“You have her number right?”
“I have her email.” He nodded, becoming more sure of himself.
“Okay, this is what you’re going to do.” I sat down next to him, patting him on the arm. “Send her an email and ask her if she’d like to go out on a date.”
“But-”
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head and standing back up. “No ifs, ands or buts. Just do it, you won’t know until you ask.”
With that said, I stepped out of his cabin and walked back to the house, wondering how Elena had got on with Ava. Time to go and see.
I leaned back in my chair as someone knocked on the office door and shouted for them to come inside. I waited for whoever it was to come in and blew out a big breath. I couldn’t wait for this weekend, we were all taking it off and were going to spend time together as a family.
After all of the stress over the last week, we deserved it. I refused to take on any more jobs, wanting to spend some much needed time with Kay and Eli. I’d even debated on taking them on a vacation but I didn’t know whether it would be too soon.
I had a feeling who would be coming through the door because Kay and Corey had taken Eli to preschool and then they were off to visit Miss Maggie so I knew they wouldn’t be back until later. Kitty and Luke were finishing off a last minute job and Evan never knocked, he just walked in with his arms wide so it couldn’t be them.
“Hey,” Charlie said as he opened up the door and shut it behind him.
“Hey.” I nodded.
I watched as he sat down in the chair opposite me, running his hands down his face. He looked stressed and I wasn’t surprised with the amount of work load he had since bringing down Serena.
She’d been asking to see me but there was no way that I would. Although, I had been tempted when she said she’d sign the divorce papers but she’d caused enough suffering to the one person I cared about the most in the world. Not to mention, all of those girls that had been found in that building.
A total of twenty-seven girls had been found locked up, dehydrated and beaten. I couldn’t stomach looking at the pictures so I could see why Charlie looked so worn out.
I still hadn’t talked to Kay about everything. Something that I needed to do, and soon.
“Have you spoke to Ma?” Charlie asked.
“About?” I’d spoken to her about a lot of things these last few days so he needed to be more specific.
“Ava,” he huffed.
“What about her?”
“She wants to take her in.”
My eyes widened. She hadn’t spoke to me about this, but even if she had, I wouldn’t have said it was a bad idea because Ava needed someone like Ma. “Yeah? So?”
“Why would she want to do that? I mean, haven’t we all been through enough? Why does she want to bring something else into our lives, on top of all of that we’ve already been through?”
Leaning forward in my seat, I rested my arms on the desk, trying to keep my cool. I couldn’t believe I was hearing this come out of his mouth.
“Really, Charlie?” I raised my brows. “If Ma hadn’t taken Emmy in, you’d have never met her.”
“That’s-”
I held my hand up, cutting him off. This wasn’t the time to get into everything with Emmy.
“Ava needs to be somewhere safe, she needs to be with someone who understands her. She’s seventeen Charlie, it’s not like she’s a kid and will be our new sister, she just needs guidance.”
I shook my head, utterly disgusted with him. How could he sit and watch a girl like her, who had been through so much already, go into the system when she had someone offering her sanctuary?
From what Kay had told me, she’d been through so much already and deserved so much better than the shitty hand she’d been dealt already. She’d get lost in the system and he knew that. At least with Ma, she’d be able to try and get back to who she was before she was sold to Serena. Maybe she could even go to college. Get her life back on track.
“I know but I don’t want Ma to get hurt.”