The Funny Thing About Love

26. Charlie

26

CHARLIE

The office honestly looks like a bomb site.

It’s not always the cleanest or tidiest place under normal circumstances, but this morning is . . . ridiculous.

There are pizza boxes splayed open across all the desks, with stale-looking crusts lingering inside them. Various other food-and-drink detritus is strewn across the tables and floor, including a few empty bottles of wine. The bomb-site effect is only enhanced by the way the writers are positioned in the room. Talia and Kerri look fairly normal – their earbuds in, typing furiously at their computers. But Noah is slumped up against the kitchen counter with his eyes closed, looking like he’s just been shot. Anna seems to have collapsed at her desk – her forehead is pressed into her computer keyboard, leaving an unending trail of rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs across an otherwise blank Word document on the screen. Rich is in the writers’ room, curled up in the foetal position under the table. Even through the glass walls I can hear him snoring.

‘Er . . . morning,’ I offer, dumping my bag on my chair. ‘Are you guys hungover, or something?’

Anna raises her head and glances at me, bleary-eyed. ‘Haven’t been home. Been here all night.’

‘Oh. Shit.’

From over by the kitchen, Noah coughs violently and adds, ‘But, yeah, also hungover. Or, in my case, still pissed.’

‘We’ve been thrashing out a load of new sketches to pitch to Jed Dickwad Greening,’ Anna explains, taking a massive slug of coffee. ‘Nate and Bishi are on a Zoom with him now, pitching him what we came up with. If he turns this lot down, we are well and truly screwed . . .’

I feel my phone buzz and take it out to see that I’ve got a message. From Nick.

Hey, Charlie boy –

fancy lunch today?

I haven’t even heard from him since I stormed out of his office nearly a week ago. I’ve been constantly fretting about bumping into him in the building, but it doesn’t seem like he ever comes down to this floor. I stare at the message, trying to figure out what to reply. I definitely don’t want him coming back down here again, reminding everyone of that Ed Sheeran clip and – almost certainly – making me feel about three feet tall again in process.

But before I can reply, I hear the thump of footsteps. I lay my phone on the desk and turn around to see Bishi and Nate jogging down the corridor towards us. They look just as crumpled and sleep-deprived as everyone else.

‘OK, he’s given the green light to five sketches!’ Nate declares breathlessly. ‘So we need to start knocking those into shape right now.’ He looks down at Talia, who’s taken her earbuds out. ‘T-Double – he loved your keytar sketch.’

Kerri reaches over to give Talia a fist bump. Talia returns it with a tired smile. ‘To be honest, if that knobhead likes it, it makes me doubt whether it’s really any good.’

‘It is good,’ Nate tells her. ‘But it’s going to be an absolute arse-ache to stage, so we need to start figuring that out right now.’

‘What’s the keytar sketch?’ I ask.

Nate gestures at Talia to explain. ‘You know that instrument the keytar?’ she says. ‘Half-keyboard, half-guitar?’ I nod. ‘Well, we’re going to have Jed play the inventor of the keytar, trying to recreate his success by pitching a load of ridiculous follow-up crossbreed instruments. Didgeridrums . . . xylomonica . . .’

I laugh as Noah adds, ‘We spent most of the early hours of this morning coming up with the stupidest ones we could think of. Trumpelele, tuba-ccordian . . .’

‘Saxobourine?’ I suggest.

Everyone laughs, and Talia raises an eyebrow at me as she starts typing. ‘That’s not bad, actually, Charlie . . .’ A little flutter of pride runs through me.

‘What about violin-cello?’ says Rich, who’s just emerged, red-eyed and wild-haired, from the writers’ room.

‘There’s already an instrument called a violoncello,’ Kerri points out.

‘Yeah, that’s the joke, doofus,’ Rich replies.

‘I think that one’s a bit over our audience’s head,’ Noah says.

Bishi cuts in sharply. ‘Yes, anyway, the point is: how are we going to build all these ludicrous instruments in time for the show tomorrow night?’

Nate runs a hand through his dishevelled hair. ‘The props cupboard must be full of random musical instruments, mustn’t it? We could just glue a load of those together?’

‘Have you been to the props cupboard lately?’ Bishi shoots back. ‘That place is like a jungle! None of us has the time to forage around in there all day!’

Rich looks at me. ‘The interns do.’

I nod. ‘Yeah. Happy to.’

‘That’s actually a good idea, Richard,’ Bishi says, sounding extremely surprised. ‘But we’ll definitely need both of you. Come with me, Charlie.’ She pulls her phone out and starts typing. ‘I’ll message Nell to meet us down there.’

My stomach clenches as I follow her. I was hoping I might get a bit more time to prepare before seeing Nell again. After all, the last time I saw her, I not-really-but-kind-of asked her out, and she . . . went straight out with someone else.

To be fair to her, she couldn’t exactly have turned down Nate’s offer – him being our boss and all. But that fact still didn’t make me feel much better as I trudged to Pret on my own yesterday lunchtime. I just can’t stop wondering what Nell would have said if he hadn’t turned up.

Bishi pushes the lift button and we both step in. ‘Just have a rummage for whatever musical instruments you can find,’ she tells me as we descend. ‘We’ll have to make the sketch work with whatever we’ve got.’

‘No problem.’

We step out into the winding corridors of the studio level. ‘I must warn you though,’ Bishi says, ‘it is a bit of a . . .’

