I did move, but it was further away from him.
‘How many people did you ask to come with you tonight before me?’ I asked, and was pleased to hear that my voice was a lot steadier than I’d expected it to be.
He looked instantly shifty. ‘What? Where’s that come from?’
I just looked at him, making it clear that that wasn’t the point.
‘Okay.’ He dropped his hand to his side. ‘I asked someone before you, but she couldn’t come so I asked you. I didn’t think you’d mind.’
‘Someones,’ I said bluntly.
‘What?’ he said again.
‘You asked three other women to come with you tonight before you asked – what did Michaels call me? – your “cute little thing”.’
‘You heard that?’ To his credit, Dec looked stricken. ‘Ah, Gio, I’m so–’
‘Yeah, I did hear that, right before I heard you say that, as last resorts go, I wasn’t too bad.’
He swore, guilt pulling his Gaelic features into a grimace. ‘God, that wasn’t . . . you weren’t . . . I’m sorry. I was just running my mouth, it didn’t mean anything.’
He was basically quoting from The Guilty Man’s Handbook and I wanted to pinch him for being so clichéd.
‘Of course it means something,’ I said, my tone bordering on shrill. ‘A last resort, Dec? That’s a pretty shitty thing to say.’
‘Look,’ he said in his most conciliatory tone, ‘you’re right, it’s totally shitty, but just come to the party and–’
‘Are you kidding me?’ I stared at him incredulously. ‘I’m not going to that party, no way.’
His lips pressed together and there was a short pause before he said, ‘Fine, if you’re not up to it, I’ll call you a cab.’
Just like that. No extended heartfelt apologies, no begging for forgiveness, just a desire to shunt me out of the way before I made too much more of a scene at his work do. Unbelievable.
‘I don’t want a cab,’ I snapped, the idea of being enclosed in a small space with a stranger, even if only for the brief time it would take to get home, making me feel suddenly panicky. ‘I want to walk home.’
‘You want to what?’ he asked in disbelief. ‘Baker, come on, it’s the middle of the night and–’ here he looked at me pointedly, ‘–you’re clearly drunk. You can’t walk home.’
Don’t feel guilty about drinking, I told myself. Just don’t. Too late, of course.
‘I can.’ It was perhaps the guilt that made me force the issue even though I knew it was stupid; guilt and the faint hope that maybe Dec would see how upset I was and choose to spend that time with me rather than his horrible coworkers.
Alas, I could tell it was not to be by his mulish expression.
‘I get that you’re upset and you have every right to be,’ he said, ‘but tonight’s really important for me, I have to go to that after-party. Can you please just do this for me?’
Of course he was phrasing it as a favour, he knew how bad I was at denying him those. Momentarily stumped by the cheek of him, I didn’t pay attention as he moved forward again and took hold of me just above my wrist and tugged me forward.
Before I’d taken more than one or two wobbly steps, however, the Nod Next-Door materialised out of the darkness.
‘I’ll walk with you if you like,’ he said, addressing me in principle, but focusing on Dec’s fingers where they rested lightly on my arm, and then at Dec himself.
For a moment I was confused by the intensity of his stare, but then, as Dec almost snatched his hand off me, comprehension dawned. Dec had barely touched me; his grasp was clearly intended just to guide me forward. Patronising, yes, but no more than that.
‘Killer?’ Dec’s voice immediately lost its frustrated edge and became all manner of hail-fellow-well-met. ‘I didn’t see you there, mate.’
Killer?
‘No worries.’ I noticed that the detachment in my neighbour’s voice was a tad more pointed as he addressed Dec, and he turned away from him to focus on me a split second before it was polite to do so. ‘Let me know when you’re ready to go.’
‘Why would you . . .?’ Dec started to ask, but I answered before he’d finished.
‘He lives across the hall from me.’
Comprehension dawned and Dec looked back at ‘Killer’ with raised brows. ‘You’re the guy who nods at her every day?’
