Unapologetic Lavinia Stan
Summary:
Dido and Lavinia don’t like one another. More specifically, Dido hates Lavinia for dating Dido’s ex, and Lavinia does her best to avoid Dido. But when trivia competitions call, a woman must answer.
Notes:
A response to the prompt:a showdown between Aeneas’s two lady loves. Thank you to Book!AeneasWouldNever, as always, for your insightful, patient, supportive beta services.
... next round, their score now tied.
A new question appeared on the screen.This movie won James Cameron a golden statuette for Best Director in 1998.
Well,that was obvious enough. Lavinia managed to ring in first. “Titanic.”
“Ah, yes.” Dido straightened into her Class President stance, eyes narrowed. “The story of how true love never dies, even after a lengthy separation.”
Lavinia rolled her eyes. “Rose eventually had kids with another dude, Dido. She got over it.”
The unspoken message:Maybe you should too.
“She waited eighty-four years to say goodbye to Jack.Eighty. Four. Years,” Dido retorted, hands on her hips.
Lavinia threw her own hands in the air. “Instead of waiting eighty-four years, maybe she should have moved her butt a bit to the side and shared the damn board with him in the first place!”
“Ladies—” the teacher in charge began.
“If he’d let her, she would have!” Dido yelled. “But he just turned into a Popsicle without warning her!”
They weren’t talking about Rose and Jack anymore, if they ever had been, and Lavinia took a deep breath.
Aeneas was her boyfriend. She loved him. But the way he’d ghosted Dido right before junior prom, at his parents’ demand, was cruel, and she wouldn’t make excuses for him. She and Dido might never be close, but she knew the other girl had hurt then, and was still hurting now. Truly.
“You’re right.” She met Dido’s tear-bright eyes. “But then he was gone, and he wasn’t coming back, and she deserved to be happy again without him. I know he would want that, because he truly cared about her.”
Dido nodded, a jerk of her trembling chin.
“Maybe we can move on?” the teacher prodded.
Laviniaeyed Dido questioningly. The other girl nodded again, and even tried to smile at Lavinia. It was shaky, but genuine.
“I think we can,” Dido said.
The next day, when Aeneas saw the two girls huddled around the same cafeteria table at lunch, laughing together and sharing secrets, he turned on his heel and ran.
19
AFTERAPRIL RETREATED TO HER TINY OFFICE-SLASH-guest-room with her coworker Mel, the women chatting about seam allowances and detachable panels and other topics that totally baffled Marcus, Alex turned toward him on the overstuffed couch.
“So you just followed your girlfriend home like a stray kitten and refused to leave her lap afterward?” Alex raised one dark brow, clearly amused. “Good move. Pathetic, of course, but effective.”
Well, he wasn’twrong, necessarily. Irritating, yes. Incorrect, no.
As Alex knew all too well, after that first night with April, Marcus just... never left San Francisco. Not for longer than a weekend, anyway. Not for the past month.
He’d kept a nearby hotel room reserved in his name, paid for with his credit card, but he hadn’t spent much time in the suite. If at all possible, he never intended to. Its availability was more a statement to April. A declaration that he wouldn’t assume his welcome in her apartment, even though they were together now. Reassurance that if she tired of him, she could send him packing, and he’d have someplace to stay, even in the dark of night.
So far, though, she hadn’t seemed to mind his near-constant presence in her life and home. So far, he hadn’t experienced a single moment of regret for the choice to stay there.
