Chapter 19
Eve
I’m half asleep, my mind empty. The bed is soft and familiar, and the smell of Graham’s detergent makes me feel as though I’m sinking. He starts drawing gentle lines down my back with his finger, circling the dimples at the base of my spine before trailing back up again, under my shoulder blades, at the base of my neck, along the grooves of bone and across the smattering of teenage acne scars across my shoulders...
I roll over and he looks at me sleepily. ‘What?’
I frown. ‘That’s a bit... intimate, isn’t it?’
He rolls onto his back, tilting his chin and laughing loudly. ‘Christ, Eve.’
‘What?’
He turns onto his side again, shifting his weight onto his elbow and propping his head up with the palm of his hand. ‘ Now you talk about intimacy?’
I let my head sink into the pillow again and eye him. The cast of his hair gel has been broken, and one thick strand flops over his eyebrow. He looks vulnerable. An image of Hannah from accounts arrives in my mind, and I close my eyes. When have I ever cared about that?
He cups the side of my face, stroking my cheek, and I snap my eyes open. He twirls a piece of my hair between his fingers.
‘OK, enough.’ I push his hand away.
‘What?’ He stares at me, a deep crease forming in between his eyebrows. ‘What’s going on with you?’
‘It’s weird.’ I sit up, groping around for my bra and fastening it quickly.
He scoffs. ‘Eve, we just — I mean, we do this all the time—’
‘No, we don’t,’ I interrupt. ‘We don’t do this, ever.’
I stand up and pull on the rest of my clothes, trying to ignore him staring.
When he speaks again, his voice is quiet, steady. ‘What were you doing on Kirsty’s computer, Eve?’
‘I wasn’t on Kirsty’s computer.’
He looks at me, his eyes heavy and dark. ‘You’re not staying, I take it.’ It’s a statement, not a question.
‘No,’ I answer anyway.
He rolls onto his back again and blows a thin stream of air through his teeth. ‘Jesus. You’re a real head fuck, you know that?’
‘Thank you.’ I check my hair in the mirror. I can feel something building in my throat, like a scream, but not.
He laughs. ‘Go on then. You can go back to pretending I don’t exist.’ There’s a catch in his throat, and he looks at me, suddenly serious. ‘Until the next time you click your fingers.’
I try to bite the end of my tongue, hard, but I’m not fast enough. ‘I’m sure Hannah will keep you company in the meantime.’
His eyebrows shoot up. ‘ Oh. That’s it, is it? Of all the things, Eve, I have to say I didn’t take you for the jealous type.’
‘Because I’m not,’ I retort, cringing at the childishness of it. ‘I’ve got work to do.’ I pick my bag up from the floor and move towards the door.
‘You can’t marry your job, you know.’ He chuckles softly from the bed. ‘And you can’t fuck it, either.’
‘No.’ I pull the door open. ‘That’s what you’re here for.’
* * *
‘Kirsty!’ I run towards the lift and put my hand between the doors to stop them closing. ‘Glad I caught you.’
Kirsty stands back to let me in. Surprise flits across her face, but she composes herself. ‘Hey, how are you?’
‘Good!’ I dig around in my bag and pull out a piece of paper. ‘Just got the new numbers through from the Summer Bundle campaign — I thought you’d like them before the briefing.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ She scans the document quickly. ‘This is great.’
‘No problem.’
‘Listen, Eve,’ she turns to me, sliding the piece of paper into her satchel, ‘about the paternity cover thing...’
‘Oh, god, don’t worry about it.’ I wave my hand in the air as the lift doors slide open. ‘I know it wasn’t malicious.’
‘Absolutely not.’ She follows me out into the office. ‘It was such a shock, honestly, I had no idea—’
I spin around to face her. She stops in her tracks and stumbles backwards. ‘Don’t even think about it. I trust you, Kirst. It’s not like you planned it, is it?’ I laugh.
Something flickers across her face, but she masks it quickly. ‘Of course not.’
