Chapter Seventeen
Stephen
Everything good?’ Patrick asked quietly, when I got back to my desk.
‘Yes. She just wanted to know how I felt things were going.’
‘That’s considerate of her.’ He lifted his eyebrows at me in a way that almost seemed like a question…
or perhaps an invitation to talk? But I didn’t know him well enough to tell him about Georgina’s behaviour.
It might have been a stereotype but finance was a competitive business and we, of all people, knew the value of information.
I chose not to elaborate, and he changed the subject.
‘I thought I saw you at the weekend. Out jogging.’
‘You may well have done. I go out most mornings.’
He explained he’d been going in the opposite direction on Saturday, that he’d started jogging himself only a couple of months ago, and we were so busy talking about it and exchanging our user profiles for Fitbit challenges I didn’t hear the approaching click of heels until Georgina’s hand was on the back of my chair.
‘Have a good lunch, Stephen,’ she all but purred in my ear, ‘perhaps we can schedule in one for ourselves soon?’
There was no time to answer before she was striding over to the lifts. Patrick cleared his throat and diverted his attention back to his phone. Excellent, he probably thought I’d lied to him about what I went into her office for now.
Or…was I reading too much into it? Did she just want a normal lunch?
Was the breast brush just an innocent mistake?
Not having a pair myself, I didn’t know how easily that kind of thing could happen.
Would I even have been questioning this if she was a man?
It’s not like she was the first boss to ever say their “door was always open” to me - just the first female boss.
Maybe Elle’s accusation was close to the truth and I didn’t know any other way to see things than through the lens of sexual attraction. Perhaps I was being utterly sexist and assuming too much about our every interaction just because she was an attractive woman?
*
‘I don’t know,’ Nick said over the phone to me, after I’d told him what was happening during my lunch break. ‘She does sound like she’s flirting with you. And it’s not like you’re unfamiliar with being flirted with. You’ve got plenty of experience.’
‘Why does everyone keep talking about me as though I’m the office bike?’ I groaned as I walked around the block, no real destination in mind.
‘What?’ His laugh was nonplussed. ‘Stephen. I just meant that you’re not some hideous fifty-year-old virgin who takes any smile from a woman as a come-on. Who’s said you’re the office bike?’
Everybody. Though having Nick confirm that he thought Georgina was flirting with me did reassure me somewhat. ‘Don’t worry. The heat is probably getting to me.’
‘Sounds to me like you should take a date with you when you go to this leaving do. For protection.’
‘It would certainly help avoid an awkward situation.’ I went beneath some scaffolding and a bookstore caught my eye.
‘Although, I don’t like taking women out under false pretences,’ I added as I pushed the door to the shop open.
‘It feels underhand to ask someone out with an ulterior motive.’ I lowered my voice as I stepped inside.
It was cool and quiet, though there were plenty of people browsing the wooden shelving and the tables at the front.
There was a small coffee shop at the back too where I’d be able to buy some lunch.
‘You could always be up front – ask them as a favour?’
It was ridiculous how quickly my mind leapt to Elle. I imagined she’d love being part of a “scheme”.
‘Not Elle though,’ Nick added, and the image of her dressed up in a slinky dress and heels, popped like a cartoon bubble.
‘Why would I ask Elle?’ I bluffed.
‘She’s helping you find him, isn’t she?’
Of course. Elle and Beth had been chatting again. Thank God I wasn’t dating Elle; the whisper chain of information between the four of us would have been a nightmare.
‘Yes,’ I said quietly, circling a large oblong table with piles of crime fiction organised in a rainbow pattern according to their covers.
‘I think that’s enough to be beholden to her for, isn’t it?
On the plus side, that means you can forget any obligation you felt to join me on the search when you come over. It should all be sorted by then.’
‘Well, if it isn’t, the offer is still there.’ He cleared his throat and I heard him shuffling around; a door closing at his end, like he’d shut himself in a room. ‘Actually, when I’m in New York, I was wondering if you could help me out with something?’ His voice was oddly hushed.
