Ava
The alcohol wreaked all sorts of havoc in my mind. Caleb and I were at the bar until as late as they were willing to serve us and we spoke about everything and nothing and all things in between. Seeing Caleb again was nice. It was so nice, in fact, that by the end of the night I had gotten lost in his dark eyes, in the way he pulled up only one corner of his mouth when he was interested in what I was saying, in the way his suit clung to his shoulders.
Caleb was a good-looking guy. He’d always been hot but as he’d grown up he’d become more confident, comfortable in his own body, eloquent. It all added to the attraction and made him that much more handsome.
“I don’t know how to move forward from here,” Caleb said toward the end of the night. “With James, I mean. I realize you have a history but I really would have liked to get someone to look at the books.”
“Can’t you hire someone else?” I asked. Surely, there were many accountants in Tampa who were cut out for the job?
Caleb shrugged. “I can,” he said. “And it will probably come to that. I had just hoped that we could get this investigation going sooner rather than later. I’m the only one with a time issue – James trusts Amanda but I want to see if she’s involved before she realizes something’s going on.”
“She sounds like a bit of a shark,” I said. Not to mention the fact that she worked closely with the man I’d once loved. Being jealous would be childish. I didn’t know her and James had stopped being something to me a long time ago. It was just that… well, I was jealous.
Caleb chuckled. “She can be, but I’m biased. I really don’t like her so I’m prone to think she’s the problem.”
I shrugged. “You’re very personally involved. It’s hard to be objective about it.”
Caleb nodded. “Turns out you’re pretty closely involved, too.”
“Was,” I pointed out. “Fifteen years ago.”
“Yeah, it looked like that was what was going on in there,” Caleb said. “No hard feelings because what’s in the past stays there, right?”
I shook my head, embarrassed. He was right. We hadn’t exactly been mature. But I’d been caught off guard and judging by James’s reaction so had he. We hadn’t seen each other in so long, too, the whole thing had just been weird.
“Will you think about it?” Caleb asked, standing up. He offered me a hand. I took it and climbed down from the barstool, balancing on unstable legs. One Martini too many, then.
“I will,” I said. I wanted to do it for Caleb, if not for James. He seemed so much more worried about his friend’s company than James was. Caleb smiled at me.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.”
He leaned forward and kissed me on my cheek. He smelled like Hennessey and cologne, an intoxication combination. My skin was hot. I was faintly irritated. My body felt numb from the alcohol and my mind was clouded enough that my emotions were subdued.
“Tomorrow,” I repeated.
Caleb smiled at me, a dashing smile with teeth that had to have had help, they were that white. Why couldn’t I have fallen for someone like Caleb in all the time we’d been together in Apalachicola? Why did it have to be James? Caleb was a decent guy and he didn’t look like the type that would get rid of me just because I didn’t have enough money.
I watched him walk away before I turned and made my own way to the elevator in the lobby. I pressed the button for my floor and waited until the doors slid open. In my room, I stripped off my clothes and crawled under the covers, naked.
Yeah, Caleb would have been a better choice.
I hadn’t drawn the curtains and the moonlight fell in a block on my floor. I looked through the window at the night sky. Even with the alcohol in my system, with Caleb’s cologne still in my nostrils and the knowledge that he was a great guy, my mind drifted to James.
He’d looked like a vision today when I’d walked in, standing in that oversized office, dressed immaculately in a suit with the attitude like he ruled the world. James had always been a confident person. Money created a kind of stability that made the very rich seem invincible. James had that more than he’d had before.
Caleb had mentioned that James had broken away from his dad and created his own empire. I couldn’t remember what his dad had done, which line of work he’d been in. It was a big deal that James had broken away despite the pressure to be perfect.
I remembered his older brother vaguely; a snob that had created footprints so big James had had impossible shoes to fill in his father’s eyes.
What the hell was I going to do? My feelings, my dilemma, all of it felt far away. The alcohol kept the worst at bay. I closed my eyes and let the heaviness of sleep drag me under.
