Indecent Promposal, page 15
‘Oh, her? She writes horror, right?’
‘You know her?’ Cody asked, stunned.
‘I’m not illiterate, Cody,’ Ava told her.
‘I know that,’ Cody answered quickly.
‘Do you? Because sometimes, I get the distinct impression you think I’m an uncultured bimbo,’ Ava said evenly.
Cody rubbed the back of her head, chuckling nervously. ‘I guess I still revert to an old idea of you occasionally.’
Ava smiled. ‘But now you know better?’
‘For sure. Now I know you’re way smarter than I am,’ Cody told her breezily.
Ava was shocked. ‘That might be taking it a bit far.’
‘You’re a full-on evil genius,’ Cody told her. ‘Own it.’
Ava chuckled, delighted. But she wouldn’t allow herself to be diverted. ‘So anyway, Roxie Raymond? You have to have her life?’
‘You ever see her in an interview? She’s fucking rude,’ Cody said. ‘And people just let her be because she’s talented. So it just felt like maybe hers was a path I could follow.’
Ava cut in. ‘But you’re not. Rude, I mean. But talented, yes.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Cody said automatically.
‘Actually, I kind of read that thing you wrote for the school magazine,’ Ava admitted. She’d dug it out of the school library recently, curious. ‘That story about the little girl who accidentally murders the school bully and has to cover it up? It was pretty great. The way she got rid of the body was creative and horrifying.’
Cody went silent. Ava let her be. She was glad she wasn’t the only one with no idea how to take a compliment.
***
They arrived about two. The other cars were already parked out the front of a big house, a five-minute walk from the beach. Becky’s dad had stumped up for the place, but he didn’t have beachfront money.
‘Are there enough beds in this place?’ Cody asked as they walked up the path.
‘No. Some people are gonna be taking sofas, and someone’s probably gonna end up on the floor.’
Cody looked alarmed. ‘Oh.’
‘We might be at the bottom of the list since we got here last. Just to warn you.’
‘I’m gonna have to sleep on the floor?’ Cody asked.
‘It’s a distinct possibility.’
‘Christ. I’d have bought a blow-up bed or something if I’d known.’
‘I really didn’t think we’d be last here. Mia drives like an eighty-year-old,’ Ava apologised. ‘I guess no one else took a pee break.’
Cody said nothing else but looked disturbed.
They knocked on the door, and Tara answered. ‘Yay! They’re here!’ she screamed over her shoulder.
There was the sound of a distant yet enthusiastic group, ‘Whoo!’
Tara’s arms came out, and Ava thought she’d be the recipient of them, but she went straight for Cody, hugging the bejesus out of her. Cody submitted to the bear hug as though it were being conducted by a real-life bear.
Tara felt the physical response and released her. ‘God, sorry. Bit much, wasn’t it?’ Tara apologised, stepping back. ‘Just glad you came.’
Cody smiled. ‘I’m not huggy. But that was… nice. Thanks.’
Tara nodded, happy. ‘I won’t do it again.’
Cody thought it over. ‘Maybe just a bit of warning, so I can work myself up to it next time.’
Tara nodded. ‘Good idea.’
Ava had hugged Cody once and gotten a similar response. She had not tried to touch her since. But they’d be touching tonight.
Ava wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about that. She was trying not to think about it too much. She didn’t want to get in her head about it. It was an activity that she and Cody were going to do. That was all. Like anything else. Like going to a movie or rock climbing. But with lips.
Tara led them through the house. It was Ikea’d out the wazoo, bold colours everywhere. A huge sectional snaked around the entire perimeter of the living room. No end of places to crash if needed. As long as she didn’t wake up face-to-face with Ben’s feet (he was prone to athlete’s foot), Ava didn’t mind sofa surfing.
She wasn’t so sure Cody would be happy with that arrangement. Of course, she wasn’t used to this kind of thing. Though she was more adaptable than Ava might have expected. She was here, after all.
Out on the large back patio, a barbecue was being clumsily assembled by far too many cooks.
‘No, no!’ Mia said, looking at a pile of white goo that completely covered the coals. ‘That’s way too much barbecue gel. You’ll blow the fucking thing up!’
Leo groaned. ‘It’ll just speed things up. I’m hungry!’
‘Are you hungry for cooked eyebrows?’ Mia demanded. ‘Because whoever lights that sucker is probably gonna get their face blown off.’
Leo put the gel down on the table and sat on a patio chair with his arms crossed. ‘Fine. You do it.’
‘Excuse me, Incredible Sulk, but you don’t get to park your arse because you’ve been taken off barbie duties. Go and make potato salad,’ Mia told him.
‘Yeah, go and get me a beer while you’re at it,’ Becky demanded from a sun lounger, looking relaxed.
Leo stood with a huff and went past Ava, Cody, and Tara. ‘Alright?’ he asked, and Ava gave him a perfunctory nod.
