13 you could say my type has always been people who hate me a little
13
you could say my type has always been people who hate me a little
Finn
‘I sent this report to you and Mark earlier.’ I move my cursor over the table I’m sharing on the projector. ‘If I were you, I’d focus on fixing the easy stuff first, even though it probably won’t make as big of a dent in the overall ranking.’
‘I trust your judgement,’ says Miranda, glancing at her watch. ‘And I appreciate you going the extra mile with this. I know it’s not specifically what we hired you for, but it’s been really helpful.’ She closes the notebook she’s been scribbling in, slowly moving everything in front of her into a neat pile.
‘No worries,’ I say with a shrug, disconnecting my laptop from the projector and closing it with a snap. ‘I get that it’s chaos for you guys at the moment.’
She chuckles brightly. ‘You can say that again. But seriously, thank you. You do too much for us. You’ll be receiving nothing but glowing compliments in my testimonial.’ I grin and hold the door open for her to pass through, and we walk side by side down the hallway to the elevator. ‘Any update on the San Francisco job?’
The doors open with a clank in front of us and we step inside. ‘Nothing yet, I’m still only at the first stage. I haven’t applied for a full-time job in so long, I’d kind of forgotten how long it can take.’
‘You’ll get it, I’m sure,’ Miranda says. The doors open again, and we shift to one side to make space for the people getting on. ‘How long have you been consulting?’
‘About four years. This’ll be a nice change, I think.’
‘Well, we’ll miss you when your contract’s up. Although you’re more than welcome to stay on. You’ll have to let me know if there’s anyone you recommend to take over.’ The elevator makes a jovial ping and with that, she adds, ‘This is me. Enjoy the rest of your day.’
I get off a couple of floors after she does, making my way to the building’s common area on the ground floor, which is packed with rock-hard sofas, standing desks and plug sockets, and is where I occasionally work. But today it’s unusually loud. Rory’s over in the kitchen, leaning against the counter in a daydream as the coffee machine churns out its unappetising liquid.
‘Hey,’ I say, interrupting his reverie. ‘What’s up?’
‘Oh, hey. You looking for Julien? He just ran off to a meeting.’ He takes his cup and sniffs it before taking a sip.
I eye the machine, which I’ve been avoiding as often as possible ever since I discovered good coffee is available just across the street. Much to the distress of my bank account. I have to raise my voice to be heard above the din. ‘Nope. Do you know why it’s so busy in here today?’
‘I think there’s some event later for the design agency on the fourth floor?’
I look around and realise that with everyone milling about, there are no free seats available, which is the minimal incentive I needed to head to City Roast for the rest of the afternoon.
‘I’m gonna head over the road to finish some work. I assume you won’t be joining?’
‘I’m all right. I have a meeting in a bit anyway.’ He takes a sip and eyes me over the lip of his cup. ‘Julien mentioned you’ve been spending a lot of time over there recently. You must really like the ambience.’ His mouth bends into a smirk.
‘They do great coffee.’ I narrow my eyes. ‘And tell him to stop gossiping about me.’
‘But you’re just so easy to gossip about,’ he says, pushing himself off the counter. ‘Have fun. Say hi to the cute barista for me.’
‘I—’
‘I meant that Spanish guy.’ He laughs as he passes, like he’s just made the funniest joke known to man.
This isn’t the first time I’ve developed the tiniest, most minuscule crush on a beautiful, intelligent woman with a scathing disdain for most of the human race. I think back to Léa and how good it felt to be hers, before it all went wrong. You could, in fact, say this is the exact type of woman I’m drawn to.
Luckily, Ava could not be clearer about how little she wants me. Or anyone, really. I’ve seen customers brazenly flirt with her, and I can’t tell if she intentionally ignores them or just doesn’t even notice.
It’s not my business, but I assume she ran off to meet a date yesterday. I thought we were having fun, but she scurried off like she was Cinderella and the Tube was moments away from turning into a pumpkin. But you know, the heart wants what it wants.
So while she’s helping me out with the bucket list, I’ll make sure this is an amicable, surface-level thing that’ll be easy to leave. That’s how these things are supposed to go. And it’s what we agreed to, after all.
On my way out, I read one of the leaflets laid on the tables around the room. Atrium Design Services: creative graphic design solutions. An idea comes to me, and I approach a woman in yellow overalls who I know from early-morning elevator chats.
‘Hey Amber,’ I say, ‘do you guys ever hire interns?’
‘Yeah, sometimes. Hold on, let me check something.’ She taps a colleague on the shoulder and brings her into the circle. ‘Aren’t applications for the summer cohort open now?’
