Chapter 12
“Casey, wait up!” Ajay called.
The sun was just beginning to rise, and lights glowed out from behind closed curtains in the flats above the quiet shop fronts as people began their day.
Why hadn’t she brought her bike with her to the café?
If she had, she could have performed a swift getaway instead of trying to speed walk back along the slippery pavement to the goods yard. Ajay caught up to her easily.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said, slipping but managing to catch herself.
“Why don’t you slow down so we can talk?”
She slipped again, this time almost performing the splits but recovering by an act of thigh mastery that she would feel in her muscles later. “No thank you.”
“That’s you in the meme, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question. “Your hair’s different. Which is your real color?”
She huffed loudly and stopped outside a barbershop. She could lie, but that wouldn’t look great after he’d just spent the last hour trusting her with sensitive information about his life. “Blonde,” she said finally.
“So, you’re…in disguise?” he asked, and she could see him trying to work her out.
“Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that. But yes, essentially: I am hiding from angry people on the internet who want to kill me in a variety of ways.”
“Holy shit. And the song that was just on the radio…”
“Was about me.”
“Wow. Okay, so, what’s the deal?”
“The deal is that the meme made Sam famous—and me infamous. There was a lot of media attention. I got cast as the bad guy.”
“Because you turned his proposal down.”
“We weren’t even together!” This was exasperating. “He only proposed because I was unavailable, but none of that matters because my face is on the internet looking like I just sniffed the world’s eggiest fart.” She began to stomp away again, muttering, “Bloody buggery bollocks!”
Ajay easily kept pace with her. “I think I’ve seen stuff about this online. Didn’t one of the newspapers offer a reward for information about you?”
“Oh, great, sure, sell me out. You wouldn’t be the first.” Shit. She wondered if Margo could put a rush on erasing the meme.
“Casey, I’m not going to sell you out. You can trust me; I won’t tell another soul. Honestly, it’s not that big of a deal.”
No big deal to him, maybe. “Why don’t you try being a laughingstock and a villain and see how you like it!
” She slipped again—adding to her chagrin—her feet taking turns in skidding out in front of her like she was attempting the Kalinka.
She would have fallen on her arse had Ajay not hooked his arms under her armpits.
When she was safely back on both feet and had begrudgingly thanked him, she tried to walk away again, adding embarrassment to her humiliation.
“You can’t be angry at me for being curious when you haven’t given me any context,” Ajay reasoned.
She rounded on him. “That’s just it.” Tears sprang to her eyes, which annoyed her even more. “I shouldn’t have to give context. It shouldn’t be anyone else’s business. I didn’t consent to having my face all over the internet and yet every fucker feels entitled to an explanation from me.”
Ajay stopped and said quietly, “You’re right, you don’t owe me any explanations. But I’m not every fucker.”
“Don’t make me feel bad.” She sniffed.
“I’m not trying to.” His voice was gentle. “I was only letting you know that I’m not some rando on the internet; you can trust me. I only want to be your friend. I don’t have that many since I moved here.”
For god’s sake! He looked so genuine, making sure to hold her eyes with his dark brown ones as he spoke.
Dark brown eyes with glints of gold, she noticed now.
Experience had taught her that she shouldn’t trust people, but there was something about him that made her want to confide in him.
Her phone rang. “Sorry, I have to get this.”
“Where are you?” Nate asked, his tone accusatory, as soon as she answered.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m…out with a friend.” She caught sight of Ajay in her peripheral vison, and he smiled.
“A friend? What friend? You were due home over an hour ago; I’ve been worried sick.”
She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice as she calmly said, “Nate, think about what you’re saying. Do you think you might be being a bit unreasonable?”
There was silence down the line for a beat and then he replied, “Right. Sorry. It’s just, you didn’t come home…”
She turned her back on Ajay and spoke quietly. “We’ve talked about this. I’m not one of your kids…”
A long sigh. “I know, I know, I’m sorry. It’s fine. I’ll see you later.”
Ajay was frowning at her when she turned back to him. “Everything all right?”
She puffed out a breath. “It’s fine. It’s my brother, he worries.”
Ajay nodded but didn’t press, and she was glad of it. They’d reached his car, parked around the corner from Coopers he was a victim the whole time I knew him and now he’s made a career out of it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ajay.
“Please don’t,” she said awkwardly. “It isn’t…
” Her brain squirmed as she tried to articulate her feelings.
