Nobody's Obligation (Swimming Upstream #2) (4 page)

Chapter 7

Tyler

Tyler watched the sway of her wide hips as she wobbled down the corridor and disappeared behind the doors marked
‘staff only.’
Usually after conversations he’d had in the past that he wanted to remain private, Tyler often found himself wondering how long it would take before it was in a magazine or on Twitter, but with Ava, strangely he had no doubts. Not even the slightest inkling that she would expose him. And that knowledge both disturbed and captivated him in a way he didn’t quite understand.

Sighing louder than he intended, he grabbed the tattered copy of her book, stuffed it in his back pocket, dug out his car keys, and slipped his sunglasses in place. Now he had done what he had come to do, even if it had gone completely opposite to what he’d envisioned. He knew it was done and now it was time to move on. Now he had to face the next hurdle, and that meant signing on for a job he never wanted in a place he never intended to live. Might as well swallow his pride while he was eating humble pie.

Tyler almost made it through the busy reception without being recognised or stopped, but that was just too much to ask. The pretty young receptionist caught his arm and flung herself at him unashamedly. Shaking his head sadly, this was something he had seen before. She had nothing else to lose. It was probably the last time she would ever see him, so why not do her worst?

“Mr. Andrews?” she purred, uncrossing her legs and stalking towards him.

Unlike when he had arrived, the reception area seemed strangely deserted and quiet, not making his escape any easier. She strutted towards him, putting all her effort into making her non-existent figure look as enticing as possible. The problem wasn’t that she wasn’t attractive, she was, the problem was she was young. Too young, and definitely not Tyler’s type. Shaking his head and trying to force the image of Ava’s soft curves from his mind, he was surprised and confused by where the comparison had come from. Focusing on the issue at hand, his eyes instantly found the two top buttons on her blouse that were safely fastened earlier had mysteriously come undone. The wafting scent of cheap perfume was too overpowering and too old for her.

“Yeah,” he replied, not wanting to be rude, but trying not to encourage her either. That was the last thing he needed. Another scandal.

Gulping, she stepped towards him and stumbled, reaching out and grabbing hold of his bicep to stop herself from falling face first onto the carpet. Tyler’s gaze fell on her talon-like hot pink fingernails and he couldn’t stifle the chuckle. “Sorry about that,” she apologised from under her fluttering eyelids. She was really pulling out the big guns.

“No worries.” Tyler flaunted the most charming smile he could muster. He knew what she wanted to see. The person she wanted him to be. It was the fake one. The one the cameras loved. The one the public thought they knew. The golden boy. The boy next door that you could bring home to meet your grandmother. The fake. The lie. No one knew the truth. No one except damn Ava, and she wasn’t aware that she actually knew. She just somehow fluked it and came out with a pretty bloody accurate description.

Her talons were still digging into his arm, no longer for support but now more in an effort to prolong the contact. “Would I be—um…um…be able to—um—g-get your autograph?” she stuttered.

Tyler wanted to laugh aloud but he knew better. Another flash of his famous grin and he reluctantly caved. “Sure. What am I signing?”

Caught off guard, she scurried back behind her desk and produced paper and a pen, ensuring that when she handed them over her fingers brushed his. Without looking, he scrawled on the paper before handing it back to her, watching as her eyes lit up as she read his words. He’d seen that face before. Too many times. And for the first time he felt guilty about it. Almost. He wrote the same corny lines every time, and every time it resulted in swooning school girls and doe-eyed looks.

“Thank you so much,” she cooed, her voice as sweet as honey.

“No probs,” he replied tightly, turning, desperate to make his escape. He reached for the heavy glass door and pulled it open, but there she was, stuffing something in his hand before scurrying back behind the desk and answering the ringing phone.

Shaking his head, Tyler used the distraction to escape out the door and onto the driveway, sucking in the cool morning air as he strode determinedly towards his car. Before he had the chance to be accosted by someone else, he snapped the button and slid effortlessly behind the wheel of his Audi A5 and instantly his anxiety evaporated. It was almost as if in addition to the expensive leather interior it had some kind of calming magic. Within the safe cocoon of his car, he opened his hand and examined the piece of yellow paper that had been hastily thrust into his hand. He couldn’t help it. He let out the chuckle he had been holding. A phone number. Scrawled in pink glitter pen on a post-it note decorated with flower doodles in the corner. It crossed his mind to toss it out the window but he didn’t want some weirdo to pick it up. She was a sweet girl. Young and clueless, but harmless. She didn’t deserve to have some freak calling her. He’d get rid of it later, and he tossed it into the backseat with the collection of empty Coke bottles and dirty clothes.

“Time to go home,” Tyler sighed as he started the car. Bruce Springsteen’s booming voice instantly filled the confined space. Tyler fastened his seatbelt and eased into traffic. It was time to get back to his life and let Ava get out of his system.