‘They are, but they’re closing pretty soon. Are you interested?’
‘I’m asking for a friend actually, but where can I direct her?’
‘Here, take a card and get her to check out the jobs page on our website. All the info should be there.’
I thank her and grab a business card from her outstretched hand, pocketing it as I hit the automatic doors that lead me outside.
An hour later, I have to swerve with superhuman instincts to avoid colliding with Ava, who’s just left the back room and isn’t watching where she’s walking, a waft of vanilla hitting me as she moves.
‘Sorr— oh. It’s you,’ she says, tying her apron around her waist. Her hair’s messy in its ponytail, her face like thunder. I think she’s hungover.
‘Your sunny disposition always brightens my day.’ We walk in the same direction, and her scowl gets me in the mood to be annoying. ‘Are you stalking me?’
‘This is literally my place of work,’ she retorts.
‘I’m glad you’re finally here,’ I begin, and when her gaze falls on me, surly as it may be, I have to look away for fear she’ll ensnare me in it. ‘Mateo’s out back, so your manager made me a latte and it was really shit. Sorry, I shouldn’t say that. I’m sure he tried his best.’ I scrunch my nose as I remember. ‘No, but it was shit.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll make sure to send you my rota so you can plan your visits around my hours.’
‘That’d be a dream, thanks.’ Another customer approaches behind me and I do my usual snack perusal while Ava rings up their order, curt and professional as always.
‘Why are you lurking, Finn?’ she asks, the moment they leave the counter. ‘If you’re not buying anything, can you sit down? You’re scaring away the customers.’
At that moment, I spot Belinda at her usual table; she waves to me with her typical enthusiasm. I wave back with a smile but direct my question at Ava. ‘Has anyone ever told you how incredible your customer service skills are?’
‘I do get that a lot, actually.’
I wait for her to finish chugging an entire cup of water, and then another, before my curiosity peaks and I broach the subject of last night. I make sure my tone is casual when I ask, ‘Had a good evening, I take it?’
‘Yeah, it was fun. Sorry I had to run off.’ She glances at me and her eyes widen slightly in apology. I get the feeling she doesn’t often hand genuine apologies out, so I lap up the moment while she continues, ‘I ended up staying up way too late. Didn’t even drink that much, but Josie’s cocktails are borderline toxic waste.’
‘The best kind of cocktail.’ At the mention of her spending the night with Josie, something inside me relaxes.
‘My brother was over too.’ She avoids eye contact. ‘I met him at the station.’
‘How is he?’
‘Good.’ She shifts on her heels, uncomfortable, like she’s reluctant to part with any more information.
I try not to laugh at the strange way she’s behaving and instead look around the shop to see if any of my favourites are in. I’m supposed to have a chat with Samantha, but we keep missing each other. When I spot a man in a green plaid shirt at a table in the back corner, I almost do a double-take.
‘Ava,’ I say carefully. ‘Could that vaguely intimidating man in the corner possibly be your brother?’
It has to be. His legs are stretched out under the table as he lazily scrolls his phone, dark hair falling into his face no matter how many times he pushes it away. Even from here, I can see they share the same blue eyes, the same furrowed brow as they concentrate.
She shrugs when I look back at her for confirmation. I remember she mentioned he travels around a lot, which makes him the perfect companion for an activity, and the perfect person from whom to extract vital Ava information. For platonic reasons, obviously. ‘What’s he doing today? Would he want to help with the list?’
‘He probably would, actually,’ she mumbles. She looks over at him and her expression softens a fraction. ‘But he can’t. He has plans.’
I nod, tapping the counter. I want to find out how similar they are; if they share the same mannerisms, the same constant flow of dry rebuttals, but before I even finish the thought, she cuts in. ‘Don’t you dare accost him.’
‘I wasn’t going to accost him.’ My shirt tightens across my torso as I cross my arms. I can’t be sure, but I swear her eyes drop to my biceps for a split second.
‘I expressly forbid you to communicate with him in any way.’
‘But—’
‘This includes flirting with him.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Is it your mission to ruin all my fun? Someone as good-looking as that needs to be told.’
‘Trust me, he’s been told often enough. Please don’t give his ego any more fuel.’
I analyse him again, tilting my head. ‘You’d make an incredibly attractive man.’
‘Appreciate that.’
‘And you don’t want me to talk to him. Why?’
‘Because,’ she says, turning away from me to load some mugs into the dishwasher against the back wall, ‘you’ve already met my best friend, weaselled your way into both my work and free time, and have generally become an incredibly talkative, frenetic addition to my very quiet life. I don’t need you to scoop Max up in your whirlwind too.’