‘Great.’ I flash her a smile and turn around, striding over to my office. ‘See you in a min!’
I sit at my desk, watching through the glass wall as Kirsty does her rounds with the marketing assistants. After fifteen minutes, she checks her watch and begins making her way towards the meeting room. I scoot out of my chair.
‘You don’t mind if I join for this one, do you?’ I say as I catch up with her.
She startles. ‘Oh.’ She glances towards the room, where Dev is leaning back in his seat. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Fab.’ I move past her and let myself in, taking the seat nearest to Dev.
‘You’re not doing the update today are you, Eve?’ He clicks at his laptop, checking the agenda.
‘No, no.’ I reach forward and pour myself some coffee. ‘My nine o’clock was cancelled, so I thought I’d come and keep my finger on the pulse.’
Kirsty comes in, followed by a couple of the marketing assistants. She sits down at the end of the table.
‘Right, shall we get started?’ Dev looks up over his screen.
Half an hour of sales numbers and accounting figures passes, until Kirsty is called to give the marketing update.
‘Erm,’ she stalls as her eyes flick around her screen, and I wonder what she’d have said if I weren’t here. She seems to be reorganising her presentation. She falteringly lists off a few figures, and Dev’s mouth flattens into a thin line.
‘Do you have a more concise overview for us, Kirsty?’ he asks.
‘Yes, of course, sorry.’ I haven’t seen her this flustered in a long time. I experience a sudden flash of guilt: my god, she’s my best friend. What the hell am I doing? She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a piece of paper. I remind myself of F Ups , and my pulse quickens. No going back now. ‘I have the final figures for the Summer Bundle campaign here.’
Dev sits up in his seat and beams. ‘Great, let’s hear them.’
‘The mixed rose basket on a blue background had a twenty-three percent click-through rate,’ she says, more confident now. ‘And engagement on the red azaleas in the pink pot was twelve percent higher than the green. With the corresponding sales—’
‘Um,’ Jenny, one of the more confident marketing assistants, shifts in her seat. ‘The rose basket actually had a nineteen percent click-through rate. And the green azalea pot got twenty-six percent more engagement than the pink.’ She frowns, her cheeks reddening. ‘Sorry, I — I’ve got the figures here.’
The room hums a little as people shift in their seats.
‘Eve sent the final figures over this morning, so I can look now,’ Dev sighs and taps at his laptop tersely, clearly signalling that this kind of fact-checking is below him. ‘You’re right, Jenny — those are the numbers I have, too. Kirsty, are you sure you’re up to date?’
‘Yes, I—’
I feel mildly sick.
‘What do you have for engagement on the succulent set with the rose gold background?’ Dev fixes his gaze on Kirsty, who runs her eyes frantically over her paper.
‘Thirty-six percent, which we were really happy with—’
‘I have twenty-two percent here.’ Dev raises his eyebrows. ‘Where have you had these figures from?’
‘Eve gave them to me this morning,’ she says, her voice shrill. She looks at me, panicked.
For a moment, I’m tempted to confess. The way she’s looking at me, the confusion on her face — how can I be doing this to her?
She is in support of my application.
I take a breath. ‘I emailed the figures round.’ I frown, pretending to be confused. ‘Dev, can I just have a look...’ I lean over and check Dev’s screen. ‘Yes, that’s the document I sent. I’m not sure what—’
‘You gave them to me!’ Kirsty yelps, and the room falls silent. ‘You gave me this piece of paper in the lift!’
Awkwardness ripples around the room. Someone clears their throat. Kirsty’s face has changed now: her eyes have hardened — she knows what I’ve done. It’s do or die. I look around incredulously. ‘Kirsty, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Right.’ A deep crease has formed above Dev’s eyebrows. He taps the desk impatiently. ‘Eve, do you want to take over?’
Kirsty stands, frozen.
I sigh and purse my lips, returning her gaze.
‘Of course.’ I take Dev’s laptop as he passes it to me, and then smile across the room. ‘It’s a good job I turned up, isn’t it?’