A Story of Now (18 page)

“Me too. I’d still rather not go to this dinner, though. That will still hurt.”

“Is this the aunt that fights with your mother all the time?”

Claire smiles. She can’t believe Mia actually remembers that piece of information. “Or the one that my mother fights with. Depends which week it is. But yep, the very one. Aunt Lucy.”

“Good times.”

“Oh yeah.”

They reach the corner and look at each other for a moment in a protracted, slightly awkward silence. Claire wonders for a minute if Mia is going to say something about last night. But she doesn’t. Instead she smiles at Claire, her face still hangover pale, even in failing light.

Claire gives her a bashful grin, but she can feel the heat of a slight blush. She wants to be supercool and nonchalant about last night, one of those chilled girls who does stuff like that as though it’s nothing. But she’s way less adventurous than she’ll ever let on. And now, when it’s just the two of them, she does feel a little strange. “Good luck with your studying,” she tells her. “I hope the six hours isn’t too painful.”

Mia thrusts her hands into her jacket pockets. “Same with your family dinner. I’ll see you soon?”

“Sure. Soon,” Claire agrees. “Bye.”

Mia gives her a small wave and turns on her heels.

Claire heads for the bus stop, relieved that there’s no real fallout from last night and that nothing needs to be said about it either. Because she’d have no idea what to say.

She climbs onto a bus and moves to the back. As the bus pulls out into the traffic, Claire sees Mia striding down the street. Mia doesn’t see her, though, as she stares straight ahead into the night, turned back in on herself now she is alone.

Claire slouches in her seat and feels pretty damn pleased with herself. She’s not sure she’s ever had such an enjoyable hangover as today. Of course, they’re not supposed to be fun. They’re supposed to be the punishment for fun. But today was surprisingly, out-of-left-field good.

And, added bonus, she didn’t do anything too stupid last night. She didn’t accidentally sleep with the random dude with the guitar, as hot and oddly nice as he was. Hell, she might even answer his call if he does ring. Maybe.
And
she made out with a girl, something new for the history books, with the bonus prize of no one being too weird about it. It was also kind of ridiculously fun, those hours on the armchair with Mia, laughing like maniacs in their own private world.

And she has two awesome new friends who want to spend a hangover with her.

Not bad at all
, she thinks. Now she just has to get through dinner, and she’s home free.

CHAPTER 24

Claire likes being in the bar before it opens. It’s all hers.

She’s never had to open up the place by herself before, and she’s actually enjoying it. It’s nice to have a bit of quiet before the music comes on, the customers come in, and the chaos ensues. She can sets up the bar the way she likes it and dream.

That’s what she’s doing when she hears the sound of the heavy front door being pushed open. The clamour of traffic outside from the street streams in, rupturing the peace. “We’re not open,” Claire calls out as she wipes a table.

“It’s me.”

It sounds like Nina. Claire spins around. It
is
Nina. She stands in the middle of the room, her hands adrift at her sides.

Claire freezes, cloth in hand, as a jolt of nerves hits her stomach. She did not expect to see Nina. They aren’t supposed to work together for days. She thought she’d have time to prepare.

Nina’s hair is brown now. It’s not as good as the blonde. It makes her look washed out and tired.
But maybe she is washed out and tired
, Claire thinks as she takes in the redness around her eyes and the way her hair hangs around her shoulders. Nina never just lets her hair hang.

Claire makes her way back to the safety of the bar, not sure what’s about to happen. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Nina says in return. She follows her to the bar and climbs up onto a stool.

“I didn’t think you were working tonight,” Claire says quietly and throws the cloth in the sink.

“I’m not.” Nina hunches over the bar and rests her chin on her arms. “I came to see you.”

“Why?”

Nina takes a deep breath. “Claire, I am
so
sorry about what happened. I was such a bitch to you.”

With a small surge of relief, Claire nods her acknowledgement—and her agreement. Just because she’s relieved doesn’t mean she’s going to let this go. She raises an eyebrow and folds her arms. “So why exactly are you sorry now?”

Nina stares down at her hands, knotted together. “For a few reasons, but mostly because I realise I was a complete asshole for going crazy at you and then not talking to you or listening to you when you tried to explain, and I know that now.”

“Well that’s true.”

