I could formulate an answer to Mom.

“Marilyn –” I started again.

“I cannot believe you’re dating Luke,” Sofia put in and she sounded incredulous.

Bitch.

I felt my temper rise at the same time I felt like a knife had been plunged into my gut. My eyes moved to Sofia and as usual I tried to hide the hurt. Though it wouldn’t matter if she saw the hurt, she didn’t care and never would.

“Ava. Answer me,” Mom demanded before I could say anything to Sofia.

My eyes moved back to Mom. “Why are you here? Why didn’t you just phone?”

“We had to see it with our own eyes,” Marilyn informed me, sounding like me being with Luke was akin to finding a vision of the Virgin Mary in your morning coffee.

I was saved from having to answer by the phone ringing at the same time we heard a “Yoo hoo,” called from the front door.

Luke’s Mom had arrived. Saved by Super Mom Stark.

I fought the urge to grab Mrs. Stark and run screaming from the house. Instead, I walked to the phone and tagged it.

“Yo,” I said into the phone, turning and giving a lame wave to Mrs. Stark who was staring at my family in genteel shock. Then her eyes hit me, she saw my face, the genteel went out of the shock and she stared at me with unhidden concern.

“Yo, girl. We’re pickin’ you up in twenty minutes,” Shirleen said in my ear. “Ally got Brody shitfaced last night and got some info outta him. We got a battle plan.”

“Um, I have a situation here,” I mumbled, walking into the dining room with the phone as I watched Mrs. Stark greeting my Mom and sisters with warm Mrs. Stark hugs that, if you asked my opinion, they did not deserve. Unfortunately, Mrs. Stark didn’t discriminate, not even against Super Bitches.

Shirleen’s voice was sharp. “What kind of situation?”