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The ground feels uneven beneath her feet, despite the short amount of time she’d actually spent on Teddy’s boat. She’s been away from home long enough for her sea legs to desert her completely, it seems.
Or maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe the world really is unsteady beneath her feet, leaving Ava to reorient herself, to make sense of her loss of balance.
Ava glances down at the envelope in her hand, unmarked and plain and completely innocuous from the outside. The unsteady feeling beneath her only seems to grow, the certainty that things will somehow only get worse from here, spreading through her. The sound of footsteps on the wood beside her pulls Ava’s attention from the card and she looks up to find Milo’s eyes already on her, his worry etched deep into his features. He’s never been good at hiding his emotions, especially not from her, and Ava finds him easy enough to read, even after all this time. The concern there doesn’t exactly instill her with confidence that all of this will somehow just blow over.
“So,” Milo says, putting his hands in his pockets. “What do you think?”
“That I should’ve missed my flight this morning,” Ava mumbles, reaching into her pocket to pull out her phone, grateful for the excuse to avoid Milo’s gaze, his worry. He should extend that concern for someone who actually deserves it.
Ava pulls up her text thread with Danica, heart turning over in her chest at the reminder that the last time she had sent a text to her best friend had been months before, some stupid birthday message and gif. Not even a phone call. She swallows down that disappointment, pushing it aside, as she types out a message now. He says it wasn’t him.
A trio of dots appears on the screen but before Danica’s response comes, Stevie’s voice cuts through Ava’s thoughts, as though responding to the words she’d just typed on the screen. “So. Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
Ava sighs, looking at Stevie and Milo standing across from her. Milo glances over his shoulder toward Teddy’s boat, like the answer might somehow be there after all, or, maybe, like he’s waiting for Teddy to emerge, to apologize, to invite them aboard for an actual conversation. But Stevie is watching her, expecting an answer.
“I…” Ava blows out a breath, grateful when her phone buzzes and she can avoid Stevie’s gaze. “He’s always been a really bad liar.”
Great. And then, seconds later, an additional text from Danica: so someone else knows and wants to fuck with me.
Ava slides her phone back into her pocket, leaving the messages unanswered. In all of Southport, there’s no one she would rather be with than Danica. Or Milo or Teddy or even Stevie, even now, even after all this time. But she isn’t sure she knows how to be that person anymore, the one who knows how to reassure her friend and offer her support. The person Milo is worried about, how deserves that concern on his face. She isn’t sure she has any room to judge Teddy, to worry about him, not when she so fully understands exactly what seems to have happened to him over the past few months. She’s not sure she’s the person Stevie is trying to find, to pin beneath her gaze, the same person who could meet her eyes across a crowded classroom and immediately burst into laughter, thoughts so clearly telegraphed between them.
The smell of the ocean makes her want to throw up and Ava swallows past it, trying to breath through her mouth. “I mean…he seemed just as confused as we were when he saw the note.”
Stevie frowns but doesn’t argue, either because she believes in Teddy’s innocence or because she lacks the effort to call Ava on her bullshit, Ava isn’t sure. But Milo just nods, satisfied. “So what do we do now?”
Ava knows what she should do. What a good friend would do. Go back to Danica’s; reassure her best friend; fall back into that role that she’d been so certain would define her life forever. But the idea of it…Ava focuses on her breathing, in and out, trying to resist the cloying thickness in the back of her throat.
“Let’s just…” Ava looks at the note in her hand for a moment before crumpling it into a ball and throwing it toward the water. Milo lets out a sound of protest and Stevie crosses her arms over her chest, hands tucked into her sleeves. “It’s probably nothing. Just…a joke, right?”
Milo frowns. “What kind of joke-”
But Ava ignores him, already taking a step away from the two of them. “If we just ignore it, then whoever sent it will get the message, right? We can just pretend we never even got the note.” When Milo opens his mouth to argue, Ava adds, “We’re really good at that, right? Pretending things never happened?”
This seems to rob Milo of his voice, his skin paling. Stevie winces, looking down at her feet. She’s a piece of shit, but then again, Ava thinks she already knew this. Otherwise why would she feel victorious at their reactions? Relieved that no one is arguing against her anymore.
“Look, I’ll see you guys later, okay?” Ava starts toward more reliable ground, pulling her sun glasses over her eyes, ignoring the impulse to look over her shoulder. “We can regroup before our flights.”
