by Helly Acton
‘Or you could just call me Millie, like everyone else?’
‘Did you know that la poubelle is French for bin?’ he replies.
‘I didn’t.’
‘Are you impressed that I know French?’ he asks. ‘I’m very sophisticated, you know.’
‘I can tell. It’s a shame you don’t wear a bow tie.’
‘Now there’s an idea! Don’t worry, I’ll only call you Poubelle when I think your ideas stink. Anyway, I digress. It’s a horrible habit of mine. The brew and toast is also an official apology for stealing your coffee yesterday. I mean, if you can even call it coffee. And a thank you for meeting with me. I know it’s always tedious to explain what the current projects are to the newbie. We don’t have to go into detail or anything. Basically, just tell me who to watch out for. Where to get the good snacks. Why Sasha seems to have taken an instant dislike to me.’
‘Oh dear.’ Millie smiles. ‘What happened?’
‘There was a desk situation. I accidentally sat at hers, and if looks could kill, I’d be six feet under right now. I mean, at least she wasn’t sitting there at the time – I could have ended up on her lap!’
‘Don’t worry about Sasha,’ Millie reassures him. ‘She’s tricky. You have to take her with a pinch of salt. In her first week here, like, six years ago, she openly accused me of stealing her strawberry yoghurt from the fridge.’
A high-pitched laugh erupts from him, which makes Millie giggle.
‘She even went to HR about it!’ Millie laughs. ‘To this day, she still thinks I did it. Then she started aggressively labelling her yoghurt pots “Sasha” in huge letters.’
‘You shouldn’t have told me that,’ Ben says. ‘Now all I can think of is stealing one later.’
‘Don’t! I’ll get the blame again,’ Millie cries.
Ben laughs. ‘The perfect alibi for me! Come on, Belle,’ he says, pushing the plate and cup towards her. ‘Your butter’s getting hard and your vegan cow sweat’s growing skin.’
Millie has only known Ben for seventy-two hours, but he feels so familiar.
‘So, Jones. Does that mean you’re one of us? Welsh?’ Ben asks, flashing his green eyes up from his screen.
She looks away. ‘My mum’s half Welsh. I guess that makes me a quarter?’
‘A quarter marvellous!’ he says, laughing. ‘I mean, the other three quarters are a bitter disappointment, but I suppose it can’t be helped. I am joking, by the way. Sorry. I talk utter rubbish most of the time, I’m afraid. Especially in the morning. My tongue tends to sprint until lunch. I have a theory that it’s because I haven’t spoken for eight hours, so I have all this stored-up energy that my tongue then needs to release, like a stretched rubber band.’
‘I’m sure the crazy caffeine intake has nothing to do with it,’ Millie says, laughing, tearing off a small corner of toast in an attempt to eat it elegantly in front of him.
‘Me? Crazy caffeine intake? What on earth do you mean?’ he asks, twitching one eye on purpose. ‘Now, before we start, riddle me this, Belle. What is a unique biometric identifier that’s six letters long?’ he asks, taking out a newspaper folded to the crossword section.
Millie looks down at her toast as she thinks, taking a bite of the corner as quietly as she can. When she looks up, Ben is sticking his tongue out at her.
‘Ah. Tongue!’ She smiles.
‘Yes! I was today years old when I learnt that. Isn’t that mad?’
Ruth was wrong, Millie doesn’t hate Ben. Far from it. She likes him. He’s funny. Plus he gets bonus points for already pissing Sasha off. Yes, he’s chaotic, but he’s also comfortable. Mad, but cute. And when she sees a private message from him on the office messenger at 4 p.m. that day, her stomach clenches, weirdly.
@bene:
Belle
@milliej:
Hi
@bene:
Do you like puzzles?
@milliej:
I do
@bene:
Fancy a round of hangman?
@milliej:
OK
@bene:
Would you like some _ _ _
@milliej:
T
@bene:
T _ _
@milliej:
E
@bene:
TE _
@milliej:
A
@bene:
Wrong!
@milliej:
Really?!!
@bene:
Just kidding, yes, tea, would you like some?
@bene:
But only for you and me
@bene:
I can’t be arsed to offer anyone else
@milliej:
I’m honoured
@bene:
Chocolate bourbon or lemon cream biscuits?