“And because my mother and both my older sisters told me I was being a seriously shitty friend for treating you like that—and for just assuming what happened was your fault…” Nina frowns. “Actually, my sister told me I was the worst kind of feminist alive for doing that.”

Claire thinks of her mother and her sweeping demonisation of all women the other day, “Well, there’s got to be worse, but it was extremely shitty of you.”

“And also…” Nina continues to stare at the scratched bar surface. “I kind of know for a fact Josh is a cheating asshole now.”

“Ah.” Claire tips back her head. “So that’s it.” She sighs loudly. “How did you find out?”

“When I got home from my trip, I might have done a bit of snooping. On my sister’s recommendation.”

“And?”

“I found messages. Some girl in his course. And some other random as well, a picture of them together on his phone.”

“Oh.”
What a freaking stupid idiot
, Claire thinks. Doesn’t even know how to cover his tracks. But Nina probably doesn’t need to hear that right now.

“I might have thrown a chair at him.”

Claire stares at her. “You threw a chair?”

“I threw two chairs, actually.”

Claire almost wants to laugh at her vision of short-ass Nina throwing furniture at brutish Josh. But she doesn’t because she can see the tears gather in Nina’s eyes. Claire shakes her head. How is it that Nina manages to be so naïve when she’s so worldly in other ways?

Yet when it comes to people and their behaviour, Nina seems to retain this bizarre innocence. The more Claire knows her, the more she realises it’s because Nina desperately wants to think the best of people. And she has zero instinct for when they’re not. It must be that hippie upbringing. Then, when they don’t act as she expects, it hits her even harder than it would for people like Claire, who is always prepared for people to disappoint her.

Claire watches her friend unsuccessfully blink back more tears. She pulls down a bottle of whiskey and two glasses and pours them a shot each. She hands one to Nina with a small, sympathetic smile.

Nina smiles her thanks. She wipes her eyes on her sleeve and smears a streak of mascara under one eye. They silently push their glasses together and drink. Claire immediately takes them back and washes them. She’s not sure what Andrew would do if he found her drinking before work. Medicinal purposes, she’d probably tell him. And if he saw Nina right now, he’d probably agree.

Nina sniffs loudly. “It’s like I kind of knew, but I didn’t want to know,” she suddenly says. “Which is why I blamed you. Because I really, really didn’t want it to be the other way.”

Claire nods again. She feels terrible for Nina. She does. Because she knows how it feels. But she also doesn’t want to be treated like that again. She leans on the bar and looks her friend straight in the eye. “Never, ever do that again, okay?”

“Never.” Nina shakes her head, vehement, eyes wide.

Claire stares at her, determined to make her point. “Because I don’t do things like that. Not to my friends. Not even to girls I don’t like.”

Nina starts to tear up again. “I’m so sorry.”

“And Neen?” Claire pulls a napkin from the pile next to the mixers and passes it to her.

“Yeah?” Nina takes the napkin and blows her nose loudly.

“You have got to pick better guys. Maybe I shouldn’t have waited so long to tell you this, but Josh is a giant douche.”

Nina nods and starts to cry again.

Claire feels the squeeze of guilt. “And as clichéd as it might sound, you can do so much better.”

“I am so sorry, Claire. I was horrible to you.”

“Yeah, you were,” Claire agrees. She grabs a glass and pours Nina another shot. She clearly needs it. “But I’m over talking about it. What I want to know is did you kick him out?”

Nina nods and takes a small sip of her shot. “He’s had to move in with his mum. His nagging, crazy, never-leaves-him-alone-for-a-second mother.”

Claire smiles and picks up her cloth. “Karma’s a complete bitch like that,” she says cheerfully and hopes his mother is at least half as annoying as hers. She can’t help it. She likes the thought of him suffering.

CHAPTER 25

Robbie brings the new guy he’s seeing to the park to eat lunch with them. Eli is short and slender with curly black hair. He speaks eloquently as though he has all the time in the world to tell a story. And he brought Tim Tams to eat, so he’s popular.

They lie around on the grass and talk about breakups—their backward-assed way to comfort Nina. Claire can totally see the flaws in this method, but still it’s pretty entertaining.

“I broke up with someone by text message once,” Eli offers. “Classic asshole act. Couldn’t face the real thing.”

“Don’t do that to
me
,” Robbie warns him. “I’ll be pissed.”

