Page 17 of The Love Hack

He wasn’t conventionally handsome, apart from those eyes, as blue as spilled ink. But I felt powerfully, magnetically drawn to him – here, I was sure, was the troubled soul my own soul had been seeking.

‘Can I help you?’ his voice jolted me out of my daydream, making me blush and realise I’d been staring vacantly in his general direction.

‘I was just…’ I was just imagining our married life, ten years from now. ‘I was just wondering if you’d like me to wash that mug for you?’

He looked at me hard, his blue eyes narrow and a faint smile on his lips. ‘No one, but no one, washes my mug. Ever.’

He had an Irish accent. I felt my stomach turn a slow somersault.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘I’m Lucy. I’m new, and I was told to make myself useful, so I thought…’

‘Lucy.’ He nodded, like I’d confirmed a long-held suspicion. ‘I’m Kieren. Northern Ireland Editor, over on the news desk.’

‘I’m on Lifestyle,’ I said. ‘I started yesterday.’

‘Welcome to the Sentinel.’ He said it ironically, as if it was some kind of poisoned chalice, but then he smiled and it was like the sun coming out. ‘If you get a free moment, come on over – I’m sure we can find a way for you to make yourself useful in News.’

So, after that, whenever I had half an hour free, I’d check with my team leader and scurry across the bullpen to the newsdesk, where I’d be put to work correcting the spelling of obscure politicians’ names, the dates when by-elections had taken place, or the boundaries between local parish councils.

Eventually, as I proved myself to be not totally incompetent, I was given more challenging tasks.

‘Cut this to fit, will you?’ Kieren said one day, and I spent an hour engaged in a sort of word jigsaw, making an article about corrupt police officers in Belfast go from a thousand words to eight column inches without losing any of the facts.

At last, when I told him I was done, I watched breathlessly as he scanned the copy on his screen, changing a word here and there, before smiling and saying, ‘You did a great job. Quick, too. Thanks, Lucy.’

He might as well have told me I was the reigning queen of his heart, that’s how happy his words made me. When he allocated me another, longer piece to work on, I agreed instantly.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, the day before the paper was put to bed, so when five thirty came, and no one left their desks. At six o’clock, a few of the early starters began to pack up their things and go, but half an hour later the bullpen was still more than half full.

I still had a good two hours’ work left, I reckoned. My eyes were tired, my shoulders hunched and aching, but I kept going, the words on my screen like thousands of ants, crawling their way slowly upwards in an endless progression.

‘Tea?’ asked Kieren’s voice at my elbow. ‘You look like you need one.’

‘Thanks.’ I didn’t like tea much – he brewed it so strong it was the colour of burnt umber paint, bitter and sharp with tannin. But I drank it anyway, because he’d made it.

An hour later, I looked up from my screen. The contact lenses I wore then were drying out, threatening to ping out of my eyes, so I blinked furiously to try and lubricate them and clear the cloudiness that had settled on them. The office had emptied dramatically, I realised – there were only a couple of guys left at the Sports desk, two women on the subs station, Kieren and me. As I watched, the two subs nodded to each other, shut down their computers and left.

‘How’re you getting on?’ Kieren asked.

‘Getting there, I think,’ I said. ‘Almost done.’

Five minutes later, I stood up, stretching my fingertips high over my head, interlacing my fingers and pulling my elbows back as far as they’d go.

‘Taking a yoga break?’ Kieren asked.

I never quite knew whether he was joking or not.

‘I reckon I’ve finished,’ I said humbly. ‘Unless there’s anything else…?’

I looked around. The office was empty now, pools of shadow over the other pods of desks, only the News section illuminated.

‘Time to call it a night, then.’

He stood and shrugged his battered leather jacket (it smelled of smoke, I’d noticed, and the same juniper scent I'd noticed on his skin) over his shoulders.

Then he hitched a hip on the corner of my desk and perched there, looking half at me and half at the words on my screen. His closeness made it difficult to breathe, like the strap of my bra had suddenly been pulled to a tighter hook.

‘Lucy?’ he said.

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