@bene:
I will be judging your answer
@milliej:
Lemon cream
Ben leans back at his desk and lets out a huge sigh. Ruth looks up, confused. Millie shrugs. She wants to start laughing, but she’d hate to spoil this little moment between them.
@bene:
GOOD ANSWER
@milliej:
Chocolate bourbons are overrated
@bene:
Calm down
@milliej:
It’s 4.03 p.m. The tea won’t make itself Benjamin
@bene:
Yes boss
When Ben stands up from behind his desk, his face is dead straight. Millie squints at her screen, pretending to focus. She has the strange feeling that if she catches his eye, she’ll blush.
‘Looks like someone’s made a new friend!’ Ruth is smiling as Millie packs up her desk at the end of the day.
‘Who?’ Millie replies, knowing the answer.
‘Ben! Obviously.’
‘Hardly a friend.’
‘Well, I didn’t see him make anyone else a cup of tea.’
‘Oh, that? He just owed me from earlier,’ Millie fibs, and feels her cheeks flush. ‘Staying much longer? Need me to stick around?’ She changes the subject, pushing her chair under her desk.
‘Nah. Got a catch-up with the Master-chist shortly. Go home! It’s almost 8.30 p.m., and you should have left three hours ago. Get a life, you loser.’
‘Nice. Thanks. What are you up to tonight, anyway?’ Millie asks.
‘I’m meeting Sam downstairs. Pantry’s doing that Surprise Meal for One promo again. It’s quite fun. Last time I got chicken satay. Yum.’
‘How does that work when there are two of you? Don’t you end up with different meals?’ Millie asks.
‘Well, we just get two of them and cross our fingers. But yeah, it doesn’t always work. When I got chicken satay, she got lentil stew that took about two hours to cook. But I waited, and we shared. That’s what you have to do when you’re a couple. It’s a downside, admittedly. And bloody annoying. You’d think they could just do meals for two. Two people aren’t necessarily a couple, anyway. They could be friends.’
‘Ugh, stop. Sharing a plate of food is where I draw the line.’
‘Well, that’s probably why you could never be in a relationship. Want to hear something gross?’
‘Go on.’
‘Last night, we ate one piece of carrot cake with two forks.’
‘Oh my god. You two are nuts,’ Millie says.
‘All the best people are, Mils,’ Ruth replies. ‘Might even drink a milkshake with two straws tonight!’ she shouts, as Millie hurries away with her hands over her ears.
Three missed calls at midnight is never a good sign. Especially when Ruth knows that Millie is militant about her bedtime routine. At 10 p.m. she’s in bed. At 10.30 she turns the light out. At 11 she’s asleep with her phone on silent. Sometimes Millie worries that she might miss an emergency call, but that’s never happened. Until now.
Four
It’s been two hours, and Ruth still hasn’t answered any of Millie’s calls or texts. She’s also set an out-of-office, with an
auto message that says nothing about her whereabouts or return.
‘Has anyone heard from Ruth this morning?’ Millie asks around the creative hub.
Skye, the creative intern, shakes her head and shrugs. ‘Do you want me to check her calendar?’
‘Please,’ Millie says, taking a seat at Ruth’s chair and searching around her desk for clues. She’s beginning to feel sick with guilt that she didn’t pick up last night. Ruth was funny in the morning, but fine when Millie left the office. But she wouldn’t call Millie in a medical emergency, she’d call Sam, or her family, or an ambulance.
It had to be something with Sam. Maybe Ruth didn’t want to share her chicken satay again, Sam got mad and kicked Ruth out of her flat. Then Ruth locked herself out of her own flat and needed a place to stay, and now she’s sitting frozen solid and her pale skin turned blue on a park chair – even thought it’s summer – with her phone in her hand and Millie’s number under her thumb. In years to come, Millie will engrave the chair with her friend’s name and a pledge to keep phones at full volume.
‘Nothing,’ Skye says, interrupting Millie’s daymare. ‘In fact, there’s nothing in her calendar for the rest of the week. Are you sure she didn’t have annual leave booked?’
‘Maybe,’ Millie replies, knowing that she didn’t.
Millie looks around to see if anyone’s watching and nudges Ruth’s mouse.
