There was a break of a few minutes until the next text was sent.
Ava:Why did I agree to meeting with him on a Saturday lunchtime? He seems to think I’ve got all day to hang around and discuss his projects. If you get this in the next ten minutes can you call me and pretend there’s an emergency?
The message was sent three minutes ago. I hit dial.
“Hey,” she said, answering almost immediately. I heard Jon in the background but I couldn’t make out the words. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m at the hospital,” I said, looking round the bar and debating how many beers would be acceptable. “I’ve got pains in my stomach and they think it might be appendicitis.” It was the only thing I could come up with. My three sisters were all staring at me. It was a little like being watched by the three wise monkeys.
“Holy fuck.” Ava managed to sound terrified. “Are they going to operate?”
“I think so. They’re certain it’s my appendix.”
“Which hospital are you in?” she said, maintaining a high level of panic in her tone. I wondered if she’d had acting classes at some point as a child.
“I have no fucking clue,” I said quietly. “Whichever one you want me to be in.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in fifteen. Shit. I can’t believe this is happening. I’m really sorry, Jon…”
She hung up and I put my phone back down on the table, looking at the triple set of identical eyes.
“She needed an out of a business meeting,” I said.
A look passed between them, one that I read easily. They thought I was screwed.
We fell into a rhythm that felt as easy as the ebb and flow of the tide over the next few weeks. Most Fridays we’d be out together after work anyway; Ava would meet up with her siblings and half of Callaghan Green after work and we’d end up slipping off together. Saturdays were spent doing something together and Saturday nights I’d take her out to a restaurant or a club. Weeknights we tried to see each other and if we didn’t we’d Facetime. I learned to plaster and fit cupboard doors and together we looked up people with the same names as those we’d found in the baby’s book in the secret room.
It was more of a relationship than what I’d ever had with Andrea but I didn’t think about that. We both still agreed that it was temporary until – we didn’t know when. It just was and that was it.
“We were meant to be packing my wardrobe,” Ava said, none of her clothes currently on her body, although plenty were on her bedroom floor. “And Payton’s on her way round.”
“Cockblocked by your sister,” I said, pulling her down on top of me. Her heart was still racing and there were droplets of sweat on her back.
I had come round to help her pack as the house was due to complete at the end of the week, with Seph’s tenants moving in soon after. The packing hadn’t been as productive as it should’ve been and we’d ended up in bed after she tried to tie me – unsuccessfully – to the bedposts with her bras.
“There’s no way you could go again after that,” Ava said, nuzzling into my chest. “Not without some recovery time.”
“You’re questioning my super powers? I thought we’d come to the conclusion that recovery time was for wimps?” I relaxed into the mattress. “You need me to disappear while Payton’s here?”
I heard her groan muffled by my chest. “I suppose so. I think everyone bar her and Seph have worked out that we’re seeing each other.”
“I think you’re right.”
“And I’m about to go live with you for a couple of months.”
“You’re right there too.”
“You and Payton work together on a daily basis - closely. She’s my best friend. She’s going to be completely traumatised that we haven’t told her,” Ava said. She had become tense again.
I pulled a sheet over us and pressed my hands to her back. “She’s been engrossed in Owen. And work still.” Payton immersed herself in her job to the extent everyone had been worried about her burning herself out until she’d become friends with Owen. “Sweetheart, she will understand.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I shifted us so I could kiss her and the soft touch morphed into something more: gentle nudges and flickers from fingers that became slow love making. She murmured my name while I moved inside her and I felt like a superhero when she came, clutching my shoulders.
“You do have good recovery time,” she said softly, afterwards. “And I get this every night for the next couple of months.”
“All part of what’s included in your rent,” I said.