She thought of the things that Margo would have seen in her line of work, real suffering.
“It’s such a first-world problem, you know, like, ‘Oh, boo-hoo, me, I’m a meme.
’ I’m embarrassed by how affected I am by it, and then I feel guilty because people are facing real problems every day… ”
“Hey,” he said, stopping her from giving examples. “If it’s a problem for you, then it’s a problem.”
They were quiet for a minute or two as they sipped their respective drinks and then Ajay said, “Would you like to join mine and Jared’s exile club? There’s just the two of us, and we are very picky about who we allow to join.”
She smiled. “I would be honored.”
“And I want you to know that your secret is safe with me.” He mimed locking his lips and throwing away the key and she laughed.
“Thank you.”
Mark came over and placed two fresh loaves in a paper bag down on the table and picked up their empty cups.
“Thanks, Mark.” She smiled up at him, but his return smile was half-hearted, and he hovered by the table.
“Listen, um, can I talk to you about something?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“I’ll give you guys some privacy,” said Ajay.
“You don’t have to,” Casey said at the same time Mark said, “Thanks.”
“I should get back for when the demon nephew awakes,” Ajay said, smiling at her. “I’ll leave your bike outside. Thanks for a lovely morning. I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah,” Casey replied. Her sense of disappointment at his leaving was unexpectedly keen. “See you.”
Mark waited until Ajay was out of earshot before saying, “I, um, I feel really awkward about going behind Nate’s back like this, but I’m not sure what else to do.”
She tried to ignore the sinking feeling that his words induced and asked, “What’s up?”
Mark focused on something across the shop when he spoke. “I can’t keep holding his place on the team; it’s not fair on the guy who’s been filling his position. You know me and Nate go way back and I’d never…but it’s been over a year and it’s not only down to me.”
Shit. “It’s fine, I get it.” Casey rushed to reassure him. Mark and Nate had been friends since university; he’d been a stalwart after Grace’s accident, helping with the funeral arrangements and fielding calls of condolence. “I’ll talk to him.”
“I’ve tried to broach the subject, but he’s stopped taking my calls. He barely even responds to texts since he pulled Conner out of training.”
Her confusion must have shown on her face. “He did what? When did this happen?”
Mark scratched his head. “Three, maybe four weeks ago. He said the other kids were playing too rough; he didn’t want Conner getting hurt.”
“I didn’t know that.” Her stomach began to swim with a sickly feeling.
“I kinda figured. Do you, um…” He looked down at his boots. “Do you know if he’s still having therapy?”
He used to have video calls with a therapist once a week, but she wasn’t sure if he’d kept them up. “I don’t,” she confessed, ashamed of the admission.
“No reason you should,” said Mark kindly. “But I think if he isn’t seeing someone, then maybe he should?”
“Yeah,” she agreed, wondering how the hell she was going to approach the subject with Nate. They used to be super close; there was a time when she’d have said they had no secrets between them, that no subject was off-limits, but somehow living in such close proximity had pushed them further apart.
“If you could just get him to call me, I’ll talk to him myself,” said Mark. “I really didn’t want to have to dump all this on you.”
“No, it’s fine. Thanks for telling me.”
Buoyed by her confessional with Ajay and rattled by what had followed with Mark, she decided she must take the bull by the horns, or rather the brother by the ears.
“Right!” she told herself as she waited at the traffic lights, “I’m just going to have it out with him.
It won’t be comfortable for either of us, but needs must. You’ve got this! ”
“You go, girl!” shouted the woman with her window wound down in the car next to her.
She let herself into Nate’s place and with a tight band of apprehension squeezing her chest she knocked on his office door.
No reply, and a sweep of the house showed it was empty.
In the kitchen she checked the schedule on the pinboard, which told her that he’d be out all day at client meetings and then off to the cinema with the kids after school and out for dinner with Sylvie and Ken.
The niggle of leaving the thing unresolved discomforted her, but to her shame it was far outweighed by her sense of relief at being off the hook for a little longer.
She sighed; this was her all over: avoid then regret, avoid then regret.
She was a woman perpetually burying her head in the sand, and the worst part was that she knew it and did nothing about it, which made her a coward too.
“Something’s got to give,” she told herself.
As she passed a mirror in the hall, she gave herself a stern look and said, “Do better!”