Toby Hunter, for God’s sake!
Toby joined The Cube three years ago when I was a trainee designer and Amelia was a writer. He was the new company lawyer, a young guy for his position. He and his wife became friends of ours – they would come over for dinner and everything.
I should have suspected something when Amelia kept going down with this bug and Toby would always get it too. I learned later that he was off sick on the same days. Both workstations empty at the same times. The idea was so preposterous that I just pushed it out of my mind. It was a surely not situation.
This bug was so bad, she said, that she couldn’t get out of bed. And there I was, working away happily in the office when he was over there getting into it with her. It was Toby who quit work first. He said he’d got a new job at a blue-chip company. I believed him. Next thing I know, Amelia’s bags were packed and she was sailing off into the horizon with floppy-haired, watery-eyed Toby Hunter. I only hoped he would be sailing off somewhere nice soon, in an ambulance . . . The whole thing made me sick. (Actually, I am a tad jealous about his law career. I’m fast becoming a bitter ‘artist’ who wished he’d studied something else.)
Amelia didn’t even serve out her notice period. Boom. Gone. Just like that. And all the while Toby’s wife was coming round on Friday nights and crying into a hanky while we got drunk on Grolsch, wondering what the hell had hit us. She even tried to kiss me one particularly booze-addled evening. I soon put a stop to that. The whole thing was enough of a mess as it was.
Needless to say, it was all pretty embarrassing at work. Everyone knew what had happened. It was a messy home situation, which should never have leaked into our professional lives. Getting together with people at work is a huge mistake.
I feel like life has juddered to a grinding halt. The brakes have been applied, pretty sodding hard, and there are angry tyre marks on the road. People don’t seem to be taking my position very seriously, either. I’m sure if she’d left me for someone a bit cooler, like a footballer or a musician, they would be rushing round with porn magazines and takeaway.
My career has hit the buffers, my love life is in tatters and most of my friends are now marrying/having children/having some sort of meaningful life. Ibiza and its aftermath did a good job of numbing the pain for a couple of weeks, but when I woke up this morning I was greeted by that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Doom, I think it is.
This is not what I envisaged when I left university. Full of the hope of youth, I thought that by the time I reached thirty I would be the CEO of some multimillion-pound company, with a sexy wife, two children and a car that required that special petrol just because . . . well, because it’s a flash car, isn’t it?
OK, OK, I know that’s not very realistic. But at least I could be running my own design studio or something. I could have at least got that sorted.
Now I have just two and a half years to achieve all this and basically it’s not going to happen.
I was considering this very situation on the train this morning, the same anxiety gripping my chest, when something odd happened. Flicking through my copy of Metro, I stumbled across a picture story about a squirrel on waterskis. Utterly ridiculous.
For some unknown reason, this was a temporary cure for my weary heart and I felt the sudden urge to laugh my backside off. You know, the kind of laughter that makes you accidentally fart or snort like a greedy pig. The kind of laughter that only comes when you are so depressed that suddenly the most inane things are funny enough to bring you to tears.
You can’t laugh like that, though, on a stuffy train full of tight-lipped Brits. It wouldn’t be acceptable. So I spent a few minutes holding in my amusement with great difficulty. The more I held it in, the funnier it became. My eyes were filling with water and my stomach muscles were jumping up and down furiously. Trying to divert my attention from the rodent I looked up and saw a pair of the most beautiful denim-blue eyes ever, peeping over the top of the same newspaper.
Wow.
My stomach filled with butterflies and she mouthed a word at me.
Squirrel . . . she said.
She was bloody gorgeous, with a thick, straight fringe just touching her eyelashes and the most healthy-looking, beautiful skin I have ever seen. Her hair was a chestnut brown and I just wanted to touch it. Not in a horrible, overtly sexual, pervy way, or even in a gay hairdresser way. In an I’m not sure if you’re real, so I just want to touch you to check kind of way.
Jesus. Be cool, Nick, I told myself.
Just. Be. Cool.