I was back in Apalachicola on Indian Pass Beach. It was early in the morning. The sun hadn’t peeked over the horizon yet but it wasn’t dark anymore, the earth expecting the pending dawn. Everything had a silver quality to it and the morning air was icy cold.
James was next to me. He was young, eighteen, only, his eyes a brilliant green against the monotone of beiges and grays that made up the beach front. He wrapped a blanket around me against the cold and pulled me against him. His body was a furnace, heat radiating off him and I pressed tighter against him.
He rubbed my back. His arms were around me and I felt safe in them.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said. “I don’t want you to leave me.”
James looked down at me and smiled. His eyes captivated mine and his smile was perfect, the kind you saw in a toothpaste ad. Everything about him was magic.
“I’m just leaving, baby, not leaving you.”
I shivered when he called me the pet name. He’d referred to me as Ava for most of the holiday.
“As soon as you’re done with school, you’re coming to me, right?”
I nodded. That was what we’d said. James pressed his forehead against mine.
“This isn’t goodbye,” he said.
I kissed him and he held on tightly.
“Promise?” I asked, breaking the kiss.
James looked at me with a frown. The wind picked up and whipped around us. He said something but the wind caught his words and blew them away.
“What are you saying?” I asked him again and again but every time he spoke his words were missing and I couldn’t hear what he said.
The wind blew harder, still, and bit by bit James started disappearing, pieces of him blowing away in the wind. I clutched onto his shirt, his arms, his waist, trying desperately to hold onto him but the wind grabbed pieces of him and pulled him away nevertheless, until I was alone on the beach, forgotten, the corners of the blanket flapping in the wind.
When I woke up I couldn’t breathe. I felt like the same wind in my dream was still blowing, taking my breath away. My chest ached, hollow and empty. I’d had dreams like this before but none quite as vivid. Never had it started from a memory, either. This time, I felt like I’d been forgotten all over again.
A sharp pain wedged itself between my ribs and I felt like I was going to tear apart. I got out of bed and shivered. I dug in my bag and found jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, and a jacket. I pulled my hair back into a short ponytail and put on shoes. I left the room and made my way down to the lobby. The same receptionist that had been on duty when I’d gone up to my room was still there, probably at the end of her shift.
When I walked outside it was still early – the sky had a silver quality to it and the air smelled like the night.
I turned into the street and started walking. I didn’t know where I was going, just that I needed to get out and breathe. I walked through the city. The streets were still asleep with barely any cars out. The buildings were tall, reaching in the sky like sentries all around me. I followed the street to the side of the hotel and reached white steps that led down to a walkway next to the river. There were no tourists, only a lonely jogger, his feet beating out a tattoo on the bricks as he passed. I walked to the white railing at the edge of the water. The water was clear and smooth as a mirror.
The dream was still with me. I couldn’t get rid of it – it was like slivers of the past still clung to me and I couldn’t shake them off.
I wanted to phone Hanna. She was an hour ahead of me so she would be up already. What would I say to her, though? I hadn’t told her about James. I hadn’t wanted to share that part of my life with her or anyone else. Going back hurt too much and telling her wouldn’t have gotten me anything other than a lot of questions.
I wish I had told her, now. I wanted to talk to her, to have her give me advice, maybe suggest what I could do. I didn’t want to leave Tampa. Not yet. It was great seeing Caleb again and there was something about him that intrigued me. I didn’t want to see James again even though my whole being ached for him now the way it used to.
I couldn’t do with that kind of heartbreak, not now.
But the job… it drew me the most. Something was going on and this was the kind of thing that really made me tick. I enjoyed a challenge and this would be the biggest one of my career so far. Getting to the bottom of it would be complete satisfaction.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and stared at the screen for a long time. Finally, I found Caleb’s number in my recent call log and waited for his phone to ring.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“I prefer an early start. I was hoping we could meet this morning and talk about Quad Corp again. I want to see what it is you’re expecting of me before I make up my mind.”
That, and perhaps see James again. Just one more time. Just to be reminded what a bad idea it was to see him again at all.