6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
T he next week went by so quickly if Evie hadn’t lived it she’d have thought it was some sort of fever dream. Every day was a blueprint of the one before – get to work before seven am, begin sourcing the items on the ever growing list that encompassed all interior fixtures and fittings for the house, as well as the wedding space, whilst drinking coffee after coffee.
Lunch was eaten at her desk, couriered in for her and Grace, then it would be time to studiously ignore James at the daily catch up meeting, followed by finishing sketches to show Cyan after Grace had finished her thirty minute nap. Her best friend was pulling fifteen hour days and hadn’t seen daylight for the whole week. Evie had begun to be concerned that Grace was overdoing things, but knew she was too proud to admit it. Which was why whenever Grace disappeared into their lounge space to ‘gather her thoughts’, Evie would close the door and ensure no-one came into their office in that time.
The afternoons would disappear into the void of video calls with Cyan from wherever she was performing that day in the world, to approve designs, fabrics and furnishings, where the popstar would disagree with most of the options that Grace offered and they would be back to square one the following day. It was a cycle that needed breaking but neither Grace nor Evie could work out what was going wrong. They were meeting the brief that Cyan had set them – exceeding it even – but she wasn’t happy with what they were suggesting.
Evie slumped onto her desk, burying her head into her arms. She’d had enough. She was tired. Thirsty. Hungry. Hadn’t been for a run or to the gym for almost a week and she felt very, very unhappy.
‘Erm, everything alright?’
Evie startled as James came into the office. He had, as far as Evie was concerned, made an effort to avoid coming in to their office and the only time their paths crossed was for the daily catch-ups in his office.
If it had been any other day, Evie would have managed to fob him off, but she was too exhausted to be anything but honest. ‘I’m having a bad day,’ was all she could manage. James nodded, then left the room. Unsurprised he’d gone she placed her head back in her arms. Maybe she just needed a little sleep, and then everything would be fine.
‘Does this still help?’ James had returned with a mug, and judging by the scent of what was in it, a cup of peppermint tea. It had been the only thing to lift her out of her slumps when she was a teenager and they’d been revising. Evie was surprised he’d remembered, but didn’t say anything, just managed a small smile.
‘Thank you,’ she extended her hand for the mug and as he passed it to her their fingertips brushed, bringing with it a tingle of electricity. Evie almost dropped the hot minty mug but recovered enough to place it on her desk, moving wads of fabric out of the way to do so.
‘And one of these,’ James smiled at her and produced a packet of Reese’s Pieces out of his jacket pocket. ‘It used to be your go-to?’
Evie couldn’t help it, she laughed. She hadn’t had them for years but right now was the perfect time. ‘You read my mind.’
He placed the packet on her desk with care so as not to disturb the organised chaos spread around her. ‘You should have one, you look a bit peaky,’ he said, with a slight crack in his voice that gave Evie a stomach flip.
She did as she was told, biting into one of the peanut and chocolate cups and enjoying the heady bliss that came with the ultra-sugar rush. James sat at Grace’s desk as she ate it, watching her every move.
‘Now the tea,’ he reminded her. She sipped at it, relieved it had cooled quickly enough and her body thanked her for the hydration.
‘Better?’
She nodded. ‘Lots, thank you. Sorry, that was very unprofessional of me.’ Her hunger and thirst pangs at bay for the moment, a sense of reality was also being restored and Evie sought to place the wall between her and James she’d worked hard at building this past week. ‘I should really be getting on, was there something you needed?’
James looked surprised at her once again polite tone, but recovered himself quickly. ‘Yes, I wanted to see Grace, but she’s not around?’ he said, whilst looking pointedly at the closed door of their sitting room. So he knew. Evie wondered how he’d worked it out, but didn’t want to drop her friend in it.
‘She’s popped out for some fresh air,’ Evie said, giving a taut polite smile which told James not to press things any further.
