I take the joint and sit back down at the table. “Sit with me.” I recline slightly in the chair and gesture at the storm clouds. “Let’s watch this storm roll in.”
She pulls out the chair across from mine and sits. “Be careful. This could be construed as romantic.”
“Only if youconstrue it as romantic,” I counter. “Remember, I’ve tried to dance with you twice, which was totally romantic, and you shut that shit down both times.”
“Neither of those times were romantic.” She levels her gaze on me. “That was you being manipulative.”
“Fair enough.” I take a long drag and pass the joint to her. “We’re not gonna be friends, and we’re not gonna be lovers. What does that make us?”
“It makes us nothing.” She points at me with the joint. “We’re nothing, and we’ll always be nothing.”
It must be the pot, but her declarative statement makes me smile. “Well, if we’re nothing, then we’re also not mortal enemies anymore, and I think that’s progress.”
Ava laughs quietly, dropping her gaze to stare at the joint while she turns it between her index finger and thumb. Thunder rumbles low in the distance, and a warm breeze sweeps across the terrace, blowing a strand of her brunette hair across her face. She lifts her head and attempts to shake it away, and I reach over to sweep the strands behind her ear. She says nothing, and neither do I.
I wish I could tell her what she looks like right now. Her pretty, wholesome face is set off by the overcast sky, making her skin look even more dewy and smooth than normal. The breeze whipping her hair around. The flashes of lightning popping off in the distance behind her. The way she’s peering at me like I’m the world’s oldest mystery.
Some part of me likes this view of her so much that I could just sit here staring at her for hours. Some part of me wishes there was a piano up here so I could put into music the way she looks, because there aren’t words for it. On some level, my feelings are a bit concerning, but I’m not about to read into any of it.
“You were going to tell me about your PTSD,” she prompts, then brings the joint to her lips.
“That story’s reserved for friends. We’re not gonna be friends, so I can’t tell you about it.” She rolls her eyes, and I wink at her. “So why don’t you tell me how you got into this bizarrely specific line of work that managed to save my ass during a pandemic nobody saw coming?”
“Oh.” Ava passes the joint to me and then crosses her arms over her chest. “Well, long ago, I wanted to be a TV producer. I never wanted to be any kind of performer, but I wanted to help put performers in front of people. I had dreams of producing TV shows and movies, and maybe even plays or musicals for Broadway. But it was a really impractical education and career pursuit, and I needed to be practical.”
I tilt my head. “Why?”
Her shoulders lift in a small shrug. “Well, my parents and my boyfriend at the time thought it was too lofty of an aspiration for someone like me. So I forgot about it and did something else.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Someone like you. What is someone like you?”
She offers a resigning shake of her head. “I’m just an underwhelming person. I’ve never been really good at anything. I’ve never been the smartest person or the most attractive person. I don’t have a lot of confidence. I’m just mundane.” She nestles against her chair and turns her gaze to the storm clouds. “Trying to break out of that and stand out in a place like L.A. or New York where I would be all by myself would’ve been a waste of time and money. There’s no way I could’ve made it in a place like that because I’m just not anything special. I’m ordinary, so I had to do something practical. So, I went to college at home in Texas, and then got a normal job at home in Texas, and got a sensible apartment in the same city I’ve always lived in, and this is just my life.”
While she’s speaking, I puff a few times on the joint, and I don’t understand this attitude at all. I blow out the smoke and pass the joint to her again. “You really believe that about yourself?”
She slides her eyes toward me and says matter-of-factly, “Yeah.”
I squint. “Why?”
Her gaze shifts, and she raises her brows. “Because it’s just true. I am one-hundred-percent the quintessential average person. I’ll end up married to an average guy, and we’ll have an average, blah-blah, regular relationship, and we’ll move to an average house in the average suburbs, and we’ll have two-point-five kids, which is the running national averagenumber of kids that people have, and that will be my life.” She snickers and takes a drag. “That is, unless COVID kills us all first.”
I, on the other hand, don’t find anything funny about anything she just said. “Why the hell did you let your parents and your dumb-as-fuck boyfriend tell you what you were gonna do with your life?”
She smirks and bats her lashes at me. “You sound kind of defensive at the mention of my ex.”
“No, I probably sound offensive, because I’m offended at the idea of someone throwing away their dreams because other people didn’t get it. Especially if one of those people is a romantic partner.” I point at her. “That’soffensive.”
She shrugs passively and holds out the joint to me. “Well, for us average peopleit’s kind of just the way it is.”
“Hmph. It don’t have to be.” I take a long drag as I ponder this, then hold in the smoke for a second and blow it out toward the balcony. “You could’ve just grabbed life by the balls.”
She leans back in her chair, tilting her face up to the sky. Her slender, elegant neck is on full display, and I sit up straight, leaning a little bit forward, just so I can get a better view of it.
“Grabbing life by the balls is easy for you because you’re…”
A beat or two of silence passes, and I prompt her. “Because I’m…”
“You’re…you’re…” Her eyes are flitting across the darkened, gray sky as though she’s searching for the answer. “You are…” She rolls her head sideways to look at me. “You’re extraordinary.You’re extremely attractive. You have charisma and uncommon talent. You were destined for everything you have. You’re just remarkable.”