Chapter 8

Ava

Somehow Ava managed to make it back to her desk. How she got there she’d never know. Maybe she floated. Maybe she crawled. Right now she didn’t care. The phone on her desk rang incessantly and she just stared at it blankly. Clicking her mouse, her email sprang to life and she already had twenty-eight unread emails in just over an hour, but still, it didn’t faze her. Nothing was sinking in at that point. Instead Ava just stared at the blank spot on the wall in front of her, her fingers on her lips as her mind tripped over the past couple of minutes as she fought desperately to figure out what the hell just happened.

“Shit like this just doesn’t happen,” Ava mumbled incoherently.

“Ava! Did you say something?” the brunette at the next desk asked, pulling the ear buds from her ears and focusing all her attention on Ava.

“What?”

“Ava, you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she enquired, concern etched into her face.

Ava was caught in a trance. Nothing was getting through. She could hear people talking to her but it all sounded like garbled nonsense. It was like she had headphones on and everyone’s voices were muffled. She sighed heavily, wiped at her eyes, and forced herself back to reality before the girl in the next cubicle noticed. They weren’t friends. They didn’t pretend to be. And Ava had no intention of telling her where she had been or what had just happened. The truth was she didn’t want anyone to know. She was still filled with humiliation after her now infamous fainting trick. It wasn’t the first time she’d done something so stupid, but in front of Tyler Andrews was as bad as it could have possibly been.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Ava fobbed her off with a wave of her wrist as she grabbed a pile of papers and began shuffling them. That seemed to placate the nosy co-worker but if anyone had cared to look closer, they would have noticed she was just rearranging them.

After another few minutes caught in her own version of wonderland, Ava forced herself to focus on the tasks at hand. She’d wasted enough time today. Pushing aside the distracting memories, Ava forced herself to start opening emails. There was the usual junk from travel companies selling holidays Ava wished she could take but never would, the threatening emails from the IT department instructing everyone to empty their over-the-limit email inboxes, and a couple from companies selling impotence cures for up to seventy-five percent off. Once she got rid of the crap, she realised she only had about eight she actually had to deal with. Figuring she’d start with the most annoying people first, she quickly typed replies and moved on.

Then an email from Amanda pinged up. It wasn’t unusual that Amanda emailed her from the front reception counter. It was simply easier. This kept the phone lines free and saved Amanda coming in just to ask a question. Clicking it open, Ava flushed with embarrassment from her toes right to the tips of her hair. Amanda had very cleverly photoshopped Ava’s head on a cartoon of a lady who had fallen face first on the floor, big bum in the air in the middle of a crowded room filled with laughing gentlemen in business suits. As quickly as she could, Ava sent a snarky reply before deleting the offending email, hoping to hell no one else would ever see it. And God help anyone who ever did.

“Payback will be a bitch!” Ava barked to no one in particular, forcing herself to focus on the rest of her inbox before attacking the mounting line of voicemails accumulating on her phone.

Ava was lost. Sure she was sitting at her desk, pretending to concentrate, but not really getting anywhere while looking completely dishevelled and off with the fairies. Beyond frustrated with herself, Ava found herself slamming down her pen, “Fuck this!” she growled, shrugging on her jacket. “I’m going for a walk.” Ava dived into her oversized handbag and snagged her fingernail on something in the bottom, ripping it completely off down to the cuticle, her finger coming up covered in blood. “Seriously?” It was going to be one of those days. Anything and everything that could go wrong would. She should have been flying on cloud nine but instead she was barely holding herself together. Desperate for something to go her way, anything, Ava took a deep, calming breath, closed her eyes, and exhaled before asking, “Anyone want anything?”

Sensing Ava was close to falling apart, Chloe, one of the quiet girls in the office, jumped up quietly and pulled her thick, black coat on. “Mind if I join you? I could use a coffee.”

“I can get it for you if you want?” Ava offered, hoping her frustrations and bad mood hadn’t penetrated the office.

“No, no, it’s fine. My eyes are blurry from staring at that spreadsheet. A walk would do me good,” Chloe assured her quickly. “That is, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not! Let’s go!” Ava squeaked as they headed towards the door.

They wandered out the doors and into the sunshine. It was a beautiful cloudless sky but that didn’t mean it was warm. Pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders, Ava tried to block the cold breeze blowing down the road as they waited in silence for the lights to change.

Ava was desperate to gush about what had happened to someone but then again she still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that it was real. Had Tyler Andrews really come to see her? It couldn’t be true. It just didn’t seem real. It had to be her stupid imagination playing games with her again. Instead, Ava kept her mouth shut and crossed the road, her lips sealed tightly.

“How’s your day going?” Chloe asked innocently.

