Chapter 11
Blake
“How was your weekend, Mr M?”
“Track today, lads,” I remind them before turning to James, a tall lanky boy who also plays football in the after-school sessions I coach.
“Not bad, thank you.” I paint on a smile. “Yours?”
I see James’ lips moving but I’m hardly listening, instead preoccupied with shoving the thoughts of Calla that his question has provoked out of my mind.
A difficult feat, seeing as how she’s the thought that sits centre stage and has done since the moment I stepped out of the apartment after fucking her – and myself – senseless last week.
I mean, what on earth was I doing having sex with Calla again and in an open space where anybody could barge in.
I wasn’t thinking; that’s my answer.
And there within lies the problem.
I’ve come to realise that when I’m with Calla I don’t fucking think – leading to dangerous and spontaneous decisions – which are so unlike me, so far away from my usual carefully thought-out plans.
But there’s something there, something about Calla, that makes me throw caution to the wind.
Not that ruminating on how she makes me feel really matters anymore. I signed both the email, and the paperwork needed in order to rent the apartment and sent them off the very next day, so there will be no need to see Calla a third time.
I ignore the resounding pang of disappointment at the thought.
Repressing a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, I clap James on the shoulder as if I’ve been listening to him the entire time and send him off to get changed.
“Can we—”
The shrill sound of my phone ringing within the confines of my fleece jacket pocket echoes from the locker room walls.
“Track shorts and trainers, boys,” I direct, fishing out my phone. “Ten minutes and then I expect you all out on the field. Alright?”
A chorus of “Yes, Mr M” kisses my ears as I slip out of the locker room, and peer down at the unknown number calling me.
“Hello?”
“Am I speaking to Mr Millen?” croons a rich sounding male voice from the other end. I should hang up; it’s probably a cold caller trying to sell me something. But for some reason I don’t.
“That’s me.”
“Just the man I was looking for. I’m calling from McAvoy and Fraser.
We’ve received both your email and paperwork to begin processing your tenancy agreement, but unfortunately, we’re missing a signature.
We won’t be able to move onto the next step until we have everything in order, Mr Millen.
Is it possible for you to come by the office to get this signature complete? ”
“Sure.” I grip the back of my neck. “Sorry about that. What time are you open till today?”
“Five p.m., sir.”
“Right… I don’t finish work until four, but I’ll get there as fast as I can. Is there anything else I need to bring with me?”
“Let me just check everything else is in order, Mr Millen. Not a moment…”
The tapping of a keyboard and the heavy whirr of a copier machine kisses my ears, before the rich, male voice, resumes centre stage.
Sounding more like he’s talking to himself rather than me, the voice hums. “Mm… Calla here hasn’t left any notes.”
My heart leaps in my chest at the sound of her name before I’m able to stop it.
“Yes, Becker hasn’t left any notes,” he repeats. “So—”
“Miss Becker?”
“Miss Calla Becker? She showed your around the apartment you’re applying tenancy for?”
The hand banding around my neck slides forward to rub at the eleven lines marring the space between my brows. How is it I know how Calla feels wrapped around my cock, how she sounds when she breaks apart, the sound of her giggle and the taste of her tongue, but I don’t know her last name?
“Yeah, sorry. I was drawing a blank there for a minute.” The lie tastes like acid on my tongue; acrid and bitter.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever drawn a blank trying to remember Calla,” chuckles the voice on the other end of the line. “But there’s a first for everything, ain’t there, mate?”
I clench my jaw, feeling the muscle there tick at the patronising, over familiarity of his tone. I’m not his fucking mate and I hate the sound of Calla’s name lying on his tongue. It sounds too… personal, as if he has the right to talk about her.
That thought is even worse than my first, causing my stomach to roll.
The overfamiliar tone of his voice, the casual way her name drips from his mouth, the taunting desire I can hear… I might find it a little difficult to read people at times, but I’m not fucking stupid.
Maybe they’re sleeping together; him and Calla.
Swallowing back the bile rising in my throat, I flick down to check the time on my watch. There’s nothing more I want right now but to end this call and get back to my fucking job.
Blood pressure rising, I can’t keep the snap of ire from my tone. If he wants to be a smug twat; fine. Two can play at that game. “You’re right. Nothing about Calla is forgettable. I’ll be there before five.”
I’m panting by the time I jab my finger into the red end button, anger zapping through me, burrowing under my skin.
Shoving my phone into my back pocket, I grab the still tangled set of stopwatches and stomp out on the field, where most of my class are already gathered kicking around an almost deflated football.
