Page 41 of One Day and Forever
‘Ohhhhh. Kara McIntyre, I think it does. And I think I’d like to hear about it.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Oh, I would.’
The good news was that Drea’s anxiety over the delay seemed to have subsided. The bad news was that the reason for that was because she was now laser focused on Kara.
There was no point resisting. The only smart choice was surrender.
‘Okay, fine!’ She glanced around and decided there were too many people in earshot for that conversation. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when we’re somewhere more private… but let’s just say that Josh wasn’t the only one in our relationship who made a mistake.’
20
OLLIE
It was rich that Sienna had been the one giving the ultimatums. You couldn’t knock that level of confidence. Or arrogance.
‘Last chance, Ollie. Forget your precious Kara and come back to LA tonight or we’re done.’
‘Really?’ He’d reacted with a sad smile and shake of the head, before delivering the answer in a quiet, resigned tone. ‘You know I don’t respond to ultimatums, Sienna.’ Even after the whole debacle with Van Weeks, the viral humiliation and betrayal, he still didn’t know for absolute certain what his answer would be until it came out of his mouth. ‘I’m not coming back.’
There had been no point raging. Or getting angry. Or making this any worse than it already was by treating the other one with contempt.
‘Then it’s over. Go fuck yourself, Ollie.’
Apparently, she hadn’t got the ‘no contempt’ memo.
After she’d hung up on him, he’d sat in the car for a few minutes, debating his options. He could let her cool down and then call her back and discuss this like two calm adults. Although, given her reactions so far today, he wasn’t confident about the ‘calm’ bit. Nevertheless, he could give that a try. Orhe could walk away and accept what he’d known deep in his soul for months now. It was over. It had been amazing, and he’d never regret it, but it was done. And even if either of them wanted to, there was no point in going to couples therapy, or trial separations, or any other half-assed attempt to get them back on track. Whether today was the first time or not, Sienna was already onto the next thing. She’d checked out. Time for him to do the same.
He’d sat with that for a few minutes, waiting for some kind of internal reaction, an objection to rise from inside his soul, but it hadn’t come. All he’d realised was that he wanted to be anywhere but sitting in a car, at Glasgow Airport in the fog and the snow, so he’d restarted the vehicle and now, a few minutes later, he was steering it into the rental return site. He parked it up, pulled his beanie back on, added the specs and then went inside to drop off the keys.
‘Thanks, pal. Any problems or damage?’ the gent behind the desk asked, without looking away from his screen.
Ollie put the keys on the counter. ‘Nothing. It was all good. I didn’t get a chance to fill it up though, so just add the charge to my credit card.’
The bloke was typing something on his keyboard, paying Ollie no attention at all, and that was just the way he liked it. ‘Will do. We’ll check it over and your deposit will be returned to your credit card in the next three to five business days, Mr… Mr…’ He was peering closer at the screen now, reading what was there, and if this was a cartoon, a lightbulb would have started flashing above his head.
‘Oliver Chiles?’ For the first time he raised his gaze to Ollie’s face. ‘Bloody hell, it’s yourself! My missus loves that show you’re in. I mean, not that I watch it because it’s all that historical pish – I prefer a bit of footie or a good murder – but she’ll neverbelieve this when I tell her. Can we get a selfie? Hang on, where’s my phone?’
He patted the top of piles of paper on his desk until he located it, then he came round to Ollie’s side of the desk, put his arm around Ollie’s shoulders, went for his very best grin and snapped.
‘Got it. My Margaret will be gobsmacked, so she will. Hey, Harry…’ he yelled, in the direction of the door behind the desk. ‘Can you come man the shop for five minutes? I’m just going to give my pal, Ollie, here a lift over to the terminal building.’
‘Oh no, that’s okay…’ Ollie began to object.
‘Nonsense. We canny have you getting the shuttlebus. My Margaret would never forgive me.’
An older gent emerged from whatever was behind the door and gave Ollie a disinterested nod.
‘Harry, it’s Ollie Chiles!’ his new best friend said.
Nope, Harry still had no clue. ‘You play football, son?’ Harry asked Ollie, in that very Glasgow way of assuming everything revolved around football.
‘Only in the garden,’ Ollie told him, before his newly appointed chauffeur interjected with, ‘He’s an actor! He’s in that show… Ach, never mind.’ He picked a set of keys off a hook on the wall behind him. ‘Right then, let’s go, Ollie.’
Five minutes, a couple of skids in the snow, two more selfies, an autograph, a vigorous handshake and slap on the back later, Ollie got dropped at the terminal building. Inside, it was the busiest he’d ever seen it, so he put his head down, made eye contact with no one and made his way to the check-in queue to drop off his suitcase.
He’d done so many miles over the last few years that he’d made it to the top of the airline loyalty scheme tiers, giving him access to the much shorter priority line. He kept the same posture as he shuffled forward a few feet at a time, using thepretext of being on his phone. To his relief, no one appeared to recognise him and if they did, they didn’t say anything. Since the whole fame thing had happened, people were mostly great, especially in his home city, but he couldn’t face the ‘It’s you!’ conversations today, especially with his wife currently trending on both X and TikTok. #sloppySienna.
