Ava
“Thank you.” I smiled up at Danny when he handed me a steaming cup of coffee. “I’m so sorry for dumping this on you. I didn’t know where else to go.”
Shaking his head, he scowled and perched himself beside me on the sofa. “As I said, it’s fine.”
Danny’s house was small, only partially decorated, and furnished simply. Most of the walls were unpainted, the skirting boards chipped and dirty, and the stairs showcased floorboards, eagerly awaiting carpet. There were very few furnishings or ornaments, and no photographs at all. To say Danny was always well presented and wore designer clothes, it struck me as odd that his living conditions were so very different.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked, pretending to be only half-interested in his answer. I concentrated on the cup in my hands and forcefully stopped my lip from curling at the few chips and cracks around the rim.
“Around five years.”
I didn’t let him see my shock. Although Danny’s house and his appearance were as different as chalk and cheese, both their characters were uncannily similar; neither gave anything away. From what I’d gathered within the short time I had worked for him, the staff at his hotel held him in high regard, but no one knew much about him. He had purchased the hotel only six months previous, and there was an in-staff joke that Danny Walker had been swept in on the first high tide of the holiday season.
“How’s your father?” I asked, feeling a little guilty that I hadn’t bothered to get to know anything about him.
“He’s fine. Doing much better now.”
He stood up and walked over to a decrepit old sideboard. The hinge was buggered on one of the doors, and he had to hold it up when he reached in and grabbed a bottle of brandy. There was no denying that Danny was good looking and I had been staggered to learn that, even though a couple of the housekeeping girls had come on to him, he never accepted any of their not too subtle invitations. Alongside the coming in with the tide joke, there was a rumour he was gay. I didn’t let on that thirty years ago he certainly hadn’t been gay.
I shifted awkwardly as my body reacted to the memories of the sex me and Danny had had. There was something wrong with me, for the past few weeks I was constantly horny. It didn’t help that the lack of a sex life for the last nine months was leaving me more and more frustrated.
“So, you never told me why you were back in Kirkingham,” Danny probed as he poured a substantial measure of brandy into my coffee. “Or are you on a secret mission with the government and following me?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be very good at my job if that were the case! For one, I’m currently sat in your house, and two, I made a crap job of hiding myself if you spotted me so easily on the harbour wall!”
Laughing, I winked at him and reached inside my bag for my phone when I heard the text alert.
Mason: You didn’t give me a chance to tell you why I came to the farmhouse earlier. I found Etta
I jolted upright, making Danny jump. “Everything okay?” he asked, trying to get a sneaky look at the screen.
Me: You found her! Yet you thought arguing was more important than telling me that! So, any news about our grandson?
Even via messaging, we couldn’t seem to stop quarrelling, and it was all becoming exhausting. My mind was too drained to reflect over Mason’s wild concept. Then, even if I was feeling lively, contemplating the method in his madness didn’t appeal to me either. Could he be right, that how Katie and George were conceived manipulated what kind of adults they became? That, because Mason and I fucked hard, our children’s hearts were born just as hard? If that was how it worked, then was every child born of rape and abuse destined to be serial killers or rapists themselves? Were all the offspring of the devout fated to become spiritual leaders or humanitarians? Bullshit!
“Ava?”
The sound of Danny’s voice brought my mind back into the room, and I stuffed my phone into my bag, deciding to call Mason when I had some privacy. “I’m sorry, I’m being rude.”
“Not at all!” Danny insisted. “I’m just worried about you.”
“Believe me, falling out with my husband is a regular occurrence. If I got upset every time we argued, I’d spend my life in a constant state of unhappiness.”
Sinking back into the sofa, he took a drink of his hot toddy before he tipped his head in thought. “If you’re always falling out, why are you still together?”
His question wasn’t one I could answer with the simplicity of words. There were so many layers to mine and Mason’s relationship that even the most intricate explanation would still be inadequate.
When I didn’t reply to his query, he snorted. “I suppose they say it’s passion that holds a couple together, and there’s nothing more passionate than a good fight.”
“Passion.” I rolled the word around my tongue and couldn’t help but smile. “We definitely have lots of that.” Although our marriage wasn’t passionate in the bedroom any longer, it was undeniably heated in many other areas. “It’s something neither Mason or I have ever been in short supply of.”
Danny smirked and nodded as he looked into the flames of the fire. “I remember the sex between us was certainly passionate.”
I wanted to snort but managed to keep it in. Yes, the short time Danny and I had been together the sex had been good, but I had to wonder what he’d think of how, not a few months ago, I had been living in a polyamorous relationship, and the sex had been off the charts.