I did the opposite and stuck my right thumb up at her. Why? Why would I do that? She seemed pretty horrified by me after that and went back to reading. Don’t blame her, really. Thumbs are so eighties.
I sat for a few moments, trying to work out at which point during my life I lost the ability to be good with women. Nope – no idea.
A few minutes passed and she kept reading, not even a glance my way. I could feel myself burning up.
You may wonder why I was taking a chance meeting on a train so seriously. I wouldn’t normally attach so much hope to it either, but there was something about her. She was the girl from my dreams. Sweet, understated, devastatingly sexy.
I was already teetering on the edge of feeling really down, so I figured I would quietly get up and go to the toilet. Maybe a quick self-bollocking in the mirror and a splash of cold water on my idiot face would sort me out, and thankfully it did. A cigarette on the way to the office and a small, strong coffee, and I was composed again.
I needed to keep busy, and if I’m honest, I had missed the office crowd quite a lot. I was hoping to be at my desk on time, ready to create a new round of graphics for our weird magazines, but reception soon put an end to that idea.
‘Niiiick!’ came the shrill tones of Maria behind the welcome desk, her hands clapping together and an armful of bangles jingling around like sleigh bells.
‘Hey, gorgeous,’ I said, leaning over the counter to give her a gentle peck on the cheek. She loves this.
‘Look at you! Look, Sandra, doesn’t he look good all tanned?!’ she cried, sharply elbowing her colleague, who was buried in a copy of Elle.
The encounter went on for about six and a half minutes. I won’t bore you with the whole conversation because, like me, you will be angry that you lost this chunk of your life with no way of getting it back.
When I finally peeled myself away from the ‘lovely’ ladies, I figured I would take the stairs to the third floor. It was time to face the world again.
By the second floor I was exhausted – my chest was thick with cold and the wheezing was getting worse, so I decided to get the lift for the final flight. I stabbed the control panel impatiently before realising I had pressed the wrong button, then started jabbing angrily at both buttons in turn.
Come on . . . I even started tapping my right foot impatiently on the floor, a trait I abhor in anyone else.
Thankfully the lift soon turned up, but when I stepped onto the office floor, it was all a bit overwhelming – like the floodgates had been opened.
Tom came over first, his gangly limbs moving as if in a fight with each other. I have never known a bloke so clumsy.
‘Nick, you’re back!’ he exclaimed, nervously slapping my back, and nearly tripping over his own shoelace.
‘All right,’ I said meekly.
Then almost everyone else came over at once, offering me tea, biscuits and all sorts of ‘feel better soon, please’ comments.
‘So, go on then, how many girls did you sleep with?’ asked Tom above the hubbub, rubbing his hands together excitedly. But I couldn’t concentrate, because I saw someone in the distance.
It was just the side of her face, but she had the sexiest smile. She was worryingly familiar. Could it be?
No . . . surely not, I thought, trying to look away.
But then she turned around in her chair and I realised that it was indeed the beautiful girl from the train this morn
ing.
I wanted to laugh.
I don’t even really know what was so funny. I hadn’t felt happiness like this in a long time, the kind of delirious joy that makes you want to dance with strangers on the street and throw handfuls of sweets to children. A far cry from the wallowing mess I had been this morning.
My mind was full of questions. Who was she? Why was she here? Why wouldn’t my bloody stomach stop feeling like it was full of jelly? Did I have a good enough shower this morning? God, I hoped I’d had a good enough shower this morning . . .
I looked her up and down, half concentrating on Tom. Our eyes met and it was like an electric shock running right through my body.
‘So, go on then, tell me!’ Tom insisted, a look of glee on his face, oblivious to the vision I had spotted in the near distance.
‘Er, none, mate,’ I said quietly, turning to my left in a bid to escape to my office. Tom walked away with obvious disappointment, as if I had forgotten to bring him back chocolate-based treats from the airport. I had forgotten those too, actually . . .
