Chapter 60
Venetia
Last week
Venetia, tired from her short but draining evening shift at Bar Four and still mulling over her visit to Aimee, slipped out of the pub and began her walk home.
The idea that she’d had to escape out the back door of Aimee’s house to avoid Rory…
if that didn’t hammer the message home, nothing would.
Aimee had to see that wasn’t normal? Tomorrow.
Tomorrow everything would change. Aimee would leave and Venetia would take care of her and they’d never see Rory again.
Venetia yawned. Tuesday nights weren’t usually busy, but there’d been a football-club table quiz and she was exhausted—exhausted pulling pints and looking at happy, healthy, club-joining types.
Crossing the road, she pulled out her phone to check her messages.
A text from Felipe asking what time she’d be done.
Same time as every night, she replied in her head as she swiped it away.
A bunch of Facebook notifications, mostly from Freecycle, Buy and Sell and local area groups posting about lost dogs and traffic problems. Nothing from Aimee.
Tomorrow though. Tomorrow Aimee would escape.
Another text from Felipe, checking she was OK.
It was endearing at first, the way he looked out for her.
But over time, it had become cloying. Was it still worth the rent he paid, the tea he made, the company?
It had been on her mind more and more this year.
They’d be married three years in December, and after that, if they split, he could still hold on to his visa.
And with Aimee moving in now, space would be tight. Maybe it was time for a conversation.
Lighting a cigarette as she walked toward Coal Place, she scrolled through Facebook. A post in Blackrock Locals caught her attention, a screenshot of a WhatsApp message. There’s always something open-the-popcorn about a WhatsApp screenshot.
Those were the words going through her mind as she read the message. Her eyes focused on one sentence:
her husband wrapped around the PR girl at the opening party for Bar Four.
Bar Four. The PR girl. Aimee. A husband wrapped around Aimee.
Venetia dropped her cigarette on the ground, re-reading.
Who…what? Rory, Aimee’s husband? But no.
That’s not what the screenshot meant. It was a message about someone called Celeste, according to the caption.
A message about Celeste’s husband and Aimee.
In the comments, the husband was identified as Warren Geary.
Aimee and Warren Geary. And the message had gone viral.
More than six hundred likes, and eighty-four shares. Venetia began to run.