The door is already wedged open as we arrive and I see exactly what she means. ‘Right, yeah . . .’

‘Cupboard’ is the wrong word for the place, really – it’s about ten times the size of my flat. Metal shelves line the walls, all the way up to the high ceiling, every inch of them stuffed with the most random and ridiculous objects you’ve ever seen. The first things that catch my eye are a medieval knight’s helmet, a box of rubber snakes and what I can only describe as a life-sized inflatable pope. The floor, too, is stacked with boxes and crates, full of other presumably just as random and ridiculous items.

‘This is the accumulation of all the props we’ve ever used on the show since it started.’ Bishi sighs. ‘Plus, a lot of crap from the other shows that shoot here too. But, ooh –’ she breaks off, pointing her finger at the far wall – ‘I can already see a trumpet in that corner, so we’re off to a flying start!’

I squint at where she’s gesturing. ‘Ah, yep. OK, I’ll try to get that . . .’ I’m going to have to clamber over an absolute skyscraper of stuff – including the blow-up pope – to get to that trumpet. There’s a fairly high chance I’ll be breaking my neck on this particular assignment.

‘Nell should be down to help you in a minute,’ Bishi says. ‘I need to rush back upstairs now. Thanks, Charlie!’

She leaves and I walk towards the mountain of props. I’ve just made a start on trying to clear a pathway to the fabled trumpet when I hear a voice behind me.

‘Whoa.’

I turn around to see Nell standing in the doorway, and my heart performs its now-traditional beat-skipping ceremony. She’s wearing a navy-blue sweater, and her hair is down from its usual topknot, falling in dark waves at her shoulders. She looks ridiculously sexy. ‘Hey, Nell!’

For some reason I wave at her. Like I’m a small child. What the hell is wrong with me?

‘Hey, Francombe . . .’ she says, a smile flickering at the edge of her deep-red lips.

I can’t even figure out if this situation is awkward or not. I mean, in my head it definitely is awkward. I asked this girl out to lunch, and she chose to entirely ignore that and walk off with someone else. But maybe she didn’t even register that I’d asked her? Or maybe she just figured I’d understand that, clearly, she had to accept Nate’s offer? Which, clearly, I did.

The best course of action, I resolve, is to pretend the whole thing never happened. Blank slate.

She gazes past me at the piles of crap inside the cupboard. ‘So . . . what exactly do we have to do again?’

‘We’ve basically got to round up any and every musical instrument we can find.’

‘OK . . .’ She steps into the cupboard and raises her eyebrows. ‘Wow, this could take a while.’

‘Yep . . .’ Stupidly, it’s only now that I realise it. This assignment is essentially gifting me exactly what I was angling for with yesterday’s lunch: some proper one-to-one time with Nell. Granted, an outsized cupboard full of inflatable Catholic figureheads isn’t the ideal location to get to know each other. But it’s the best option I’ve had so far. If the next hour or so goes well, maybe I can even give the whole do-you-want-to-get-some-lunch? thing another shot . . .

‘So, shall we make a start then?’ she asks.

I nod. ‘Yep, let’s do it. Bishi already spotted a trumpet in that corner.’

We both start moving boxes out of the way so that we can get to it. Since it’s not a filming day, the corridor outside is completely empty, and I find myself suddenly very aware of the silence stretching between us. I rack my brain for conversation topics. I’ve already asked her about Zach. That’s a dead end. Would it be too much to ask if she has any other dates lined up? Is that fun and cheeky, or just . . . really weird and creepy?

What’s wrong with me, dammit? I’m usually good at this part. The flirting part. But with Nell it feels different. I just don’t want to mess it up.

What I really want is to ask her about . . . her. Where she grew up, where she went to uni. I don’t even know where she lives, or who she lives with. ‘So, whereabouts are you –’ I start, but her voice cuts me off.

‘Oh shit! Watch out!’

I look up to see a tower of dusty boxes wobbling precariously above us. ‘I was trying to shift them out of the way!’ Nell cries. ‘I didn’t realise they were gonna –’

‘Look out!’ I reach out and grab her hand, pulling her out of the way before the cardboard tower collapses right where she was standing. In a cloud of dust – and rubber snakes – the boxes crash to the ground, knocking the cupboard door shut. She clatters into me, bumping us both up against one of the shelving units. Her chest is pressed into mine, her face inches from my lips. As she looks up at me, our eyes catch. Desire pulses through me as I imagine what it would be like to kiss her right now.

‘Shit. That was close,’ she says softly.

‘Yeah,’ I mutter hoarsely.

She looks down at my hand. Which is still holding her hand.

I let go quickly, feeling my cheeks redden. ‘Sorry!’

‘No, that’s OK.’ She rubs the back of her neck and smiles. ‘Thank you. For saving my life,’ she adds, mock-melodramatically.

I laugh. ‘They were only full of rubber snakes. The worst you would have got was probably a mild bruise and a shit-ton of compensation money from the company.’

She nods. ‘OK. So I guess I should actually be pissed at you for losing me my mega-pay-out?’

‘Yep. Sorry. I screwed up.’

There’s a moment when we just grin at each other in silence. A really good moment.

And then Nell coughs. ‘God, the amount of dust off those boxes.’

‘Shall I open the door again?’

‘Yeah, definitely.’ I step across to the door. But when I try to pull it open, it won’t move. I try again, harder. Nothing.

‘Erm . . .’ I turn back to Nell. ‘So, we might have a slight problem.’