Page 49 of Corkscrew You
So what thefuckam I doing? Is it the height of stupidity, or arrogance, or both? Because we know how I can be when I get set on a path. Once I’ve decided it’s the right way, I won’t be deflected. I’ve already found out once what that cost me.
This morning, I was nervous but convinced that putting our relationship on hold was the right decision. And while I think Shelbydidunderstand my reasoning, she was clearly less than thrilled. Can’t blame her for refusing to give me an answer right away, but it makes for an uneasy wait, to understate it a million-fold. Waiting opens the door for Mr Doubt, and his good friends, Mr This Doesn’t Look Good, and Mr Have You Been a Complete Fucktard Yet Again?
Someone knocks on my bedroom door. Quick and impatient, which can only mean one person. Ava.
Hastily, I haul my ass off the bed, and shove my laptop onto the sewing table, so it looks like Ihavebeen working, instead of searching for old traces of Oreo while wallowing in self-pity.
Opening the door, I see Ava with two glasses in one hand and bottle of single malt in the other.
“Dad might not touch a drop,” she says, “but he knows how to stock a liquor cabinet. This is twelve-year-old Macallan. Want some?”
Don’t get the impression that my sister is lush. When she’s working, which is pretty much all day every day, she’s a Spartan just like Dad. It’s why she never became a professional jockey, she once told me. Too many meth heads. Bad path for an ambitious Durant, who can’t bear to lose.
Ava sets the glasses on the sewing table, and waves the bottle at me, enquiringly.
“I haven’t eaten,” I admit.
“I know,” she says. “One reason I thought I’d come check on you.”
She has more than one? Thought I’d done a pretty good job of pretending to be same old steady Nathan.
“Want me to fetch your burger?” she says. “Pretty sure it’ll be a lump of congealed fat by now, but—”
“I’ll pass. Thanks.”
She’s rummaging in the back pocket of her exercise top. Activewear is Ava’s default uniform, though she does possess good clothes. It was her dress I borrowed. I don’t want to think about how incredible Shelby looked in it.
“Here. Protein bar.”
Her body heat’s softened it to the consistency of plasticine. What the hell. I reallydowant some of that whisky. I unwrap the bar, take a bite.
“What flavour isthissupposed to be?”
“Goji berry and cashew butter.”
“Jesus.”
Ava grins and pours two glasses. She looks around and ascertains that there is no seating except an acutely uncomfortable antique sewing stool, so hops up carefully on my bed. Hands me up my glass, so she can reach over the side and grab an extra pillow.
“I think Mom heisted a pillow factory,” she says. “My bed’s disappeared beneath at least a hundred of them.”
“Did she paint your walls, too?” I ask.
“Primrose yellow. Would have taken plenty of coats to cover the black.”
Ava had a phase in her mid-teens. Was the only competitor with a purple mohawk and black lipstick. Dad would have cared more if she hadn’t won every track meet that year.
I get on the bed next to her, and we sit side by side like an old married couple, holding our glasses, into which she has poured a generous measure of whisky. I use the initial mouthful to wash away the taste of cashew berry. Then I take a proper drink.
“Damn,” I say. “That isgood.”
“Agreed.” Ava nods.
Then she says, “So how are you, big bro? Hanging in there?”
If hanging means by your fingertips from a cliff edge, then sure.
“I’m OK,” I say.
