“It was a very hard road getting here, so I wouldn’t be too envious of it,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
I sighed as I looked up into Ava’s eyes.
“It just was,” I said.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine,” she said.
“Well, I don’t.”
“Okay. What’s your favorite color?”
“What?” I asked.
“Your favorite color.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.
“It doesn’t. It’s a change of subject. That’s what you wanted, right?” she asked.
I snickered and shook my head as I took another sip of my coffee.
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?” I asked.
But then, a movement caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.
I turned my head over towards the shadow, but there was no one over there. I studied the darkened corner and could’ve sworn I saw the outline of someone there, but Ava’s voice pulled me back to the conversation.
“I try to be,” she said. “My favorite color’s yellow, by the way.”
“For your sunny disposition?” I asked.
“No. Because I really like lemonade,” she said.
The two of us sat there and talked for hours, but now I had this darkness looming over me. It felt like someone was watching us. Like someone knew we were sitting together. I wasn’t sure why that weirded me out as much as it did, but I tried my best not to alert Ava to my worry. With everything mounting between my family’s company and Breathline Energies, I had to prepare myself for the idea that someone might be watching what I was doing.
“Travis? You okay?”
“What?” I asked.
“You look a bit dazed,” I said. “Am I boring you already?”
“Nope. You were talking about how if you went to college, you’d get a business degree, wait out your parents, then take your family’s company over anyway,” I said.
“So you were listening,” she said, grinning.
“To you? Yes,” I said.
I looked back over at that corner and it was now filled with people. The corner was no longer dark, and in its place was a shelving of books and board games. I shook the feeling from my mind as Ava continued to talk about all the things she wanted to do with her life. I needed to not get so paranoid.
After all, it wasn’t like I was doing anything that could get my family’s company in trouble. Just having some coffee with a beautiful woman with a fire in her gut to make something of herself.
There was nothing wrong with that.
Nine
Ava