Chapter Text
“Our 10-year plan is two kids, one dog, maybe a cat if it gets on with the dog and Aidan to go as far as he can with the MMA and then get into teaching martial arts, we’re thinking of moving just before the kids go to school so we get a better neighbourhood.”
“That’s nice, honey.” Deborah peers at the open document on her laptop.
“You could always come with us, you know, to be closer to your grandchildren. You think you’d ever move again Mom?”
“Mmm.”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“Sure I am honey.”
“Then what did I just say?”
“…”
“Thought so. I asked you if you’d ever move again, so we know for our 10-year plan.”
“No. This house is a bit cramped but it’ll do.”
“You never know what could happen in 10 years. You might decide you hate it.”
“I just told you we like it.”
A pause. “We?”
“Mmm?”
“Who’s we?”
Deborah finally looks up from the screen. “Who’s we what?”
“You just said ‘We like it’.”
Deborah looks down at her screen again. “I didn’t.”
“Yeah, you definitely did.”
“You need to get your hearing checked, honey, you’re getting to about that age.”
“You mean Josefina? I know she’s been with you forever but you can’t make major life decisions based on what your housekeeper wants.”
“You always have the best advice, sweetie, I’ll cancel the plan to have Damien select my next husband.”
DJ looks at her for a few moments. “Oh my God, did you mean Ava?”
“And Marcus is writing my will so I should probably see how that’s going.”
“We’re talking about 10 years from now and you’re thinking about Ava?”
“I wasn’t thinking anything of the kind and I’m trying to fucking work, go home.”
“Jesus Christ you really were, you’re getting pissed with me!”
“I am not. Getting. Pissed. Now fuck off.”
***********************************************************************************************************
“Hey guys, sorry I’m so late,” Ava says, “Marcus thought Barry might be sick but we decided he was just faking it for treats.”
“Babe!” says Kiki. “Come and sit down, I’ll deal you in. Deborah’s on a winning streak so watch out.”
“Are you sure Barry’s not ill, how do you know?”
Ava smiles at the concern in Deborah’s eyes. “He’s fine D, don’t worry, he perked up the minute we got the chew sticks out and then ran around the garden having the time of his life.”
“You can’t always tell just by looking. I’m going to call Marcus and check if he needs the vet.” She stands up and starts heading to the exit.
“Where are you going?”
“I just said, to call Marcus! The wi-fi is shit in here!” Deborah calls over her shoulder.
“You don’t need…” Ava trails off as Deborah walks out the casino door. “Never mind.”
“Oh my God pancake, Deborah really loves your new lady love, I’m so happy for you!” Kiki collects their cards from the last round and starts shuffling them.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your new girlfriend, Deborah just told me about her!”
“What? I don’t have a new girlfriend.”
“Noooo, she’s like thrilled for you, she was telling me all this stuff. I know that you met on your phone, how she came to pick you up in a red car.”
“A red…wait, do you mean Lucy? Deborah never even met her. And we went on one date and it wasn’t the worst date of my entire life but I think it’s fair to say she hated me to the depths of my very soul.”
Kiki stops shuffling the cards. “She never met her? I thought she really liked her. She said you were all over the place before the date, how sweet it was that you were so nervous.”
“She…that really doesn’t sound like Deborah, it may have been some kind of pod person.”
“Maybe she’s a secret romantic and she wants you to find true love.”
“Maybe she wants me the hell out of her house.”
“Okay yeah it’s definitely that one, I hear you eat like way too many pancakes, pancake.”
Ava looks up and sees Deborah walking back into the casino. “Look, don’t ask her about it, okay? She was probably just fucking with you.”
“No way, she was so positive about it.”
“Please just–” Ava shuts up abruptly as Deborah sits down next to her, smiling at them both.
“Barry’s fine, I face-timed him.”
Ava melts a little. “You face-time your dog?”
“Of course. Marcus holds him up to the camera. He was wagging his tail and he never does that when he’s sick.”