“Ava-”
But Ava ignores Milo’s voice and Stevie’s sigh of disappointment, quickening her pace. Thankfully neither of them make any more of an effort to call her back. In the parking lot, Ava exhales, bending slightly, wrapping her arm around her stomach. The need to vomit right there on the asphalt is still frustratingly present and she closes her eyes, focusing on her breathing, the slow in and out that she’s perfected over the past year. How many nights has she spent just like this, hovering over a toilet bowl in someone else’s apartment, trying not to throw up the contents of her stomach. Or standing in the shower, letting it run hot around her, trying to steady her breathing and force the smell of burning rubber and sulfur and sea breeze out of her nose.
Slowly, Ava feels herself start to calm down. Or, no, calm isn’t exactly the right word. That’s not the achievable goal, here. Numb. She feels herself growing numb once more. That’s all she can hope for most of the time anyway.
Ava straightens, scanning the parking lot. There’s Milo’s car, but it’s not like she’s going to be hanging around for a ride after…well, everything. So she starts walking, pointing herself away from the marina, the intention to put as much space between it and herself at the forefront of her mind. Eventually, she comes to a cluster of shops, all of them shining and glittering and new since she was last here, more additions in Grant’s efforts to make Southport even more perfect, his own pockets even deeper. She sits on a bench, ignoring the burn of the metal through the fabric of her pants, sliding her phone from her pocket once more.
The unanswered message from Danica sits, waiting, staring at her accusingly. Ava closes out of it; the guilt in leaving the messages feels like pulling a splinter from skin and nothing more. She’s gotten used to that, too, lessening the pain of carving Danica from her life. Instead, she goes into her contacts, scrolling toward the bottom, finger hovering over the name there. Ava frowns, twisting her mouth as she considers, only to give up on the charade, tapping the name. All she’s good for as of late is bad decisions, so why bother with pretending. At least she’s reliable.
After three rings, the call connects. Tyler’s voice purrs out from the other end and Ava can see that crimson smile in her mind, the lift of eyebrows. “Well hi there.”
Ava sighs, leaning against the brick wall behind her. “I was…hoping you might be up for a little company.”
“Of course,” Tyler says quickly enough, her voice warm in Ava’s ear. “I was just getting settled in my hotel. Figured I’d be ordering room service and just watching Forensic Files tonight but I’m open to other ideas.”
Pressing her lips together, Ava feels relief uncoil in the center of her chest. It’s not relief, necessarily, that Tyler is open to seeing her, but relief that she has something else to occupy her mind. That she doesn’t have to think about Danica. Or the note. Or Stevie and Milo and that night out on the road.
“Text me the name of your hotel.”
The words barely seem to be out of her mouth before her phone buzzes and Ava glances at the screen to see the message from Tyler. “See you soon.”
Ava’s mouth twitches in what she thinks passes as a smile these days.
The door swings open and Tyler grins, arms crossed over her chest. She’s still wearing what she’d had on earlier, the humidity making the white fabric of her tanktop cling to her skin, her skirt slightly askew and offering what Ava assumes is an intentional peek at the skin beneath. Ava tries to peel her eyes upward and toward Tyler’s face but it feels like a Herculean effort to shift her gaze from that strip of stomach, from bare knees and the curve of calf. Already, she can feel her thoughts starting to drift. Relief like a numbing balm, again, like she’d felt earlier, when she’d wrested the upper hand from Milo and Stevie and said all the right things that would end the conversation and free her from the memories starting to wedge their way in. A welcome distraction in the form of heat pooling in her stomach and between her legs.
“Hey,” Tyler says, stepping back from the door and sweeping her hand across the length of the room. “Come on in.”
“Thanks.” Ava drops her bag by the door, taking in the hotel room. “Nice place.”
And it is, despite the heavy-handed nautical theme that is everywhere from the detailing on the pillows to the paintings on the wall. Podcasting must be more lucrative than she’d thought if Tyler could snag a water-front room like is on the Fourth of July.
Not that she’s come all this way to hear about Tyler’s business model.
Tyler heads toward the mini-bar beneath the entertainment center, pulling open the door and contemplating the contents. “How’s your trip been so far? Did you do your friend’s…what was it? Engagement thing?”
Ava crinkles her nose, shifting back on her heels. “Yeah…I kinda didn’t think we’d be doing a lot of talking, you know?”
Tyler turns, a mini bottle of prosecco in her hand. “Pretty sure they’ve got dildos for that kinda thing,” she remarks wryly. “If you just wanted something to fuck yourself with.”