Yet again, I found myself awkwardly turned on, and I quickly latched on to a new line of conversation. “Do you have any family, Dan?”
Like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room, Danny appeared to struggle to catch his breath for a moment. However, instead of answering me, he suddenly shot up and snatched my hand, pulling me off the sofa. “Let’s go clubbing!”
Startled by his rapid announcement, I gawped at him as I tried to remember if he’d been bipolar back when I knew him.
“Oh, come on, Ava. I’ve been so busy getting the hotel up and running that I haven’t been out for an age, and you could definitely do with letting your hair down for the night and forgetting all about your problems.”
It suddenly clicked why his home looked like a TV DIY show; he’d been so busy sorting out his business that his personal projects had had to be put on hold. If I had been any kind of friend, I’d have made sure I took time to learn that about him instead of judging him.
Mason’s words rallied around my head. ‘You always were fucking selfish.’
The tightening of guilt in my chest told me that maybe he was right, that I was a selfish person. I wasn’t sure how that made me feel. I’d never considered myself self-centred but, possibly, I really was.
That thought was why, looking at the hope on Danny’s face, I found myself nodding and agreeing to a night of drinking and dancing, and a night that changed everything.
♡
“Go!” Danny declared before I licked the salt from the back of my hand and downed another shot of tequila. The sourness of the lime made me shudder, and Danny laughed.
“I’ll never get used to that!” I grumbled as I washed the bitterness away with a gulp of vodka cranberry.
It was eighties night in the club, and I had danced until my legs could no longer keep me upright and sang along to each and every song until my throat was hoarse. However, when Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer began to play, Danny grinned at me, fisted the air and hauled me back to the dancefloor.
“Feeling better?” he asked as I forgot all my troubles and steadily became very drunk.
I nodded, pointing a finger at him. He was starting to become very bleary, and my mind hummed with the wonderful effects of alcohol. “You were right.” For three hours I had forgotten about Mason and what he had implied about our children. Unsure whether it was the booze or generally I was past caring, I flung my arms in the air and let the music wash over me.
“You should venture into the club scene,” I told Danny when he grabbed my hands and tugged me against his body so he could hear me over the distinctive tone of Erasure’s, A Little Respect. “It’s hard work but definitely worth it. And quite the money earner. Mason’s club brought in quite a bit of cash.” I cursed my loose tongue when I added, “And great for washing money.”
Thankfully – miraculously - Danny hadn’t appeared to hear the last part, and I relaxed again. He nodded and rested his cheek against mine to shout into my ear, “It’s worth a thought. Maybe you could run it.”
I laughed. “Now I definitely know you’ve had too much to drink.”
“It’ll be fun. Me and you. We could make it work!”
Nodding, I went along with his dream. He’d had so much to drink that tomorrow he wouldn’t remember a word. “Why not.”
“Good girl!” His grin was huge and infectious, and I couldn’t help but smile along with him. “Together again, Walker and Stone!”
“You make us sound like an upmarket furniture store!”
Danny, apparently finding that hilarious, held on to me as he doubled over with hysterics. His laughter was infectious, and the giggles took over. Struggling to keep them contained, tears rolled down my face, and we both held each other up.
“God, I missed you, Ava Stone.”
Suddenly the merriment was gone from his eyes, and he became serious, his stare growing warmer with each second that passed. Gently, he tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear, and I shivered when the faint touch of his fingers lingered on my skin. The room slid away, and the music became a muted background noise as the sound of my pulse throbbed in my ears.
It was crazy and so very foolish. As much as I knew what was about to happen was wrong, I couldn’t stop it. Whether it was the alcohol, or perhaps because of how much I had enjoyed the night and found myself relaxing, I couldn’t say. It may have been because for the first time in so long someone looked at me with need. Or that for a brief moment I just forgot who I was and how shit life was, but when Danny leaned in and kissed me, I kissed him right back.
His lips were soft, his kiss tender but strong, and his arms slid around my back, holding me up as the world disappeared and only we remained. I could taste the tequila on his tongue and the faint bitterness of the lime on his lips. My fingers clutched at his shirt as I bunched the material in my fists. The press of his body against mine gave away his erection, and I moaned into his mouth when he pushed harder into me.
It was only when his hand moved down my back and rested on my backside that I realised what the hell was happening.
I jerked back like he’d bitten me, and my fingers shot to my mouth like I could taste the blood on my lips. My heart stampeded so rapidly I thought I might pass out.
“No.” My head shook wildly as if I needed to act out the word and make him stop, make myself stop! “No.”
I left him staring after me as turned and did what I did best. I ran.