Down The Road To Insanity

Chapter Forty-Four

A soft knock on the door makes me break the kiss as I glance up to see it now cracked open with Xaria in the door frame.

"Mr. Crescent, is auntie Ava okay?" She asks as she walks into the room.

I nod and Ava smiles at her. "Hey sweetie. I'm fine, thank you for asking."

Xaria nods. "Okay. Gramma says it's almost time to go."

"Okay, thank you. We'll be down soon lil one." I say.

She nods and skips out of the room, closing the door behind her.

I glance at Ava again. "Are you feeling up for the cookout?"

She nods. "I guess. As long as you're there I'll be fine."

I smile and begin unpinning her curls. "We're just gonna....isolate ourselves from any problems and just in case we need to leave, we'll take your car."

She nods and I finish unpinning her hair before pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"Ready?" I ask.

She nods. "About as ready as I'll ever be. By the way, tomorrow is the formal dinner and the day after, we're going to the water park."

"Okay." I fix a few of her curls and she stands from my lap.

"You're always hard." She says, followed by a giggle as she looks down at my erection through my shorts.

"Can you blame me? You're always close enough to get the brains fucked outta your head." I reply, earning a smack in the back of the head. "Ow, I'm just being honest. You can't blame me for wanting to fuck your brains out."

She giggles. "Why don't you just do it then?"

"Because...your family doesn't need to hear you screaming from down the hall." I joke.

She playfully rolls her eyes at me. "What do they care? Afraid they'll be jealous?"

I chuckle. "Let them be jealous." I shrug.

I stand from the bed and Ava goes to the mirror to check out her reflection.

"Do I look like I've been crying?" She asks me.

I shake my head. "Not really."

She glances back at the mirror and reaches for some lip gloss, putting it on while I watch.

To say that Ava fascinates me doesn't do it much justice. Ava is just....I can't explain what she does to me, but I like it.

Once she finishes putting on lip gloss, she places the lip gloss in her purse and turns to face me again.

She take a deep breath and I offer her my hand, which she takes with a smile.

We leave the room and descend the stairs, me with the keys in my hand.

"We're gonna take Ava's car." I tell Diane.

She glances at Ava worriedly and nods.

Alan walks over to us, holding Emma as usual. He glances at Ava.

"You okay Bug?" He asks her.

She nods. He gives her a hug and then turns to me.

"You'll have to excuse the family." He says at a low volume as I open the passenger door for Ava. She thanks me and gets in, allowing me to close the door behind her. "When she told us the story...it was already well known that Xavier had gotten Ali pregnant. When I found out that he put his hands on her and that he'd killed my nephew, I beat him so bad they had to put him on life support. But even that wasn't enough to make them believe her. I think ma wants to believe her but Lionel keeps being a dick about it."