And sure, Tyler is right. And there she goes, Ava Brucks, human piece of shit proving just how terrible she is. But Ava rolls her eyes, turning back on her heel toward the door. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“Okay, wait.” Tyler uses those long legs of hers to close the distance between them easily enough, her hand fitting in the crook of Ava’s elbow, pulling her to stop. Not that Ava puts up much resistance, allowing herself to be turned back around until she’s nose to nose with Tyler. “We don’t have to talk right now,” Tyler acquiesces, her eyes dropping down to Ava’s lips.
The thing is, Ava knows talking is exactly what she should be doing. Not with Tyler, maybe, but with Danica surely, those unanswered texts burning a hole in her pocket via the screen of her phone. And with Milo, Stevie, Teddy, all of them. For the past year, all she’s wanted has to talk about the one thing she swore she never would, with the people she didn’t know how to pretend around.
But, the thing is, she’s gotten pretty good at not talking.
So she grabs Tyler’s face, pressing their lips together roughly, more teeth than anything, but Tyler doesn’t miss a beat, matching the intensity in her touch. She slips her tongue into Ava’s mouth, pushing her backward until she’s flush with the door that she most definitely doesn’t intend to go walking out of any time soon. Ava fists her fingers through Tyler’s hair, pulling her head back so that she can kiss her way down the arch of her throat, licking away the North Carolina sweat and salt from her skin, sucking at the beating of her pulse point. “This is better than talking,” she breathes into Tyler’s clavicle, not sure which of them the reminder is really for.
Tyler certainly doesn’t argue, moaning low in the back of her throat as Ava reaches a hand lower, toward the bottom of her shirt, pushing it upward and grazing her fingers against the exposed skin. Ava pushes back against her, nudging Tyler back across the room and away from the door. As fond as her memories are of their previous encounter, she certainly isn’t in the mindset to complain about a little more leverage, a little more room to position Tyler exactly how she wants her.
As Tyler pulls back to pull her shirt off the rest of the way, Ava stops to catch her breath, chest heaving. She unbuttons her jeans, sliding them past her hips and down toward her ankles, the sound of her phone hitting the floor jerking her thoughts firmly back into her body. Danica…the note…everything, everything, everything. Ava kicks her jeans aside, sending them skittering underneath the bed, the phone with them.
Tyler perches on the edge of the bed, a wicked grin on her face. “You okay?”
Ava blinks, swallowing. “Yeah.” Her eyes take in the sight in front of her -Tyler and the swell of her breasts and the ink against her skin. “Definitely okay.”
And Tyler’s grin widens, her knees parting to allow Ava to step between them, one ankle hooking behind Ava’s thigh. Tyler’s hands settle on her waist for a moment before slowly moving lower, tantalizing and far too brief for Ava’s liking, and when she grabs Tyler’s hand and presses it exactly where she wants, she finds that she can finally stop thinking about everything.
“You have a lot of tattoos.” Ava watches as the lines of ink disappear beneath the tips of her fingers, Tyler’s skin warm beneath her own.
In spite of the way she’s just spent the past several hours, her heart starts jumping when Tyler shifts, the sheets pooling down around her waist, Tyler angling to get a better look at the length of her arms, the crook of elbow. “You think so?” She’s teasing and Ava figures she probably deserves it, but she’s going to need at least another glass of water and ten more minutes before she’s at functional conversation level.
Ava shrugs, rolling onto her back, sinking into the plush hotel pillows. With her eyes closed, she can be anywhere. Anyone. She can be this girl she’s becoming -flush with sex and bad decisions with her head empty and her muscles liquid.
The bed shifts and Ava can feel the pressure of Tyler’s body against hers, the heat from her skin. Tyler settles a palm against her stomach, long fingers fanning out across Ava’s skin, eliciting a shiver she’s certain Tyler doesn’t miss. “So.” She waits until Ava cracks one eye open to continue. “Want to do room service after all?”
Laughing softly, Ava reaches for Tyler’s hand, pressing her lips softly to her fingers before letting Tyler’s hand settle back onto the bed. “I have to admit: I’m not much of a fan of Forensic Files.”
Tyler makes a face, snapping her fingers. “And you had so much going for you before.”
Honestly, Ava thinks she could say the same for Tyler. From their dalliance before, she’d had the feeling that Tyler would be down for just about anything, and she hadn’t disappointed, proving herself to be a willing partner for Ava’s desperate, whimpered demands. She wouldn’t mind coaxing Tyler back between her legs, to allow herself to be pulled apart and stretched and turned into something without memories and thoughts for just a little while longer.
From beneath them comes the sound of vibrating, insistent and from the world outside this little room, the place Ava is so desperate to avoid letting herself be a part of, and it takes her a minute to remember her phone. The note. Danica. Last summer. Everything, everything, everything.
