Illicit Affairs by Holly Dixon
Twenty-Four
“Oh, my fucking God!”Ava squawked, recoiling back from him as her mind spun at a million miles per hour. It was in this moment of chaos that her mind was able to rationalise every detail of the last few weeks. “Dinner! You and my father were talking about her at dinner! I thought you both were talking about your boat sailing the Italian coast, not your bloody wife!” Bile was rising in her throat as she gripped her hair, her chest heaving with shallow breaths as the illusion between them wilted like a dying rose.
“Ava, if you’d just let me explain it’s not as bad as—”
“Don’t you bloody dare tell me it’s not as bad as it seems!” she squealed, pointing a finger at him with a look that could kill.
“Will you keep your damn voice down!” Nate hissed, his hand grabbing hold of her elbow and yanking her away from the door. “Look, if you would just let me explain I—”
“Are you married, yes or no?” Ava cut to the chase, peeling his unworthy fingers off her elbow and socially distancing herself from the man she thought she knew.
“Yes, but it’s not a serious marriage.”
“So, you are legally separated then?”
“No…not exactly…” Nate hesitated, a deep frown setting into his forehead and creasing the bridge of his nose. His stomach sank and his guts twisted as he watched the betrayal steal the light from her eyes. He would give anything to ignite that fire again, so he stepped towards her but nearly felt his knees give way when she took a step away from him like his very presence repelled her.
“Do you fuck her?” Ava asked, her hands by her sides and balled into little fists. When Nate didn’t answer straight away, she had her answer and snarled angrily as she stormed towards him and shoved his chest. “You vile man!”
“It’s not like that! We haven’t fucked in months, maybe even years—I’ve lost count! Just hear me out, please!” he pleaded, reaching for her again, his hands cupping her upper arms, desperately trying to calm her down so she could just hear him out. He had to make this right.
“Get your hands off of me!” Ava bit back, slapping his hands away from her body. “You’ll never touch me again.”
“Ava…” Nate implored her; the corners of his honey eyes turned down as he all but whimpered for her to just listen, but he knew that was impossible. She wasn’t the type of woman to sit down and have a rational talk; she was chaos and fire suspended in flesh and bone. However, then she charged towards the door and yanked it open, instilling panic in him. “Where are you going?!”
“Home.”
“What? Ava, wait!” But it was a useless feat as she stormed up the hallway towards the busy department. He wanted to rush after her to fix this, but he couldn’t risk making any more of a scene and inevitably had to let her go. “Fuck!”
Ava knew if she didn’t get out of this place right now, she was going to throw up. Her mind ached as she grabbed her things in a hurry and rushed towards the elevators. It was her dramatic exit that caught her best friend’s attention as a brown bob peeked up from the desk.
“Lass? Ye alright there?” Sam asked, her face a picture of concern.
“Yes, I’m fine, sorry you’ll have to excuse me.” Ava sniffled, stepping into the elevator, grateful that the doors pinged shut just as her best friend rose to her feet. She had had enough lies for one day and couldn’t stand lying to Sam’s face about the sin she had committed.
For Ava,the worst part about all of this wasn’t that she felt foolish for not seeing the warning signs, but that she had been lied to. If she had known he was married, she would never have had such sinful intentions, but the choice was never given to her. He left her in the dark and hid the truth away from the light.
Her mind was a foggy turbulent sea, conflicted over the feeling of loss, and yet how could she grieve for such a thing? This wasn’t the beginning of the end…there was never a beginning with Nate.
Ava did what any self-respecting woman would do in her situation—she turned to therapy.
The green bottle glugged as tasty burgundy licked up the sides of the large gin glass while she lowered into a squat to become eye level with her wine and get her money’s worth.
Her grey onesie hugged around her body, her work attire out of sight and out of mind, although, there was a moment where she was tempted to toss her work clothes onto an open fire and burn the evidence of her ever touching a married man.
Padding her way into the living room, she set the bottle of wine down onto the coffee table and took comfort from the soft piano music filling her spacious apartment. However, just as Ava sat down and placed the glass to her lips, ready to embrace the fruity aromas, the front door rattled against its hinges as though the hordes of hell were trying to invade.
“Oh, fuck me,” she groaned, setting the glass down next to the bottle and making her way to the front door. “I’m coming, for Christ’s sake!”
When she opened the door, she realised it wasn’t hell trying to invade, it was the Scottish.
“Can you not answer your bloody phone?!” Samantha shrieked in the hallway outside Ava’s apartment before storming inside. Ava rubbed at her tired eyes, closed the door behind her, and followed an angry lass into her living room. “I tried everyone, even Trinny and Sue—hell, I even rang the bloody hair salon! You had me wanting to call Scotland Yard and put out a missing person rep—” Sam stopped short with her coat hanging off of her arms as she saw the bottle of wine on the coffee table and looked back to Ava with a grave expression on her face. “Shit…what’s happened, hen?”
“Nothing,” Ava mumbled, her eyes bloodshot, but that was from the wine and definitely not the three hours she spent crying like a drunken and emotional fool…
“Aye, like hell it’s nothing!” Sam challenged, knowing her friend well enough that when she acted prim and proper with the “you’ll have to excuse me” chat that something was most definitely wrong. She sat down on the sofa and pointed up at Ava. “Your lips are stained and you’re drinking wine out of a gin glass from a bottle that is…” She picked up the bottle and gawked at the label. “Bloody Nora! It’s fifteen-and-a-half-percent strength! Who the hell died?!”
Despite Ava feeling numb from emotional exhaustion, she found herself chuffing at her friend’s outburst as she slumped down onto the sofa beside her and buried her face into Sam’s shoulder.
“No one died, only my tolerance for men,” Ava whined into the thick knitted jumper she had more or less face-planted.
“Is this about Peter?”
That wasn’t a name Ava had expected to hear, but as she looked up at Sam with glistening eyes, it wasn’t because her friend had almost hit the nail on the head, but because Ava wanted nothing more than to pour her heart out to her friend but couldn’t for her own shame and pride.
“Yeah…” Ava lied, hiding her face back into her friend’s side and taking comfort from the warm amber notes of her perfume. “You know, I tried so hard this week, reduced myself to nothing more than an attention-seeking whore and it all just came back to bite me on the arse, and now I feel…I feel…” She tried but couldn’t push the words past the bitter lump in her throat as her voice croaked. She felt degraded.
“Lovely, we don’t have to talk about it right now,” Sam soothed, her hand running down her friend’s hair as concern creased the space between her brows.
“Thank you, I just want to get drunk and forget about everything.”
“Aye-aye, captain! I have just what the doctor ordered.” Sam beamed, pushing Ava back slightly and smirking down at her with a mischievous wiggle of her brows. “We’re going out-out.”
“No.”
“Shut it, ya tit, we’re going out! It’s your birthday tomorrow”—Sam was interrupted with a whine that she ignored—“and in case you forgot, we still need to celebrate my promotion so we are getting dressed up tonight, no boys allowed, just dancing, cocktails, and bitching about menstruation!” she denounced but halted as she finally pulled out the object that had been prodding into her back for the past few minutes. From between the cushions of the sofa, she produced an empty bottle of red that made Ava give her a sheepish look. “And you call the Scottish a bunch ae alcoholics, ye wee fud!”