I tilted my head back, gaze narrowed. “You have a two-year-old, what do you know?”
Mav laughed. “I've always known more than you, brother. Especially when it comes to people. Besides, it's what Bethany would do with Ellie after she first showed up, and that girl was a mess at a young age. Just like Ava. It works.”
My phone buzzed on my thigh. Grateful for a distraction, I pulled it out. My gut clenched when Serafina's name flashed across the front. I opened it.
Serafina: Sorry to do this last minute, but can I have the afternoon off?
Seconds after I read it, a voice called from the back.
“Dagny, Fina's out for the rest of the day.”
Dagny lifted a hand in acknowledgment as she pulled an order and hustled to another table. My brow creased.
“What's up now?” Mav asked.
“Serafina. She just asked for the day off.”
“Why?”
“Don't know.”
My fingers tapped out a quick reply.
Benjamin: Sure. Everything okay?
I waited five minutes, but no reply came. When Dagny slipped by, I called out to her and she sidled back over.
“Where did Sera and Hernandez go?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“Did you hear any of their conversation?”
“N-n-no. She g-got him something to drink, he a-asked some questions, and they l-l-left.”
“Go after that girl, Ben,” Mav said and tossed a sandwich crust back on his plate as Dagny walked away. “Go after her right now.”
“I don't know where she is!”
“Find her.”
I sent him an exasperated glare. “Find her? You want me to just stop training my new guy and go after her? Responsibility doesn't work like that, Mav. We aren't all our own bosses and can do whatever we want.”
“Wrong.” He tossed the crust at me and I chucked it back. “You are your own boss. You can leave anytime you want, you just won't. You choose not to.”
“I'm earning money to raise my daughter with!”
He scoffed. “Please, Ben. Save that for Mom, or someone else that's willing to coddle you. You're avoiding your problems by staying at work. Just like right now. Something happened with Sadie, so now you're freaked about Sera and you're going to go back to work instead of find her. She's with the town deputy, you idiot, and she has a druggie brother. What kind of math do you think this adds up to?”
He held up both hands before I could articulate any sort of response.
“I'm just saying that something is wrong and she probably needed help.”
That thought had already occurred to me, and I didn't like it. Didn't like it for so many, many reasons. The greatest of which was Hernandez was helping, not me. Why didn't she ask me? Because I'd been a cold idiot last night and she'd done nothing wrong.
Plus, I didn't want it to be right. It couldn't be right. I still hadn't figured out why I felt such need and terror over Serafina, and why Sadie hovered over me like an angry thing. While I craved Serafina, she terrified me at the same time.
“If you want to keep this one,” Mav said, “go after her. Find her. Call Hernandez. Do whatever you have to to show up for her, Ben, the way she's shown up for you. That's how this love thing works. I know you didn't have anything real with Sadie so you're sort of a toddler with relationships, but you can have it now.”
My phone rattled on the table. Sadie's school name popped up and sent a pang of anxiety through my chest. I answered it immediately.
“Yeah?”
A broken little voice, filled with tears, came through the line. “Daddy?”
“Yeah, honey. You okay?”
“I'm sick. Can you come and get me?”
“I'll be right there.”
“Okay.”
She hung up without another word. I looked to Mav with smug irony. “Pay for lunch, will you? My daughter is sick and needs me. That is how this love thing works.”
Ava's face had finally relaxed out of the scrunched grimace that it had been for the last thirty minutes. I ran a hand over her head, slightly warm, and let it rest there. She opened her eyes to look at me, her lips turned down in a miserable expression. A bucket lay on the floor nearby, ready for her next round of retching.
“You okay?”
She nodded, but tears lingered in the corners of her eyes. “I don't like throwing up,” she whispered.