Mia was left to watch Ben, Rian and Noah discussing how to get the cloud of quickly settling goo out of the barbecue.
‘Could we rinse off the coals?’ Noah suggested.
Rian slapped him affectionately around the back of his head.
‘There’s no bad ideas,’ Noah said, rubbing the back of his head.
‘That’s a misnomer. There’s definitely bad ideas,’ Ben told him. ‘That was a perfect example.’
‘I was brainstorming,’ Noah said. ‘Even a wrong idea can be the jumping-off point for the right idea. Teamwork makes the dream work.’
Ava laughed, with absolutely zero intention of getting involved. She assumed that Cody would stay out of the clown show, too, but then she spoke up.
‘My dad made that mistake once with the gel. He did manage to light it without, you know, melting his face off. But it made the food taste like chemicals,’ Cody said.
Mia looked at her in horror and looked back at the white, sodden charcoal. ‘Christ, she’s right. He’s ruined it. And we don’t have another bag of charcoal.’
‘I saw a wood burner back in the living room, stocked with wood. That could work, too,’ Cody told her.
‘Shit, yeah. Good call, man,’ Rian said. He turned to Noah. ‘You empty this thing out and then give it a good wipe so we can start again. I’ll get wood.’
The entire garden laughed. Rian rolled his eyes and went inside to get the firewood.
As Ava watched him go, she realised something. She wasn’t nearly as angry with Rian anymore. She was shocked at how quickly that had happened. She supposed that was because, once the dust settled, she felt like Rian had probably done her a favour by getting Leo out of her hair.
That wasn’t to say Ava was letting it go. But it was only Leo she had in her crosshairs now. He’d damaged her rep, and that hurt much more than the infidelity.
‘Cody, thank fuck you were here,’ Mia said while Noah began digging the coals out and putting them back into the bag from whence they came.
‘Hero of the barbecue,’ Ben declared, cracking open a beer and handing it to her.
Cody took the beer and shrugged, clearly not used to the approbation. But Ava was glad her friends were being good to her. She deserved it. Maybe this party might be fun after all.
***
Cody groaned. ‘I think I went one hot dog too far.’
‘Me too,’ Mia said.
‘Me too,’ added Leo.
Becky rolled her eyes. ‘Greedy little pigs.’
Noah belched, and Tara tutted at him.
Ava wasn’t feeling too bad because she’d eaten her food without bread, a compromise. She’d put on a couple of pounds recently. She needed to make sure she was fighting fit for when she picked up her prom dress.
Speaking of which, she needed to talk to Cody about that. Cody was going to pick out whatever she wanted, but they’d need to coordinate at least somewhat. Ava fully expected that to be a tough conversation, but they were going to have it anyway, by God.
‘Hey, are we doing proper booze yet?’ Leo asked, holding up a light beer. ‘These aren’t touching the sides.’
Everyone murmured assent.
‘OK, what have we got?’ Leo asked.
‘I might make this cocktail I’ve invented called a Banana Spli—’ Tara began.
‘No!’ everyone yelled at once.
‘Genius isn’t appreciated in its own time,’ Tara grumbled.
‘Someone bring in the booze,’ Ben said, meat-drunk and exhausted.
And in it came. Everyone had bought something, and most of them had bought a full bottle of hard liquor. The evening was about to get messy.
Thirty-One
Cody couldn’t say at what point she’d decided to get drunk.
It had started when Ben gave her that beer. It had been a welcoming gesture, and she didn’t want to refuse it. She decided she’d just drink that and then go to soft stuff.
But once she drank it, she kind of liked how mellow she felt. So she drank a second. She was eating with it, so it wasn’t sitting on an empty stomach. She’d be OK, right?
Then people started getting out the big bottles of clear and brown liquids, which included her dad’s gift of Absolute.
I bought that with me, Cody thought. I should probably have just a little, even if it’s only to tell Dad I had some.
And now it was about nine, and she was kind of hammered. She thought there was a chance she might puke, which she most certainly did not want to do in the company of the group.
She needed to sober up. But that was rather difficult because she was smack bang in the middle of a drinking game. They were all sat in a circle playing something called Fuzzy Duck.
They all went around the circle repeating that phrase until someone said, ‘Does he?’ Then it went the other way back around the circle, everyone saying, ‘Ducky Fuzz.’ Unless your brain got confused into a spoonerism and you said, ‘Fuck, he does,’ or, ‘Does he fuck.’
And then you had to have a drink. It was a stupid game, but every time someone said the expletive, everyone would explode with laughter. Cody was laughing, too.
About the time Cody uttered her third, ‘Fuck, he does,’ she realised that she’d done it. The thing she’d told Miss Campbell she couldn’t do. She was here, with people. She didn’t know how the hell that was going to make her a better writer. But she’d done this thing that had looked impossible.
Did that change things? Maybe. Just a bit. Maybe things felt more in her control. Her grasp on life was a little tighter than it had ever been.
