Chapter 33
AVA
Gabriela took the hookah hose to her mouth and inhaled slowly. I watched her from across the small table as she waited a moment and exhaled the smoke, her eyebrows rising in mild surprise.
“Are you still so nervous about this?” Freya asked from next to Gabriela while the server prepared her mix with mint.
“No,” Gabriela answered while Lily, next to me, attempted and failed to blow a ring of smoke on her exhale. “But I can always trust you to introduce me to something I would never have done before, Freya.”
Freya smiled. “You’re welcome,” she said as she put the hose of her hookah to her lips. “One of my exes brought me to this place, and I think it was the only thing I held on to from that relationship.”
I stared at my hookah with some hesitation.
Freya had prepared us for this, letting us know that it wouldn’t be a smoke-filled cavern, like I’d predicted, and she was right.
The lounge had rectangular wooden tables with comfortable, deep, high-backed chairs, and the lighting was just dim enough that you could convince yourself that you were in an exclusive restaurant.
We sat by the window, which was partly covered with deep plum-colored curtains, and the curtains parted a little to show us the rainy street outside.
I took another small inhale of my apple-flavored mix.
It was fruity and refreshing, and free of tobacco and nicotine.
I closed my eyes in momentary satisfaction.
This ought to be perfect to get my mind off Desmond.
Somehow, all I could think of was that I wished I could come back here with him sometime.
“Remind me never to turn down new experiences again,” Lily muttered as she turned her hookah around a little. An entire half pineapple made up the head for her hookah, and she couldn’t get over marveling over it. “It smells like we’re in Hawaii.”
It had been five days since I’d seen Desmond. Five full days. He’d texted me every morning, asking if we could meet and talk it out, but I was still angry with him and had told him I didn’t want to.
When Freya and the others had asked me to meet them at the Helix Hookah Lounge, I had been glad for the excuse to get out after spending all weekend by myself at home.
Gabriela leaned back against the seat while a gleam from the dim yellow lights above us caught her new earrings.
She had been looking happier lately. She informed us that her new workplace was going great; she got paid better in tips than she ever had at The Galley.
Lily seemed to have made her peace with her manager, Matt, and confessed that she actually looked forward to working every morning.
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs. I filled them in on my eventful few weeks at work. They got caught up with my disastrous interview with Bianca, including the way it had left things with me and Desmond. It raised some confusing questions, particularly for Lily.
“Why would Bianca make up a fake kiss between you and Otto?” Lily frowned. “I mean, that was so obviously made up. Wouldn’t she have expected you to laugh in her face?”
Freya tsk-tsked and gave Gabriela a knowing look that I didn’t miss. I opened my mouth to correct her and then sighed.
Lily looked between the three of us, not understanding, and threw her hands up and said, “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Freya turned to her. “I think … that was Bianca trying to test out a theory,” she said. “A theory that Desmond would be upset at Ava’s supposed kiss, and that would give Bianca a clue to dig into whatever is going on between them.”
Lily gave a low whistle.
I didn’t look at the two of them, but continued to stare out the water-streaked window. Why was it always raining?
“There’s nothing going on anymore,” I added hurriedly while the others turned to me. “We had a temporary two-week fling. And what’s more, our temporary fling is over.”
I opened my mouth to say more but hesitated.
“But?” Gabriela asked knowingly.
“But it’s okay to really miss your temporary fling, right?” I asked. “I mean, it’s been five days, but every day has seemed impossibly long and dreary, but that should go away in what, two weeks? I should be back to old Ava.”
Freya seemed to consider it while Gabriela looked troubled.
“What I do find concerning is that you haven’t watered your potted azalea,” Gabriela pointed out. “It looked like it was a few days from death when I showed up to pick you up earlier today. You never kill your potted plants.”
“And you never miss asking me to recap the latest episode of Love in the Island on Sunday mornings,” Freya said.
“You haven’t done that lately. You know half the reason I watch that silly show is to hear your gasp of horror whenever I tell you who got paired off with who on that deserted island. I’m worried about you.”
