by Claire Raye
When the door opens, signaling the first of the lunch time customers, I look up, smile when Oliver and V stroll in.
“Lunchtime drinking on a school day, this is new,” I joke, reaching for a pint glass.
Oliver smirks at me as he sticks an unlit cigarette behind his ear and pulls up a stool at the bar. I slide the now full glass toward him before turning to V. She glances at her watch, shrugs before saying, “Sure, why not.”
After they’ve both got their beers, I lean forward on the bar, elbows resting on the polished wooden surface. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Oliver and V glance with each other, a weird look passing between them as though they are somehow telepathically deciding who should speak first.
I straighten. “Am I gonna need a beer for this or what?” I ask, breaking the silence.
“Probably,” V answers at the same time as Oliver says, “Fuck yes.”
I take a deep breath, pouring myself a pint before turning back to them. “Alright, hit me with it. What’s going on?”
V shoves a hand through her long hair, fingers running to the ends and twisting around the brown strands. “Joanna knows about Ava,” she blurts out, before lifting her beer to her mouth and taking a long sip.
I let out a long exhale. “Yeah, I know,” I reply. “She came in yesterday, you told me that,” I add, gesturing to Oliver.
“She came in,” he says. “But she didn’t mention Ava,” he adds. “Just asked where you were.”
I glance back at V. “So, what makes you think she actually knows about her,” I ask, even though I’d figured that’s exactly why she’d come in. Having not seen or heard from her in nearly a year, it’s not hard to guess why she’d suddenly show up again now.
V takes another sip of her beer, lowering the glass as she says, “Facebook.”
“Facebook?” I ask confused. “I’m not even on fucking Facebook?”
V nods. “I know, but Nick and Tony are, me too,” she says, with an apologetic shrug. “Guess someone posted a photo of you guys at the party the other week, mentioning that you were now married and somehow she saw it.”
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand across my jaw.
It was bound to happen, that she’d find out eventually. We were together on and off for two years and had too many shared connections, too many common friends that meant the news would inevitably get back to her. Breaking up with her hadn’t put an end to it, shit like that was hard to erase.
“Has anyone actually spoken to her?” I ask, glancing at V first and then Oliver.
He shrugs. “Other than yesterday,” he says. “Which was literally, no Lewis is not here, nope.”
I turn to V, watch as she pulls out her phone, scrolls through some messages before handing it to me. When I glance at the screen, I see it’s a text from Nick to her.
Nick: just ran into Joanna, she was losing her shit about Ava/Lewis. Saw the pics on FB. Knows they’re married. Does he know she knows?
There’s a bunch of messages after it, but I don’t read them, handing the phone back to V as she says, “She’s fucking pissed, Lewis. She’s been messaging everyone apparently, asking about how you met, how long you’ve been together, when it all happened, whether she got the ring.” V stops, takes another sip of her beer before continuing. “I mean she was always crazy.” She pauses. “Sorry,” she adds, giving me a quick shrug.
I shake my head. “Don’t,” I tell her, hand gripping my beer. “She was, still is.” I take a deep breath, running a hand through my hair. “So has anyone said anything to her?”
V shrugs again. “Nick says he didn’t bother responding, but who knows about anyone else,” she says. “Pretty sure some people still sorta talk to her,” she adds with another apologetic look.
“Shit,” I breathe out. “What do you think she’s gonna do?” I stupidly ask, as though they are the experts when I’m the one that was dating her for two years.
Oliver shrugs, glancing at V quickly before looking back at me. “Who the fuck knows,” he says, finishing his beer. “But if I was a betting man, I’d say she’s probably gonna show up here again.”
After Oliver and V leave, my regular staff and I staff push through the lunch crowd before the pub quiets down late in the afternoon. Around four, my parents walk in, hand in hand, laughing together and looking as though they’re newlyweds, not a couple that’s been married for over thirty years.
They’ve always been like this and it’s something I’ve always been used to. Something I’d always assumed was normal, until later when I realized how different my parents were compared to what the other kids I went to school with had.
Different because they never fought with each other, different in how cool they were about pretty much everything, including how much trouble I managed to get myself into. Neither of them got mad when I managed to get suspended at fifteen, nor did they react when I came home with my first tattoo at sixteen, or when they found it out was Oliver who gave it to me. They’ve always just been cool about everything, always letting me be the person I needed to be.
They were also the parents that stayed together, even after they’d married only fourteen days after first meeting. People always thought that was strange too, even if to me it was all just totally normal. I guess now it’s happened to me, I can understand it better. Maybe it runs in our genes, but whatever it is, me and my dad are exactly the same.
We don’t give a shit about what anybody thinks.
And we also fall hard and fast, and it seems, we fall forever.
“Hey,” I say, smiling as I walk around to hug them both.
My dad shrugs off his leather jacket, looking every inch the old, but still supremely cool rock star, the faded ink of a tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt, a silver ring in one ear lobe, more on his fingers.
Truth is though, he is cool, the coolest guy I know. I’ve always thought that about him.
