Terms Of Attraction

She stared at him, her breathing strangled. Which of them had changed more since they’d first met at seventeen and twenty? No real puzzle there. Danny was still the dreamy-eyed idealist, with the biggest heart she’d ever met. So big sometimes that it blinded him to the needs of his own family. While she…after eleven years on the force, she’d learned that all people weren’t inherently good. That evil was more than a concept. And if you didn’t take care of your own, no one else would.

Turning her back on him, she fought to keep her voice steady. “You need to go.”

“Ava—”

“Now.” She could feel the temper heating her from the inside out. The tightness in her chest heralded an impending explosion. Alex didn’t need to hear his parents arguing. He’d heard plenty of that before they’d split.

There was nothing to argue about at any rate. The bonds were gone. And nothing she could say would convince Danny he’d violated a trust by using them.

A thought struck her there, comprehension piercing anger. She whirled to see Danny halfway through the door. “Wait.” He halted. “That’s not what had Alex so excited. What’d you tell him?”

His sheepish look was its own answer. “I meant to run it by you first. Really. But we got to talking, and seeing how interested he was, it just came out. But I warned him that you were going to have the final say, Ava. I swear I did.”

“No.”

“It would be a wonderful experience for him.” Her ex let go of the doorknob and moved closer to her. “He’ll learn compassion for others…”

“My son doesn’t need to travel ten thousand miles to learn compassion.” Her voice shook with the effort it took to keep it steady. Odd how she could face down an armed robber. Take out a target at a thousand yards. But this…this had panic sprinting down her spine. Ice bumping through her veins. “And if you think I’m sending a fifteen-year-old boy halfway around the world with you this summer, you are seriously deranged.”

“Pizza delivery.”

Ava stood in her son’s open doorway and waved the pizza box in front of her. Alex turned around in his desk chair and grinned in delight. “Meat lover’s with mushrooms and green olives?”

“Yes, O Gluttonous One.” When she entered his room, her son’s eyes widened. “I get to eat in my room?” The practice had been banned after Ava had discovered why the house had such an ant infestation. Alex tended to forget the leftovers he shoved under his bed, but the ants never did.

“It’s a onetime offer, and mealtime rules apply. Put a shirt on.” He must have showered, because his hair was damp and he was clad only in baggy basketball shorts. He got up and pulled a T-shirt over his head, and she was struck anew by the definition in his back and shoulders. He already stood eye-to-eye with her at five nine. He’d surpass her by his next birthday. Girls had been calling the house for three years, but in the last twelve months or so Alex had been doing some calling of his own. Sometimes the years seemed to meld into nanoseconds. Another few blinks and he’d be off to college and she’d be alone for the first time in her life.

Shrugging off the bolt of emotion that twisted at the thought, she sat on his bed, cross-legged, with the box on her lap. She handed him a plate as he reached for the first slice of pizza, knowing he wasn’t one to bother with such niceties on his own.

“This looks great. What are you going to eat?”

“Funny.” But Ava withdrew two pieces just in case. Alex could work his way through the rest without a pause. His metabolism should rank as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

They ate for a few minutes in companionable silence. After breaking all speed limits to wolf down three slices, he finally slowed enough to say, “Guess you’re pretty pissed that Dad talked to me about going to Africa, huh?”

At her sharp glance he rolled his eyes and amended, “I mean ‘mad.’”

She put her half-eaten slice down and reached for a napkin. “It’s a big decision, Alex. And it’s one we should have talked over before he mentioned it to you. So yeah, I’m not crazy about the idea.”

“But you’ll think about it, right? I mean, how cool would that be? I’ve never even been out of the country before.”

“You’ve been to Mexico.”

He waved off her correction. “Okay, I haven’t been off the continent. When would I ever get a chance like this again?”

She wiped her fingers carefully, trying to hide her dismay. “It wouldn’t be a pleasure trip. You’d be working. Living without indoor plumbing and electricity. No TV. No video games.”

“I know that.” He took another slice out of the box. “But I’d be doing some good, right? And think how that would look on my college application. You’re always saying I need to list community service.”

“I was thinking more like mentoring middle schoolers. Teaching Sunday school. And what about baseball?”

“Dad said I could fly out after the regular season is done. It’s not like we’re going to State this year. Not with Severin as the pitcher. Did you know his fastball is only clocked at sixty miles an hour?”

She had to smile at the disgusted expression on his face.

“So that would give me a good month there before I have to come back and get ready for school.”

The bite Ava had just taken turned to ash in her mouth. She swallowed with effort. “What about our camping trip?” Each year she saved the majority of her vacation and they went to the mountains. Or the desert. Or the Southwest. They spent weeks poring over maps, planning their route and which campsites to stop at. Where to hike or kayak. They’d been talking about white-water rafting on the Snake River on their travels this summer.

Alex shrugged. “We camp every year. It’s no big deal.” Then he looked up, his face stricken. “I mean, we can go again next summer, right?”

He had a heart as soft as Danny’s. Ava knew if she didn’t reassure him, he’d beat himself up for hurting her feelings. “Right. But I still have to think about it.”

“Okay.” He reached for another slice, satisfied for the time being with her answer. But when he changed the topic to complain about a teacher who just happened to teach his least favorite subject—English—Ava’s attention was only half on the conversation.

Her mind was reeling. First there’d been the unsettling meeting with DHS, then the double punch of the twin parental concerns she’d been handed tonight.

Experiencing a sinking certainty, Ava was beginning to believe that the solution to all three situations might be entwined.

“So, do you?”

Her attention jerked back to her son, who was regarding her impatiently. “Do I what?”

“Have some sort of genealogy information for me to use for this lame English paper.”

Ava searched through the fragments of the last few moments of conversation that had registered, came up empty. “Why do you need that?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Mo-om. I just told you about that family tree assignment Fulton gave us in English. I need something to put in the paper I have to write. Five pages. Five. Whole. Pages.”

Ordinarily she would have commiserated with her son’s dismay. She wasn’t much of a writer herself. But for the second time that day she was reminded of her past, and it wasn’t a recollection she cared for.

“I’m sorry, my family wasn’t much for writing stuff like of pain familiar. “No.” The lie didn’t weigh heavily on her. She’d spent the first two years of Alex’s life desperately trying to get her father to acknowledge her existence, and that of his grandson.

And then the next dozen years ignoring his.

“Great.” Alex wadded up his napkin and slouched in his chair. “Now Fulton will make me take the information you do have and do a genealogy search on the Internet. Jonnie Winters had to do that last semester and it took him days. I was hoping just to write the report with what we already had.”

Tiny shards of ice formed in Ava’s blood. All sorts of information was available on the Internet. But one thing would not be found there: any trace of her father’s death.

She considered for a moment having to explain to her son why she’d lied to him all these years about their lack of relatives. Thought of how she’d tell him who and what his grandfather was. Who Ava used to be.

Her throat suddenly dry, she looked at Alex, who was regarding her expectantly. “How about you use your dad’s genealogy for the paper? Grandpa Carter has notebooks full of their family history.”

Hope glimmered in her son’s eyes. “You think I could? It’s not exactly my family since dad adopted me.”

“Well, you share the same last name, so Mr. Fulton won’t know that, will he?”

“Sweet,” he said with satisfaction. “I thought of that earlier, but I thought…you know…maybe you’d think it was dishonest or something.”