Against her better judgement, Ava finds herself rolling over, dangling down a hand to fish for her discarded pants. “But,” she says absently, snagging a crumpled pants leg and pulling, “maybe I’ll make an exception.”
Tyler smirks, tossing her hair over one shoulder as she studies Ava. “I can tell you all the good stuff that they don’t share in the episode.”
“Is that your idea of dirty talk?” Ava grins, quirking an eyebrow. She pulls out her phone, tossing the pants aside.
The expression immediately slips off her features when she sees the name on the screen. Danica. It’s been hours since she’d gone with Milo and Stevie to see Teddy. Hours since she’d left Danica’s messages unanswered. And now it’s all crowding back into her brain, forcing away the memories of who she had been only moments before, when she could pretend that she was no one outside of the person in Tyler Trevino’s hotel room.
The phone quiets, the call going to voicemail, only for the screen to immediately light up again. Danica. The phone buzzes, insistent, in Ava’s curled fingers, and she can’t bring herself to move, either to answer the call or toss the phone across the room.
“Everything okay?” Tyler is looking at her curiously, hair spilling down her back, between her shoulder blades. “You kinda look like you’re about to throw up.”
“I…” Ava clicks the decline button, trying to ignore the stab of guilt that the action causes. She’s gotten so good at it before: ignoring that guilt, shutting it out, burying it beneath distraction after distraction. She’s been back here for twelve hours and already its ripped her wide open, aching and raw and throbbing with hurt.
The phone starts ringing immediately again and Ava drops it into her lap, face down. “I’m fine. Yeah.”
Tyler scoffs, unimpressed. “It kinda sucks, right? Being back home…all those people who used to be your friends and now you feel obligated to hang out with them even though you’ve grown apart and blah blah.” She rolls her eyes.
Ava lifts her eyebrows, staring at Tyler. “I…what?” She recovers, shaking her head. “No offense, but you don’t know me. So.”
Thankfully, Tyler seems unbothered by her words, the sharp edge to her tone. She only shrugs. “I’ve been there, that’s all I’m saying. Realizing your friends aren’t who they used to be…kinda shitty.”
“Maybe I’m the shitty person,” Ava points out. “Maybe I’m the asshole here. Did you think about that?”
In her lap, her phone is vibrating again, this time in quick bursts. A text, rather than a call. That open wound in the center of her is only widening, tender and gaping, a reminder that she is the asshole. The shitty person. The bad friend. The one who can’t send a text or make a call. Who can’t answer one either.
But there’s something else too. The same certainty that had settled over her earlier, down at the wharf, when she’d looked at that note and known things were going to change. To get worse. And she’s afraid to reach for her phone, to read those texts, to know.
Tyler studies her, contemplative. Finally, she just settles for, “You’re right. I don’t know you.”
Ava presses her lips together, picking up her phone, feeling it buzz with another text. “Yeah. Probably for the best,” she mumbles.
When she turns the phone over, there’s a string of texts from Milo. Several missed calls from Danica and two from Milo, who had clearly given up that route and opted for texting instead. Call me. Now.
Ava, where are you?
Call me back!! 911
It’s Danica.
Ava swallows, though it only makes her feel more like gagging. She can’t breathe, feels the world start to close in around her, black around the edges, stifling and hot. “I…” She looks at Tyler, whose expression has shifted back to one of worry, somber and serious. “I’ve got to…” She holds up the phone back way of explanation, only to quickly tilt the screen away from Tyler, just in case there’s anything there in Milo’s words to give her away.
“Yeah…do what you gotta do…” Tyler watches as Ava slips out of bed, taking a few steps away from the bed. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
Glancing around, Ava doesn’t bother to answer. She needs to call Milo. Or Danica. She needs to know. She needs… “Fuck. I need some fucking clothes.” It doesn’t seem like the type of conversation she wants to be having standing completely naked in a hotel room bathroom.
Thankfully, she spots the ball of Tyler’s white tank and she grabs for it, pulling it over her head with one hand as she unlocks her phone, pulling up Milo’s name. She pulls the bathroom door behind her, relived that Milo answers immediately. “Jesus Christ. Where have you been!”
“What’s going on?”
There’s silence, stretching out far too long. Ava feels like she’s going to scream, but the sound is trapped at the back of her throat, stuffed down with the air she can’t get into her lungs. She clutches the edge of the sink, unwilling to look at herself in the mirror.
“Milo!”
“Wyatt is dead.”