“That’s so great,” says Kiki. “Soooo, in other news…”
Ava shoots her a warning glare. Deborah takes a sip of her drink.
“Ava says she broke up with her girl.”
“Thanks, Kiki,” Ava says sarcastically. “You’re the best.”
Deborah turns to look at her, frowning. “You broke up? I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“You…what?”
“I was rooting for you guys.”
“Um…thanks?”
“You didn’t like her as much in person?”
“Well, it was not so much that and more the fact that she loathed me with every fiber of her being. Apparently I talk too much about myself.”
Kiki and Deborah exchange a look.
“It was a first date! You’re supposed to talk about yourself!”
“Tell me everything you learned about her,” Deborah says.
“Uh…she’s a plumber, I think, or maybe hired one for something recently? She likes music. Doesn’t like Trump. Didn’t eat all her salad. She…drives a red car?”
Deborah snorts with laughter.
“You should let me set you up with someone, pancake, I could find you a date no problem, you’re so pretty.”
Ava blushes slightly. “Thanks, but I’ve decided that the best course of action is to stay home and watch TV for the rest of my life. I might learn to knit.”
“No way, you’re so young, you just need a quiet lady who doesn’t mind all the noise.”
“Wow–”
“Kiki, set her up with someone,” says Deborah. “Someone who’ll like her.”
“Oooh this is so fun, I’ll find you someone really fab! You should send me a list of your likes and dislikes, not sexual stuff but stuff like brunette or blonde or whatever and I’ll find you a lady who likes cute redheads.”
Ava is listening to Kiki but watching Deborah. Deborah is looking only at her cards.
“You want me to get a girlfriend?” Ava asks.
Deborah shrugs. “Girlfriend, boyfriend, something in between, up to you. I just want you to be happy. I’m going to head home, you want a lift?”
“Uh…no, thanks, I’ll get an Uber.”
“Sure. See you later.”
“See ya.”
Both Ava and Kiki watch her leave.
“Okay, yeah,” says Kiki, “so that’s a confirmation on the pod person, pancake.”
***********************************************************************************************************
They hear her before they see her, bellowing at the nurses to find the right Goddamn room right now or find out what’ll happen to their jobs. Everyone tenses up – Marcus stands up and braces himself. Damien takes a deep breath. Ava sits nervously on the side of the bed, waiting.
Deborah bursts into the room, immediately looks for Ava and then stands staring at her, breathing heavily, for a very long time. Ava stares back.
“Hi,” says Ava when she can’t take the silence anymore. For some inexplicable reason she adds a little wave.
“What the hell is going on?”
“I’m fine, everything’s good–”
“Marcus said you’d been in a car crash!”
“I was in a car crash but–”
“THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PERFECTLY FINE?”
“Oh I’m sorry, were you hoping I’d be in a coma? I actually have a bruise where I hit my knee on the dashboard and there’s a pretty big scratch on the Mercedes, it’s not like I haven’t been through some things. They had to check I didn’t have a concussion. This jerk came out of nowhere and slammed right into me.”
“Driving five miles an hour,” Damien mutters.
Deborah stares at Ava for a few more moments before whipping round to face Marcus and pointing a finger in his face. “YOU! You told me she’d been in a car crash!”
“That is literally what the police told me, I passed on all the information I had and I sent you three texts 15 minutes ago when I saw she was fine.”
“YOU’RE ALL FIRED!”
Deborah storms out of the room. They sit there for a little while, silent.
“You think she meant me?” says Ava.
Damien rolls his eyes, gathers his stuff and leaves.
“No seriously, do you think that included me? I still can’t tell if she’s serious sometimes.”
“Yes, Ava,” says Marcus, “she definitely meant you. That’s why she came in here breathing like an asthmatic who’d just climbed Everest. Because she was so desperate to get to you so she could fire you. Go home.”
***********************************************************************************************************
“Oh my God! I’m so sorry Deborah, it’s so late, I thought you were…I’ll just go.” Josefina backs out of the room at top speed and closes the door.