I cringed at the revelation that our routine salutations were something I’d talked about with other people, but the Nod Next-Door seemed unfazed as he replied, ‘That’d be me.’
There was an awkward silence and, despite the nippy breeze, a strange heaviness in the air.
‘C’mon.’ Almost defiantly, Dec touched my arm again, lowering his voice as he said, ‘Please let me get you a taxi.’
‘No.’ I shook him off. ‘I’ll walk home with Killer.’
‘Theo.’
‘Sorry?’
‘My name’s Theo.’
‘Right, okay.’ I shot him a tight smile. ‘I’d like to walk home with you, please.’
‘No problem.’
His jaw tight, Dec watched our exchange. As it became clear that I was about to leave with my neighbour, he unfastened his jacket and leant forward to drape it around my shoulders. Holding tight to the lapels, he looked down at me intensely as he said, ‘Text me when you get home, all right?’
I pushed him away without replying, unsure whether his solicitous manner was more for Theo’s benefit or mine.
‘See you on Monday, Killer,’ Dec said with a credible attempt at sounding cheerful, but Theo simply replied with one of the nods he was so famous for, and then held the balcony door open for me.
A voice in my head that sounded suspiciously like Zoë’s demanded that I didn’t look back at Dec as I left and, heeding it, I held my chin up and walked away from him.
*
‘He wasn’t being scary possessive or anything, you know.’ Killer – a name I could apparently add to my neighbour’s range of aliases – and I had walked a good five minutes in silence before I broke it.
It was hard going, walking along the uneven pavement in my heels, a difficulty I hadn’t considered during my stand-off with Dec on the balcony. I could tell that Theo was shortening his stride for me, but it had still required significant concentration to get as far as I had without stacking it, so conversation hadn’t been a high priority. Not to mention that, as metre after metre was put between us and the famous High-Rise Hotel, embarrassment at what the Nod Next-Door had witnessed had begun to steal over me. How pathetic must I look to him? And, I belatedly realised, how bad must Dec look?
Sure he’d been a dick that evening, but I couldn’t help but think that the guy walking silently next to me had gotten the wrong end of the stick about that moment when Dec had wrapped his hand around my arm, so I sought to clarify.
‘Declan, I mean,’ I said when he still didn’t say anything. ‘I’ve been friends with him for years and he’s not that kind of guy.’
Still no response.
‘Really,’ I insisted.
‘Fine.’
He didn’t sound convinced, but I didn’t push the issue any further because I was at least sober enough to realise that, the more I did, the more I sounded like I was protesting too much.
‘Why don’t you like him?’ I asked instead, apparently not sober enough to stick to the more benign social niceties.
We walked a few more steps before Theo carefully replied, ‘Who says I don’t?’
‘You do!’ I was surprised into a half-laugh by his ridiculous hedging. ‘Your body language, your voice, none of it said, “And here’s Dec, my bestest buddy in the whole world”.’
I glanced across to see his reaction and was struck instead by how much he looked like he was acting out the sad bit in a boy band video. It’d rained earlier in the day and the street lights bounced and shimmered on the wet pavement, providing a dramatic backdrop to his stern countenance. His hands were in his pockets, but his
stance was far from relaxed. In fact, I couldn’t imagine him ever looking relaxed; probably something to do with the fact that I’d never seen him in anything other than a suit.
I was still staring at his strong profile when he finally responded. ‘It’s probably something you should put to O’Connor.’
So there was clearly a story there, but Theo’s stony expression made it equally clear he wouldn’t be the one to tell it to me.
I sighed. ‘I don’t think I’ll be putting anything to him for a while,’ I said dully. ‘Unless it’s my boot.’
And so it was that I first saw my neighbour’s smile. It was muted, nothing like a full grin, but it was definitely there, and prompting it from him seemed like something of an achievement.
We walked some more, although what I was doing was probably more akin to staggering by that point, my unfamiliarity with both heels and cocktails catching up with me at the same time.
