Exhausted&Lost

Chapter One

*Disclaimer* None of the events outlined in this story are real! This is just an outlet to get words out of my brain while off work due to the pandemic! Sorry if it sucks!

"Elliott!" Ava yelled for the 3rd time, "Elliott, get down, I mean it!" She juggled the laundry basket on her hip as she rushed over to her toddler, who seemingly had a death wish as he scaled his way across the top of his toy box.

She settled him on to the couch with a juice box and his tablet so she could continue loading the laundry in to the washer with out further fearing for her child's life.

She was still getting used to life as a single parent, although it had been almost a year since she uprooted her life back home to move to LA. Living there and owning her own business were always dreams of Ava's but never necessarily plans of hers.

That was until she came home early one Friday afternoon, opting to leave Elliott in daycare for the next few hours so she could enjoy some peace. Upon pulling in to the driveway, she noticed her husbands car was already parked there, despite his warning that he was going to be working late that night...

"Stephen?" She called as she opened the front door. After getting no response and sensing that the house seemed still, she wondered if he had just dropped his car off so he could take a cab to some fancy business dinner so he could get way too loaded on champagne and whisky. As usual.

Excited at the prospect of having the house to herself for a few hours, she headed straight to her coffee maker in the kitchen. It was a rarity that she could finish a whole cup while it was still hot when her 1 year old was at home so she was looking forward to the uninterrupted brew.

As she sat in her favourite armchair and inhaled the warm vapour pouring out of the top of her mug, she heard a lilting giggle come from the deck at the back of the house, followed by Stephen's unmistakable voice. Though she couldn't hear what he was saying, she knew it was him.

She moved toward the source of the noise, wracking her brain to figure out who he was speaking to out there because she knew that her neighbour was at work. As the french doors that lead out on to their decking came in to view, she spotted Stephen standing with his back to the door, shrugging on his crisp white shirt that she had ironed for his "business meeting" just this morning... and facing him was a young blonde with the perkiest tits she had ever seen perched on her sun lounger.

The mug of hot coffee slipped from Ava's hands as she took in the scene in front of her. She watched as Stephen's shoulders squared at the noise of her mug hitting the tile, signalling to him that he had been caught.

The blonde's long hair whipped around her face as she scrambled to get her own clothes back on and Ava observed she could be no older than 20. "No wonder her tits are so perky," she thought to herself with a bemused smirk playing on her lips, "I bet she never had to breastfeed a 9lb baby."

Ava gave Stephen a curt nod, turned on her heel and left her home, wordlessly ending her marriage. When Stephen tried to reach out afterward, he realised that Ava was not going to play in to the drama he quite obviously craved and was not going to go crawling back, he filed for divorce almost immediately.

Freeing herself from the marriage that had turned loveless long ago had given Ava a new lease on life and she combined her savings, her settlement from her divorce and the money from her quick sale of her grandmothers sprawling home in the County Kerry countryside that had been her home for the last 10 years and booked a flight from Dublin to LA to start fresh.

In LA she was Ava Ryan again, not Ava Morrow, Stephen's dutiful wife who plastered on a smile for his business functions, when in reality she was miserable.

The first few weeks were hard, combining jet lag, getting used to the LA heat and navigating life as a single parent for the first time were proving difficult for Ava, though Elliott took it like a champ. 

She was so glad this had happened while he was so young so he could adjust easily. Ava's dad had opted to move with her, her mother had passed away a few years ago and she was an only child, so there was not much else holding him in Ireland, other than an all too intense love for their rugby team and Jameson Whiskey.

She was so thankful to have him around, especially as she had decided to open her own coffee shop a few blocks away from the house she had purchased. The first 6 months were a learning curve as she struggled to find a reliable team of staff, meaning she was pulling long hours while her dad looked after Elliott, but now, nearly a year on, her team are managing the place brilliantly and she only had to nip in a few times a week to check on the place and could spend the bulk of her time at home with El.

The Hideout was quite a small unit, popular among university students and a large group of regulars that Ava had begun to count as friends. Every Thursday and Friday night she would have kids coming in to perform open mics and each week, her same group of regulars would come in for coffee and wine, with a few newcomers every now and then. Through combining her 2 great loves, caffeine and music, she had met a pretty tight group of people, and she looked forward to hanging out and jamming every week.

It took moving across the world to realise just how unhappy she had been for so many years and she was loving being on her own again. Single life suited Ava, and it would have to take some VERY special to change that.