‘If we’re getting technical, me meeting Josie was mostly your fault,’ I reason.
‘A series of events I have regretted setting in motion every day since.’
She closes the dishwasher with a slam. Fortunately for me, it’s at this exact moment her brother stands and heads towards us. This guy is tall. He hovers for a few moments, clearly unsure if Ava’s in the middle of serving a customer. Up close, I notice Max’s face is defined by diamond-cutting cheekbones and a sharp chin, where Ava’s is fuller and softer.
‘Go ahead,’ I say to him, which Ava answers with a glower. I take her moment of distraction to add, ‘Ava and I are friends. But she’s forbidden me to talk to you.’
‘Finn,’ she says slowly, ‘did you misunderstand what “forbidden to talk to him” means?’
Max’s eyes glitter. ‘I’ve learnt the hard way what happens when you don’t listen to her.’
‘Do you want to find out what happens?’ Her smile is sickly sweet.
Before I can answer, Max stretches out his hand for me to shake, the fading sunburn across the bridge of his nose wrinkling as he grins. Their smiles are different, too. ‘I’m Max, Ava’s brother. Twin. Not identical, in case you couldn’t tell.’
‘She’s told me so much about you.’ I pointedly ignore what I can imagine are pure laser beams shooting from Ava’s eyes.
‘And she’s told me absolutely nothing about you,’ Max replies matter-of-factly.
‘Can’t say I’m surprised,’ I say. ‘We’ve only hung out a few times. I think she’s embarrassed to be my friend. Right, Ava?’
‘Oh, so you do understand subtext,’ she says from behind the counter. She turns her attention back to Max. ‘You’re leaving?’
‘Yeah. My appointment’s at twelve,’ he replies. He elaborates for me, ‘I’ve got to be at the Australian Embassy for a visa interview.’
‘You’re going to Australia? We could swap numbers if you want, I used to live there so I—’
‘ Finlay , I swear to god,’ Ava says through gritted teeth, and I trail off. I mime zipping my lips closed and twisting a key. She leans over the counter to aggressively grab the invisible key before pretending to drop it in the bin.
Max watches the entire silent exchange in amusement. ‘Right. Well, I’m gonna go, I think.’
One of Ava’s hands is outstretched towards a takeaway cup when she says to him, ‘Do you want a drink for your journey? Or some food?’
He shakes his head. ‘Nah, I’m good, thanks.’
‘And you’re sure you don’t want to stay at mine tonight as well? It might be easier.’ She walks to the front of the counter to hug him goodbye and my chest tightens. I’m watching an entirely different Ava appear before my eyes and for some reason it feels like I’m intruding.
‘You sound like Dad. I’m fine.’ He looks at something on his phone and says, ‘I’m booked up for the next month or so, but I’ll see you in August for the housewarming?’
I’ve been trying – not very hard, admittedly – not to eavesdrop, but at the mention of the infamous housewarming party I can’t help but meet Ava’s gaze. I hold back a smile while she screams don’t you fucking dare say anything with her eyes .
Max asks the question anyway. ‘Are you coming to that, Finn?’ When Ava’s jaw clenches, he says, ‘Shit, sorry. Did I just make it awkward? Did I invite you to someone else’s party?’
‘Not awkward at all,’ I reply breezily. ‘I’ve already been invited.’
‘Cool, so you’ll be there?’
‘I’ve been invited,’ I repeat, which only makes him more confused.
‘Finn’s not sure yet if he’s free,’ Ava offers. ‘He’s a very busy man.’
‘Sure. Well, hopefully I’ll see you there. It was nice to meet you,’ he says, definitely still baffled.
As soon as the door rattles closed behind him, Ava shakes her head at me, moving back to her spot at the till. ‘I have never met someone so terrible at following the most basic instructions.’
‘Weird, that’s exactly what all my report cards said at school.’ I grab a packet of hazelnut wafers from the display and place it on the counter. Knowing I can rile her up makes my life infinitely more interesting.
‘I can’t believe you’ve now met Josie and Max,’ she says, almost to herself. ‘Should I get my parents on FaceTime too? Might as well go the whole hog.’
‘I love mums,’ I say. ‘So feel free.’
She narrows her eyes slightly at me for a second, her expression unreadable. ‘Mould. That’s what you are.’
‘You should consider a career in poetry.’
‘Wiggling your way into every crevice of my life.’
‘Did you really need to use the word “crevice”?’
‘Everywhere I turn, you’re there.’ A look of horror crosses her face. ‘Oh my god. I’m really not getting rid of you, am I? Not until you move away?’
‘Nope,’ I reply, popping the ‘p’. ‘Lucky you.’