Chapter 4
FOUR
The hot granny on my desk
Georgie
Three months later
The thing about old people dying is that everyone expects you to be fine about it.
“She had a great run,” they say, like Riri was a cheerful marathon runner who almost crossed the finish line but stumbled at the last second.
She wasn’t my mum or my gran, so apparently her death doesn’t qualify for proper grief. Great-aunt? Please. You might as well say your hamster died.
A peripheral relative, by most people’s standards. Not someone whose absence is supposed to break you.
But Riri wasn’t peripheral. She was central.
When Mum and Derek buggered off to their Spanish retirement paradise, sure, I dutifully visited three times a year for paella and obligatory poolside photos, but it was Riri who was there for me.
I nudge the photo tucked behind my desk calendar until her face peeks out. There she is in that purple coat, rocking her “eccentric duchess” vibe, complete with the lavender streak she put in her hair for her eightieth birthday.
My fingers find the chain around my throat without thinking. It’s the same gold necklace she’s wearing in the photo. Each link is slightly different, handmade, with a tiny iris flower charm at the center.
Riri’s husband gave it to her before he shipped out to the war.
She lost it somehow, before he died. Five years after his death, she walked into this dusty charity shop in Brighton, and there it was, sitting in a jewelry box with her initials carved in the lid.
Like the universe decided to return what she’d lost.
She wore it every day after that. Now it’s mine.
People think it’s weird to have a picture of an old lady on your desk. “Is that your nan?” the HR girl asked last week. I mumbled something vague because how do you explain that your roommate, best friend, and rock was an eighty-year-old woman?
Every morning, I nudge the calendar a little further. Now just the edge of her purple coat is showing.
I hate that I’m covering her up. But I can already hear Craig if he saw it, with that “banter” he thinks everyone loves. Something like, “Who’s the hot granny?”
It’s been four weeks since the funeral, and it still doesn’t feel real.
It happened so fast.
On Tuesday, she had a cough. Tried to blast it out with whisky and a hot water bottle.
By Friday, she was in the hospital.
The week after, I was picking out a coffin.
The doctors said pneumonia was “common at her age,” as if statistics make it hurt less. Like she was right on schedule.
The house feels off now. All the familiar creaks and groans that used to feel like background noise just echo in the silence.
Yesterday, the pharmacy’s automated line called, cheerfully asking for Mrs. Fitzgerald to collect her prescription. I almost lost it.
When I went to cancel everything, the pharmacist asked if I was “coping alright” while holding her denture adhesive.
No, Declan. I’m not coping alright while you give me that sympathy head-tilt over the glue that kept my great-aunt’s teeth from flying across the dining table every time she laughed too hard.
“Morning, gorgeous,” Roy says, dropping into his chair.
I blink hard, pulling myself back to reality, and slide a paper bag across my desk. “They had those blueberry muffins you love at the café downstairs. I grabbed a few before they sold out.”
His eyes light up. “You legend.”
He’s halfway through demolishing the first muffin when I hear the distinctive click-clack of Craig’s ridiculous shoes—dress shoes with secret lifts that fool absolutely no one. My shoulders automatically hunch.
He slams a document onto my keyboard hard enough to make my tea jump.
“What the hell is this?” he barks, his crotch hovering uncomfortably close to my peripheral vision.
I glance at the implementation plan he demanded. The one I’ve “simplified” twice already. I’ve been dumbing down technical diagrams for him so often I’m tempted to get business cards printed: Georgie Fitzgerald: Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again?
“It’s the plan you requested,” I say.
Craig’s eyes narrow. “Georgina, get a bloody grip. I need something I can show Patrick without giving the man a splitting headache.”
“But I followed your template.”
The same template that kept me chained to this desk until nine last night.
He leans in close enough that I can smell his coffee breath. “Well, the template clearly isn’t working, is it? I need this redone.”
“The thing is,” I say carefully, “if I simplify it any further, we’ll lose some of the technical accuracy—”
“I don’t need a lecture on technical accuracy from you,” he snaps, his red face getting all worked up. “I was in IT while you were playing with Barbie dolls.”
Heat rushes to my neck. The whole office goes dead silent.
Yes, I still get carded buying wine at Tesco. Yes, people occasionally mistake me for the work experience girl. But that comment? That was pure, calculated humiliation.
“If you can’t follow basic instructions, I’ll give this to someone on the team who can.”
