Chapter 60
CHAPTER 60
Max
I’d planned on not being at the house when she was there, and had asked my house manager to show her to the bar area and help her with anything she needed. But as soon as I’d gotten the notification on my phone that someone had arrived at my house, and as soon as I’d logged into the live feed of my security camera and saw her ringing the intercom, I grabbed my car keys and ran out the office.
I’d wanted to be the big, mature man and respect her wishes and stay out of her life. I really wanted to do that, but the second I saw her at my house, I knew that no matter how much I wanted that, practicing it in reality was going to be impossible. And now she was here in my house, with Lucy and my mom, clearly having an emergency.
“What’s wrong?” I asked the second she’d hung up.
When she explained what had happened, I was only too happy to help her; there was nothing in the world I wouldn’t do to help her. I had gotten straight onto the phone with someone I knew that owned three very upmarket lodges at Sabi Sands, zero tents. I’d had a celebrity client book out one of his lodges for a birthday party, and he’d made a good deal of money from it, so I knew that if he was able to help, he would.
Ash was standing over me while I was on the phone, biting the skin on her finger, something she did when she was very, very nervous. She was hanging on my every word and waiting for me to end the call, and the second I did, she pounced.
“So?”
“The proposed shooting date doesn’t work for either of the lodges. There’s a wedding at one, a conference at the other, and the other one is being redecorated.”
“Shit.” She collapsed back on the sofa.
“He’s proposed another date, but that’s during the Zimbabwe shoot. I could call them, though, and see if they’re able to change dates. Do you think production would be willing to change the schedule that has already been decided on, as well as a new schedule for the new location, if we get it?”
“I’ll ask.”
She called Sebastian immediately. “Ask the producer if they are able to change shooting dates for other locations. I may have a location, but the proposed shooting dates don’t work.”
She hung up and then stared at the phone in her hand, as if willing the call to come as quickly as possible. And when it did, she answered on the first ring.
“And what did they say?” Then she smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. “There are no tents. Cool, I’ll send you a link to the location in the meantime, make them look at it ten times and make them sign off on it. I’ll ask my friend Sarah to draw up a contract. We want a signature. They cannot get there and decide it’s not giving whatever the hell they want it to give, otherwise I am going to be giving them a kick in the ass.”
The second she’d hung up she said, “Okay, start shuffling. Production will figure it out.”
I got back onto the phone with the manager at Matobo Hills, as well as the other lodges, and began moving the location dates around to make it all fit. And when it was all successfully done, which was a total miracle, I turned to Ash and smiled.
“Oh my God!” She ran up to me and threw herself into my arms. “You’re amazing! You’ve saved our shoot.”
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her as close as I could. We hugged like that, swaying side to side slowly. It was one of those long, happy hugs, the kind you only give to people you truly love, people you’ve truly missed. Slowly, we disentangled ourselves and parted.
“There’s a little catch, though,” I said.
“What?”
“Two catches, really.”
“Mmmm?” She looked panicked again.
“You can leave tomorrow morning, early, at six and will be there by seven thirty, but it’s in the lodge’s small plane and I know how much you hate tho—”
“That’s fine! I can deal with that. What’s number two?”
“So . . . the lodge is fully booked right now, so you would have to stay in the staff village. They have a room there. That’s the best he can do at short notice. He says he might be able to move you into a room at one of the other lodges the following night.”
“Are you not coming?”
“Nope. No need to. I know them. They’re already with my agency, so I don’t have any business discussions I need to have with them.”
“So, okay . . . just me.” She nodded and looked unsure. “So you won’t be on the plane either?”
“Are you okay with that?”
She started bobbing her head up and down enthusiastically. “Fine! I’ll be fine. There’s no way that plane ride can be worse than the last one. I’m fine, really. Thank you so much for this. I’d better get going. I have a lot to pack.”
She started gathering up her equipment. I could see her hands were shaking slightly.
“If you want,” I said, “I could fly with you. I’ll fly back later that day. I know they’re coming back to fetch some guests—they do a few flights a day—and when you’re done, I could do the same if it would, you know . . .”
She stood up straight and looked at me. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. Besides, I need to get over this. I’m nearly thirty-two years old, maybe this is a good opportunity for me to . . .”
“I really don’t mind, by the way.”
“No. I can do this. I’m fine.”
She started walking towards my front door, then stopped and turned. “But thanks for offering to do that for me. It’s really sweet.”
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Ash. All you have to do is ask.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “A lot of stuff was said today, between us.”
“It was,” I agreed.
“And we should really talk about it.”
“We should.”
“Maybe when my shoot is over? I’ll be going into post-production, but it won’t be as hectic as this, so maybe we should do a dinner or something like that?”
“I’d like that,” I said.
She started for the door again and these words, these huge words, bubbled up inside me and I wasn’t able to stop them.
“And now, Ash?”
“And now what?” She turned, leaning against the doorway. She looked so good in my house like this.
I put my hands in my pockets to anchor myself. “If I asked you now? Today? What would you say?” She knew exactly what I meant. I could see it on her face.
“I would have to think about it, Max,” she said, and then turned and walked out the house, closing the door behind her. I smiled. She had not said no. Fucking hell, Ash had not said no.
“Where did Ash go?”
I turned to find my mom standing there. “She had to go back home.”
“She doesn’t live here?”
“No, she doesn’t,” I said, but she did look really good in my house. Like she belonged here.
“Is that because you never asked her to marry you that night?” my mom asked.
“How do you know that, Mom?” In every single one of her recollections, Ash and I were either married, or engaged. This was a new memory that seemed to be surfacing.
“Well, you threw that ring over the fence and then went to Europe.”
“Mom!” I walked up to her, put my hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “You remember that?”
“Sure I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
Salty tears gathered in the back of my throat. “Of course you would remember that, Mom.”
“Such a pity too—you saved all year for that ring,” she said.
“So true.”
“All those terrible double shifts you did at that smelly diner.”
I laughed. I’d forgotten about that.
“You used to come home and your clothes smelled like fish. No matter how much I washed them, I could never get that smell out.”
A wall of emotion hit me when I realized she was here again. She was remembering things the way they had actually been. It was such a banal thing to remember too, but it was everything. I was unable to hold back the small tear that escaped my eye as I basked in one of my mother’s very rare lucid moments. I smiled at her. “Flipping fishburgers was not one of my career highlights, that’s for sure.”
“You can give it to her now, though,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I have it in my jewelry box.” She said it so casually that I wasn’t sure I’d heard it at first.
“The ring?”
“Well, after you threw it out, I figured maybe there’d been a lovers’ tiff, and I knew you two would get over it, so I went and fetched it and kept it, for when you needed it again. Do you need it now?”
Did I need it now?
That was the biggest question in my universe.