5. Chapter 5
Ava
By the next morning the press conference should already feel distant.
Instead, it follows me.
Not in an obvious way. Not like nerves or embarrassment. More like a question I did not realise I had asked myself.
I replay small details while I wait for the kettle to boil. The way he paused before answering. The way he didn’t seem interested in winning the room. The way he had looked directly at people instead of past them.
The way he had looked at me.
I am not used to being noticed on purpose.
That thought sits with me longer than I would like.
By the time I reach the newsroom the usual noise has returned. Not fully. Some desks are still empty. But enough people are back that the place feels alive again rather than like a crime scene involving chicken.
Chloe is at her desk, wrapped in a cardigan and drinking something herbal. She looks tired but determined, like someone who has decided survival counts as productivity.
“…and I’m telling you,” she is saying as I arrive, “from now on I only trust men who stay when you look like a Victorian ghost.”
AJ looks up from his toast. “That’s quite a specific dating criterion.”
“I looked awful,” Chloe continues. “No make-up. Hair like I’d been electrocuted. I told him not to come over and he turned up anyway with a blanket and remote control batteries because mine had died.”
AJ pauses. “He brought batteries?”
“Batteries,” she repeats. “Who thinks of batteries?”
“Marriage material,” AJ says.
“Marriage material,” Chloe agrees.
She notices me then and her face brightens slightly.
“You survived football.”
“I attended a press conference.”
I put my bag down and she gestures me over with her mug.
“Come here. I haven’t seen you since the plague hit.”
I walk over, pulling a chair slightly closer so she doesn’t have to raise her voice.
“How are you actually feeling?” I ask.
Chloe exhales slowly, like she’s deciding how honest to be.
“Better. Still fragile. I ate toast this morning and nothing terrible happened, which currently qualifies as a victory.”
“That does sound promising.”
“I’m basically rebuilding from scratch,” she says. “Tom brought soup last night. The proper kind. Homemade. And fresh bread.”
There is something softer in her voice when she says his name.
“That sounds nice,” I say.
“It was,” she admits. “I looked like death and he still sat on my sofa and watched terrible television with me. That’s commitment.”
“That is usually a good indicator.”
“I think I’m keeping him,” she says. Then she studies me. “Right. Enough about my brush with mortality. How was your assignment?”
I hesitate slightly before answering.
“Fine.”
She gives me a look.
“That is not a real answer.”
“It was structured,” I try instead. “Predictable. Questions. Answers.”
“You sound like you’re describing a staff meeting.”
“That is essentially what it was.”
She smiles at that.
“And?” she asks. “What was he like?”
I find myself thinking about that longer than I expect to.
“Calm,” I say eventually.
Chloe tilts her head.
“That’s your big takeaway?”
“He didn’t rush his answers.”
“That sounds small.”
“It isn’t,” I say. “Most people rush when they’re being watched.”
I remember the way he had allowed silence to exist. The way he had seemed comfortable inside it.
How he had looked directly at whoever spoke to him like they were the only person there.
How he had looked at me like that.
I wish I wasn’t remembering that part so clearly.
“He listened,” I add.
Chloe nods slowly, understanding something in that.
“That’s rare.”
“Yes.”
“You notice that kind of thing.”
I look down at the edge of my notebook.
I always have. It’s easier to understand people through behaviour. Through patterns. Through what they do when they think nobody is measuring them.
Safer too.
“So,” Chloe says, her tone shifting back to something lighter, “important question.”
She better not going to ask me anything about football.
“Is he as hot as he looks in the pictures?”
I sigh quietly. “Chloe.”
“What? This is vital background research.”
“I was not there to evaluate his appearance.”
“So you did.”
I hesitate just long enough to betray myself.
She grins immediately.
“That pause said everything.”
“He is… well proportioned,” I admit.
Chloe bursts out laughing, then immediately presses a hand to her stomach.
“Don’t make me laugh,” she says. “Still healing.”
“I apologise.”
“It was worth it.” She wipes at her eyes. “Well proportioned. You sound like you’re reviewing a sculpture.”
“I am describing objectively.”
“Did he flirt?”
“I don’t think he was trying to impress anyone.”
“That’s worse.”
I glance up.
“That’s the dangerous kind,” she explains. “Men who don’t realise they’re charming usually are.”
I don’t answer that because I am not entirely sure what I would say.
Instead, I open my notebook, more for something to do with my hands than because I need it.
“So what happened?” she asks more gently. “You seem… different.”
Different? I’m not different. At forty three, you don’t change just because a handsome man looks at you.
“I spoke,” I admit.
Her eyebrows rise slightly, not mockingly. More like she knows that mattered.
“You asked something?”
“He didn’t really give me a choice,” I say. “He called me out. There wasn’t really a graceful escape route.”
Chloe’s mouth curves. “Oh God. Public participation. Your worst nightmare.”
“Yes.”
“And you survived.”
“Barely.”
She shifts slightly in her chair, curiosity winning over teasing now.
“So what did you ask?”
I look down at my notebook, though I already know the line by heart.
“I asked why he was really here,” I say. “Not the football answer. The… actual reason.”
Chloe nods slowly. “That’s bold.”
“I didn’t mean it to be.”
“And?”
“He said he chose the right environment.”
