Chapter Four #2
‘Saving her life didn’t get you on a first-name basis, huh?
’ Mark shakes his head mockingly, then gestures between them.
‘Lissa, Ash, Ash, Lissa. Lissa, Ash doesn’t usually hang out much in Bath, but apparently makes a habit of saving random women when he’s here.
Ash, Lissa is the girl who has finally agreed to go out with me, and who may or may not refuse to ever see me again outside of work after this disaster. ’
They both laugh – Lissa wonders if Ash is only doing so because it seems expected. She doesn’t think so. He has the type of laugh that sounds like it comes easily.
Ash, she thinks. Well, at least he has a name now.
His head is cocked as he studies her. ‘Lissa.’ He says her name like he’s trying it out, considering whether it fits her. Bizarrely, she wants to know if he thinks it does.
Mark kisses her cheek, another of those easy gestures. ‘I’ll be back.’
And she has no choice but to stay, given that he is already clambering his way over the bench, even though she still hasn’t said what she wants to drink.
When he’s gone, there’s a beat of quiet.
She gets out her phone, but unhelpfully there are no new messages to answer urgently, so all she does is lay it on the table between them.
On the bench next to them, a girl shrieks as one of her friends drops an ice cube down the back of her top.
It’s a younger crowd than she’s used to – she wonders why Mark chose this place.
‘So,’ Ash says, breaking the silence between them. ‘The famous Lissa.’
‘Famous?’
Another of those crooked smiles. ‘Mark may have mentioned you a couple of times.’
The idea makes her insides squirm. She can’t work out if it’s a good feeling or not. She glances to the door, but can’t see the bar from here. She looks back at Ash. ‘And you are …?’
He shakes his head mockingly. ‘Don’t tell me you suffer from short-term memory loss as well as terrible scootering abilities?’ He points a thumb to his chest. ‘Ash.’
‘Mm,’ she agrees. ‘Ash. Saver of lives, stealer of scooters.’ He grins, and she feels her own lips pulling up in response. ‘But apart from that …?’
He shrugs. ‘I’m a friend of Mark’s. We went to secondary school together.’
‘Oh good. He’s not just picking up random men in bars while he waits for a date with me.’
He smiles again. It’s a nice smile, she decides.
Not as straight or white as Mark’s, but there’s something about the crookedness of his mouth that’s …
endearing? Sexy? No. Not sexy. She probably shouldn’t be thinking of Mark’s friend’s mouth as sexy – she’s been out of the dating game a while, but she’s almost definitely sure that’s against the rules.
‘So.’ He takes a pull on his beer. ‘Make a habit of falling off scooters in general, or was that just a one-off?’
‘Oh all the time,’ she says with a wave of her hand. ‘Not just scooters, though. Bikes. Tricycles. Skateboards. Really anything with wheels. As long as it’s something I can throw myself off at the feet of strangers, I’m there.’
He laughs, and she notices the way his eyes seem to lighten as he does. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yep,’ she says lightly. ‘So don’t consider yourself special or anything like that.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ He considers her for a moment. Then, ‘I returned it, by the way.’
‘What?’
‘The scooter. I figured you’d get charged if I didn’t.’
‘Oh.’ She’s momentarily stumped by the kindness of the gesture. ‘Thank you. That’s really …’ She sighs. ‘I am sorry, you know. I didn’t mean to shout at you. It was just …’
‘A bad day?’
‘Yeah. A really bad day.’
He’s looking at her in a way she recognises, like he might ask what’s wrong.
Or what was wrong, perhaps. His head is slightly tilted, the weight of his focus heavy on her.
She needs to distract him, because she really doesn’t want to talk about it.
She doesn’t want to explain the relevance of that date or why it has a tendency to send her off the deep end.
The anniversary of your little sister’s death isn’t exactly a conversation starter, is it?
Besides, Mark himself doesn’t even know about it, so she hardly wants to be discussing it when he comes back.
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Why can’t she think of a damn thing to say – is she really this terrible at small talk?
Then Ash smiles, and the intensity in his gaze is lost. ‘So. You work with Mark?’
She lets out a long exhale, grateful for the change of subject, whether it was intentional or not. She nods, feels like a nodding dog and stops. ‘Yep.’
‘Digital marketing, right?’
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘What’s that like?’
‘Umm, very … digital,’ she concludes with a nod. He laughs. ‘And you?’ she asks. ‘What do you do? You don’t live in Bath?’
‘Nah. I move around a fair bit. I’m in Belgium at the moment – just stopped by for a couple of weeks to visit Mark. And my dad,’ he adds, almost like an afterthought.
