Chapter 5 Zoe
Chapter five
Zoe
Bella kept giving me sly looks in the salon the next day and I kept ignoring her.
My boss was a shrewd woman, and I was a bad liar.
The hurt look on my cousin Audrey’s face was worse though, she’d helped me so much since my break up, if it weren’t for her I’d still be living in Melbourne and watching the Christian and Holly show in real time.
Even without words, I knew that Audrey felt betrayed that I hadn’t let her in on my big secret.
Each time I caught her eye, I wanted to confess that I was just a liar, liar pants on fire.
I felt like I needed to tell someone, other than Damien, that this was all a big farce, but I didn’t know how.
Audrey could keep a secret, I knew that, so maybe it was time to tell someone that it was fake, but from the moment I’d uttered the words to Damien’s family, a big part of me wanted it to be real.
By lunchtime and we were both in the backroom of the salon, I wasn't able to ignore her any longer, she was cowering in the corner, playing with her salad as I warmed up my food in the microwave. The barely concealed hurt in her big blue eyes was too much to take. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Damien. ”
“That’s okay.” Her voice was soft. “I understand that you wanted to keep things quiet. I mean for Mariah’s sake…”
“It’s not that, I mean yes we’ve considered Mariah in all of this but—”
“Sorry we’re late ladies!” I heard the familiar voice of Donna Steele. “Sylvia needed to see the GP, but I bought goodies, I hope you haven’t started the gossip without us.”
I looked back into the salon and Bella’s mum was walking in with Bella’s 1:00pm appointment, Sylvia Nable. Donna had been dating Sylvia’s son, Patrick, since Christmas, and while they’d been close before, there was something about their bond that had grown in the weeks since.
“This one is making me get all that paperwork done for my licence,” Sylvia pointed at Donna. “Now where is that Zoe?”
I moved forward, unsure of why she would be looking for me, Bella was the one who did her hair every week.
“There you are,” she looked me up and down then looked me straight in the eye. “I hear you’re the reason I can’t bid on Damien D’Amico at this year's bachelor auction?”
I looked at Bella, unsure of how to reply to the octogenarian.
“Oh Sylvia, I told you last week, Damien will come over and fix the downstairs bathroom for you anyway.” Bella dismissed her.
“Yes but I was gonna make him do it shirtless if I won him for my date!” She huffed and I laughed, Sylvia was notorious for bidding on young men at the bachelor auction just so she could get them to do chores around her house.
“Speaking of Damien,” Donna handed me a long black, “now that his family isn’t around, we need the gossip.”
“Alright, fire away,” I pretended to be confident and took a sip of the coffee.
“Brave girl,” Bella laughed and I got nervous.
“Oh don’t be like that,” Donna chastised her daughter. “I’ll go easy on her.”
I watched my boss's mum, almost certain I was being lulled into a false sense of security, then took another sip of my drink as something to do, afraid that my anxiety would be showing.
“So Zoe,” Donna raised her eyebrows. “Does Damien have a big dick because he really does give that BDE.”
I choked on my coffee, I really shouldn’t have been drinking with Donna interrogating me.
“Mum!” Bella shouted.
“What? I didn’t ask when she was gonna give Giovanna a grandbaby, because clearly,” Donna pointed at Bella’s baby bump. “She has one on the way. I just need to know she’s being satisfied.”
“Mum, you know it’s not all about size…” Bella said as she draped a cape around Sylvia.
“True, so Zoe, if Damien doesn’t have a big dick, does he at least know how to use it?”
Quinn burst into laughter as she rinsed the dye off her clients hair. “Bella, you don’t pay us enough to put up with your mum’s interference in our love lives.”
“You say that now, but if I hadn’t talked to Wade, he’d still be trying to work out where he went wrong with that disaster of a grand gesture at your birthday party,” Donna defended herself.
In the year that I’d been in Hartwood Bay, I’d watched Donna Steele meddle in the love lives of her friends' kids, having already intervened in her daughter's relationships before I’d moved. Funnily enough, if she were a matchmaker, her success rate would be high because each time she’d intervened, the couples overcome their barriers fairly quickly and they all appeared smitten. She was equal parts awesome and scary.
“Mum, she doesn’t need to answer your questions.” I mouthed Bella a silent thank you.
“Well that’s just a waste of Tim Tam cheesecake,” Donna sighed as she opened the box from The Bean and Bushel cafe with slices of its signature dessert.
“No it’s not,” Bella replied. “We still need to ask Zoe why she’s been letting Damien keep her as his dirty little secret for the last few months. Don’t worry, I’ll be having words with my future brother-in-law shortly.”
And that was the gut punch. I really didn’t want Damien to cop any grief for this, afterall the fake relationship was supposed to help him. It was like I’d made up this lie to stop him from getting hassled about the auction but his family just switched gears and started hassling them about me.
“But now that it’s out in the open, there’s nothing to hide!” Audrey said brightly. “Why don’t you guys go on a date?”
I could both hug and kill my cousin but she was right, to sell this relationship, Damien and I would need to go on some dates.