He put me in bed. I scooted as far away from him as I could and settled. He yanked me to him, my back to his front, and held me close. I didn’t struggle against that either.

“I’m thinkin’ you givin’ up my tee isn’t a good sign,” he said into my hair.

He was so right.

I didn’t answer.

I was giving him the Ava Barlow Silent Treatment. I was famous for my silent treatment. Once I didn’t talk to Noah for a week after he’d done some stupid thing to piss me off. It drove him crazy and in the end he begged me to talk to him. This was one of the very few happy memories I had after he cleaned me out. I was figuring, cuffing me na**d to the bed and going out to do backup during some dangerous situation (not to mention, leaving me at all during my second on-the-verge-of-having-a-Lucas-Stark-induced-orgasm in one day) was worth at least twenty-seven years of the Ava Barlow Silent Treatment.

Luke just held tight. I stayed tense. After awhile, I felt his bodyweight relax into me as he fell asleep.

I didn’t fall asleep. I needed advice and not from Good Ava and Bad Ava. I needed someone to talk to about my life and what I should do. I had people kidnapping me, rear-ending me and pursuing me in car chases down busy streets. I had Luke thinking we were together and what we had was a “fuckuva lot more” than nothing.

I couldn’t talk to Sissy, she wanted me with Luke. I couldn’t talk to my Mom, she was shit at advice and usually didn’t spend much time listening before she turned the conversation to herself. I couldn’t talk to my sisters because I tried not to talk to my sisters if I could help it. I couldn’t talk to Uncle Vito because he was scary. I couldn’t talk to Mrs. Stark because she also wanted me with Luke.

I could have talked to my Dad. He was a great listener and even better at advice.

I felt trapped, scared, sad and because of all that, tears slid out of the corners of my eyes.

I pressed my lips together. Luke’s arm went tight around me and he buried his face in my hair.

“Babe,” he said softly and I knew he wasn’t asleep and he knew I was crying.

Hell and damnation.

I kept silent but took a deep, broken breath to control the tears. When he heard the breath, his arm went even tighter but he didn’t say anything else.

After awhile, I fell asleep.

* * * * *

Sometime in the middle of the night, Luke moved me, rolling under me, situating me at his other side.

I tried to turn my back to him but he didn’t allow that, caught my leg behind my knee and hooked it over his waist.

I didn’t struggle nor did I say a word.

Luke’s hand ran from my knee, up my thigh, over my ass, halting at my hip. “Ava Babe, you awake?”

I told him I was by pressing my forehead to his throat but also told him, even so, I wasn’t speaking to him by keeping silent.

“Jesus, you could bring a man to his knees,” he muttered, but his tone didn’t sound angry, it sounded resigned, as if he knew this was to be his fate. Worse, it sounded like he didn’t really mind. Worse than that, I found this moved me in such a profound way it was so big I couldn’t bury it, I had to carry it with me and that I didn’t like at all.

It took awhile but I fell back to sleep.

* * * * *

I woke up in the same position as ever when I was in bed with Luke and I immediately remembered I was in the throes of my Silent Treatment.

Without a word and without looking at him I rolled away. I threw my legs over the side, went directly to the kitchen to nab a diet, got my stuff and went to the bathroom. I didn’t come out until I was dressed and ready for my day.

When I got out of the bathroom, the bed was empty. Luke was in the kitchen making coffee, chest bare (of course), wearing his sweatpants from last night.

I went about the business of making myself toast and calling Sissy to ask her to come and take me to the gym (she decided to come with me). All the while I acted as if Luke didn’t exist.

I was wiping my hands on a kitchen towel after rinsing my plate when Luke tagged me around the waist, backed me against the opposite counter and moved in, hands on the counter on either side of me.

I tilted my head back to look up at him (silently).

“How long you gonna keep this up?” he asked.

I just stared at him.

His hands moved from the counter to either side of my neck, thumbs of both hands stroking my jaw. This felt nice and the warm look in his eyes was so killer, my dedication to the Silent Treatment took a direct hit.

Sucking it up, I recovered.

He kept talking. “I f**ked up, Ava, I apologized. Not much more I can do.”

I kept staring at him.

One thumb slid along my lower lip and he watched it go then his eyes came to mine.

Gently he said, “Someone apologizes and they mean it, you should accept. Doesn’t say much about you if you don’t.”

I swallowed because he sounded disappointed in me and I never wanted Luke to be disappointed in me. In fact, I spent six years of my growing up life twisting myself into pretzels so that I would make him anything but disappointed in me. Not to mention, an entire year of my adult life changing my appearance to make sure, when he saw me again, he wouldn’t be disappointed in that either.

It wasn’t like a slap in the face but it didn’t feel good either.

Right after I had that thought I got angry because I wasn’t the one who cuffed me to his bed and left me there way longer than expected with nothing to do but worry and freak out. I didn’t want or ask to get kidnapped, shot at, manhandled, ordered about, taken to the verge of orgasm twice to be left wanting. In fact, I’d made it perfectly clear I didn’t want any of those things.

Furthermore, he had a scary job where he got called late at night to do scary things. And that scary job or the old “doing crazy shit” one got him that vicious scar slicing across his belly because he sure as hell didn’t have it when he left the neighborhood (I would have noticed or his Mom would have told my Mom). I wasn’t going to ask about it because I really didn’t want to know. Even if I wasn’t sworn off men, I didn’t know if I could hack being with who Luke had become. But I had to remind myself, I was sworn off men.

I just kept staring. The buzzer went. Sissy.

I slid away from him, grabbed my workout bag and headed to the elevator.

When I got in, hit the button and turned, he was leaning against the bar, arms crossed on his (bare) chest, eyes on me.

The doors slid shut.

* * * * *

I spent the rest of the day seeking advice.

Sissy (next to me on a stair machine in the gym):