Ava watches blearily as Deborah whips the covers off, gets out of bed and strides across the room. After rubbing her eyes and concentrating as hard as she possibly can with a brain that’s barely conscious Ava manages to realize four things.
First, they must have fallen asleep together after their Criminal Minds marathon.
Second, Deborah’s arm had been wrapped tightly around her waist until approximately 10 seconds ago.
Third, it had felt fucking amazing.
And fourth, this was very, very bad.
“Morning,” she croaks. She clears her throat and tries again. “Morning. Sleep well?”
No answer. Deborah’s sitting at her dressing table, rummaging noisily through one of the drawers.
“I guess you overslept, huh. What with the whole early bird greets the worm thing you’ve normally got going on. Though it’s more middle-of-the-night bird if you ask me. Five in the morning is inappropriate.”
The drawer is slammed shut. “Catches the worm.”
“Sorry?”
“The early bird catches the worm and fucking eats it, it doesn’t wave a cheery hello.”
“Right. Right. Gotcha on the worm wording. You know, this was probably my fault for making you watch four episodes in a row. Won’t happen again.”
Deborah starts brushing her hair with quick, forceful strokes. Ava watches her in dismay but can’t quite stop herself from poking the bear.
“Any chance of pancakes?”
“Go back to your room.”
“You’re being pretty snarky considering I almost died in a horrific car crash yesterday.”
“Ava! Go back to your fucking room.”
“All righty then, hard maybe on the pancakes.”
She reluctantly gets out of bed. Deborah still doesn’t turn around.
This is really quite bad.
And then she looks at the alarm clock and does a doubletake. The screen says 8:16am.
That can’t be right. She checks again. 8:16am, it says.
This is unprecedented in the whole time she’s known her; Deborah gets up at the crack of dawn, always.
Maybe she’s ill.
“Do you feel okay?” Ava asks.
No answer.
“Do you have a fever? It’s gone eight o’clock and you’ve usually been up for hours by now, this isn’t like you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Seriously though, you gotta watch any change in routine, I’m kind of worried about you. It could be the first sign that you’re coming down with something, I’m gonna Google it and–”
“If you’re still in my room in three seconds I’m going to tweet that photo of you drooling to every single person in your Facebook.”
Twenty minutes later Ava’s stood in the shower when it finally dawns on her that there’s actually another explanation to the whole “over-sleeping for three hours” situation.
Deborah ignores her completely for the rest of the week.
(And when Ava casually climbs into her bed one night and then sleeps there every night thereafter, she ignores that completely, too.)
***********************************************************************************************************
“Ow! Fuck.”
Deborah looks up from the kitchen table, startled. “What’s the matter?”
Ava walks gingerly towards her. “I fell asleep in my bikini and burnt my back. It’s killing me, I can hardly move.”
“How bad can it be, it’s May.”
“Have you never met a redhead before? We’re made of the finest gossamer fairy dust wrapped in tissue paper. We’re very flammable.”
“Drama queen.” She types a few sentences into the laptop. “What’s funnier, the bit about my psychic telling me she sees an antique dildo in my future or the bit about my boyfriend who could only get hard if he was upside down?”
“Dildo. Boyfriend was an asshole.” Ava very carefully sits down opposite her. “Could you put some lotion on my back?”
“You think all my boyfriends were assholes.”
“Well yeah, they were all assholes. Every time you tell me a story about one of them I want to go back in time and teach them how to treat a woman properly. And also punch them in the face.”
“First date, act like you’ve swallowed a vat of Red Bull and talk so much she can’t get a word in edgeways. Second date, be 50 minutes late because you were trying to juice a kumquat and spill your drink in her lap when you trip on the carpet. Third date, call her Brandy all night when her name is Diana and sneeze in her face while you’re making out.”
“That is so unfair, that was three separate women. Seriously, can you help me?”
“Just cover one palm in lotion, that’ll get most of it.”
