‘Oh, I don’t remember how to play.’
‘Course you do, it’s easy.’ He starts to shuffle the cards, splitting the deck and running them through his hands, fanning and dividing, fanning and dividing until he snaps them back into one pile.
‘One game,’ Florian concedes. He has the cool head of someone who has found themselves in situations like this before, an attitude that I – a chronic, anxious overthinker – can only dream of.
Archie starts to deal out the cards.
‘You two okay? You look a little… flustered.’
‘No, we’re fine,’ Florian answers flatly.
‘Ah.’ Archie smirks. ‘Do it a lot, do you?’
‘Do what?’ I ask not liking how his words are slurring, how he looks bedraggled and undone like he has spent the last half an hour waiting impatiently, thinking of all of the things we could be doing.
‘Oh come on, you know.’ He takes another shot of whisky that I hadn’t seen him pour. ‘Use your dead husband’s café as an excuse to hook up… or is it the first time? I’m assuming you guys have fucked before, yeah?’
My head shoots up to Florian; his coolness has dissipated and his wide, panicked eyes scream at me to say something. ‘Archie…’ I try to find the words. I think of lying but what good would that do? He knows, he’s not stupid, we must reek of it. He throws his cards down, gets to his feet, his hands go to his head, his face lights up with a manic, exasperated laugh.
‘Fucking hell, you aren’t even going to deny it? I thought you might have at least spun me a good line, Ava, told me something that I could have unravelled or at least believed for a couple of weeks!’ He bends down to the table and pours himself another larger measure. Florian’s hand hovers near it. I wonder if he’s going to say something, tell him that adding alcohol into this mess isn’t going to make anyone more coherent, but he thinks better of it.
‘I… don’t want to lie to you.’ I smooth my hair back with my hands and rest them on my temples.
‘No, you really are a decent person, you would just rather cheat on me instead.’ The word riles me a little; we exist together here, but before this weekend I didn’t give a shit if he was seeing someone else, in fact I encouraged it. To call itcheatingevokes images of sordid sexts and work colleagues. ‘It’s not cheating… we aren’t—’
‘Together?’ he finishes for me. ‘We aren’t together, right,’ he mutters and then rounds on the sofa, giving it a swift kick. ‘Are you actually serious right now, Ava?’
‘Look… It wasn’t her fault…’ Florian gets to his feet, his hands now trying their hardest to tell Archie to calm down, take it down a notch, but he fails miserably.
Archie’s attention fixes onto Florian. ‘You don’t get a say in this, you smug bastard, you got what you wanted so fuck off.’ I stand up then, take a step towards Archie.
‘Don’t speak to him like that!’
‘Did our conversation the other day mean nothing to you? I poured my heart out to you and you go and do this?’
‘I know, I know, I’m so sorry Archie. I never meant for it to happen…’
‘Oh give over, you don’t just slip and fall onto someone’s cock.’
Florian moves closer, putting himself between Archie and me. ‘It’s fine.’ I try to calm him down. ‘I didn’t… we didn’t have sex.’ I shake my head. ‘It’s not this cold and calculated long drawn-out affair, it’s today, just today and things just got out of control, and we didn’t have time to really stop and think…’
‘I’ve waited for you, Ava, for so long! Waited for you to be ready to commit, not pushed you, treated you well, picked up the phone whenever you wanted to moan abouthimand when finally you say you’re ready, when you let me in, you let him in as well!’
‘You haven’t done anything wrong, you did everything right.’
‘No, I was too fucking naïve. Tried far too hard to be the nice guy. I never thought you could be such a bitch.’
The word hurls itself around the room and comes to rest by my feet. I go to look at Florian, warn him not to do it, but he isn’t there; instead he’s rushing at Archie, grabbing a handful of his shirt in his fist. They slam into the wall and a picture frame smashes on the floor.
‘You don’t talk to her like that,’ Florian spits, his voice almost terrifyingly quiet. I expect Archie to pale away from the confrontation, but his eyes light up a little.
‘I mean fair play, Florian, your brother’s Mrs, that was probably the reason Etienne never saw you back then, the poor guy knew what a sleaze you were.’ Florian tightens his grip.
‘You don’t say his name.’ He is losing his cool, unravelling. ‘Don’t say his name.’ He stabs him with a finger in the chest. Archie’s smirk doesn’t fade, I think he wants me to see it, wants me to see this side of Florian, but I have seen a side to Archie too, one that I would never have seen until it would have all been too late.
I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Florian, let go.’ I watch his brow furrow as if I’m a million miles away, not standing an inch away from his ear. ‘Florian – please.’
He releases and stands back.
