Ava's Prize. Cari Lynn Webb

Ava kept walking, her steps rushed as if she feared the trees would join branches and prevent her escape, forcing her to stop. Forcing her to have fun.

      She slowed her steps, crushing her ridiculous thoughts into the gravel with the heel of her running shoe. She could relax and enjoy a day in the park like everyone else. She simply chose not to.

      Later, she’d stop and smell the roses at the floral shop’s outdoor stand on her walk to the Pampered Pooch. She wanted to see if her friend Sophie had any senior animals that needed fostering. Ava and her mom hadn’t fostered for several months, but they both always enjoyed the extra company of a senior rescue. Surely a four-legged friend in their house would add balance to Ava’s world.

      Ava blamed her mom and Roland for her errant thoughts. She didn’t even attend yoga classes on a regular basis. Yet Roland’s affirmations about a fulfilled life followed her around like a shadow. She picked up her pace again, as if she needed to outrun her mom’s chiding laughter and Roland’s disappointment.

      Who cared if she didn’t actively search for fun? She usually accepted extra hours at the hospital or filled in to teach a CPR class or worked a music festival to bolster her bank account. Then she slept better.

      Surely the fact that she enjoyed teaching CPR and had discovered she liked both country music and indie rock counted for something. Roland would no doubt chide her to seek out more entertainment. If she graduated from a physician’s assistant school and transitioned to another career path, then she’d have the opportunity to find fun.

      There wasn’t enough money to provide for her mom and get her graduate degree.

      Even more, there was nothing appealing about putting herself first and being as selfish as her own father. Her family came first. Always. If that meant fun waited on the back burner, so be it.

      She’d be grateful for what she had and not mourn a life that wasn’t meant for her.

      That would be enough. She’d make sure of it.

      Ava hurried across the street, leaving the park and her private wishes behind, among the trees and birds.

       CHAPTER THREE

      KYLE CHECKED HIS recent call log and his emails for the tenth time in the past twenty minutes. Not that he could’ve missed a call. He’d woken up before sunrise, clutching his cell phone, and he hadn’t put it down even to eat lunch earlier. Yesterday, he’d called and messaged a dozen former developers and business associates about judging his contest. No one had replied. No one.

      He couldn’t judge the contest he’d created. The contest he planned to use to keep from defaulting on his own contract.

      Canceling wasn’t an option. The press releases had gone out. Hits on the webpage had multiplied into the thousands overnight. More headlines and sound bites had hit the TV and radio news spots all morning. Kyle couldn’t turn back. He needed to keep his reputation intact and run a viable contest, not some hoax that the public would conclude was no more than a publicity stunt. The press liked to speculate about his next PR blitz as if his Medi-Spy creation had only been for attention. Yesterday’s newspaper had claimed a reality TV show was his latest pursuit.

      He paced through his second-floor suite, ignoring the theater room and the arcade room, instead seeking refuge in the design lab. He shouldn’t have invited Ben and his family over. He shouldn’t have translated Ben’s car game into a contest. He should’ve left the photo shoot last weekend and returned to his lab. But it was too late for what he should’ve done.

      Right now, he shouldn’t be dropping into the industrial office chair and pressing the button to print more contest flyers as if he’d suddenly decided to hone his marketing skills. He should be scanning his brain for an idea. He only needed one.

      What was wrong with him?

      The groan of the printer spitting out copies matched the groan of panic rolling through him. He shoved his phone into the back pocket of his jeans, closed his eyes and drew in a breath that lifted his entire rib cage and made his stomach bloat. His older sister had taught him how to breathe, claiming he needed to learn to breathe with more mindfulness. More intention.

      He counted to five. Nothing quieted those jitters skipping around inside him.

      Another five-count and still nothing within him unwound. Only his to-do list flashed across his eyelids. At the top: create an invention.

      His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Kyle exhaled and lost any intention of quieting his mind.

      He clicked the answer button on his notepad propped beside the computer. His little sister’s face with her clear lab goggles propped on her head like a new-age headband filled the screen. Kyle dropped the stack of flyers onto the work table in the center of the design lab, set a 3-D printed piggy bank on the stack and walked with the notepad into his so-called inspiration area.

      “Still moping around, all alone in your steroid-infused man cave?” Callie adjusted the oversize goggles on her head.

      “It’s my home.” And his offices. He skipped his gaze over the large room filled with both vintage and contemporary arcade games. Darkness and silence leaked from the connecting theater room, yet not the good kind of dark for movie watching or that quiet anticipation before the final fight scene. He’d transformed the entire second floor of the building into the ideal work and living space. He blamed the sandwich he’d eaten for lunch on his sudden indigestion.

      Kyle frowned at the computer screen. Although it was wasted on his little sister. Her focus had already returned to her microscope. He asked, “Did you want something? I have company coming over soon.”

      That captured her attention. She blinked once at the screen, slow and methodical, like an owl. Only, owls held their silence; his sister had no such filter. “You don’t have people over to your place. Except for the rooftop, but that doesn’t count since you don’t live up there. People are never invited inside your home.”

      No thanks to Callie. In her clear-cut manner, Callie had asked how he’d know if people came to visit him or his ultimate man cave? Friends might like his man cave more than him. He’d chosen to do what he’d always done: keep to himself. Except today, he’d stepped out of his comfort zone. Hopefully, he hadn’t lost his mind at the photo shoot. “I’m turning over a new leaf.”

      “You can’t get distracted now.” Callie’s eyebrows pinched together, and she shuffled papers around on her desk. “You only have forty-one days before you need to hand in your second idea.”

      His sister had a memory like a vault. One time, in a passing phone conversation, he’d mentioned the terms of his contract. She hadn’t forgotten one detail. “It’s under control.”

      Callie leaned closer to the computer screen as if to study him like a petri dish under one of her microscopes. “You aren’t still pining for the past, are you? The days when you were unknown, unremarkable and an amateur.”

      That was the life she’d told him no longer existed. The one she’d told him he’d never get back. He dropped into one of the oversize leather chairs and set the notepad on the flat, wide arm of the chair. “I can have friends.”

      Confusion thinned her gaze and her mouth. Of course, Callie had skipped her senior year in high school to enroll in college and then fast-tracked her way into graduate school to become a medical scientist. She would earn both her MD and PhD titles behind her name in the next year, as long as Kyle kept his contract with Tech Realized, Inc. and paid her tuition.

      “How many times do I need to remind you that if you hadn’t sold out, you’d still be wasting away in Mom and Dad’s basement, a wannabe inventor, living off Dad’s meager retirement?” She grimaced as if her test results proved inconclusive.

      Now he lived in a man cave on steroids and was poised to lose everything. Was that somehow better? “This isn’t about high school reunions and