Suddenly Lydia was in my path, smelling like a bunch of freshly picked flowers.
‘Hello, sweets,’ she said, a look of pity on her face.
There it goes again. The look. People have been giving me that look ever since Amelia shacked up with Toby. I just wish I could turn back time and never get involved with anyone at work.
‘Hi,’ I replied, glancing towards the floor and feeling ever so aware of squirrel girl, who was now standing next to her, also looking shy and – if I was reading it right – slightly pissed off.
‘There’s someone I need you to meet,’ Lydia announced, beaming and stepping aside with pride, as if unveiling a new museum exhibit. She gave the beautiful girl a hard shove and she stumbled towards me reluctantly.
‘Hi, I’m Nick,’ I said, extending my hand to shake hers, but afraid that I might fall in love if she touched me.
‘Sienna,’ she replied in a well-spoken voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
The skin of our palms met. Hers was soft. Neither of us mentioned the train thing.
‘I work here, I’m a writer – just started a couple of weeks ago,’ she said, looking deeply embarrassed.
That was when my short-lived dream was shattered.
She works here? This is not good news.
This means I will probably spend a lot of time wanting something I simply cannot have. Office romance is not an option after Amelia and Toby’s stunt. Toby was a colleague. I’ve learned that for some people there are no boundaries. All the time I was working with him, he was lusting after my girl. Planning his attack. Dreaming of taking her away . . .
So I made a promise to myself. I would never get myself into a similar situation again. People at work already knew far too much about my life and now I wanted to keep work separate. Plus I’ve had too many friends leave the careers they’ve worked hard for because the person who tore their heart out and stamped on it was sitting at the desk opposite them, stalking around the photocopier and taking minutes at every damn meeting. In a way, I was lucky that they both left. The office is hard enough without affairs of the heart.
A cold chill descended on me. It was over before it had even begun. What had I been thinking? I don’t even know Sienna. She could have a boyfriend, she could be married or something. Christ . . .
‘Well, have a good day, Sienna,’ I said as I stepped into my office, red-faced.
But hold on a minute, maybe I was being too hasty. If Romeo and Juliet could fight for forbidden love, then surely I could ask her on a date?
No, I told myself. Just no.
As I closed the door behind me, I wondered how I was going to cope with this situation.
This was me, Nick Redland. Nick who has never felt anything stronger than shallow, trouser-tightening lust for a woman I have just met.
Even my own girlfriends have failed to provoke this much enthusiasm in me. Even Amelia.
I must be having some kind of breakdown, I decided. The post-holiday blues were doing something odd to me.
This was straitjacket stuff. I was being a loon. What was I thinking?
She was clearly much younger, and gorgeous, and probably wouldn’t be remotely interested in me anyway, I thought as I looked in a small mirror hanging on the wall.
Small lines were starting to gather round my eyes, and I noticed how I was beginning to look more and more like my father every day. I sighed a deep cavernous sigh which emptied my lungs entirely.
I sat at my desk for a while, wondering if I should talk to a close friend about the strange thoughts I’d been having lately. This break-up with Amelia was really getting to me.
Ten minutes or so passed. I collected myself. Pulled myself together. I was being rude locking myself away like this. I stepped out of my office and stood there for a moment with my hands in my pockets, looking out of the window to my left with a view of the flats above the shops across the road.
‘Incoming!’ shrieked Tom. I turned round and was hit square in the face with a Hacky Sack. Ha ha bloody ha.
‘Right, that’s it,’ I yelled back, breaking into a run. I charged towards Tom, who despite being in his early twenties has the waif-like appearance of a ten-year-old, all skin and bones and silly hair.
He tried to run but it was useless. I backed him into a corner, leaned down, picked him up and proceeded to parade him round the office like a baby, his legs dangling uselessly from my arms.
‘Oi! Oi! Put me down, you twat!’ he shouted, his voice becoming shriller and more baby-like by the second. Everyone in the office was laughing. A lot.
‘Put . . . me . . . down!’ he insisted, fighting his own laughter.