The hot prickle behind my eyes warns me I’m about thirty seconds away from committing the unforgivable sin of crying in front of Craig. I blink furiously, fighting it back.
What kills me is the double standard. When Roy submits something Craig doesn’t like, he gets a matey chat about football scores and gentle suggestions for “tweaking the approach.” When I do it, I get humiliated in front of everyone.
“No problem,” I say.
He raps his knuckles on my desk. “Send it over ASAP.”
Then he spots the muffin bag. Pauses. Stares at it.
“Would you like one?” I ask.
He grunts, plucks the biggest muffin like he’s doing me a favor, tears the top off caveman-style, and manages to scatter crumbs across my keyboard, mouse, and half my paperwork. Blueberry shrapnel everywhere.
Muffin in hand, he struts back to his office.
Unbelievable.
I stare at the wreckage on my desk. Tiny purple-stained reminders of my complete inability to say no.
Roy spins around in his chair. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just gives me that look he does when he’s witnessed another Craig incident.
“That went brilliantly,” he says.
I exhale slowly, eyes locked on my screen. “It’s fine.”
“You’ve got to stop letting that jerk walk all over you.”
“I know,” I say automatically.
But knowing and doing are two different skill sets, and I’ve only mastered the first one.
Roy leans in, lowering his voice. “You know what Craig’s problem is?”
“Besides not knowing how to turn on a computer without calling IT, even though he is IT?”
He smirks. “Small-dick energy. Classic case.”
“Please don’t make me picture Craig’s penis.” I groan, dropping my head into my hands. “I’m already having a terrible day.”
“I’m serious. You’re twenty-five, attractive, and way smarter than him.
His fragile ego can’t handle it. In his messed-up mind, you should look pretty while he explains what a mouse is.
But instead, the other developers come to you when their code breaks.
They’re supposed to worship his ‘technical expertise,’ not ask the young woman who actually knows her stuff. ”
A tired laugh slips out. “Right. I should feel honored to get his sacred pearls of wisdom.” I sigh, staring at the report. “I need to redo this. Again.”
My stomach growls ominously. The muffins are right there, but just looking at them makes me queasy.
Craig’s officially ruined muffins for me. That feels like a new low.
I sweep the crumbs off my keyboard and start rewriting his document. I send it over with a polite note about the “clarifications,” then lean back, ready to—if not relax—at least unclench slightly.
One precious moment of relief. That’s all I get before Patrick strides into our department, mid-phone conversation.
Fuck.
Life would be so much easier if I could see him as just “the boss” or “Jake’s mate” instead of… whatever catastrophic hormonal implosion he triggers.
But no. Every single time he walks into a room, ever since I was sixteen and he turned up at our house with Jake, I turn into this awkward, stuttering mess.
He was intimidating even back then. A proper twenty-six-year-old man, while I was still trying to figure out how to be a functional human being.
I still remember that first lunch. Mum practically bowed when Jake introduced him. “Patrick McLaren?” she gasped, like he was some A-lister instead of just my brother’s climbing mate.
Turns out he kind of was. By then, Patrick already had three hotels under his belt.
Ten years later, the second Patrick walks into a room, I’m sixteen again. Tongue-tied, shaky, praying I don’t trip over my own feet while my mum’s voice hisses in my head: Be respectful. He’s important. Don’t embarrass Jake.
Some habits just won’t quit.
He nods at me mid-conversation, and—oh God—those eyes. That icy blue. My body reacts like he’s grabbed me by the throat and whispered something dirty, when really, he’s just acknowledged I exist.
Please head straight for Craig’s office. Please don’t—
Of course he doesn’t.
He ends his call with a curt “Sort it,” and stops right next to my desk. Close enough that I catch a hint of masculine cologne.
“Morning, team,” he says, that Yorkshire accent rolling around the words. “How’s everyone doing?”
Cue the corporate autopilot: Brilliant, thanks. Busy but excellent. Can’t complain really.
Ingrid, our UX lead, unveils a breathy, simpering voice I’ve never heard from her before. “Really great. Just working on some super exciting new design concepts.”
I fixate on my keyboard, staring at a single blueberry muffin crumb stuck between J and K.
“Life in Skye treating you well, sir?” Roy jumps in, sliding into the conversation with the kind of easy confidence I’d kill for. “Heard you’re living up there these days.”