Eli laughs and pats Robbie’s leg. “I promise I’ll tell you in person when I’ve had enough of you.”

Claire grins. She’s glad Robbie’s found a guy who’s going to pay out on him a little. He deserves it. Scratch that. He needs it.

Robbie laughs. “I may have once just completely stopped responding to calls because I didn’t know what to say. He was just too intense. I was like, ‘If he’s like this normally, what’s he going to be like in a breakup scenario?’ So I dodged it.”

Claire takes a biscuit from the packet and squints up at him. “You’re such a wimp.”

He smiles blithely as though he knows but doesn’t care. “What about you. How’d your last breakup go? Oh God. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of your rage.”

Claire shrugs. “I believe it went something along the lines of a simple ‘Go fuck yourself.’ I can’t really remember.”

She can remember, though. Vividly. That’s exactly what she said. And she remembers his face as she said those words, that look in his eyes of hurt mixed with relief. Brendan was glad that she was the one calling it. She’s not ready to share the details of that humiliating little scene with anyone. She probably never will be.

Nina pipes up. “I cheated on Josh once.”

“What?” Claire’s whips her head around, mouth open. “When?”

“It was right after we first met. We weren’t really an official thing yet. I only kissed the guy, but I felt so guilty I called Josh ten minutes later. I never did anything like that again.”

“Maybe you should have,” Claire mutters. She checks her watch. “Hey, Neen, it’s one thirty. You told me to tell you.”

Nina sighs loudly. “Damn. I have to go.”

“Where are you going?” Mia asks her. “Work?”

“No, Josh is coming over to get his stuff in half an hour and then, you know, get the hell out of my life.”

Mia smiles sympathetically at her. “Good plan.”

Nina picks up her bag and sighs again. She looks as if this is the last thing she wants to do. It’s the last thing Claire would want to do on this divine day too. Or any other day, really.

Nina stands and looks down at Claire. “See you at work?”

“Yep.” Claire gives her an encouraging smile. “Don’t take any crap, okay?”

“Hang on,” Robbie says suddenly. He sits up on the grass. “You’re going on your own?” Then he turns and looks pointedly at Claire.

Nina shrugs.

Robbie keeps staring at Claire. “You shouldn’t have to go by yourself.”

Claire glares right back at him. “Don’t look at me like tha—”

Nina rushes to her defence. “Believe me, if there is one person who is under, like, no obligation to help me out with this, it’s Claire.” She nods. “She’s put up with enough crap from me and that asshat.”

Eli tips his head sideways. “Asshat? What’s that?”

Claire just shakes her head. She too has no idea what Nina is talking about. As usual.

“Whatever you say.” Robbie holds up his hands. “But do you want someone to come with you? I’ll come.”

“Would you?” Nina asks, eyes wide. “Really?”

Claire can’t help feeling a bit bad that she is not the one helping her friend. In fact, if it weren’t for this particular situation, Claire would have made Nina stay in the park and done this moving-out supervision for her. But Claire is not putting herself anywhere near Josh. Not even for poor Nina.

“Sure, I’ll come be moral support slash security guard.” Robbie turns to Eli. “Want to see what an asshat looks like in the flesh?”

“I kind of do.” Eli scrambles to his feet and dusts off his jeans. “It was nice to meet you guys.”

Claire gives him a perfunctory smile and wave.

Robbie gets up too. “Okay then, I’ll see you guys later.” He strides off across the park with Nina and Eli.

Claire calls out to Nina. “Remember, he’s a giant douche and you can do better!”

Nina turns around and gives her a wave.

As they watch them cross the busy street, Mia taps her gently on her wrist. “Hey, Robbie doesn’t know what happened. He wouldn’t have said that if he did.”

“I know.” Claire looks at her watch again. “Do you have to go yet?”

Mia leans over and checks Claire’s watch too. She shakes her head. “Not for a bit.”

“Awesome. Me either.” Claire rolls over onto her stomach. “I could lie here all day.”

“Mhm.” Mia stretches out on the grass next to her.

Claire thinks about Josh and about Eli and Robbie and their breakup stories. And about Brendan, of course. “Why are guys such pussies sometimes? Why can’t they just end a relationship instead of cheating or avoiding? Why are they so freaking scared to just
say
something?”