That Time I Dated a Thief

CHAPTER 5: LIKE YOU'D KNOW ANYTHING

AVA BURNS

The bell jingles above the door and a guy walks in.

I'd never usually look up, but he catches my eye because he's got this kind of sauntering walk like he thinks he's the shit or something. And then I keep looking, because he's very goodlooking but with this attitude that I hate. He's so clearly one of these guys who reckons they can get any girl, and probably does get any girl, because girls always fall for that crap. Even when they know it's all going to end up in torment and heart-ache and drama.

My hairdresser Ashley though is beaming at him, even gives him a kiss on the cheek. He's not the kind of guy I pictured being in Ashley's circle at all. Ashley is twenty and a self-proclaimed alcoholic who wears overalls and has a drawling Canadian accent. 

For a few minutes they talk in a kind of mix of pigeon Dutch and English, and I check him out head to toe. He's wearing black jeans and a purple woollie hat in summer, which says a lot about him and all of it bad. Converse shoes that are unlaced, deliberately for sure. Very dark hair, light brown eyes. His eyebrows are bunched up in angst, like he's pretending to be someone who's burdened by deep thoughts and feelings, when I know for a fact that that's impossible. His nose looks like it's been broken a few times, but his mouth is kind of sexy, and his bottom lip is open very slightly like he's either about to laugh or argue with someone.

He glances at me, and I don't smile, because he doesn't look like the smiling type. He points a thumb at the door and says to Ashley, "Do you want me to come back later?"

I immediately wonder if he's here to deliver weed or something else. But Ashley leads him into her uncle's TV room (this salon is actually just a room in her uncle's house) and gives him a beer. I'm still finding it hard to connect these two and now I'm feeling self-conscious because he's sitting just a few metres away with nothing to do but listen to our conversation.

Ashley gets back to taking out my foils, talking without pause for breath. 

"So anyways I called my pa again yesterday and he didn't know who I was. He's like, 'Is that you Jill?"

Her dad has had cirrhosis of the liver for what feels like an enternity. I've got this gnawing impatience over the whole thing. I'm sure she's got the diagnosis wrong. But it's tricky asking questions without looking like a sadist or just straight warped. It also irritates me that she's convinced her family can't die of alcoholism, all based on one random great aunt who drank a bottle of whiskey a day but lived to ninety. 

"And I'm like, no pa, it's Ashley, your friggin' daaaaaughter. You know the one? You raised her? Like, you should know her pretty well by now."

"That's weird," I say. "Is it the cirrhosis you reckon?" I hate the way my voice sounds when I'm with Ashley. Like a priggish Brit from another century.

"Nah. I think he's just going een beetje gek." Gek means crazy.

"I keep telling him, pa, you gotta drink water. Water is the purifier; if you're gonna drink booze, you gotta counter it with water. I drink three litres everyday, that's how my liver never gets damaged by the alcohol."

I nod and pretend to agree. And while she's washing my hair everything Jess told me at Cafe Sound Garden comes back and starts rattling round my brain again like rocks in a tumble drier.

A prototype worth millions. Probably stolen from a lab. Now the object of bounty hunters or the European Secret Service or henchmen from the global tech corporation that funded its creation. I'll be lucky if I'm not taken out by a sniper right here in Ashley's salon, according to Jess.

But she's being ridiculous. No one leaves an uber valuable prototype lying around on a shop counter. Sure, it had a sticker on it saying "NOT FOR SALE", but that just means they haven't officially launched it yet and there are probably hundreds floating around being tested by employees. 

What it does mean though, is that one of those dumbarses in that crumby electronics shop stole it. Otherwise Shillin, or whoever it is that's harassing me, would have just called the cops. 

When she stops blowdrying, I get a sinking feeling. I don't want to leave here. I don't to have to deal with stolen laptops and creeps messaging and my dufus brother. So when Ashley suggests I stay around for a drink with this poker-faced try-hard, I agree.

And that's when everything goes wrong.

The Jack Daniels that Ashley gives me goes straight to my head. Maybe I was wigging out on stress because after two drinks, I feel like I'm floating on a raft far away from any stupid concerns about laptops and snipers. In fact, the world is taking on a technicolour glowy aura, and I'm feeling more fabulous by the second. Even Amsterdam suddenly seems wonderful. Not a sinking abandoned relic at all, but someplace historic and lawless and exciting, why live anywhere else? 

Even the bad-news womanizer guy is suddenly the hottest thing I've ever seen. Not just hot in fact, funny too. And witty. I'm laughing so much I'm starting to think that truly, maybe this is the guy I was meant to marry. Because who has a smile that great? And who is that good at outsmarting me without making me feel like a dick? And what's more, he's hanging on my every word like I'm the Dalai Lama and I'm starting to think I'm probably on par with that guy.

So I'm disappointed when he goes to the bathroom.

With Ash distracted on the phone, I take to staring at the giant moat thing her uncle has dug out in her backyard. It's a clever way of stopping the ground water from flooding this room. Just goes to show what a bit of initiative can do. These people are fighting the rising tides of the North Sea just using willpower and a few of their own backyard tools.

And in fact, I should do the same. Guts, willpower, using the tools you've got to fight for what's yours.

I pick up my phone and write a message back to Shillin. 

Shillin, I'll bring back the laptop. You've clearly been cyberstalking me and must be pretty pleased about the fact that you've got all this dirt to use against me. Only problem is, I don't care about my online following anymore. However, you do care about your laptop. And what's more, I know it's stolen, hence why you haven't called the cops. So how about this. You give me ten grand and I'll give the laptop, and then we'll call it quits. Sound fair? Ava. '

I'm so thrilled with myself I actually snigger. 

I've had an epiphany. I don't care about my reputation online anymore. It's clearly dying anyway. May as well go out with a bang. And if the whole school founds out? Maybe I'll go down as a hero who tried to support her brother and herself because her dad was too busy getting drunk and working 24/7 at that useless lab that pays him nothing.

Luke is back a minute later from the bathroom, and any thoughts of Shillin are gone.

And then I disgrace myself by kissing the guy out of the blue, with no build up whatsoever. And it all just goes downhill from there.