Ava couldn’t help it. She laughed. Loudly. How did she possibly begin to explain how her day was going? “Honestly, my day is such a disaster that it doesn’t even border on funny,” Ava admitted.

“What’d I miss?” Chloe enquired, intrigued.

“So far today I have managed to, not in any particular order, spill coffee on myself, try to clean it up only instead making it transparent, shred a pair of stockings only to discover that I’m out of spares, faint in front of a client as well as Patrick, Christopher, and Michael, then stumble my way back down the hallway, walking into a wall and bashing my elbow as I tried to escape. Then as I was trying to get my wallet just now, I ripped off more than half of my fingernail, leaving it broken and bleeding,” Ava sighed, holding her finger up so Chloe could inspect the damage.

“Oh my god, Ava! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Humiliated, but fine. Embarrassed beyond belief, but fine. Mortified, but fine.” Ava shrugged, digging her hands into her pockets and wincing when she squashed her bloody finger.

“Where was I when all this was happening?”

“Buried in your spreadsheet?” Ava offered, raising her eyebrow. Both girls broke into a fit of giggles.

“Seriously though, Ava, are you going to make it the rest of the day? It’s not even lunchtime yet,” Chloe asked, her tone laced with genuine concern.

They had been an odd combination since Chloe had arrived and joined Ava years ago. They weren’t best friends and they had very little in common, but they shared a common bond. They had each other’s back and that meant more to Ava than anything else. She knew Chloe sincerely cared and she knew that if she ever needed anything, Chloe would never deny her. And the feeling was mutual. “I promise I’m okay. Just a bit of a weird day, that’s all. But hey! We’ll get there.” And with that the two fell apart. It was their private joke. Sometimes when the workloads seemed insurmountable and they had no time for a life or even lunch, they would just glance up over the pile of files, smile, and assure the other that ‘we’ll get through it,’ and somehow they always did. Together. No matter what it took, they pulled it off. They worked their butts off, sometimes to the point of complete exhaustion, but they achieved it and they never let anyone down. Not yet anyway. They were stubborn like that. But they never left the other behind, either. That’s just how it was. No matter how hard it got or how impossible, they pulled it off. Together.

“You’d tell me if you weren’t, wouldn’t you?” Chloe probed.

“Absolutely,” Ava assured her, but refused to meet her eyes.

Entering the bakery, the smell of coffee overwhelmed everything. The glass cases lining the counter were filled with cream buns, exotic pastries, and savoury treats. Ava’s eyes scanned the cases, trying to decide on something. It all looked so enticing.

“You getting something?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah, I think so. I missed breakfast. Again. I don’t even remember if I had dinner last night. And after this morning, I need something.” Ava shrugged.

“Sounds like a plan to me. What are you thinking?”

Ava’s eyes drifted over the full cabinets, taking in all the tasty treats, trying to decide. Definitely something sweet. Probably something smothered in chocolate. The more chocolate, the better.

“You ready to order?” Chloe’s timid voice shook Ava from her sugar-induced coma daze.

“You first,” Ava offered, still unable to make a decision. She was hopeless with decisions. The simpler the decision, the harder it seemed to be for Ava to make. And choosing which sugar hit to take was proving by far the hardest decision of all.

As they stumbled back into the office, Ava took a huge unladylike bite of her double chocolate fudge brownie. “Ava!” Amanda’s voice echoed through the hallways, causing Ava to drop the remaining half of the brownie on her shirt, leaving a brown trail of chocolate straight down the centre of her chest before landing frosting side down on her shoe.

Ava laughed. Hard. “Of fucking course!” she spluttered between fits of laughter.

Chloe stepped back, not quite sure what was going on. Ava was a complete mess. Disaster was more accurate, yet she was standing their laughing. She made no effort to pick it up, but just stood still, laughing manically. “My god, Ava, I’ll grab some napkins,” she said, vanishing up the hallway.

Amanda blushed a deep shade of guilty red. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Amanda bent to collect what was left of the chocolaty treat from the floor.

“All good. I’m not really surprised,” Ava confessed as she brushed crumbs from her chest. “What’s up, anyway?”

“Oh shit, I got distracted.” Amanda chuckled. Amanda got distracted easily. Like a child, something pretty or shiny came into view and everything else was quickly forgotten. “Yeah, um…your meeting with John started five minutes ago. He’s waiting in his office.”

“Fuck!” Ava swore louder than she had intended. “Is he pissed?”

“Nah, you know what he’s like. Besides, Christopher was in with him a minute ago so you probably have some leeway today with everything that—”

“Yeah, I know!” Ava snapped harshly, cutting Amanda off. “I’m just trying to pretend that it never happened.” Ava stepped over the mess, dropped her head dejectedly, and scuffed her way towards John’s office looking like she was stumbling towards the firing squad rather than towards a routine meeting with her boss.