‘Something you should probably do soon, it’s a beautiful day,’ James replied. ‘Could you tell Grace to pop in when she’s…back, I want to be in on this afternoon’s video call with Cyan. Just wanted to give her the head’s up.’
‘Wait, why? Don’t you think we can handle it?’
Shaking his head sadly, James stood up from the desk. ‘Not at all, but time is ticking and she’s proving to be a tricky customer, I wanted to give you any help I can. I want this to be a success you know – I don’t want my first big account to fail.’
Up until that moment, Evie hadn’t considered the path that had led James to the same company as her, she had just been thinking of herself and what bad luck it was that he’d appeared.
‘Since we’re…you know, talking…a bit,’ Evie began, not sure what she wanted to ask, but James smiled at her to continue. ‘I was wondering what brought you here to this job? When I last knew you,’ she stumbled over the pain to continue, ‘you were planning on becoming a gardener, following in your dad’s footsteps.’ She wondered if she’d overstepped when he didn’t reply for a moment, something dark flitting across his face.
James shrugged. ‘People change, not everyone has their career path mapped out from the age of eleven.’ His tone was light but Evie winced at his reference. They had shared their hopes and dreams when they had been buddied up on the first day of their first year at high school. Being sat close to a boy had been enough to send Evie into a tailspin that day, after spending her primary years at a girl’s only school. Her parents had moved and a co-ed was the only choice. On talking to James for all of ten minutes that first day, she had decided it hadn’t been a bad one.
From that day they’d been friends, though it had quickly become apparent that quiet and sensitive Evie wasn’t going to be in sports mad James’ mind when it came to being anything else. This left Evie holding an unreciprocated crush for four years, watching on as girlfriends came and went. She would often be James’ confidante, the person who knew everything about his latest kisses and conquests, before his mates on the football team. And then after a summer holiday when she had been away travelling with her mum and dad, Evie had returned to the fifth year tanned as her English rose complexion would allow, taller and altogether surer of herself after a month of Interrailing across Europe, visiting places that had fired her imagination due to their beauty.
When she had sat in her place in class waiting for James she had been surprised when he’d appeared in the classroom doorway and at the moment of seeing her, gone so pale she thought he would faint. After he slunk in next to her he barely uttered a word for the whole first lesson. Evie had been surprised, and hurt. She’d thought after a month apart they would have lots to catch up on. They had been messaging regularly she couldn’t understand his hesitance. He continued to act strangely around her for the week, and by the weekend Evie, now stronger and surer of herself than ever, decided she had confront him. He played football every Saturday for the local club, so she waited until he was walking home – when none of his mates were around – and had come straight out with it, asking him why he was being weird. Didn’t he like her anymore?
‘No’, he’d said. Making her heart plummet. ‘It’s worse than that. I don’t want to say anything in case I ruin our friendship’. Evie had stopped in the middle of the street, making him do the same thing. She had held her breath, waiting for him to say the words she’d been imagining for the last four years. Instead, they had locked eyes and when he lent in to brush her lips with the gentlest of kisses it was as though a firework had exploded. They had stepped back from each other but only for a moment, then James had pulled Evie into him and kissed her deeper. They had been inseparable after that. Until prom night.
Evie realised James was saying something and she refocused on him in the present, shaking the memories away.
‘Malcolm has put a lot of faith into me. I need to prove I can handle this, it’s quite a big jump from my last job,’ he explained, cracking his knuckles whilst he spoke. It was a habit Evie had always found annoying, but it was something he did in high stress situations. ‘Let’s do the video call in my office, all three of us,’ he nodded in the direction of the closed door where Grace was stilling sleeping. ‘See you in ten.’
He walked out and Evie breathed in deeply, catching the merest hint of his aftershave in the air. She needed to get a hold of herself. There was no use going over old ground with James. Whatever had happened in the past needed to stay there, she wasn’t going to rake over the embers of their relationship. And she was certain he wasn’t keen to either.
‘Grace, time to wake up,’ she yelled through the door. ‘Time to be charming.’