“I can’t get my hand back there!”
“I’m busy, go ask Marcus.”
“You think he’s had his hands on a woman before? He’d probably faint.” Ava leans back in her chair without thinking. “OW! OW! Fucking hell!”
Deborah quickly stands up. “Get up, let me look at it. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.”
Ava stands up stiffly and turns around. Deborah carefully lifts her shirt. “Jesus Christ, you’re crispier than my husband’s tighty whiteys after his house burnt down.”
“I told you! Will you help me?” she says plaintively. “It really hurts.”
“Fine. Go get the lotion and meet me in our bedroom. I…”
She trails off into a thoroughly awkward silence. Fighting every single one of her instincts Ava lets her off the hook and heads off silently to get the aftersun. When she gets to the bedroom she hands over the bottle and then pauses.
“I didn’t put a bra on because of the pain.”
“What a fascinating nugget of information.”
“So if I take my shirt off I’m gonna be nude from the waist up, I wanna just make that clear so you don’t sue me for flashing my tits.”
Deborah shrugs. “Didn’t sue you the first time you flashed your tits. It’s that or I squirt it down the back of your shirt and roll you around on the carpet, pick a lane.”
Ava turns her back to Deborah and very slowly pulls the t-shirt over her head, wincing as it rubs against the burns. As she moves to lie down on the bed she sneaks a glance at Deborah, who seems to be reading the back of the lotion bottle.
“Ready.”
The bed dips as Deborah sits down beside her and then she can hear the bottle being opened and squeezed.
“Fuck that’s cold!”
“Shall I pop it in the sun for a few minutes?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Ow!”
“It’s going to hurt at first, there’s nothing I can do about it.” Her voice is tetchy but her hands are very gentle.
“Oh, okay, wow that’s working already. God, that feels good,” Ava murmurs.
“You don’t need to narrate the entire thing.”
“Can you go a bit lower? Mm, you’re being really gentle.” Ava smiles into the pillow. “I promise not to tell anyone about this, it would ruin your ball-busting reputation. That and the fact that you like Ted Lasso.”
“I do NOT like Ted Lasso, the dogs like it. They like to watch men with moustaches. Now be quiet.”
There’s silence for 30 seconds and then Deborah soothes a particularly sore spot and Ava moans out loud.
“I said be quiet!”
“I’m trying, it feels amazing.” She buries her head further into the pillow. “Mmmm, oh God that feels so good.”
Deborah immediately stops and stands up.
“No!” Ava whines. “Deborah, please–”
“You’re done, it’s done, it’s over, time’s up.”
Ava twists her head around to talk to her. “Woah, did you get sunburned by osmosis or something, your face is bright–”
“I said you’re DONE. I’m turning this light off so you don’t get cremated under the bulb.”
***********************************************************************************************************
“Why are you acting all shifty?” says Deborah, taking her eyes off the TV screen. “Crash the car again?”
“Can I have some money?” Ava says. “Like, a lot of it?”
“You get a pay check.”
“I need about five thousand dollars, it’s for your birthday present.”
“You need to investigate how birthdays work.”
“It’s something you’ll really like, I promise, I saw it in an antiques store and knew you’d want it but I have 32 dollars and 60 cents in my bank account. I asked if they’d consider a payment plan over two to three decades but they turned me down. Frankly they were a little rude about it.”
“You just happened to find this mystery object on one of your regular antiquing trips?”
“No, your birthday’s coming up, so…” Ava shrugs. “I’ve been scoping out the local antique stores.”
Deborah is silent for a long moment. “How were you planning to buy anything with 32 dollars?”
Ava grins. “My ingenious masterplan is currently being enacted in front of your very eyes. I tried asking Marcus to give me some money straight from your account and then you could just return this thing if you didn’t want it, but apparently that was a felony or some shit.”
Deborah looks at her with a slightly exasperated expression on her face, sighs and then takes out her phone.
“Are you transferring it?”