I covered my face with my hands. “I feel like I’m out of emotions to care about my plants or TV shows,” I admitted. “It’s like a part of me has shriveled up and died. And I don’t understand why.”
“I think I do,” Gabriela said, thoughtfully, just as all of us turned to her.
“I think you had something really special with Desmond. Considering he was your high school boyfriend, it might have meant more than you’d expected it to.
And don’t hate me for this, but I think you should give him another chance.
I think Desmond made a mistake in not telling you about the risk of losing your mom’s restaurant, but he did it so that he wouldn’t jeopardize his chance at a relationship with you.
That doesn’t sound like a man looking for a fling. ”
I frowned and slumped back in my chair, looking grumpy. “Everything about our two weeks felt right. Everything except for the breakup.”
Freya sat down next to me, and we spent a minute in some silence. Then, she turned to me. “Don’t hate me for asking this. Do you think Desmond makes a good businessman?”
I turned the glass of martini in my hand and thought of the new flexible work schedule initiative that Desmond had set off recently. About his competitive streak at work that put Luxe Hotels at number two in the luxury hotels department.
I nodded. “I do.”
“Then, if Desmond thinks that your mom’s restaurant shouldn’t be revived, do you think he’d be doing that to spite you or because he thinks it’s a sound financial decision?”
I stared at her. I couldn’t hold a grudge against Des.
I couldn’t hold a grudge against a man who made me forget reason, who made me lose track of time when we were together, who made me laugh and feel safe at the same time.
I … I loved him. There. It was time I admitted it to myself, right?
I could love him and still stay away from him. Women had done this in the past.
The sip of martini I took felt cool and refreshing. I let the liquid swirl around in my mouth as the answer came to me. “Because it’s a sound financial decision.”
She looked at me kindly and let that sink in a bit.
I brought my hand to my forehead and groaned, sending my half-drunk glass of martini sloshing.
“Would you really be okay with him if he did that?” Lily asked, sounding disbelieving as she took the glass from my hand and set it down on the table.
I bit my lower lip, considering it. “If he tore down Mom’s restaurant?”
Lily nodded. “We aren’t even working in it anymore,” she pointed out. “It’s been a month.”
I rubbed my temples with my fingers. “Gosh, I hadn’t even realized it’s been so long.” I stared around the table and then met Gabriela’s calm gaze. “What do you think?”
“I’m glad not to be worrying about our next paycheck anymore,” she said, and I found myself agreeing.
I reached for my glass of martini. My evenings and weekends had felt better without the overhanging cloud of financial doom. If I took my emotions away from it, I could see that I’d been trying too hard to save a restaurant that hadn’t deserved it in the first place.
“I need to talk to Desmond,” I said, finishing the glass of martini just as Freya and the others cheered.
I looked up with a mild smile. “I can see the popular opinion on Desmond hasn’t changed.”
“Not one bit,” Gabi said, and the others grinned.
Two hours later, I got back to my apartment building on Elizabeth Street. Picking out my key, I walked up to the landing on the stairs and reached for the doorknob, feeling out of sorts.
That was when I saw it.
It was a brown box, sitting on my doorstep, with the words Hulle Bakeshop written in whimsical red font. The same bakery Des had mentioned in the morning before the interview with Bianca.
I knelt down and opened it to see a round espresso chocolate cake, twelve inch in diameter, with delicate chocolate flowers scattered on its top.
It had cream frosting on the sides and sprinkles of chocolate shavings placed so artfully that it almost looked like it was tossed out there in willful abandon.
And the smell … I closed my eyes and inhaled. Chocolate, espresso, and sugar. Mmm.
I opened my eyes and savored the sight of all that chocolate. Midnight chocolate was even more welcome than daytime chocolate.
I put a finger on the silvery cardboard base and turned the cake around. There was a small folded note on the side of the box.
I’m sorry, Ava. Please let’s talk.
I stared at it for an entire minute and then groaned loudly to myself.
That … that … fool. How can I be so angry now?