Lissa raises her eyebrows. ‘Belgium?’ He laughs, and she realises it’s probably because she made it sound like she could never imagine anything as unlikely as living in Belgium.
‘Yes. Belgium.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I’m a location scout – for music videos, mainly.’ He takes a sip of his beer as he says it.
‘A location scout? I’m pretty sure I have zero idea what that is.’
He grins. ‘It means I try and find the best places to film music videos. I speak to the director and the artist to find out the vibe, then look for somewhere that matches up to it. Then there’s a bunch of boring logistical stuff like working out parking and electricity access and so on.’
‘Wow. That sounds pretty cool.’
‘Yeah, it is. Means I get to do a lot of travelling, which I like.’
Lissa nods, as though she knows exactly what it’s like to love travelling, when her last trip abroad was after her A levels with Mia, to Lanzarote of all places.
‘The life of a nomad, this one.’ Lissa jumps as Mark comes up behind Ash, clapping him on the back. She hadn’t noticed him crossing the garden. ‘No responsibility, going wherever the wind takes him.’ He sighs dramatically. ‘The life so many of us crave and aren’t brave enough to go for.’
Ash rolls his eyes good-naturedly as Mark moves round to sit next to Lissa, sliding a gin and tonic over to her. A good guess, she concedes, made easier by the fact that they spent their last date, if you could call it that, in a gin bar.
‘So where’s the best place you’ve ever filmed?’ she asks Ash.
‘God, so many. There was this really cool run-down house in Wales where we did a shoot for an up-and-coming artist. It was all about her letting loose, and it worked so well. We did a great one on some cliffs in Ireland. And there was this big-budget project I was hired for once where they wanted to film on a rooftop overlooking the Paris skyline. That was pretty incredible.’
Mark shakes his head. ‘Paris, mate. Could you be any more clichéd?’
Ash only shrugs and grins, as Mark gets out his phone, frowning at something on the screen.
‘Have you ever been?’ Ash asks her, saving an awkward silence. ‘To Paris?’
She’s back there, then. In that café, on that street, with that man.
Only it’s not the same day. It’s dark outside, and the door to the café is shut, curtains mostly drawn, while live music plays in one corner and one of the owners walks around topping everyone’s glasses up.
He’s there, next to her, his hand pressed lightly into the small of her back as they chat to another couple.
She doesn’t want to be chatting to them.
She wants to be talking to him and only him.
His thumb moves, travelling a small circle over her back, and even though she doesn’t look at him, trying very hard to nod and smile in the right places, her insides tighten and coil.
‘Lissa? You okay?’
She blinks a few times. It’s Ash, rather than Mark, asking the question, Mark still looking at his phone. She swallows and nods, taking a sip of her gin. What was that? It was so vivid. Was that part of her dream, a piece of it she’d forgotten?
‘No,’ she manages. ‘I’ve never been to Paris.’ She wonders why it feels like a lie.
‘Sorry,’ Mark says, setting his phone down. ‘Just work.’ Lissa wonders what can be so important at past 6 p.m. on a Friday, then remembers that Mark, unlike her, has a long-term game plan at the agency.
‘You staying for one more, mate?’ he asks Ash. Lissa notices, though, that he didn’t get another pint for Ash while he was at the bar.
Ash smiles. It’s only when he looks at Mark that she realises he’s been holding eye contact with her all this time. ‘Nah. You were right, I only had time for one anyway.’
‘Ah, yes. Don’t want to be late for abseiling tomorrow morning.’
Lissa makes a spluttering noise that is definitely not attractive. ‘Abseiling?’
‘At the Cheddar Gorge caves,’ Ash says with a nod. ‘Never done it before and I’ve got time before my flight, so I thought, why not?’
Lissa can think of plenty of reasons why not, but decides not to voice them right now.
Ash drains the rest of his pint, then sets it down and gets to his feet.
He smiles. ‘It was nice to meet you – again – Lissa. Now I know whose life I saved that day, it’ll stop the sleepless nights, wondering what happened to her, whether my heroic gesture was all in vain. ’
She snorts out a laugh before straightening her face. ‘Now you know,’ she agrees. ‘Consider this damsel no longer in distress – all thanks to you.’
He gives her a wry look. ‘You didn’t seem very damsel-like when you were yelling at me.’
‘Let me know when you’re visiting again, yeah?’ Mark says, perhaps a bit louder than necessary.
‘Sure.’ Ash winks. ‘You two kids have fun.’ And with that, he turns, taller and more broad-shouldered than he seemed sitting down, and strides towards the exit.
‘So,’ Mark says, and Lissa pulls her attention back to him. He takes her hand, links her fingers with his. ‘Tell me about your day.’
Oh good. Her favourite question.