Chapter 1 #2
He raises one eyebrow, an intersection between mockery and charm.
‘I’ll otherwise throw them away when we get out of here.
’ Which I now realise I ought to have done on the walk here.
‘I was only bringing them inside to put them in the bin and stop my car from stinking.’ I got a new jelly bean freshener yesterday and gave Penelope her annual clean.
‘So you’d be supporting sustainability and preventing us from suffering a really smelly…
’ I check my watch. ‘Twenty-four minutes.’
‘Twenty-four?’ he asks, eyes – striking eyes – widening.
‘At worst,’ I’m quick to add, ‘by my reckoning, we’ve been stopped for six minutes already and I read once that the absolute longest it takes for any lift stall to be rectified is thirty minutes.’ I’ve made that up entirely, but Guy’s inhalations are no longer visible from under his coat.
His eyes meet mine and his expression softens in a way that’s uncommonly hypnotic.
‘I doubt I’ll be around long enough to see the demise of the planet,’ he tells me, finally breaking away from my stare. ‘But I won’t say no to a taco.’ He reaches into the box and takes the Mexican bite. ‘The box says mixed. You ate the meat and veg and left both fish.’
It isn’t a question and he doesn’t seem overly perturbed as he takes a ginormous mouthful of food.
‘I find fish in tortilla ick,’ I explain, setting the takeaway down closer to him. ‘It’s the texture combo. It’s my version of long nails being scraped down a blackboard.’
He takes the other half in one more mouthful and chews, watching me until his orifice is clear. ‘Why order a mixed box if you don’t like fish?’
‘Because I couldn’t decide between veggie and pork pibil. A mixed box of six was cheaper than two separate boxes of pork and veg. It made economic sense.’
‘Yet went against your mission to save the world, two fish tacos at a time.’
Forcing myself to scowl, I tell him, ‘A girl can go off a man pretty quickly, you know.’
He scoffs, though character lines draw on one side of his mouth, and something tells me this man is not often in good spirits.
‘I’m not complaining,’ he says through a mouthful of the second taco. ‘Cold fish tacos happen to be my favourite meal.’
‘I can never un-see the half-chewed food you just showed me.’
He scoffs again yet takes another bite of fish before replying. ‘I bet your parents brought you up to empty your mouth before you speak.’
He’s really getting my hackles up. Maybe because I can hear the voice of my mum telling me exactly that. ‘Chew your food before you speak, Lyra Clarkson. You’re not an animal.’
‘Well, beggars can’t be choosers,’ I tell him huffily.
He takes another unbelievable swig of tequila. ‘Aye. But cheaper for you to just make a decision next time. You’re lucky to’ve fallen into this entrapment so that I can spare the environment your waste.’
‘For your information, I’m not very good at making decisions.
I’m appalling, in fact.’ My mind spins so quickly with every disastrous decision I’ve made in my twenty-eight years, but I always come back to the same one.
The same night. ‘They tend to have far-reaching repercussions. Sorry, that was an overshare. It’s the stress of our demise. ’
He stares for too long before saying, ‘It’s a box of tacos, Lyra.’
I don’t know why but the sound of my name leaving his husky voice causes a figurative puncture in my lungs. There’s something about that voice, his face, a feeling of déjà vu. I can’t put a finger on it but I think he reminds me of…
‘Has anyone ever told you that you look like… Never mind, it’s silly.’
He stares at me, as if he’s looking beyond my eyes, somewhere deeper. ‘Go on,’ he croaks.
Guy. ‘Guy Walker.’
He continues to bore holes in me, unblinking.
‘You know? From the band The Hand Me Downs?’
He doesn’t speak but stands, towering above me where I’m still sitting on the lift floor.
He draws down the zip of his coat, but his height and presence are making me nervous. So I do what I tend to do when I’m nervous… talk.
‘He was the guitarist. People don’t remember him as well as his brother Scott, I guess because he notoriously never did interviews, and he wasn’t on social media.
’ My words are coming faster as his zip comes lower.
‘Though he wrote or co-wrote nearly all their songs. Definitely the best ones. He’s an incredible songwri?—’
Holy Moses! As he slides his coat down his arms, my mouth proverbially, perhaps literally, falls to the floor with the garment.
Because beneath it is a torso. A muscly torso, with tattoos stretching across his shoulders and up his neck from his back.
And it’s… exposed. I mean exposed. Like, naked, but for a dickie-bow around his neck and matching cuffs at his wrists.
And bloody hell, he has the kind of body only people like Glen Powell and Chris Hemsworth and Ryan Gosling and, like, other really fit men have. I follow the lines of his lower abs into the waistband of his black trousers.
‘I, ah, sorry, I’m babbling. Anyway, sorry, clearly not. You’re not, ah, the Guy. Guy Walker. Even though your name is Guy – funny coincidence. Because you’re a…’ Hen party! Of course! ‘What are you? A… stripper?’
He slips back down to his hunkers, his proximity suddenly overwhelming in this tiny box, his feet touching mine, his body…
His very near naked body is very close to me.
Is there a fire under my backside? It’s suddenly insanely hot in here.
I subtly fan my face, which does nothing to alleviate the hotness, the heat, the bloody inferno. And… what was my question?
‘I’m a naked butler,’ he tells me, straight-faced, as if this very bizarre scenario that’s making my knickers protest beneath what suddenly feels like a primary school teacher’s dress is not only real but entirely normal. As if I’m not going to wake up any moment.
And for some reason, dream me, who would be much more confident, much more brazen, because she doesn’t have real life to face on the other side of these lift doors, says, ‘Almost. Not quite.’
But I am real and this is not a dream. I know because my words bring the kind of colour to my cheeks that means Guy-the-Almost-Naked-Butler is probably thinking he’s staring at a cooked red lobster right now.
As if the Gods of anti-mortification are shining down on me, the lift jerks. The abrupt movement knocks us both off balance as the cart recommences its ascent to the fourth floor, saving me from myself.