‘OK, guys, we gotta stop. I’m gonna chuck if we carry on,’ Noah declared.
‘Just because you keep losing,’ Leo mocked.
‘Of course I keep losing. I’m dyslexic, you bastard,’ Noah said.
‘Alright, well, seems like a good time to celebrate Miss Becky Saxton in the customary manner,’ Ben announced.
‘Guys, come on. I don’t care,’ Becky lied brazenly, grinning.
‘Let’s fetch the cake!’ Tara said.
Ava suddenly straightened up. ‘I’ll get it. Cody, can you help me? I think it’s a two-person job.’
Cody didn’t think so, but she was too drunk to argue. ‘Oh, er, yeah.’
She stood and followed Ava into the kitchen. ‘This is it. This is the moment,’ Ava told her.
Cody’s eyes widened. ‘What, now?’
‘Yeah. We’ll put the cake out in the kitchen, but we won’t take it out. Then someone’s eventually gonna come in to find out what happened.’
Cody was having trouble following due to her impairment. ‘And then?’
Ava nodded at a walk-in pantry. ‘We leave the door open. So it’s like, we went to get the cake, and we got, you know, carried away or whatever. And we didn’t realise how much time had passed.’
Cody thought that was a pretty solid plan. But she was very, very scared. The drink did not dull it. ‘Umm…’
‘What?’ Ava asked, sensing hesitation.
Cody really couldn’t think of a good reason to delay any longer. ‘Nothing, no.’
‘So, you’re ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because this was your idea,’ Ava said, looking a bit stroppy.
‘I never said I wasn’t doing it, did I? What’s your problem?’ Cody asked, pissed off.
‘Nothing. You just seem… I can’t do this alone.’
‘You’re not doing it alone. Jesus, get in the pantry, will you?’ Cody commanded, irritated.
Ava looked like she might want to argue a bit more but instead headed into the small shelf-lined room. It was empty except for a gift basket.
‘I don’t think we found this before, did we?’ Cody asked. She picked out a box. ‘Shit, there’s Lindor in here,’ she said.
She looked up from the chocolate to see Ava had her hands on her hips. ‘Can you focus, please?’
Cody put down the chocolate, vowing to go back to it later. ‘Sorry.’
‘Right, so. Glasses. On or off?’ Ava asked.
Cody hadn’t thought about that, but Ava was detail-oriented. ‘Umm… Off, I guess.’
She was about to take them off when Ava suddenly reached up and gently slid them off, folding them up and handing them to Cody. Cody took them, shocked at her own reaction to the move. She found it a little bit sexy.
Cody heard the patio door bang open out in the kitchen and the noise from the back garden rising sharply. Ava looked at Cody. Cody looked at Ava.
‘Go time,’ Ava said, and before Cody knew what was what, Ava had leaned in, and her lips were on Cody’s.
Cody wasn’t quite ready, and she was slightly annoyed that it was happening so fast, with so little time to prepare herself. But Cody was also very turned on. Because Ava, as Cody had always suspected, was an excellent kisser. She was delicate but deliberate, and every nerve ending in Cody’s lips responded to Ava’s lips with deep pleasure.
Cody understood now why she’d been so scared for this to happen. Because somewhere deep down, she’d wanted this. She didn’t know when that had started because she’d been in that good old Egyptian river known as denial. But she wasn’t in it now. She’d climbed out. And man, was she wet.
Time passed. The door didn’t open.
Ava suddenly leant back and looked at Cody, and Cody stared back at her. ‘No one came,’ Ava said.
If we carry on like this, I wouldn’t bet on it, Cody thought. Thank God she still had enough of a filter to simply reply, ‘Nope.’
There was a pause that Cody thought the word awkward had been created to describe, and when she couldn’t handle it anymore, she said, ‘I guess it’s not going to work. Let’s regroup and circle back around.’ She walked out of the pantry without further eye contact, wondering if she’d ever used the word regroup before in her life.
Outside the pantry, Becky was in the kitchen, and she turned to them. Two people coming out of a tiny room after going missing equalled only one thing to her, so she didn’t need more to make her amore-detector fire off.
‘Oh,’ she said with a little shock.
Cody swapped a look with Ava.
‘Well, well,’ Becky said with a horrid grin.
Tara, who was also in the kitchen, appeared from around the corner, holding a packet of candles. ‘Something wrong?’
‘You know how we came in here to find out what happened to the cake? Well, it turns out these two found another source of sugar instead,’ Becky sneered.
Tara looked at Becky, looked at Cody, and then Ava. ‘Oh,’ she said. She didn’t look very surprised.
Becky ran out into the back garden. ‘Guys!’ she was already yelling.
Tara put down the candles. ‘Perhaps we’ll do cake later.’
Cody took a deep breath. Things were about to get a lot more complicated than just trying to remember how to say fuzzy duck.