‘Are you practising, or something?’ Sasha coos, as she wanders slowly towards Ruth’s desk while stirring a yoghurt pot. ‘No offence, babe, but I don’t think you’re quite there yet.’ Her baby voice sounds particularly high today. It makes Millie want to smack the yoghurt pot right out of her hands.
‘Have you seen Ruth this morning?’ Millie asks.
‘Last time I saw her was yesterday. When you two were whispering about something in the kitchen, as per usual,’ Sasha replies.
Behind Sasha, and in the distance, Millie sees a commotion. It’s Ben, leaning face first against the reception door. She watches him whistle, steam up the glass and draw a sad face. It’s the type of behaviour she’d expect from an eight-year-old, and normally she’d scoff at it, but she finds herself envying his childlike freedom from inhibition. He’s unfiltered, as Ruth described. The opposite of Millie, as she also described. For as long as Millie can remember, she’s felt the need to prove herself and please people. She’d love to be less like this, but she’s twenty-nine years old. It is who she is. And, at this age, it’s who she always will be. She can’t change now.
‘Can you believe Ruth hired that moron?’ Sasha mutters to Skye with a mouth full of yoghurt, swivelling her chair and turning her back on the door. ‘He’s a sandwich short, if you ask me. He sat at my desk yesterday, when he could see that it’s occupied. I mean, why would there be a framed picture of a dog on an empty desk?’
Millie hates that picture of Sasha’s Italian greyhound, Lupo, dressed in a tiny tuxedo. He looks so depressed. If she dared to even try to dress Bruce in a tuxedo, she’d lose all her fingers and that would be fair enough.
‘Ben’s pretty smart, though,’ says Skye. ‘He helped me with one of Ruth’s presentations yesterday.’
‘If he’s such a genius, why is he doing that?’ Sasha jerks her thumb behind her.
Millie looks back at the door to see Ben softly banging his head against the glass. When he catches her staring at him, he puts his hands in begging mode and throws her a pleading look.
‘Besides, why are you asking him for help, anyway? We’re your line managers,’ Sasha adds, briskly.
‘Sorry,’ Skye says. ‘He saw me looking stressed and he offered.’
Millie wanders over to reception and opens the door, to a dramatic exhale from Ben.
‘Thank you, Belle. You’re a lifesaver.’
‘Hardly,’ she says, smiling.
‘Quick question: does Sasha have impaired vision? Or has she been poked in both eyes recently?’ he asks quietly.
‘No?’
‘Interesting. Anyway, Blackstone,’ Ben says as they make their way together towards their desks.
‘Sorry?’ Millie asks.
‘Blackstone. What is it?’ he asks again.
‘I don’t know. Am I meant to?’ she replies, wondering if he’s teasing her again. ‘Is that a riddle?’
Ben laughs as he takes out his phone and shows her his screen.
‘I’m not a joke a minute, you know. I can be serious sometimes.’ He smiles.
On his phone is a meeting that Millie has never seen before, called Project Blackstone: Confidential.
She shrugs. ‘Don’t think I’m in that one. Is Ruth?’
‘Don’t think so,’ he says, squinting at his phone. ‘You are in it, Belle! Project Blackstone is with you, me, Sasha, Margot and Adrian Master in G minus ten minutes.’
From the corner of her eye, Millie sees Sasha glance up from her screen.
‘T,’ Millie replies, correcting him.
‘Tea? I would love some!’ Ben grins.
She sighs, realising his mistake was a trick. ‘Very clever,’ she replies, as Ben drops his bag by his desk, takes a seat and looks around.
‘Morning, everyone! Skye, always a pleasure. Sasha, have you had an eye test recently?’ he says cheerily.
‘What do you mean?’ Sasha, unflinching at her screen, replies.
‘Oh, I was just wondering why you walked past the door three times and didn’t let me in,’ he asks.
Everyone turns towards their screen, feeling uncomfortable but clearly eavesdropping.
‘I’m sorry, Ben. I didn’t see you,’ she replies with an unconvincing smile.
‘Hence my concern about the health of your peepers,’ he replies.
Sasha scoffs.
‘So, who watched Single Me Out! last night?’ Ben says, and within seconds all chairs, bar Sasha’s, turn to face him.