“Warm up! Five laps, lads.”
The warm summer sun beats down on me as I give up trying to untangle the knotted web, instead shoving my hands in my pockets and watching my class run around the track.
I’m pissed off but I can’t quite put my finger on why, which only serves to piss me off further. It’s like a vicious cycle I can’t escape. And to make matters worse, now I’ve got to go somehow sweet talk my boss into letting me leave work early, just so I can sign a stupid piece of paper.
Fucking hell…
This place is like a fucking maze.
Pushing through another revolving glass door, I squint upwards at the black and white board, boasting directions to the sixteen different floors hosted within the skyscraper.
I’ve already been here five minutes or so – after practically running to the tube, straight from work, fighting for my life through the busy throngs of tourists and the beginning of the afternoon rush hour – desperately trying to decipher the directions on how to reach McAvoy and Fraser Real Estate in this god forsaken glass maze of a building.
Taking another sharp left turn, I pass by a familiar looking tall fern encased in an orange ceramic pot. Fisting my stands of hair, sweaty from running around, I feel my eyelid tick. I swear I just passed that exact plant a minute ago. Am I going in a circle?
Feeling more annoyed by the millisecond, mainly at myself because how the fuck did I forget a single signature when I read the damn paperwork front to back a thousand times over, I decide to take the next right instead.
Landing myself in a lift packed to the rafters with expensive smelling men and women, dressed head to toe in business wear, I stare straight ahead, folding my arms over my chest, ignoring the whispers while we glide upward.
My stomach feels like it’s still floating somewhere about floor four, but I swallow down the feeling, stepping out and making a beeline for the large information desk I spot.
It’s just my luck that it’s devoid of any human activity; the glass countertop and glossy high-tech computer impersonal. Almost robotic. As if it’s purposefully made that way to intimidate you.
Flicking my gaze back and forth, I take a step forward, only then noticing the small doorbell sitting innocently upon the glass.
I hardly touch the thing, before a door swings open, a small brunette woman stalking out. She smooths her skirt and then sits, staring up at me with a wide, lipstick-stained smile.
“Can I help you, sir?” she twitters.
“Yeah.” I clear my voice. “I’m looking for McAvoy and Fraser.”
“That’s us.”
“Right, I’m—”
“May I have your name?”
“Yeah—Blake Millen.”
“Millen… Millen,” she repeats, manicured fingers flying over the keyboard, before she peers back up at me. “I feel like I know that name.”
I stay silent, as I always do when this question crops up, settling instead for a bland smile.
“Never mind… You’ve got a meeting in boardroom three, is that correct?”
“Uh—” I shrug. Whatever I’ve got to do to get out of this glass building the quicker the better. “Yeah.”
“Great!” I watch while she picks up the phone, bringing it to her ear. “Tom? Mr Millen is here to see you…”
The sharp click of heels on the marble flooring has my attention pricking up its ears. I can’t stop myself from looking for the source of the sound, wondering, hoping, that it might be her, even though I know I shouldn’t.
I shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought. But my thought process is a slippery slope; one in which I can’t seem to gain purchase in order to stop the fall.
The clacking sound of heels doesn’t belong to Calla, but rather another woman who smiles warmly at me, her eyes quite obviously flicking over my tall frame.
I don’t repay the favour, I can’t, keeping my eyes fixed on her face as my brain reminds me with a not so subtle jolt, that somewhere, in this very building, is Calla.
I feel my pulse pick up at that thought.
I wonder what she’s doing. Maybe sat at her desk, long legs crossed beneath her tight-fitting pencil skirt, watching the time tick closer to five o’clock with each pass of its hand.
The image of those smooth legs wrapped around my waist flashes through my mind, quickly followed by the sight of Calla spread out over my bed. I wonder if she thinks about that night and our quickie in the apartment. I wonder—
“Mr Millen,” a familiar sounding voice calls my name. It takes a second, as it always does, that they’re talking to me and not my younger brother… never mind.
I stare ahead at the man walking towards me, cataloguing the way his hair is gelled into a perfect coif, his tie sitting perfectly in the centre of his crisp white button down.
He even smells expensive, too, I notice, as he sticks out his hand for me to shake.
“We spoke on the phone this afternoon. I’m Thomas McAvoy.”
My hand is less than an inch away from his before the words register in my brain.
“We spoke this afternoon…”
I grind my teeth together, feeling the muscle in my jaw tick, because, here, standing right in front of me, is the smug sounding twat who spoke about Calla like he could. Like he had the fucking right too. Like he knew something I didn’t.