‘Of course.’
‘I want to go to Tiffany’s. To look for a ring. I was hoping you’d give me your opinion.’
I paused with my hand on the cover of a book with roses dripping black ink like blood. ‘I’m not sure diamonds would suit you.’
‘Fuck off, Stephen,’ he half-laughed. ‘You know I don’t mean for me.’
‘You’re planning to propose to Beth?’
‘Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.’
I frowned. I wasn’t sure I did want to help him go get a ring for Beth when it seemed too soon.
Nick was so like Mum. That’s what people had always said, growing up.
How much Nick was like Mum, how much I was like my father…
And Mum had obviously got herself in trouble with him.
I didn’t want to see that happen with Nick.
Admittedly, he was a bit older than she’d been and I knew Beth had genuine feelings for him.
But if he ran in headlong, wouldn’t he scare her off? I didn’t want him to feel that pain.
‘Nick…please don’t overreact but…you’ve only been together six months.’
He was quiet for a long time and I found myself holding my breath. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he did get defensive, given the fact I’d tried to break them up once.
‘I know. It is quick,’ he said, eventually. ‘And quick might be scary for her. She was engaged before – and we’re not even living together yet. Although, we spend as much time together as if we were, considering my shift patterns.’
The relief of him not immediately withdrawing as he would have done a few months ago, was almost painful.
‘Aren’t there other things to consider? Finances and sharing the responsibilities of a home and answering to each other’s whereabouts and…many other things I have no concept of.’
‘I suppose,’ he said, evenly.
It would’ve been easy for him to throw the fact I’d never cohabited with a partner at me. Never even dated someone past six weeks, let alone six months. But he kept his opinions to himself on that front.
‘I still want to ask her, though. She’s just…she’s it. I’m sure of it. Y’know?’
No. I did not know. I started walking around again as a middle-aged man was invading my personal space to see the books I was standing next to.
‘Surely, if that’s the case, it can wait a little longer? Until you’re certain that she’s ready, too? You’re not going to lose her because you haven’t offered her a commitment. There’s no hurry.’
‘It feels like a hurry. Now I’ve decided, it’s this constant pressure sitting on my chest.’
‘Like a heart attack?’ I asked, grimly.
‘No.’ He snorted. ‘Like…like the first time you tell someone you’re in love with them. Once you realise, you need to release it or you’re going to explode.’
‘I think I’d prefer the heart attack,’ I responded dryly. ‘Look, I’m honoured that you want my opinion on the ring, but we both know relationships aren’t my area of expertise, are they?’
‘They could be if you wanted them to be.’
If only it were that easy.
‘Matrimony isn’t for everyone,’ I said absently as I noticed a book on the opposite side of the table with an image of rolling hills and the author’s name picked out in bold font.
As bold as the author herself: it was one of Elle’s.
I found my hand reaching for it, slowly, as though she might leap out from beneath the table and cry out ‘Gotcha’.
When I had it firmly in my grasp, I tested the weight of it.
How odd to hold a downloaded version of her formidable brain in the palm of my hand.
I wondered if it ever occurred to the other people browsing in the shop that the author of this book could be a royal pain in the arse?
‘If you say so,’ Nick said. ‘Look, call me when you find him.’
I blinked at the abrupt return to the previous topic of conversation. ‘OK.’
‘No. I mean it, Stephen. I want to know how you are. It’s understandable if it’s messing with your head.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Let me be there for you…the way you would have been there for me after Mum…if I’d let you.’
I released a slow breath through my nose.
I didn’t want to push him away when he was being so honest with me.
I knew what it cost him to talk about that, so I nodded and said the only thing I could, which was the truth.
‘I just want it over with, Nick. I want to deal with it and put it behind me.’ Put my biological father behind me.
And then I could get back to my uncomplicated life.