In the boardroom, Millie quietly searches for Sam’s number in her mobile. Suddenly the door behind her swings open and bangs into the wall, making Millie jump in her seat.
‘Woah! Sorry!’ Ben says. ‘I thought that door would be heavier.’
‘And there I was thinking it was your massive guns,’ Millie says, pushing his tea towards the chair opposite her.
‘I mean, I’d say it was and then grunt like a wrestler, but we’d both know it was a lie,’ he replies.
Ben takes the tea, nods his thanks and walks around the table, sitting down on the chair right next to her. Millie sees him staring at her left cheek for a few seconds and stifles a nervous giggle. She clears her throat and leans forward in her seat so she can’t see him anymore, as she types a message to Sam.
Millie:
Hey Sam, is everything OK? I got a few missed calls from Ruth last night and now I can’t get hold of her. Is she coming in today? I’m getting a bit worried. Thanks, Millie.
Millie adds a kiss to the end of the message and then deletes it. Then adds it again. Then deletes it. She doesn’t know Sam very well, so a kiss feels a bit overfamiliar. But she also knows Ruth wants them to be friends, so perhaps this could be a first step. She scolds herself for overthinking, as usual, adds the kiss, sends the message and leans back.
‘You have freckles on your nose,’ Ben states. ‘Sorry for staring.’
‘Well-observed,’ Millie says, smiling, feeling flustered by his attention. ‘I guess they tend to come with the territory when you’re a redhead like me. What’s your excuse?’
‘I come from a family of redheads, you know,’ he says. ‘I’m just the black sheep.’
‘Literally,’ she says, glancing at his hair.
‘Did your mates also play connect the dots on your face during a sleepover? And leave you with a small penis on the end of your nose for a week?’
‘Surprisingly, they didn’t,’ Millie replies. ‘But I wouldn’t put it past them to do that to me now.’
‘Look, I’ll show you,’ Ben says, taking her wrist with his warm hand and leaning towards her with a pen. She laug
hs and squirms away, quickly straightening up when Adrian bowls into the room, with Sasha and Margot, Slide’s longest-serving strategist, hot on his heels. Shy, calm and polite – Margot is everything Sasha is not.
‘What are you two doing?’ Adrian booms, taking a loud and creaky seat at the top of the table and placing a small white box in front of him. ‘You know my rule – if you’re going to slide your colleagues, save it for after hours. And use the app.’ He laughs loudly at his own joke.
Sasha joins in, even louder.
‘I was only showing Millie how tiny my nib is,’ Ben says, holding up his pen. ‘See?’
Margot titters. Sasha scowls. Adrian chuckles. There’s nothing he loves more than smutty banter.
Millie and Ben open their notepads and roll their chairs closer to the table at the same time.
‘So, I have huge news for you four. Inside here,’ Adrian says, tapping the little white box in front of him.
‘What is it?’ Ben asks.
‘It’s the biggest project you four will ever work on in your lifetimes. It’s come all the way from Human in San Francisco. Prepare to have your minds blown.’
He opens the box, then leans back and puts his arms behind his head to reveal pit stains the size of a small pond. The rest of them lean forward. Inside the box is a tiny pink and white pill.
‘This is Oxytoxin,’ Adrian smirks. ‘The world’s first antidote for love.’
Five
The five of them stare wide-eyed at the tiny pill, like it’s a miniature grenade in front of them.
‘Sorry, what is it?’ Margot eventually squeaks.
‘Oxytoxin. The world’s first antidote for love,’ Adrian repeats, even louder. ‘Do I need to say it a third time?’
‘No,’ poor Margot whispers.
‘That sounds fucking amazing,’ Sasha barks.
‘How does it work?’ Millie asks.
‘What does it mean?’ Ben adds.
‘Who cares about how it works? That’s for the lab nerds. All that matters is that it does work! Oxytoxin is a new hormone therapy from Human. You take two pills over a fortnight and it stops your glands from releasing the blend of hormones that creates the sensation of “being in love”,’ he says, with air quotes. ‘To put it another way, it protects you from ever having your heart broken by preventing you from falling in love in the first place – no temptation to fuck your life up by being a “couple”. And, if you already have a broken heart, it mends it. Boom.’
