17 Nights

Ava was nearing her fourth month and it was mid May. Marc's hockey schedule had died down since it was the playoffs. Sadly, Marc's team didn't have enough points to qualify, but that was far from Marc's mind. Marc's mind had been more occupied with the upcoming birth of his first child.

Since she was now pregnant, Ava decided to just relax and not even think about anything work related. She had told Marge that she wasn't going to work or do any press releases, hell, she wasn't even going to be looking at any scripts for her return to acting.

Although Marc still had his apartment, the two decided to make Ava's condo the permanent home and get it ready for the baby. Marc had given in, after Ava convinced him because not only was the condo hers, unlike Marc who rents because he goes back home to Thunder Bay, but it had a closet almost big enough to hold most of Ava's clothes.

Getting up from the leather couch, Ava rubbed her stomach affectionately and headed towards the kitchen. "I bet you Daddy will be really hungry when he gets back. Let's make him something to eat and then we should iron his clothes," she said happily.

She pulled out a pot from one of the cabinets, filled it with water and put it on the stove. Ava went over to the silver refrigerator, which was now filled with healthy food thanks to Marc, and pulled out some vegetables.

Chopping the broccoli, she hummed a tune she remembered her nanny to always hum whenever she was in the kitchen cooking for Ava. She loved watching her Nanny Inez cook when she was little. It always enchanted her for some reason whenever Inez would scramble around the kitchen. It seemed like she always enjoyed making dinner.

After finishing with cutting up the vegetables, Ava left the pot to boil and headed over to the guest bedroom closest to her room to iron Marc's dress shirts. She took out the ones he planned on taking with him during his road trip and ironed the first shirt in the pile.

Having never done anything such as ironing, cooking or even cleaning, Ava found ironing Marc's things to be very tricky for her. Usually she had a maid that would come over, do all the cleaning and cooking. As for her clothes, she would usually have it sent to the dry cleaners.

Ava stopped ironing when she heard something sizzling and crackling. Her eyes widened when she realized it was the water she was boiling. She swore under her breath and left the ironing and ran straight to the kitchen where she saw that half of the water that was in the pot was now on the stove and dripping down to the kitchen floor.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Ava swore as she took a cloth and started to clean the floor. "Ow," she winced when the water spilled on her shoulder. Ava huffed and turned off the water from the stove. "I'm not doing that again."

"Ava?" Marc called out, dropping his bag by the hallway.

"Here!" Ava called from the floor of the kitchen.

Marc went straight to the kitchen and raised his eyebrows when he was greeted by his girlfriend's backside. He leaned on the side of the entrance, a smile on his face. "What are you doing?"

Struggling to get up, Marc walked over to Ava and helped her up and then kissed her on the cheek.

"I was trying to cook when it bubbled over," she explained with a pout on her lips as she stared sadly at the puddle of water on the stove.

Just as she was about to kneel down again, Marc stopped her. "I'll clean it up. I don't want you to do anything straining."

"Marc, I'm pregnant not useless, but hey if you want to clean up."

Marc just scrunched his face up and took the cloth from her hands. "You're lucky you're pregnant with my baby." He kneeled down and continued to wipe what's left of the puddle.

Ava gave him a playful smirk. "Are you sure you're the baby daddy?"

Marc stopped wiping the floor and crawled closer to Ava. He lifted up her shirt over her protruding belly and tenderly kissed her stomach. "Would you really be that cruel?"

Laughing, Ava moved back and put her shirt down. She crouched down beside him and kissed him chastely on the lips. "I could never do that to you," she admitted.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Marc stood up and g ve his hand for Ava to take. "Do you smell that?"

"Smell what?"

"It smells like something's burning. Is it coming from our room?"

Ava's eyes widened when she realized that it was coming from the guestroom. "Shit," she swore under her breath and raced to the bedroom, Marc closely behind her. "Damn it." Ava approached the iron carefully, gingerly picking it up. "I'm so sorry," she apologized when she saw the burn stain the shape of an ironing rod on Marc's most expensive and favourite shirt.

Groaning, Marc put a hand over his face and banged his head on the doorframe. "Ava, babe, maybe you shouldn't do house work anymore," he suggested.

On the verge of tears Ava put the ironing rod down. "I-I just wanted to help," she said miserably.

Marc kept himself from rolling his eyes at Ava's sudden change in emotion, having been warned by both his mother and Tanya that Ava would act like that, the last thing he wanted to do was provoke another negative emotion because he wasn't understanding.

He wrapped her in a hug and kissed her forehead. "I know babe, but maybe you should do one thing at a time. You're not used to it yet so take it slow," he suggested to her. He smiled against her head when he felt her arms wrap around his waist as she sniffled a bit.

"I can't believe I'm crying over this," she laughed and broke the hug. "Now we have to talk about if we're spending summer in Thunder Bay or Sweden with my parents."

"We can spend the first half of summer with your parents since Jordan won't be home until early July. By the way, he's bringing Frankie back to Thunder Bay for the summer."

Ava stopped folding Marc's shirts and put it down. "Really?" she asked, feigning curiosity.

Marc could tell that Ava wasn't all too happy about the idea of him being near Frankie. "Ava."

"What? I'm fine with it," she tried to convince him.

"Ava, I'm with you."

"Only because I'm pregnant."

Moving closer to her, Marc looked at her straight in the eyes. "I thought we got through this already. Ava it's more than that. I want you and only you."

There was a long pause between them. Ava searched Marc's eyes for any hint of doubt or lie, but all she saw was her. She broke into a smile and kissed him on the lips. "Good."