I grab us all some drinks before we head over to a corner table to run through the books.
“Is Ava still working nights?” my mum asks as she slides into the chair my dad holds out for her.
“Yeah,” I reply, glancing at the time on my phone. “She’ll probably be awake soon.”
“Poor thing,” Mum replies, shaking her head. “Must be awful having to work like that.”
She’s always been the sympathetic one. The one who cares about everyone and everything. The one who rescues animals and volunteers at shelters. She’s the reason I have Daisy after Dad decided to finally put his foot down at dog number six being brought home.
Dad chuckles. “No different to working in a pub,” he points out.
Now it’s me chuckling. “Yeah it is, old man,” I tell him. “We’re actually on totally opposite time zones, because unlike me, Ava works all night.”
“Well it won’t be forever, right?” Mum continues.
I shake my head. “No, and I’m gonna hire another casual so I can cut back on my hours a bit,” I tell them, knowing neither of them will care. “Have a bit more flexibility to spend time with her.”
“Good,” Mum replies as we get down to business and start running through things.
About an hour later, I hear the back door open and turning, I see Ava, still half asleep as she wanders into the pub. She’s dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, clearly having just rolled out of bed and pulled on the first clothes she’s seen; her hair down and her face make-up free.
She is the most beautiful thing in the world to me.
I watch as she walks over to us, greeting both of my parents with a hug and a kiss before turning to me, a smile on her face.
“Hey sweet girl,” I say, wrapping my arm around her and pulling her into my lap.
She rests her head on my shoulder as she takes in the books and laptop on the table. “Am I disturbing you?”
“Absolutely not,” I reply, kissing the top of her head. “And we’re nearly done anyway. Do you want something
to eat or drink?”
“Why don’t we all have dinner before you have to go to work,” Mum says, smiling at Ava. She loves my wife, has from the second she met her. A part of me suspects she sees her as the daughter they were never able to have. Kinda how she always thought of V too.
Ava smiles as she sits up, sliding an arm around my shoulders. “That sounds great.”
“It’ll have to be here,” I tell them. “I gotta work.”
Ava heads back upstairs to shower and get changed while we finish off work stuff. When she comes back down, the four of us grab an early dinner while the pub is quiet and the other staff can cover things.
Afterwards, my parents offer to take Ava to work, waiting while she and I say good bye to each other.
Pulling her into my arms, I press a long kiss to her lips. “I’ll be glad when you working nights is over,” I say, my forehead resting against hers.
She smiles up at me. “I know, me too,” she says. “Only two more weeks.”
“Good,” I say, smiling. “Have a good night,” I whisper, kissing her again. “Love you.”
When the evening crowd hits, I’m distracted enough to forget about the time or the fact that I’ll be going upstairs to bed alone again. It’s steady all night, the pub filled with the usual mix of regulars and new customers.
Just as I’m sending most of the casual staff home though, my night quickly goes to shit when Joanna walks in.
I see her from the corner of my eye as I’m serving someone. Watch as she walks in without a care in the world, as though this is a year ago when we were still seeing each other and not now when I can’t stand the sight of her.
She pulls up a stool at the end of the bar, sitting alone as she waits to be served. I could easily send someone else to take care of it, but what’s the point when I know she’s only in here to speak to me.
I’d rather just get this shit over and done with, because I know exactly how it’s going to go. The same way it went every other time we’d broken up and she’d disappeared and done her own thing, only to change her mind and come crawling back.
It was always a tear-filled apology. For cheating, for lying, or for whatever else she’d done to piss me off. And I was always the stupid idiot who took her back. Every time.
It annoys me now, to look back at my relationship with Joanna, to know that I fell for her bullshit so many times. Fills me with regret that I kept putting up with it too. I don’t even know why I did, when I never actually loved her.
Yeah there was an attraction there between us, I can’t deny that, but it was a connection that wasn’t anything deeper than sex a lot of the time. We shared a lot of common friends too and maybe that helped, made it seem like more than what it was.
But I know that when I first saw Ava, this beautiful woman, alone in my pub, that as much as I was attracted to her physically, there was something else there. We might not have talked much about our lives in those first three months, but I could tell from the second she started giving me shit that first night in my pub, she was so much more than just a good fuck.
Ava had been so different to Joanna, to what I’d had with Joanna. No pressure and no expectations. She just…she just changed my life that night in so many ways and I didn’t for a single second regret asking her to stay or marrying her.
I got it now, everything my dad had told me.
Taking a deep breath, I walk down toward Joanna, stopping in front of her, hands on the bar. I don’t bother smiling and I don’t bother asking what she wants to drink. I feel nothing for her anymore and it’s a relief.
“Hi,” she says, smiling up at me as she leans forward on the bar.
“What are you doing here?”
Her eyes flick to my left hand, to the ring and tattoo of Ava’s name, both of which are clearly visible on my left hand, before moving back to my face. Her smile doesn’t disappear, but I do notice she has to work to keep it there.
“So it’s true then?” she asks, nodding toward my hand.
“It’s none of your business actually,” I tell her, not moving.