“I’m telling Marcus to do it.” She starts typing. “Give. Ava. Five. Thousand. Dollars.”
“You won’t regret it, I promise.”
Deborah’s phone buzzes with a notification. “Marcus wants to know what it’s for. Ava. Is. Buying. Me. A. Giant. Antique. Dildo.”
“You’ve spoiled the surprise! Although you’ve also told me your size preference which is actually really useful, duly noted.”
A notification buzzes again; Deborah takes one look at it and laughs.
“What did he say?”
“He just wrote ‘fine’. Which means he is categorically not fine with it but he doesn’t want to hear any more because he thinks it’s a terrible idea and he wants to say he told me so when it goes to hell.”
“That man has no faith in me.” She starts walking out the room. “Can I give it to you today if I go buy it now, I can’t wait a whole week for your birthday?”
“Sure. It’s best not to wait at my age anyway.”
“Deborah! Don’t say that.”
Two hours later Ava gets home and hands over a heavy plastic bag with a broad grin. “For the birthday girl.”
Deborah takes the bag and peers at it. “You didn’t want to wrap it properly first?”
“Nah.”
“All right.” She reaches into the bag and takes out a pair of ancient-looking salt and pepper shakers. “Oh. Well. Aren’t they…nice.”
Ava’s face falls instantly. “You don’t like them?”
“No, no, they’re very…pleasant. It’s just that they’re very similar to a pair I have already.”
“But I checked your display case, I swear, I couldn’t see anything like those.”
“I have a few more in the attic that you haven’t seen. And these are pretty common, they made thousands of them in the early 20th century so they turn up in stores fairly often.”
“Why are they in the fucking attic?” Ava says indignantly. “Why haven’t you put them on display like a normal salt and pepper shaker collector so a person can see them when they’re planning to be all thoughtful?”
“There’s no space.”
“Excuse me?! This house is larger than my high school, just buy another cabinet.”
Deborah bites her lip, hesitating. “There’s really no reason–”
Ava’s face falls even further. “Oh man, the attic ones are the ones you don’t like as much, aren’t they? And I’ve bought you some more shitty ones to add to the pile. Why’d you buy the shit ones if you didn’t like them?”
Deborah has the strangest look on her face; she almost looks guilty.
“Oh fucking hell, people gave them to you?! They did, didn’t they? You’ve had a lifetime of unwelcome pepper pot presents and I’m just another asshole who doesn’t know you at all.”
“You know me. You’re not an expert in antique condiment containers, there’s no shame in that. The dildo would have been more your area of expertise.”
Ava takes one of the shakers from Deborah’s hand and gazes at it miserably. “I was so hyped to see your face. Do you want me to return them? Get your money back?”
“No, I’ll find a use for them. They’re heavy, they’d make good doorstops. Or I might give them to the dogs, they enjoy having something to aim at when they pee.”
“Fuck you,” Ava says sadly.
The next morning Ava shuffles into the kitchen and eats her breakfast in depressed silence. It’s only when she’s leaving the room that she notices her salt and pepper shakers.
Which are on display in the kitchen cabinet, front and center.
***********************************************************************************************************
It’s the best time of day. Late evening, after all their work is done and Deborah’s just hanging out with her because she’s her very favorite person to hang out with.
They’re getting settled on the couch for a movie and she’s really fucking happy until she notices Deborah watching her intensely.
“What?” she asks, slightly self-conscious. “Did I get lettuce on my face again?”
“I thought you hated that shirt.”
Ava looks down at her new blue shirt. “I kinda did in the store, but then you bought it for me so now I like it.”
The expression on Deborah’s face changes but Ava can’t tell what she’s thinking.
“You wanna ditch the movie and just watch me? Because I’m down for that, completely, but I heard Cate Blanchett kicks ass in this–”
“I love you.”
Ava just looks at her. That had sounded like “I love you”, but said by someone who was kind of mad about it. As if she were telling her that she did, in fact, have lettuce all over her face.
Ava says, “Huh?”
