Chapter Three
I wake up late the next day, with Matt shouting and Noah cursing the house down as he jogs up and down the stairs to grab his work clothes. I change into my own appropriate work-wear half hidden behind the island while Matt stuffs toast into his mouth and calls his boss to apologise for being late.
I have to brush my hair in the car, which makes Noah scowl because I'm getting 'ginger hair all over his seats.'
He winks as he says it and I have to pretend that I'm not about to roll down the window and jump out onto the high street.
We drop off Matt first. It takes a further fifteen minutes of him speeding down some country lanes and narrowly avoiding old people at crossings for us to reach my office.
He pulls up in a no parking zone and puts on his hazard lights.
"Have a good day, Madelaine."
He smiles at me. I can't stop the blooming blush as I get out of his car and gently close the door, rushing around the bonnet and half-jogging towards the glass door of my office building.
He's already pulled away when I turn back to look for him before I enter. I'm hoping dropping me off didn't make him even more late for work, but the thought quickly disappears as I realise that I'm supposed to be in a rush too.
My heels click on the polished floor as I pass the front desk and walk towards the elevator, pressing up and scrolling through my twitter feed while I wait.
It dings when it opens, startling me.
"I'm on the coffee run Maddie," Zach, my coworker who is technically also my boss but doesn't act like it, calls as he leaves the elevator. "Vanilla latte?"
"Please," I respond, stepping in as he rushes out. I catch his thumbs up as the door begins sliding closed and chuckle to myself at his rush while I get back to twitter.
As I rise, I log out of my own twitter and into the company one. And so the work day begins.
When I get to my desk Chelsea is already sat at my swivel chair, chewing gum and picking at her blue nail polish. There's a green streak dyed into the front of her hair that's new and her red lipstick is smudged beneath her bottom lip already.
"You're a hot mess," I tease.
"And you're wearing fluffy socks with Santa on and high heels," she responds, blowing a bubble with her gum as I look down at my feet and cringe. "You're obviously ready for the Christmas push to start."
"I've had a long weekend."
She laughs and tips her head back, standing up from my chair as I reach around her to log on to my computer.
"I can't wait to hear all about it, after my double espresso."
She stomps back to her own desk in platform leather boots full of straps and buckles, dropping into her own chair when she reaches it. She sticks her tongue out at me before turning to her workspace.
I crack my knuckles and face the emails from the weekend.
Zach appears next to my desk almost half an hour later, balancing three other coffees in a holder as he places a latte on my desk.
"Meeting about the new campaign in half an hour," he informs.
"The oval room?"
"Duh," he laughs and walks towards Chelsea's desk.
As soon as she sips her espresso her eyes meet mine, grinning at me. I reach under my desk and pull out my tablet, shoving it under my arm and following her into the oval room to prepare for the meeting.
She arranges a pile of colourful pens and stationary across the table and I lean back into a comfy chair and sign in to my tablet.
My coffee still has steam rising from the lid so I blow on it gently, waiting for the conversation to start.
Chelsea usually checks one email when we come into the oval room together - to feel productive - and then proceeds to do nothing else whilst we gossip and giggle like naughty school children.
"Your weekend?" She asks, after only two minutes have passed.
She sets down her own tablet and I know that for the next fifteen minutes she'll likely get nothing done.
"Well my ceiling finally fell in."
"No!"
"Yes," I laugh, answering another email from Zach confirming the changes to a document we'd filled out for the previous project. "On Saturday morning."
"You're not still staying there?"
She takes a gulp of her espresso, finishing it off. It always amazes me that she doesn't burn her tongue.
"I've had to stay with Matt and his housemate. Noah."
"Noah?" Her smile is sly. "I don't believe I've heard of him."
"Anyway," I drawl. "I miss my disgusting house and my broken bathroom already. I'm staying on their uncomfortable couch and have to masturbate in the shower. Unsuccessfully."
She spits on me as the breath pushes between her lips in a strained laugh. I laugh with her and take the first scolding sip of my coffee.
"Because you've forgotten how to do it or because you're scared your brother will accidentally see your uglies?"
I roll my eyes at her.
Zach comes into the meeting room then, surprisingly early, I note, with documents and posters shoved under his arms. He drops them onto the table and sighs, pushing all the documents apart with his outstretched arms.
"Fun," Chelsea deadpans, leaning forward to glance at all the paperwork.
"We have a long meeting ahead ladies. I'll grab the other two - would you set up?"
I nod and start setting up the posters and the whiteboard. Chelsea's eyes follow me - I can feel her laughing at me behind her eyes.
"Do you think your brother would mind if we still hung out?"
"No," I confirm with a shrug. "I doubt he'd care. Though he has a game night with his mates on Tuesday, so we'll have to pick another day."
Zach returns with Loretta and Mohammed, our other colleagues, and we begin putting together a vague plan for the Christmas campaign.
·─────?? ??─────·
I finish work a little earlier than expected, deciding to hang around the office chatting with my work friends about our plans for the next month and a half.