‘Say you’re sorry! Come on, Thommo, say, “Sorry Mr Nick, I will never throw a beanbag in your face again,” I taunted, looking down at him with a huge grin on my face.
He wasn’t able to apologise as he was laughing too much, his cheeks a deep shade of crimson and tears of mirth forming in the corners of his eyes.
I eventually put him out of his misery and into a large recycling bin for old envelopes and junk mail. I left him there for about five minutes, his body folded like a paper aeroplane. He was giggling too much to be able to lift himself up and out.
You can do pretty much anything in our office and get away with it, which made it a pretty comfortable place to be, and was probably why I hadn’t done much to try and leave.
My boss leaned back in his seat, poked his head round the door of his office and welcomed me back. I was pleased he was greeting my return so warmly, considering I had managed to screw up a whole load of illustrations just before I left.
Once Tom’s humiliation had reached fever pitch I walked over to the bin, pulled him out and put him back on his feet again, ruffling his hair to assure him that I was only kidding. He looked sheepish.
Sienna was not paying us the slightest bit of attention. She was clearly above pratting about at work.
I laughed. Maybe being back wasn’t that bad after all; and no one else knew that maybe, just maybe, I had fallen in love today.
Two
‘I believe in love, you know . . .’
Sienna
It’s been five weeks and two days since I met Nick Redland, and things have not settled down as much as I’d hoped.
I quietly wished, after the disappointment of the train incident, that I would calm down. So I saw this guy on a train who seemed to be perfect, but then I discovered he was a heartbroken prankster who works at the same place as me. Never judge a book by its cover. That’s what they say, isn’t it?
He’s more than a bit irritating, with all his fooling around in the office. Ping-pong balls thrown back and forth across the room, salt in cups of coffee and joke-shop severed limbs in the paper tray of the printer. It’s almost as if his main purpose in life is to make Tom laugh. He seems so immature for his age, plus he’s damaged goods.
Heartbroken men are like wild an
imals, running around with hysteria in their eyes, desperately trying to knock the dents out of their egos.
But he’s gorgeous . . . And it’s hardly as if I discovered that he has a wife, two dogs, a semi-detached house in the country and a baby called Alistair.
As much as I try to stop myself, I keep finding myself thinking about him. I’m about as calm as Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend’s Wedding when she’s on the brink of orgasm at simply being offered a cup of tea.
He is single. Yes, single. And looks-wise, my idea of perfection.
But sadly I can imagine why this Amelia woman would have left him. Maybe he was annoying at home, too, and it isn’t just a front for the office. I think that would be enough to drive me away . . .
I’m trying to rein in these conflicting feelings. I feel guilty for being so shallow, because essentially he isn’t stacking up the personality points. I just fancy him. A lot.
Every time I find myself walking down the street with a grin so wide it looks like a saucer has been rammed into my mouth, I tell myself off a little bit. And to be fair, his pranks are pretty funny sometimes.
He wouldn’t be interested in me, anyway. I’m pretty sure he’s a fair bit older than me, plus he ruffled my hair the other day and told me how much I look like his sister.
That is never a good sign. Ever. It’s probably his little way of saying ‘Please get away from me, I just don’t like you like that.’
He gives the same beautiful grin to the ladies at reception; he pays the same amount of attention to Tom; he even feeds Dill, for God’s sake. Nick does not look at me any differently to anyone else in the world.
The problem with silly men is they are funny. And funny does eventually make them quite sexy. It’s a fact. Men who make you laugh instantly become hotter. And while he is immature, he makes me laugh a lot.
My best friend Elouise thinks I’m going crazy, and has told me to calm down. That’s exactly what I’m going to do; she is the cool splash of water I need at the moment.
I’ve known Elouise since Year 7, and she is my hero. She is the calm in the eye of the storm. When gale force winds are battering away at me, nothing ever seems that bad after we’ve discussed it over a bottle of wine.
This is a Love Story Page 3
