Chapter 3 #2
“Look, you said yourself – there are no faces. Richard isn’t identifiable. If it wasn’t for the tie, you wouldn’t have known it was me either.”
“Oh, and you trust the guy who cheated on his fiancée not to dump you in it, do you? Why does this even exist?”
“I don’t know. The camera must have been left running after the interview.”
Simon looked so exhausted by it all, I gave in and went for a passive-aggressive double-fingered rummage in the stupid-tiny bag resting in his palm. Right in his lap. Only, my gorilla fingers failed to chopstick onto anything in the narrow packet.
He stared at me. And I chopsticked harder. His hand bobbed under the pressure of my ineffective scissoring, and I cringed.
“Got it?”
“Nearly.”
“So close. Don’t stop.”
One corner of his mouth curled up, eyes bright with amusement. Never mind Mel Booker, Simon was firing me for offences against the person with a packet of cough sweets.
Digging deeper, I executed an impressive finger wriggle, triumphant as I dragged out a disappointingly dusty-looking lozenge.
With a sigh, Simon leaned back against the glass wall of the bus stop, stretching out his legs, and the soles of his shoes rasped, leather on concrete. Very post-coital vape. What a dick.
“He didn’t cheat on her.”
Right. Richard. I popped the lozenge, trying his disbelieving eyebrow-trick on for size.
“It wasn’t cheating. Anyway, I could hardly argue it’s a malicious hoax he’s not involved in if he named me. Wouldn’t be in his best interests to do that at all.”
“And if you’re wrong?” The love child of Red Flavouring and artificially sweet vapo-rub flooded my tastebuds. “Oh my god. This is not a sweet.”
Simon’s eyes glittered at me. “They fit into my pocket without ruining the line.”
“Exactly what I look for in my confectionery.” Clearly I had my priorities wrong. The arsehole probably got off conning people into eating them. “What’s wrong with breath mints?”
“I don’t have breath mints. Do you have breath mints?”
“No.” I squirmed under his judgement of my organisational fail.
If I was organised enough to have breath mints stashed in my bag, the whole foetid mess of this would disintegrate immediately.
Behind him, orange letters on the electronic display counted down the minutes to the next bus.
In three and a half, one I’d never heard of would get here, and I’d get on, and go wherever it took me, and none of this would matter.
Sliding closer along the bench, he nudged my shoulder and his body heat needled into me, too hot and too close and too everything-I-should-have-never-wanted.
“Whatever happens, you’ll be fine. Skilled interpreters are in high demand.”
“Oh brilliant. Panic over.” I glared.
“Ben..?”
He didn’t get it, did he?
I ducked my head between my knees and pretended not to notice he’d tried to talk to me. Because the five years he had on me settled him nicely into Legitimate Adult and I was clinging onto Man-Child with both hands. He could wrench that out of my cold dead fists too, when my heart gave up beating.
I went freelance for him. What a total genius.
We were both supposed to get a better deal without an agency taking a cut – stretch out his piss-take of an Access to Work funding cap a little further, and stop Mapp and Green cutting corners employing under-qualified jokers like the guy who faked his way through the Nelson Mandela memorial making up signs.
But that all went up in flames if he got fired.
“Ben, I know you’re listening.” He cleared his throat, speaking louder and I cringed. His volume had been fine, but he was upping it for me and I knew it. “I’m sorry about the tie. The whole thing was… a mistake.”
We could have done mistake sex if he wanted mistake sex.
I could have shown him an epically mediocre time he’d instantly regret.
But that had never been on the table. When it came to me, all he wanted was a reliable interpreter for as many hours as he required.
Because that was my job. And now I had to do what he paid me for – directly, and out of pocket – to cover all those hours not deemed strictly necessary to his ability to carry out the basics of his role by the government assessors.
He’d explicitly never asked for more. He didn’t owe me apologies. He’d only chosen me for work.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was in it. I should have come clean from the start instead of—”
“Hoping I wouldn’t notice?”
“Yeah, alright.” He clunked his head against the glass wall of the shelter behind us. “It would have been simpler if you didn’t recognise me. You’d have plausible deniability instead of me having to ask you to lie.”
His eyes burned into mine, all earnest and soft-edged. “But it is going to be fine.”
How could it be?
“You’re my only client right now,” I signed. “You know that?”
“What?” Simon’s eyes boggled wide. “Why wouldn’t you have any other clients?”
Oh, so maybe it wasn’t totally fine after all.
“Funnily enough, I don’t have a teleportation device to let me mop up all the hour-long gigs I could be getting between your celebrity scandals and press conferences.”
He didn’t sign back, but his hand gestures got wild. “You have a day off from me. Every Wednesday.” Palms braced at the back of his skull, Simon stood, elbows up, throwing off the whole line of his suit. Never mind the breath mints. “Why haven’t you been working Wednesdays?”
“I visit my gran on Wednesdays.”
“Then weekends. Or evenings? Ben, that’s completely reckless.”
I laughed. Short and blunt and humour-free. “I’m reckless? I thought everything was going to be fine?”
Simon grimaced. His hands dropped to his sides like he’d forgotten how to hold his arms up. “Mel Booker called this meeting. Personally.”
A line of cold shuddered down the back of my neck. “Anything else you thought I didn’t need to know?”
Mel Booker was strictly hands off. She only cared about keeping Mapp and Green’s reputation perfect. This was as close to perfect as a chimpanzee’s rendition of the Mona Lisa.
“I imagine,” Simon said, “she’s looking for a scapegoat.”
I imagined she was looking for a herd of them.
“Ben, it’s very important I get in there to control the flow of information.”
“Jesus. What are you doing sitting by the side of the road with me, then?”
His eyes went all full and soft. “You have to know I’ve got no chance without you in there too.”
“Simon…” My gerbil-heart corkscrewed in my chest. That had to count as emotional blackmail.
Right now I was supposed to be covered in sweat and other bodily fluids, trying to sleep on an unfamiliar mattress while I figured out how to avoid sticking around for eggs and bacon. Not helping Simon retcon his sexcapades into non-existence. What a bastard for even asking me this.
Down the far end of the street, a bus materialized at the traffic lights. Simon followed my gaze. All I had to do was stand up and stick my hand out, and I’d be away from this disaster.
Simon brushed imaginary creases from his suit, as controlled and perfect as ever.
“You know what? Go home. I should never have got you involved. I’m being deeply selfish. It’ll work out.”
Fuck his smooth act. It wasn’t going to just work out. His career was about to get cremated, and my employment status would be incinerated right along with it whether I was there or not. And if I got on that bus, he had no reason to ever want to see me again. I’d be the shit who left him to drown.
“Oh shut up,” I grouched. “I’m not going home.”