Chloe studies my face like she’s trying to see what part of that stayed with me.
“And you bought that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I hesitate.
Because the real answer feels strangely personal.
“Because he didn’t sound like he was trying to convince anyone,” I say finally. “He sounded like someone who had already convinced himself.”
Chloe nods slowly.
“That’s actually… quite attractive.”
I glance up.
“I did not say attractive.”
“You didn’t need to.”
I look back at my notes before she can see my reaction.
It is annoying how easily she reads me sometimes.
“What else?” she asks gently.
For a moment I say nothing. I turn a page in my notebook instead, more to give myself something to do than because I need to.
The rest of the press conference had gone back to football questions.
Formations. Injuries. Transfer windows. Things I had written down because they were happening, not because I understood them.
“Nothing else really,” I say eventually. “It went on for a few more minutes. Then I left.”
“You didn’t hang around?” Chloe asks.
I shake my head. “I had what I needed.”
That is the part I don’t say: staying would have meant conversations. Introductions. Small talk. The things that exhaust me faster than actual work.
Leaving had felt like control again.
AJ, who has been pretending not to listen while very obviously listening, leans an elbow on the divider between their desks.
“Well,” he says, “with that groundbreaking interview performance I think we can safely say Marie-Louise won’t be calling on Ava again any time soon.”
I feel an immediate, very genuine sense of relief.
“That would be ideal,” I say.
Chloe laughs. “Most people would take that as a challenge.”
“I am not most people.”
AJ looks disappointed. “You’re supposed to discover hidden ambition now. Start chasing bylines. Demand a press badge.”
“I would like to return to commas,” I say.
“That is the least rock-and-roll career aspiration I’ve ever heard.”
“Commas matter.”
“They do,” he admits. “But they don’t usually come with free sandwiches.”
“I do not want sandwiches.”
“That’s because you’ve never had a press conference sandwich.”
“That is not a compelling argument.”
Chloe shakes her head, amused. “You’ve traumatised her. She’s going to proofread harder now.”
“That is exactly what I intend to do,” I say.
And I mean it.
Yesterday had been manageable because it had an end. A clear task. A defined role. Sit. Listen. Leave.
That is the part I like.
AJ is still watching me like I might suddenly reveal a secret competitive streak.
“You didn’t even enjoy it a tiny bit?” he asks.
I consider lying.
“I did not hate it,” I admit.
“That’s basically enthusiasm coming from you.”
“That is not enthusiasm.”
“That’s how it starts,” Chloe says.
“It is how it ends,” I reply. “I attended. I survived. I am done.”
AJ laughs. “Famous last words.”
Before I can respond, Ben from sport appears beside us, moving with the careful caution of someone who still doesn’t fully trust his own internal systems.
“You’re the one who covered Westland, yeah?” he asks me.
I nod.
“Marie-Louise said you took notes,” he says. “I need them so I can actually write the piece.”
I hand him the notebook.
He opens it straight away, scanning quickly at first. Then slower.
His brow furrows slightly.
He turns another page.
“Right,” he says after a moment. “Quick question.”
I brace slightly. “Yes?”
“Did they talk about football?”
I blink. “Yes.”
He turns the notebook slightly toward me.
“Because you didn’t write any of it down.”
I look at the page properly for the first time since yesterday.
“I…” I stop, recalibrating. “I suppose I wrote what I was concentrating on.”
AJ makes a small noise that sounds suspiciously like a suppressed laugh.
Ben flips another page.
“This just says doesn’t rush answers.”
“Yes.”
“And listens fully before replying.”
I nod.
“And room expected ego, got restraint.”
“That felt relevant.”
Ben studies the notebook another second. Then he nods slowly.
“Right,” he mutters, more to himself than to us. “We may need to… manage expectations.”
Before I can ask what that means, he walks off toward Marie-Louise’s office, already flipping pages again like he’s trying to solve a problem.
I watch him go, a slow unease settling in my stomach.
Chloe and AJ both follow him with their eyes.
AJ is the first to speak.
“Well,” he says, “that walk had I’m about to deliver bad news energy.”
Chloe nods. “Yep. That was not a victory march.”
I feel something tighten in my chest.
“I wrote what I could,” I say quietly.
Chloe turns back to me immediately. “Hey. No one said you didn’t.”
AJ tilts his head. “But you might want to start preparing a defence speech.”
“I do not have a defence speech.”
“Then maybe an explanation,” he suggests. “Something along the lines of I bravely chose a more human angle.”
“I did not choose any angle.”
“That might be your first problem.”
Chloe suppresses a smile. “You may need something slightly more convincing than I wrote vibes.”
“I did not write vibes.”
AJ raises an eyebrow. “You absolutely wrote vibes.”
Of course I know what I should have written. The football details. The facts Ben actually needs. It isn’t like I don’t understand the difference.
I just… noticed other things first.
A small knot of guilt settles in my chest.
At the same time a stubborn thought pushes back.
Maybe this will teach Marie-Louise not to send me out into the world again.
I am good at my actual job. The quiet one. The one that happens behind the scenes.
I open my document and start fixing a paragraph that has too many commas. Something familiar. Something safe.
Still, part of me listens for Marie-Louise’s door opening.
Waiting to see if yesterday follows me into today.