Page 49 of The Love Hack

Unconsciously reaching out my hand and caressing Astro’s hard, furry head, I felt my heart reaching out to Amelie, all those miles away. I tried to reach out to her with my mind, too, although of course I didn’t believe in telepathy, not even between sisters.

‘As soon as I’ve worked out what you need me to do,’ I silently promised her, ‘I’ll do it. I’ve got you.’

NINETEEN

‘What’ll I do if no one wants to talk to me?’ I asked Astro. He was lying on my bad, half-watching in case I stepped on his tail as I wobbled precariously, craning over my shoulder to see the reflection of my back in the mirror.

I was wearing denim dungarees panic-bought the previous day in a smash-and-grab Primark trip, with a purple crop top underneath them and my trusty Doc Marten boots. I had no idea whether the look was even remotely appropriate for the work summer social, but at least it was different from what I wore to the office and my hair looked decent. Also, thanks to a TikTok tutorial Miranda had sent me a link to, I’d more or less nailed the summer’s signature “super-glowy, no-make up make-up look”.

But none of that helped much. I was going to have to spend the day socialising with my colleagues. There’d be Pimms to spill down my front and sausages in buns that would dribble ketchup down my chin if I so much as looked at them. There’d probably be rounders or volleyball or some such horror – the exact nature of the entertainment on offer was ‘a surprise’, according to Neil, who was on the organising committee.

But whatever it was, there’d be men. Loads of them, everywhere, all busy out-manning one another over who wielded the BBQ tongs in the most manly way and whose team came first in the touch rugby.

And one of the men would be Ross.

The thing was, the more time I spent sitting at my desk opposite him, the more I was coming to see him as a human being, rather than just another man. I liked the way he was always first to offer to help if someone was stuck with a work problem. I liked the way he always put a fiver in birthday collections, rather than Neil’s paltry handful of small change. I even liked the way he still – sometimes although not always – blushed when he looked at me. I’d come to realise it mostly happened when I smiled, so I’d been trying to ration my smiles in case I exhausted his capacity to blush.

But Ross was still going out with Bryony, and I’d made a promise to myself years ago that I was never going to allow myself to be hurt by a man again.

The pain I’d experienced over Kieren had been more than enough to put me off for life: no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t see what men – any man – could offer me that would be worth risking that again. I could change fuses myself and evict spiders myself and take my own bins out. I didn’t need romantic candle-lit dinners or someone’s lap to put my feet on when I watched television in the evenings. I didn’t care if I went to weddings without a plus-one.

And sex? Whatever. With Kieren, as I’d had to admit at the time, it hadn’t been all that. But even if it was, no orgasm I’d ever experienced was worth the hassle and pain and risk of heartbreak of actually getting a man to provide it for me.

I’d managed perfectly well for all these years and I intended to go on managing.

So why did Ross make me feel the way I felt?

I let my knees go bendy and flopped down on the bed next to Astro, who bounced slightly as my weight hit the mattress, and looked offended.

How did I actually feel about Ross? It was surprisingly hard to pinpoint, because it was such a complex jumble of emotions. Sometimes he was annoying bloke’s bloke, like when he took the piss out of Barney when Queens Park Rangers beat Charlton four-nil over the weekend. Sometimes he made me feel almost protective, like I had when he’d inexplicably freaked out over the terrorist attack on the tube that had turned out to be nothing of the kind. And when I read his sharp, knowledgeable tech column in Max! every week, I felt a surge of something like pride.

And – yes, damn it – there was the way I felt when I saw him walk across the office in his gym kit, all loose-limbed and sweaty, or brush his hair back from his face, or grin when I made a joke. My assessment of his looks as middling might have been correct, but they were ordinary like perfect things are ordinary – a simple white shirt, or a fried egg with the edges crispy and the yolk still runny, or a daisy on a green lawn. Like when I opened the door to my flat and Astro came to meet me and everything was ordinary, because I was home.

‘God, I need to get a grip,’ I told Astro, who opened one eye and gave me a hard stare like he one hundred per cent agreed. ‘Going around comparing a bloke to a daisy like I’m William fricking Wordsworth or someone. And I need to get going or I’ll be late for this stupid party, not that that would be the end of the world.’

Astro blinked slowly at me and I blinked back, and we carried on doing that for a minute or so until he lost interest and went to sleep. Reluctantly, I stood up, checked my reflection in the mirror one last time, gathered up my things and left the flat.

By the time I stepped off the Tube at an obscure West London station I’d never heard of – let alone visited – before, the sky had clouded over and it was beginning to rain – only a thin drizzle for now, but it looked like the kind of thin drizzle that had big ambitions to turn into a proper downpour. It wasn’t looking good for the barbecue and volleyball.

But, to my surprise, the pin on my phone led me to an industrial estate. Hulking warehouses surrounded a large car park, and there wasn’t an open field suitable for a sporting event anywhere in sight. I wandered around for a few minutes, trying to locate the exact location of the pin, and eventually saw a small group of men clustered around a metal roll-up door, looking confused. One of them was Greg, my boss. Another was Ross.

‘Lucy!” Greg reached out as if he was going to give me a hug, then changed his mind and patted me on the shoulder. ‘Glad you made it. We’re still waiting for about ten others and then we’ll go on it and get you guys divided into teams. There’ll be coffee and bacon rolls laid on before we get started.’

Teams. Apprehension flooded me again, coupled with awkwardness as Greg moved away, leaving me standing next to Ross and a couple of the guys from the art department.

‘Do you know what they’re going to make us do?’ I asked.

Ross shrugged. ’No idea. Last year was clay pigeon shooting and it was a disaster. Well, it was for me, anyway. I just shut my eyes and blasted away and missed everything.’

This made me feel a bit better.

‘At least it looks like we’ll be indoors,’ I said, shivering as a fresh breeze brought a gust of rain onto my shoulders, and wishing I’d brought a coat.

‘Here,’ Ross rummaged in his canvas messenger bag and got out an umbrella. ‘We might be about to get splattered with paintballs or something but we may as well be dry when we start.’

I moved under its shelter, which meant moving nearer to Ross. I’d never been this close to him before – although there was at least four inches between his bicep and my shoulder, I was close enough to smell whatever soap or shampoo he’d used that morning, and feel a faint but welcome warmth coming off his body and meeting my bare skin.

‘What would Adam advise in this situation?’ he asked.

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