The CEO(18)

‘Damn it. Sorry I’m late.’

‘It’s no problem.’

‘I’ll park. Meet me at the front door.’

She nodded and Callum opened his garage door, parked inside it with a skid on the concrete floor, and bolted up the stairs. When he opened the front door, Ava was already waiting. She had a fabric satchel slung over one shoulder and was wearing what he assumed were her work clothes. A polo shirt had a logo above her left breast, and it hung loosely over a pair of baggy khaki shorts. A glance down her long legs and he realised she was wearing only her socks. Big, thick, scruffy red socks. A pair of muddy elastic-sided work boots were placed neatly to the side of the door.

‘If this is a bad time for you, we can reschedule. I know you’re a busy man and I’m not so busy, although still quite busy, so I could always—’

He held up a hand. ‘You took off your boots.’

‘Of course,’ she replied with a tone that was all snarkiness, that didn’t have to say, what do you think I am? A heathen? for him to get the message.

‘Come in.’ He guided her inside with a hand to the small of her back, then closed the door.

‘You’ve been working today?’ Callum asked as they took the stairs and emerged into the main living area.

‘Up on the northern beaches,’ Ava replied.

He watched her tentatively negotiating the floor in her socks, looking down as if she expected to slip any second. And then he imagined her sliding across the floor, singing about old time rock ‘n’ roll into a candlestick. In a baggy white shirt and her underwear.

He shouldn’t have let his mind go there.

‘Right,’ he muttered, not quite remembering what she’d said.

‘I’m doing a small garden for a paving company’s display site. It won’t take long, but we had to bring in fresh soil and … yeah, like I’m sure you want to hear about my day.’

Callum walked to the fridge and took out a bottle of wine. ‘Believe me, I do.’ He poured two glasses and handed one to Ava. She slipped her satchel off her shoulder and carefully put it on the floor by one of the legs of the dining table.

‘Who’s “we”?’ he asked.

Ava thought for a moment. ‘Oh. “We” is me and Andy.’

He waited for some more explanation from her about exactly who Andy was but she gave away nothing else. He probably didn’t deserve one but he wanted to know anyway. He took a good gulp of wine.

She watched him do it. Waited. ‘Had a rough day at the office?’

He sighed. ‘Something like that.’

‘Me too.’

‘What happened?’ Distract me, Ava Gibson, he pleaded, all in his head. Tell me something that will take me out of my head and out of what’s happening to my family.

‘My rough day involved tonnes of top soil that went to the wrong address. The residents of 114 Bennelong Street got a rude shock this morning when they woke to find their driveway blocked with a huge pile of dirt.’

‘That’s bad,’ Callum chuckled. He rounded the long kitchen island bench and leaned back on it. He loosened his tie, pulled it from his collar and dropped it on the surface behind him. With a deft, single-handed move, he undid the top button of his shirt.

He put his glass down. ‘I need to get out of this suit. You can get started if you want. Look around. Take some measurements. I’ll be right back.’

*

Ava put her glass on the island bench, figuring the best way to deal with Callum would be with a clear head. She searched around in her satchel for a notebook and her tape measure and then went out to the balcony. The cool breeze, straight off the ocean, was wonderful and cool on her hot cheeks.

She pulled her hair out of its loose ponytail and re-tied it up high. Considering her job, a short pixie cut would have been be far more practical, but she could never bring herself to cut her hair quite that short. All that fussing and washing every day would have been way too much work. Long hair could be scooped up for work and washed every few days; even once a week if she didn’t have to look particularly normal. And there were a lot of weeks in the year when she didn’t have to look particularly normal.

These days, she had work and she had sleep, and that was about it. The weekends were for meeting clients and scoping out new work, and occasionally a late breakfast with some friends she kept in touch with from university, visits to her parents or coffee with Lulu, but that was about it. She’d given herself over, heart, body and soul, to her new business and it consumed almost every waking moment.

And when she was asleep, she dreamt about Callum.

If it wasn’t so pathetic she could laugh about it.