The phone had been ringing long enough to start getting on his nerves.
Matthew stared at the screen for a second too long before turning away for the first time. He hadn’t picked. The second time, he let it ring out again. By the third, irritation had begun to settle somewhere behind his eyes.
Now it buzzed again.
Ava shifted beside him, then sat up, the movement pulling his attention away from the screen. He hadn’t expected her to reach for it, but she did—calm, unhurried, like it didn’t matter.
She handed it to him.
And something in him reacted too fast.
He took it from her almost sharply, thumb sliding across the screen to silence it before it could ring again.
The quiet that followed felt louder than the interruption.
Ava’s brows lifted slightly.
“I didn’t check anything,” she