“Can we just get it over with, can we please just…you’ve slept in my bed for weeks, we eat practically every meal together, you follow me around like a puppy, you’ve started drinking diet coke for God’s sake! Can we both just say the fucking thing so we can be together properly and get on with our lives.”
Ava has forgotten every word in the English language.
“Say it!”
“I love you!” Ava blurts. “I love you too!”
“Fucking finally. All right then. Jesus Christ.”
They sit in silence for a while, Ava gazing at her in awe.
“Stop that, it’s giving me the creeps.”
“Sorry.” Ava looks away for about three seconds and then looks back.
“You’re going to be a royal pain in the ass.”
“Like I wasn’t already? I think it’s adorable that you see drinking diet coke as evidence of my love for you.”
“Yes, well…”
“Good comeback.”
They’re quiet for a little while. Ava tries very hard not to stare at her. Instead she ever-so-casually reaches over and takes hold of Deborah’s hand.
They sit, holding hands, watching the movie. Ava can’t stop smiling.
“You probably think that was a shitty way to tell you,” Deborah says eventually.
Ava can hear the apology in her voice, even if it’s not explicit. “No, it was very romantic.”
Deborah scoffs.
“Okay, no, it was spectacularly unromantic, but it was very on-brand for you. Ya could’ve sounded a bit less grouchy about it though.”
“I’ll tell you again sometime and do it properly. I’m just tired of pussy-footing around it all the time.”
“Woah girl, that’s a fascinating choice of–”
“Don’t you dare!”
Ava mimes zipping her lips shut and throwing away the key. Deborah rolls her eyes.
“I was tired of it, too,” Ava says. “Everyone already knows anyway.”
“You told them?!”
“I didn’t need to! You just said I sleep in your room, we’ve hardly been hiding the fact that we’re into each other. Josefina saw us snuggling with her actual eyes. Kiki’s started calling me Mrs V ‘cause I turn down everyone she tries to hook me up with and stay in with you. And apparently you told DJ you had a plan to live in my house and adopt a 10-year-old cat together, but I wasn’t really listening ‘cause she kept going on and on and on.”
“We were sleeping in my room, nothing happened.”
“Well they didn’t know that. And it wasn’t nothing, there was definite cuddling on your part that time you didn’t let me have pancakes.”
“Whatever. As long as we’re on the same page.”
They watch the movie for a while, Ava sneaking little glances at her now and then.
“Hey,” Deborah says softly, squeezing her hand.
Ava turns to her and smiles. “Hey yourself.”
Deborah clears her throat and then clears it again much more dramatically, sitting forward a little on the couch and painting a look of extreme seriousness on her face. Ava grins as she realizes what’s happening.
“Ready?” Deborah asks.
“Ready. Oh, no, wait a second.” Ava buttons up the top two buttons on her shirt. “Ready.”
“What was the point of that?!”
“I want to look smart.”
“Why? And you think you look smarter now?”
“Because this is important and yes, I look particularly smart now. So continue.”
Deborah sighs. And then leans in and kisses her. “I love you, Ava,” she says.
Ava unsuccessfully tries to suppress a massive grin. “Hmm, okay, so that’s a C plus to B minus I would say, it had more feeling than the blurted grumpy one but it still needs work.”
“Oh you’re such an ASSHOLE.”
“Yeah, that’s why you love me.”
“I’m never saying that again.”
“Bet you say it the first time I make you come.”
“Ava!”
“Yeah, bet you say that a lot too.”
“What an insufferable dick,” Deborah mutters, getting up and heading out the room.
“Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.”
“I’ll let you try one more time when you come back,” Ava yells after her, “third time’s the charm!”
But she doesn’t come back. Five minutes later Ava runs of out of patience and starts looking for her. There’s no sign of her in the office, or the garden, or the other lounge. The door of the downstairs bathroom is half-open and the room is empty.
She’s thinking about heading upstairs but then hears a noise coming from the kitchen.
And that’s where she finds her, making pancakes.