Joanna takes a deep breath before letting it out as an exaggerated, but frustrated sigh, something I used to hate when we were together. “Don’t be like that, Lewis,” she says, sliding a hand toward mine. “I was only…”
I snatch my hands away so she can’t touch me. “You were prying for information that’s got nothing to do with you,” I say, cutting her off. “We aren’t together, Joanna, we aren’t even friends, so cut the shit.”
She pouts now, sad eyes looking up at me. “But we were together,” she says. “For two years, Lewis. You can’t just forget about something like that.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “I can actually,” I tell her.
A look of hurt flashes across her face and I try to find some sympathy, but don’t. Instead, all I can remember is all the times she hurt me; with her lies, her cheating, her pressure and her expectation that I just give her everything she fucking wanted.
I realize now how different that was to what I now have with Ava. Ava; the woman who never asks anything of me or expects anything from me either. Nothing except my love, which is so fucking easy to give to her.
“Why are you here?” I eventually ask, just wanting to get this conversation done so she can leave me alone.
Joanna fidgets, her eyes flicking around the room before settling back on my face. “I miss you, Lewis,” she says, her words quiet. “I miss what we once had.”
I let out a hard laugh. “You miss it?” I ask, incredulously. “What exactly do you miss, Joanna? Cheating on me, lying to me, fucking me around or was it the money? Tell me, please, because I’m dying to fucking know.”
“It wasn’t always like that,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “It was, you know it was,” I tell her, my words like ice. “And I have zero interest in ever going back there.”
Joanna stares back at me, her eyes shining with tears, her attempt to somehow make me feel bad or feel sorry for her. Neither works.
“Just tell me what she has that I don’t,” she whispers. “What is so special about Ava?”
Just hearing her say Ava’s name makes my blood boil in anger, a harsh fury coursing through my veins and looking for an out.
“Get out,” I say, my voice quiet but the request loud and clear.
“Lewis,” she pleads, standing.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out,” I repeat. “I don’t ever want to see you again,” I say, my eyes locking with hers before I turn and walk away, hoping to fuck she pays attention for once.
Chapter Eighteen
Ava
We’re back to shooting days on the set and today is one of the biggest scenes of the movie so far. Tensions are high and the set is buzzing with the quiet hum of conversations. The lead actress, Elizabeth Hutton, is a Hollywood veteran, meticulous and professional, but she’s now on her tenth take and we’re only an hour into our day.
Noel has stormed off the set for a third time, but not before letting out an expletive-laced rant about the lead being a washed up has-been. Twice I lured him back out, but this time Sadie has stepped in and given they’re currently debating a consensus one-sided divorce, I can’t imagine it will go well.
Each time he walks back on set it feels like it should all be happening in slow motion with the Toadies “Possum Kingdom” playing as the backdrop to his wrath. Every person tenses, a collective breath held as we all wonder who will be the subject of his next rant.
I know I don’t have to be here. Lewis has repeated it multiple times and there are many days where I should just walk away. The manipulation and abuse of power on this set are far worse than I’ve ever seen, but walking away could mean suicide for my career. There’s not a chance Noel would let me leave without trashing my name to anyone and everyone in the industry. Even a recommendation from Julia Harris couldn’t save me.
This job doesn’t have to be permanent, but I do need to see it through until the filmi
ng ends.
A door slams and everyone’s eyes shoot in the direction of the noise, but Elizabeth remains on her mark. She hasn’t moved from that place since Noel stormed out. I can tell she’s growing impatient with his demands and his childish behavior.
He’s changed the script on the fly, he’s asked her to adapt and re-shoot to the point of exhaustion, and she’s done it, but on this last one, she argued back.
My jaw is clenched as I watch him walk back on set with Sadie following behind. Neither looks like anything has been resolved, if anything I’m sure there’s only been more fuel added to the fire.
Noel begins barking orders as soon as he flops his defiant ass down in his chair, almost every order is barked at me.
“Ava!” His words are sharp and his tongue rough, and he barely takes a breath as he speaks. “Get me an ice coffee with two cream and two sugar and do it now. Return with the list of actors that read for the roles of James and Lucy. Everyone, so I hope you kept track of where you put those notes. Cancel my call at three and my dinner at eight because there’s no fucking way I’ll ever get through this shit today in time.”
He halts for a split second and before I can leave the set, his voice booms even louder. Rising from the chair, he points a finger at Elizabeth and his tirade begins.
“And you!”
There’s a small bookcase, a desk that’s decorated as if it belongs in someone’s office, a fake window with a backdrop of the ocean, and if I didn’t know I was on a movie set it would feel like I were standing in someone’s home office.
But what comes next is something that may happen in someone’s home, but with an audience this size, it’s unheard of.
Everyone on set stands mesmerized yet terrified of what is unfolding in front of us. Stunned into silence by just his actions as Noel walks over and swipes an arm across the desk, scattering papers and sending books flying onto the floor. Papers float down like feathers, books hit the floor with a thud, silencing anyone who may have even thought it wise to utter a peep.
