Ashley's Deal

Chapter Three

Life went back to normal. Ashley untangled her insurance, and got a new car, and the police came and took a statement. She worked, and the cut on her face healed, and she thought about Rose almost every day.

Thought about Rose, and about the deal with David, and masturbated twice in the shower imagining what sex with Rose might be like.

She regretted not having found out who Rose was. Not getting a card of her own.

She touched herself, and had little daydreams in meetings, and tried to work out exactly how she could tell David she did want to use their deal after all.

And for three weeks she didn’t hear from Rose.

She had almost decided Rose wasn’t going to call, that Ashley had been too weird, or too pushy, or Rose just wasn’t interested, because probably most people weren’t, when Rose phoned.

She said it was Rose from the car crash, that Ashley had given her a card, and Ashley almost dropped the phone, and her mouth went dry, and she didn’t know what to say.

“I did,” Ashley said in the end. She looked at the wall in front of her and thought about green eyes, and felt like she was about to start an affair.

“I just wondered how you were. If you were okay?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“Oh yeah, fine.”

Silence for a moment.

“Hey, um,” Rose said. “This is a bit weird, but I know someone who’s having a party, open bar and shit. I wondered if you wanted to go.”

Ashley didn’t know what to say.

“Yeah,” Rose said, after a moment. “Sorry. Look, I must have misunderstood…”

“No,” Ashley said. “Not at all. Just… shit, when is it? I need to check my book.”

“Your book?”

“My dairy. Just give me a sec.”

She threw a pencil at the window between her and Mia. She knew it pissed Mia off whenever she did it, but needed her straight away.

Mia opened the door looking annoyed.

“My book,” Ashley said to Mia, and, “When is it?” into the phone.

“Saturday.”

Mia was mucking around, was still not back.

Fuck it, Ashley thought. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

“You’re free?”

She had no idea, because she couldn’t see her diary. One huge advantage to her and David both working in the same building was Mia and his David’s PA could put all their weekend social crap into both their diaries together. Probably Ashley was free, and if she wasn’t, it would probably just be one of David’s partner things, so she could slip out if she needed to.

“I’m good. Where is it?”

Rose told her, said she’d be there by nine, and that she’d find Ashley there.

Ashley wanted to tell her she’d meant what she said at the accident, but Rose was gone before she could.

*

Ashley had a dinner with some of David’s friends the night of Rose’s party. She looked at the name and was pretty sure it was one of David’s law school friends, now at one of the other big firms. She could leave early.