The Waitress

Four days, a pizza, a bottle and Mum

Four days.

It had taken him four days to finally go to the Blue Wave and then he hadn't been alone.

Four days and a heart-to-heart with Liam.

And everything fell into place for both of them, well as much as it could.

Four days and half bottle of whisky – he really shouldn't drink anymore, and he definitely shouldn't do it with his assistant and his manager.

Oh yeah four days, whisky, heart-to-hearts, friends and well, a bucket-load of international headlines about the end of his relationship. The blame game. He was glad he was in Australia in a totally different time zone to the bulk of the media, her and his very over worked and stressed PR.

Hoorah for the tyranny of distance!

Of course, she was fine, she was, for the most part, cloistered away – her PR machine way more practiced at the whole break-up blame thing than it had a right to be, than he'd ever suspected in his naivety.

But, the downside of being in Australia was that he was at the other end of the world from his safety net, away from his family (though his mum had threatened to fly in) and on public display. On public display because that's the way Marc had wanted to play this. If you hid, then you had something to hide. If you were out living your life then it was business as usual,

From the moment they had arrived back on the Coast he had been visible. He had run on the beach and visited café's but not the one café he wanted to visit. The people he was desperate to see. The person he needed to see.

He text her.

Four times.

There was no answer.

He hoped she'd read the texts.

He'd apologized.

Explained.

Told her he would only come to the café if she wanted him there.

The answer was deafening silence. He took it as a no and his heart cracked a little more.

He was an arse and he'd fucked up.

Even Liam was distant.

He'd asked him to go to the café for him – to say hello – to get some coffee – to break some ice.

Fuck he missed their coffee, why was Australian coffee so good? It was like every second person in the country had done a bloody barista course but the Blue Wave had a little something extra, the coffee was just a little better, the food made with that little extra care, the people a little more..........

He missed all of them.

Phillipe, James, Emma, Jaz and even Johnny.

But he missed her most.

He'd rung his mother – she wanted him checking in at the moment, she was worried. A lot of his friends were worried – both those on set and around the world. But no-one more than his mother. But that was her job wasn't it? Even now that he was a man in his 30s. He knew his mother still saw him as her boy, her little boy.

So he rang.

He'd asked about her.

About Mells.

Asked if she had heard from her.

She hadn't.

He stopped short of asking her to ring.

He didn't want to put her in the middle any more than he wanted to put Liam in the centre of things, the poor lad looked upset as it was.