Page 12 of Chasing Blue
Her chin tilts again, and she doesn’t turn to look at me when she answers this time. “I was in Elwood when I first moved. Now I’m in Mornington, it’s where our shop and offices are. I can literally walk to work if I want to.”
The rain continues to pound the car, a girl sings quietly in the background about being a mess and a loser and all the while, I watch Scarlett stare out the window, my brain still trying to process that she’s really here.
Last time I’d heard anything about her, she was living in Sydney, and now she’s here. Right fucking here.
Lauren, a friend’s wife who was supposed to do the interior design for the bar, had given me a business card for a company she recommended after she’d had to scale back her workload and focus on her seven-year-old twins. I’d not even looked at the card before passing it on to my sister, asking her to call and book an appointment.
“So,” I say when the silence begins to feel a little awkward. “Now you’ve introduced yourself properly . . .”
Her hand comes up to rub her forehead. “I’m so sorry. That was embarrassing. It was just the shock of seeing you.”
“At least you were able to make up a lie. I couldn’t even string a sentence together.”
We stare at each other in silence for a second before I ask quietly, “You gonna come back in and have a look around? Tell me what you think we should do with the place?”
She turns her head and stares out the driver’s side window for a moment. When she turns back to look at me, the shine has gone from her eyes and her whole demeanour has changed, along with the atmosphere inside the car.
“Yeah, sure,” she says with a nod, her voice barely a whisper as she grabs the bag sitting beside me in the footwell and climbs out of the car.
In silence, I follow.
After an hourof walking her through the bar and restaurant, explaining what I hope to achieve with it all, we’re both leaning against the bar top looking through a book of paint samples to get colour ideas. We’re standing shoulder to shoulder, close enough that I can smell her perfume, or maybe it’s her shampoo. It’s sweet, but with a hint of something musky in the background. Her hair’s not as red as it used to be. I think when we were younger, she did something to it, hair dye or whatever it is chicks do to their hair. Today, it looks more natural, more auburn than red. It’s still gorgeous. I like it as much right now as I did back then.
“But . . . like I said, you need to take into account the local demographic. It’s okay keeping a laid-back surfie vibe, we can stay honest with that in the bar.” She pauses and looks around, and I watch her every move, listen to her every word. Totally back under whatever spell Scarlett O’Brien has enchanted me with all these years. “But we need to elevate things in the restaurant. Layer the surfie with something more chic and higher-end. There’s money around here, the wealthy will want to come check out the new place, and as long as the food’s good, they’ll want to come back.”
I stare at her blankly for a few seconds. Allowing everything she’s just said to sink in, fighting not to lose myself in those blue eyes of hers as I do.
One night, that’s all we’d had. After months of fighting not to fall hard and fast, she finally let me in, and all it took was that one night to blow down those walls I’d battled to keep up. I’d known straight up she was different, special, but after that night, the way she felt, the way she tasted, the noises she made when she allowed me inside her, I knew I was in trouble. And then the very next day, my whole world was flipped on its head.
“Blue,” I sigh out her name, and she immediately starts shaking her head. I ignore her and continue.
“Please, just let me say this, and I’ll never mention it again. I know it was a long time ago, but I’m so sorry for what went down before, with us I mean.”
Her mouth opens slightly, but no words come out. Her eyes shine as she stares at me. When she blinks, a tear rolls down her right cheek, and my gut pulls tight.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”
“No, no.” She puts her hand up and shakes her head. “You wanna go there? Let’s go there. Let’s do this and get it out of the way.”
I look over her shoulder at Finn who’s at the other end of the room putting his tools away. Pulling my keys out of my pocket, I slide them along the bar towards him.
“Hey, mate, you wanna head home and I’ll see you there a bit later?”
His hands go to his hips, and he looks back at me with eyes the same shade of green as my own and nods.
“No worries. You want me to come back for ya?”
“I’ll call and let you know.”
“Just text, you don’t need to call.”
I roll my eyes at that comment. The kid’s always on my case for calling people when I can just message them. I nod anyway. He grabs the keys, picks up his tool bag, and heads towards the door.
“Good meeting you, Scarlett. Not sure what he’s done, but hope you give him plenty of shit for it,” he calls out, not even bothering to look back as I give him the finger.
Scarlett’s arms are folded across her chest as she watches Finn leave.
“He looks like you. His eyes . . . I don’t know anyone other than you with eyes that colour.”
