“Tomorrow?” I ask myself, seeing her disappear into her office. “Tomor... oh no.” It’s Friday. She thinks she’s going out with Kate tonight. “Over my dead body.” Visions of wine and a stumbling Ava is suddenly all I can see. Drunk Ava. Reckless Ava. Vulnerable Ava. “Not happening,” I say to myself, starting my car and performing a quick three-point-turn in the road. I cruise past her office slowly, looking through the window. She’s already at her desk. Head down. Pen in hand. I roll to a stop, trying to conjure up a viable excuse to stop her going out tonight.
You’re being unreasonable, Ward.
“I don’t think I am,” I say quietly, drumming the steering wheel. The last time Ava was let loose with too much alcohol, her ex made a pass and she was in no fit state to fight him off.
She also told you she loves you.
That part was nice. A shocker, but nice.
She also promised you she wouldn’t drink tonight.
I laugh out loud. I’m not stupid. I know a lie when I’m being told one. She was appeasing me.
Beep! “God damn it,” I mutter, looking up at my rearview mirror, finding a dustbin wagon up my arse. I speed off down Bruton Street, trying to figure out how I can change her mind.
Sarah’s coming down the steps when I pull up at The Manor. Does she have a fucking radar on me? Some papers are thrust against the window, and soon after, her indignant face. Fuck me, I’m pretty sure if those lips met the glass, they’d spread to each edge. “The chef wants approval today,” she says, moving back when I open the door to get out. I take the menu. “And Ken wants to talk.”
“Not interested.”
“And you signed the wrong section of the accounts.”
“I did?”
“And John’s got a leak in the plant room again.”
My shoulders drop.
“And Mario wants your approval on the anniversary cocktail.”
Fuck this. I stuff the papers back into Sarah’s chest and head for the garages.
“Where are you going?” she calls, tottering after me. “We have work to do.”
“You have work to do. I’m taking the day off.”
“Again?”
I don’t entertain her, opening the doors of the garage with my fob and grabbing my helmet. Today is shit already. I need to rectify it.
“You’re wearing a suit,” she goes on, prompting me to shrug off my jacket and dump it on a nearby shelving unit. “Jesse, I can’t do everything myself.”
“I pay you good money to do all the things, Sarah. You always managed fine when I was in an alcohol-induced coma.” I shove my helmet on and straddle my bike.
“That was different. You were incapable.”
“I’m incapable now.” I kick the stand up and start the engine, revving loudly. “Or was it because you knew where I was all the time and now you don’t?”
“What?” she yells, scowling fiercely, her hands over her ears.
“Never mind.” I speed away, the front of my shirt sticking to my chest, the back ballooning.
You should wear leathers too.
I twist the throttle harder.
I kill a couple of hours in the countryside before collecting my car and driving back into the city, and I only just manage to hold myself back until after lunch to call Ava.
The endless weight across my shoulders alleviates immediately when she answers. “I like,” she says. The ringtone. She likes the ringtone I chose. And she hasn’t given me a hard time for invading her phone.