Chapter 15 #3
He reels away from her. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do. You said, ‘I find out there’s someone else, they’re dead,’ remember? So, what the fuck am I supposed to fucking do with this?”
“It was just coffee,” Jake pleads. “Coffee and a photo I thought was for the reunion.”
“So, you never slept with Jenny Wallis?”
Jake’s face falls, and Ada laughs. “I’ve said it already, Jake, but just fuck off.”
“It was one time. Right after school ended.”
For a second, Ada’s face is an expression of pure, uncut pain. Then it slams shut and she goes utterly blank. I want to drag her away, hide her in a quiet room, but Jake’s still talking. “I was pissed. I barely remember it and I wish it never—”
Ada bursts to life like a fire-breathing demon. “And I wish you’d fucking evaporate, but we don’t always get what we want, do we? So go put your dick back in Satan and fuck off!”
“It was in the past. I told you, I don’t care who you were with before—”
“Oh, you don’t care? That’s so noble of you! But I never said that. And if I’d known I was sharing dipsticks with Jenny Wallis, I wouldn’t have come near you, and you fucking knew it, you absolute cunt.”
“Babe, I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to fuck this up. I knew you and Jenny had a history, but—”
Ada’s laughter takes on the edge of screeching angels. “A history? You don’t know the fucking half of it. But I bet you wouldn’t have cared either way. All that mattered was getting me on my back, right? Finally fucking the flute-weirdo?”
“Ada…”
A warm arm closes around me. Davis. I lean into his body like he’s the last good thing on earth.
“This is messed up,” he mutters.
I nod. Ada’s eyes are blazing. She’s found it now, the place that hurts Jake the most, and she’s going to pummel it to dust.
“Don’t try to frame you screwing Jenny as some long-ago thing,” Ada spits. “It’s not long ago. It’s now. She’s been hitting you up since she got divorced, right? Asking you to come over?”
“I didn’t want her to—”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m not. We only ever talked about—”
“It doesn’t matter! Nothing you say matters! The only reason you’re here is because you got caught. Well, fuck you. You made your choice, and choices have consequences.” She throws up her hands. “Now you’re making me sound like my mother! Just fucking leave!”
“I’m stepping in,” Davis asks. “That okay?”
I nod again, numb from head to toe.
“Ada…” Jake’s voice breaks. “Can we please just go somewhere and talk about this? I’ll do anything you want, just please don’t call it?”
Ada’s smile is a black hole. “It’s called. We’re done. I’m gonna wear your jersey while my new friends Eiffel Tower me tonight, and that’s still better than you deserve. Now go.”
Before Jake can say anything, Davis steps between them. “Time to go,” he tells Jake.
I brace myself for unhinged fury, but Jake just bows his head.“Right.”
Jake glances at me as Davis leads him out, but I ignore him. I keep my eyes on Ada as she weaves away through the crowd, a tiny doll, lost in a sea of bodies. Then she’s gone, through the door and up to our apartment, a phantom, slipping back into the shadows.
I turn and see Davis speaking to Jake at the door. They’re not arguing; their heads are close, and Davis is nodding. They both pull their phones out and do something, then Jake leaves, and Davis makes his way back toward me.
“Where’d Ada go?” he asks.
“Upstairs. She’s alone.”
“But she’s okay?”
No. None of us are. I shake my head.
“What about you?”
It’s almost the exact question that led to our office hook-up. I nearly crumble and wrap my arms around his gorgeous chest. His body radiates comfort, and I know he’d give good hugs. The kind that makes everything go quiet inside.
My phone goes off, and I pull it out on autopilot. Will Sharpe has sent me a private message. My heart stops.
Did Jenny complain to him about me?
I open the DM with trembling fingers, ready for polite scolding or thinly veiled rage, and blink:
You look so hot in that last pic. I really hope we can catch up at the reunion next weekend.
Suddenly, everything is crystal clear. Despite the disaster that is this night, this year, Afterglow’s finances, I still have the reunion.
A chance to change. Fix everything. Will Sharpe still wants me.
The beautiful boy I’ve been dreaming of forever.
The happy ending that’s been keeping me going for weeks.
I need to shut this Davis brain-fart down.
He isn’t part of my happy ending. The ‘three-bedroom-house-in-Pukekohe, Sunday-dinners’ ending.
The ‘look how well I turned out’ ending.
I’m his boss, and he’s almost a decade younger than me.
What happened tonight was brought on by panic and gin, and it can never happen again.
“More drama?” Davis says, bringing me back to the now.
Yes. But not the kind you think.
I look up at him, his hazel eyes twinkle, warm and welcoming.
Hug me, my body screams, wrap me in your ridiculously big arms like a man-burrito.
But no. I need to be strong. I know what I want now, and it’s the happy ending with Will. I swallow. “Hey, about earlier…?”
“What about earlier?” The corner of his mouth kicks up, and the arrogance of his smirk makes my pussy clench.
Focus.
“I appreciate you, um, looking out for me.”
“Looking out for you?”
“Yes. When I was panicking. You were great at… taking my mind off things.” I try for a smile. “I said I needed someone to tell me what to do, and you, um, certainly delivered on that front. But I think it’s best if we call it a one-time thing, yeah?”
Davis stares blankly back at me. I’m not surprised, my voice is going up at the end of every word like I’m Powerpuff Girl on helium.
“A one-time thing,” he repeats slowly, and humiliation churns in my gut
Oh my lord, he never wanted more. It was just a charity dry-hump. And here I am basically giving him a breakup speech. Abort! Abort!
I turn my smile up to eleven. “Anyway! Thanks again. I’m gonna go finish… some accounts stuff. Have a good shift!”
I flee to the office and collapse in my chair, head in my hands. Just when I think my life can’t get more humiliating…
I try to shake it off, wringing my arms and wiggling in my seat, but my eye catches the wastepaper bin. Davis’s underwear is still there, light streaks visible on the dark fabric.
So fucking hot.
“No! Control yourself, Cece,” I snap.
I don’t have time for hot twenty-four-year-olds.
I have a plan. I have to prove everyone who doubted me wrong.
I have to save my best friend from her downward spiral.
I have to drink fifteen litres of cranberry juice, so my lady business is in tip-top condition for seducing the man of my dreams while his ex-wife chokes on chardonnay-flavoured jealousy.
I grab a juice out of the minifridge and chug it so fast I choke. Red liquid sprays everywhere, covering my laptop, phone and the stacks of unpaid bills. But most of it lands on a folder sitting at the top of my in-tray.
‘Urban Hotel Development and Business Plan,’ it reads in bold typeface. And underneath, in smaller letters: ‘Client: Cecelia Taylor. Prepared by Davis Sanderson.’
Davis made me a business plan. For an urban hotel.
My heart leaps in my chest, but I don’t know if it’s because of the sweetness of the gesture or the sanctimony. Is this Davis’s way of telling me I’m doing a shit job of running the bar?
A notification lights up my cranberry juice splattered screen. Another message from Will Sharpe:
You are coming, right, Cecelia?
I shiver. That was the plan. Is the plan.