At a few minutes past five, just as I'm signing back into my own twitter and beginning to mindlessly scroll again, I receive a text message.
Noah in the no-parking zone again and it's pitch black outside now. I pull the sleeves of my cardigan over my body and rush around his car, sliding into the leather seat.
It's heated, already warm. The air is blasting too, so I sink into the headrest and sigh.
It takes a few seconds for me to realise he's looking at me.
I turn to him dramatically, raising an eyebrow.
"Long day at the office?" His voice is deep and gruff. There's a swipe of oil across his cheek and my eyes drop to the dark blue overalls covering his body, all dirty and covered in grime.
He's obviously come straight from work.
"A lot of meetings."
He pulls out of the space in front of my office building and we drive quietly towards the roundabout at the end of the road.
"How was your day?" I ask, half-closing my eyes again. The heat is still blowing against my face.
There's a short pause before he answers, he sounds confused when does.
"It was good. I fixed cars."
I snort. Obviously he'd fixed cars.
"A man of many words," I joke. "Do you think Matt would mind if one of my friends came over one day this week? Or... would you mind?"
He chuckles, deep and vibrating through the car.
"I doubt he would mind. Neither would I."
We fall into a silence that I'm not sure is completely comfortable, because I keep fidgeting in his seat and he turns the music up a few paces louder.
When we get into the house, Matt is nowhere to be seen and Noah disappears in his room so I take it upon myself to raid their cupboards and scrounge whatever I can to make us all a meal.
Low and behold, when I open the fridge it's filled with nothing but beer, protein yogurts and butter that has seen better days.
I huff and pull up directions to the nearest shop on my phone. A ten minute walk - fine. Worth it for a meal that includes fresh ingredients.
Noah's hoodie is still slung over the back of the sofa from yesterday and I pull it over my head again gently, switching out my heels for trainers and pulling my hair into a bun on top of my head.
Maybe I shouldn't, I think briefly. Noah is sweet though, he wouldn't mind.
(Matt might.)
I gently shut the door behind myself and put one of my earphones in as I slink into the night. Google maps tells me where and when to turn so I sing softly along with the music flowing between the instructions.
The shop is at the far end of a long car park that isn't lit up. I walk across it quickly and am in and out in no time, my arms stacked with bags of groceries on each side.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, but with full hands I wobble back through the dark car park and down the street towards the house.
My head sways with the gentle music.
Matt's street comes into view quickly, seemingly this walk faster than the walk there, and I'm happy to fall through the door once more. I close it behind myself and step into the living room.
Matt and Noah are sat on the sofa, playing a video game.
"I texted you," Matt says without looking up. "Where were you?"
"You had no food in."
He pauses the game, both he and Noah turning to look at me in sync. I watch as Noah recognises the hoodie once more, but again says nothing about it. Good. I enjoy the smell of it.
My brother either doesn't notice the hoodie or doesn't care. Win-win for me.
"What?"
Matt's eyes narrow.
"You walked to the shop and back by yourself in the dark?"
"Oh for the love of God, Matt," I groan. "I don't remember you being that protective."
He squints at me and then turns in a huff of anger, pressing play on the game. Noah looks me up and down, watching as I take my hair out of its bun.
I lift the bags of groceries, shrugging. At least we have food now.
"Next time, ask me to drive you."
"I can't keep-"
"I like driving, Madelaine."
It's the first time he's cut me off, and for a moment I'm a little shell-shocked at the interruption. He continues to stare me down.
His cheekbones are prominent. I want to run a finger along his jaw to the tip of his slightly pointed chin full of stubble. But I won't. Because my brother has apparently become a stereotypical overprotective jerk who's forgotten that I've been living by myself since I was eighteen.
"Alright, jeez," I break. "You're my personal taxi, I get it."
He turns around and they continue to play the game without chatting.
I put the groceries away, pottering and working out where everything goes as I continue singing along with my music quietly.
Stupid overprotective jerks. Not letting me walk on my own for twenty minutes at six in the evening. And yet here I am, about to cook for them.
I can't be too mad though. Because Matt's letting me live here and Noah's driving me around everywhere - at least they're adapting to living with me quickly. More than adapting if I'm honest; they're incredibly accommodating.
I stir fry some chicken, chorizo and veg in a wok I find tucked into the back of a cupboard full of dust. I'm like a housewife really. Cooking for the family.
If Noah and I were married, this would be our house, and Matt would've visited us for the evening to catch up. They'd be in the living room shouting at a game they're losing,and Matt's wife and I would be in here making them cocktails and cooking up a Sunday roast.
My eyes widen. I look guiltily over to the couch whilst biting my lower lip.
I'm delusional.
Apparently I'm just so incredibly relationship-starved that I've now begun putting together fake scenarios to appease my mind.
I need a boyfriend, I think, looking back at my stir fry.
Or at least someone to distract me while I'm living in this house.