As I misjudged a corner particularly poorly and found myself teetering on the edge of the gutter, I felt a steadying hand on my shoulder.
‘Here, switch sides with me,’ Theo said, guiding me over to the side furthest from the road and then immediately dropping his hand. ‘You’re making me nervous.’
It was nice to be steadied, I decided, to have someone put themselves on the side closest to the road for me. I guess I’d just thought that tonight that person would be Dec.
Theo had been too kind for me to cry all over him on top of everything else, so I blinked back the tears that sprang to my eyes at this thought and took a few calming breaths. Thinking about my friend, who must be happily ensconced at the after-party by now, surrounded by glamorous stunners like Vanessa, was clearly a bad idea. No, I would focus instead on the handsome knight in shining armour beside me, the one who was somehow managing to convey that he was both attentive to my situation, but also giving me my own space.
‘Are you good at your job?’ I asked abruptly. ‘Because you seem like you’d be good at your job.’
‘I do all right,’ he said.
It was like learning a new language, seeing through his mysterious ways; he practically talked in hieroglyphics.
Deciding to try my luck with a question I was fairly sure he could only give a straight answer to, I asked, ‘You’re how old?’
‘Twenty-seven.’
Success!
‘Do you manage your own team?’
‘Sub-manage.’
‘Do you have your own assistant?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have your own office?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does it have big windows?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have the run of a swanky company car?’
‘Yes.’
I shrugged. ‘Well, then, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you do a fair bit better than “all right”.’
‘Plenty of people who are decidedly average at their jobs have all that. It’s just leverage and negotiation.’ There was the tiniest undercurrent of something in his voice as he spoke and I was about to ask him about it when he added, ‘Are you good at your job?’
I looked at him in surprise, not having expected in a million years that Theo would ask me a question in return. I mean, sure, it was just my own enquiry parroted back at me, but after over a month of him managing nothing more than a nod, it was practically loquacious.
‘I hope so. I want to be.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m an apprentice pastry chef.’ This, at least, was a topic I was always keen to talk about and I seized upon it as a way to avoid thinking about Dec. ‘I work at Pickle, Peach and Plum, the one on Cushion Street.’
‘I know it,’ he said solemnly. ‘You do good work.’
I preened. We did do good work; all of us at PP&P worked damn hard and, even though I knew it, it was nice to have it validated. Lord knew there were plenty of people who would just say things like ‘Oh, you get to eat cake all day? I’m so jealous!’
Buoyed by his compliment, I continued, ‘Céleste, the master pâtissière and owner, she always says that people should leave smiling. Ironic, really, as I don’t think Céleste’s smiled a day in her–’ I stopped short. It was one thing to say things like that to Zoë and Dec, they knew me and Céleste and had the context, but it sounded churlish when told to a stranger, especially one who, it seemed to me, probably set great store by professionalism. ‘I owe Céleste a lot and she’s amazing at what she does,’ I hastened to explain. ‘I’m learning masses from her, she’s just not what you’d call particularly . . . cuddly.’
I risked another quick glance over at him and this time he met my gaze.
‘I had a mentor during uni and when I first graduated,’ he said slowly. ‘He was incredibly well respected and there was nothing about workplace consultancy that he didn’t know, but . . .’ He, too, paused. ‘He was hard work. In every respect.’
I’d enjoyed the nods I’d received from him over the past few weeks, but I liked his words even more.
‘Why did Dec call you Killer?’ I asked, completely baffled at the idea of anyone assigning such a moniker to someone so softly spoken and considerate. ‘Is it ironic? Like how tall people are sometimes called Shorty?’
He stood back to allow me to go first over a narrow bit of pavement and, as he drew beside me again and saw that I was seriously asking the question, replied, ‘It’s a shortening from “Stone Cold Killer”, which is what some people in the office started calling me after I finalised my first big account with the company.’
‘Geez, what did you do? Murder the naysayers?’