It takes Ava a minute to remember who he’s even talking about. Thankfully the pieces click together before the word who? slips past her lips. Wyatt…Danica…she’d seen him only hours before, when Danica had introduced them to one another with a cheerful smile, her voice chirping happily as she’d called Ava her best friend with a straight face and a genuine smile. And Wyatt had grinned, had actually hugged her, beaming. “Danica talks about you all the time.” And Ava hadn’t been able to figure out if he was just being nice or not.
And now it doesn’t matter.
Because Wyatt is dead.
“What…the fuck…”
“We need to go to the police station,” Milo is saying and Ava isn’t sure if she’s missed something over the rush of her blood through her ears. “Where are you? I’ll come pick you up. Danica is there and-”
“Is Danica okay?”
All the missed calls…fuck. Ava feels her knees weaken, the guilt sliding between her ribs like a knife. She holds tighter to the sink to keep herself upright.
Milo pauses and Ava can hear the sound of his car rumbling to life, the radio a burst of sound before it punches it off. “I mean…she’s not hurt, I guess.”
“Okay. Okay, okay.” Ava swallows, nodding, seeing the movement of her tangled hair in the mirror. “Yeah. I’ll…I’m…I’m actually close to the station. I can meet you there.”
“Why-” But Milo cuts himself off, saying instead, “Okay. Just…hurry.”
“Yeah.” Ava hangs up, dropping the phone onto the countertop. She forces herself to lift her head, to meet the eyes looking back at her. Jesus, she looks like shit. Well, not like shit, necessary, she just looks thoroughly fucked. Which is exactly what she is…the type of person fucking a stranger in a hotel room while her best friend’s fiance is being murdered.
No…Milo didn’t say murdered. He said dead. But…really…what else could this be?
Ava pushes away from the counter, pulling open the door and stumbling back into the room. Tyler is standing, scrolling through something on her phone, naked in the glow from the lamplight. She looks over her shoulder, holding up her phone. “I’ve got the menu if-”
“I need to go,” Ava says quickly, flatly. “I need…” She looks around, because she’s still mostly naked and she might not be much of a friend or a human being but she can at least show up for Danica wearing the appropriate amount of clothing. “I need to…”
Tyler puts her phone down, heading over to the side of the bed and picking up Ava’s jeans. Her underwear is still wadded up inside, thankfully, and Ava quickly pulls them both on. “You don’t look too good.” There’s a light tone to her words that doesn’t match the genuine concern shining in her eyes. There’s curiosity too, but to Tyler’s credit, it plays second fiddle to the worry.
Ava shakes her head, putting her phone back into her pocket. “It’s just…kinda an emergency, I guess.” She starts toward the door, only to stop, looking down at herself. “Fuck. Fuck this isn’t even my shirt. What the fuck.”
Tears press against the back of her eyes, their sudden appearance making her feel dizzy and off-balance. She hasn’t let herself cry since that night, hasn’t deserved to…and now she can’t see through the blur, the sting, and Ava worries briefly that she’s not going to be able to swallow them down this time, that she’s going to collapse on the floor of Tyler’s hotel room and start howling and never get up again.
“Here.” Tyler is pressing something into her hands and Ava tries to blink away the tears, to bring the world into focus again. It’s a jacket, leather and solid in her grip. When Ava looks up at her, Tyler just shrugs. “Call me later and I’ll get it back.”
Somehow, miraculously, Tyler makes it sound almost flirtatious, and Ava almost laughs. At least it helps her remember to breath, to exhale enough that she can push back those tears. “Yeah. Thanks.” She pulls on the jacket and it smells like Tyler, heavy around her shoulders.
Tyler follows her toward the door, handing over Ava’s purse. “I hope…I mean good luck with…all this.”
Good luck. Sure. It’s not Tyler’s fault, how useless those words are. How little luck matters right about now, with Wyatt dead and Danica at the police station.
“Yeah.” Ava nods, opening the door. She hesitates, glancing from herself toward Tyler. “Thanks for…it’s a great jacket.”
Tyler leans forward to kiss her quickly, almost companionably. “Let me know if you want a rain check on that room service.”
She’s had a year to practice her fake smile, the one that comes easily now. It doesn’t reach her eyes but hardly anyone bothers to even look that long. “Will do.”
It isn’t until she’s in the hallway with the door closed behind her that Ava drops the expression, a chill sliding through her. She feels rooted in place, just like she had that night, helpless to stop what was already in motion.
It’s only thinking of Danica that spurs her forward, down the hallway, toward the elevators. Danica, who had called her, over and over, reaching out, desperate. Needing her. Wanting her best friend.
And, suddenly, Ava feels like she can’t get to her fast enough.