·─────?? ??─────·
Work drags the next day. We have meeting after meeting about the Christmas campaign and have to start pulling out ideas together properly so we're ready to have the big-boy meetings with our higher ups at the end of the week.
We grimly decide to pull a late one on Thursday in preparation for our Friday meetings.
Chelsea sits at my desk towards the end of the working day, both of us manically typing away on our tablets and looking frazzled beyond belief.
"Ugh," she groans, pushing her tablet away from herself. "What are you doing tonight?"
Her green streak appears to have gotten slightly larger. If I didn't know her any better I'd think she was trying to get away with dying her hair green without HR giving her a bollocking. Who am I kidding? That's definitely what she's doing.
Today she's wearing an overcoat that looks as if she's dropped onto the Earth from some sort of 1970's detective show. She pummeled Zach on the shoulder with a phone book when he called her Terminator at our first meeting this morning.
Her eyeliner is winged out over a smoky eye and, upon thinking it over, she also looks like a hot extra that's been pulled out of a My Chemical Romance music video.
"Matt's game night is tonight," I remind her. "Since my bedroom is the living room, I think I'll be in attendance."
"With his Uni math buddies?"
"Uh huh."
She chews on the end of a pencil, dragging some pictures around on her tablet and frowning at them. I'm scrolling through some of our analytics, impatiently waiting for the clock to hit five.
"I'm thinking of wearing something cute, dressing up." I tell her mindlessly.
I see her perk up from the corner of my eye, grinning.
"Something cute, huh?" She asks, and I nod whilst still scrolling through the endless pages of data. "Are you trying to catch someones eye?"
I put my tablet back onto my desk and lean into the swivel chair, pushing the hair out of my eyes and behind my ears. My shoulders sag.
"I think it's about time I did."
Her mouth pops open. There's gum on her tongue that I didn't even realise she was chewing.
"Is that Madelaine Grayson I'm speaking to?" She reaches forward and slowly presses on extended finger into my cheek. "Who are you?"
I swat her away and pretend to go back to my analytics.
"All I'm saying is that I'm going to dress cute. It's not like I can pull anyone there tonight, they're all Matt's mates and - apparently - he has this thing where me dating his mates makes him want to vomit."
"When did he say that?"
"He mentioned some guy from high school who fancied me. They stopped being friends because of it."
"That's... odd."
Don't I know it. I'd never given him the slightest idea that I'd be in any way interested in dating his friends. Hell, I never even wanted them at the house.
We continue working next to each other until five on the dot, at which point I receive a text from Noah stating that he'll be a little later than usual because he only just left work.
"I've got fifteen minutes to kill," I tell Chelsea.
"You wanna look cute tonight, right?" She digs around in her purse, pulling out a small black pencil. "How about a bit of a sexy eyeliner look?"
"I don't think that's very..."
"You're going to look hot." She continues to reassure me as she pulls my chair closer to hers. I settle between her legs, her minty breath fanning my face as she studies my eye shape.
I can tell she gets a bit carried away. There's a lot of pulling and muttered comments about resting my face and at one point she even licks her thumb and drags in under my eye.
She claps when she's finished, like she's on a plane that's just landed.
"Okay," she mutters as she puts the pencil back in her bag. "When you get home, wear something cute. A dress - you've got great legs. Are you going to shower?"
"I showered this morning."
"Great!" She grins. I nod at her enthusiasm. "Do your makeup around the eyeliner. Overfill your eyebrows slightly, and straighten your hair. Don't overdo the bronzer or the blush, alright?"
"That was one time," I sigh. The last work party we threw I didn't look so hot, but the electricity at my place had cut out and I'd gotten ready using my phone torch. Nobody has ever let it go.
I show her the text and she squeals and shoves all of her belongings back into her bag. She begins rattling off more instructions in the elevator and then starts going through my outfits from memory as we both walk through the lobby.
Her waterfall of words halts when we step through the doors. I look up from the floor to see Noah parked in his usual non-parking spot, right outside the glass door.
His window is down today and his grin is breathtaking as he smiles up at us both.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Chels."
"Girl," she coughs.
"I know." I grit, looking at Noah, now scrolling on his phone as he waits for me.
I know she wants to say everything I've been thinking for the past few days. That this man is three-course meal worthy. That he could eat her off a dinner plate and she'd thank him. She's probably already got something lined up about shagging him in his car.
"Don't dress cute," she states quietly. "Dress killer. Call me when you're getting ready."
"It's a game night," I remind her.
Noah looks towards us both and we quickly turn to look at each other. There's little room to deny it; it's obvious we were staring and talking about him.
"Are you ready?" He asks gently. His voice is soft but the husk of it still rattles me to my core. "I don't want to rush you but I'm starting to think I'm not allowed to park here."
I smile at his joke. Chelsea squeezes my arm before beginning to walk around the building and towards the company car park. Noah's eyes stay on me as I watch her round the corner. I still feel the heat of them when I dip into the passenger seat.