‘More like ignored them.’ It was obvious that he was going to stop there, but I looked at him encouragingly and he added, ‘There were a lot of voices out for themselves and I made it clear that outside interests wouldn’t be considered.’
‘Stone Cold Killer,’ I repeated, impressed. ‘I guess I see that. Must be handy when you’re going into a meeting or something where you want to look tough.’
He inclined his head slightly. ‘It has its uses.’
Maybe this reticence to big-note himself, the way he so obviously steered clear of the dramatic, was part of his issue with Dec. I hoped for both their sakes that they didn’t have to work too closely together.
And I’d worked my way back round to Dec . . .
We didn’t speak for the rest of the walk home. I couldn’t have said what was going through Theo’s mind and as for myself, I’d zoned out almost as soon as we’d stopped talking. The cold, the alcohol, the emotional upheaval and the fact that I’d started work at 5.30am had reduced me to nothing more than a being who put one foot in front of the other.
I barely registered when we reached our building, and let Theo take charge with letting us in and calling the lift down to the small, brick-walled lobby as I was clearly in no state to tackle the stairs. The ride up to the third floor was also conducted in silence and it was only as we stepped out and walked the few metres to our doors that I forced myself to speak.
‘Thanks.’ My voice was scratchy with fatigue. ‘It was good of you to–’ I stopped suddenly, as incredibly tardily, I realised what walking me home had meant. ‘You didn’t go to the after-party,’ I said stupidly. ‘I’m so sorry, I really hope you didn’t feel you had to walk me because–’
He shook his head, cutting me off. ‘Trust me,’ he said, ‘I was never going to the after-party.’
‘So you won’t, I don’t know, slip down the corporate ladder or anything?’
He did his almost smile thing again as he said, ‘I’m pretty secure on my rung.’
‘Okay, well then, thanks again.’ And then, completely forgetting that he was probably in the air-kissing brigade, I held my hand out to him. He didn’t seem bothered, however, and took my hand firmly in his, an action that made yet another thing occur to me.
‘Oh, god, I never introduced myself, did I?’ I exclaimed, practically hearing Aggie tut ‘respect and grace’ in my
head at my poor manners. ‘I’m–’
‘Giovanna,’ he said and I looked at him in surprise, not only because he knew it, but also because it’d been a long, long time since someone had used my full name.
‘How . . .?’
‘Some of your mail was put into my pigeonhole by mistake a couple of weeks ago,’ he explained, and it made sense, banks and so on were pretty much the only ones who would call me Giovanna. Usually that would’ve been the point when I would’ve said ‘Call me Gio’, but for some reason I just didn’t feel the urge. Perhaps it was his already formal manner, but my full name sounded right coming from him.
‘Right, well, thanks again . . . again.’ I winced at my awkwardness and knew it was beyond time to call it a night. ‘’Night, neighbour.’ I offered him a strange little wave and then, my face hot, turned to let myself in.
‘’Night,’ I heard him say and then I was finally back into my flat and shutting the door firmly behind myself.
As if I hadn’t been feeling bad enough, the first thing I caught sight of was my reflection in the full-length mirror. It was weird feeling miserable while dressed up, like the world hadn’t caught on to what was happening. My outside shell was still nice and shiny; the dress was still beautiful, my hair was – for the most part – still pretty and my makeup, thanks to Zoë’s expertise, had barely budged, but somehow I didn’t look anything like I had when I’d left hours earlier.
The lump in my throat that had gone down during the walk home rose back up and I ripped Dec’s jacket from my shoulders, kicked my shoes off and fumbled for the zip on my dress, suddenly seized by an almost panicky desire to rid myself of the trappings of the evening.
Clad in just my bra and knickers, I padded over to the bathroom and began to fiercely scrub the makeup off my face, defying Zoë’s orders to always be gentle with my skin. It was as I wiped the last of my mascara away that I heard my phone give a little chirrup. My heart sinking, I saw that Dec had sent me a message.
The text read: Home okay?
The subtext read: This is me assuaging my guilt.
Cake at Midnight Page 5
