Page 6 of The Love Hack

I could feel sweat springing out under my armpits as I walked across the floor, and the finger holding my mug seemed to be working very hard to stop it from falling. With an effort, I kept my face impassive, and made my way to the end of the room, looking desperately around for Greg, or any other familiar, friendly face. But I recognised no one – well, I kind of recognised lots of them, but only in an amorphous, collective sort of way. The man blob. At last, I reached the far end of the room, the last pod of eight desks.

Seven were occupied, four by men and three by men’s possessions – jackets over chairs, Costa take-out packets next to keyboards, chunky, expensive headphones. There was a dark-haired man with designer stubble and the air of cockiness men have when they’re more handsome than anyone deserves to be, and know it. There was a thin, fair-haired guy with glasses wearing a button-down shirt. There was a bloke in cycling gear, clearly just arrived for the day, hitching his backpack off his shoulders and letting his helmet fall heavily to the floor. And the fourth was just ordinary, middling-tall and middling-built with middling-brown hair that flopped down over steady, middling-blue eyes.

They all looked at me as I approached, with not-unfriendly curiosity. The dark-haired one cracked a dazzling smile, which I was willing to bet was a reflex action on seeing a woman, any woman, in the split second before he categorised her as fuckable or non-fuckable.

The thin guy pushed his glasses up his nose and returned to his keyboard, hammering furiously away as if the deadline from hell was at his heels. Cycling boy picked up his bag again and headed past me with a nod, presumably heading for the gents to change into something less budgie-smuggly.

And the middling-everything man pushed back his chair, saying, ‘Hi. You must be?—’

He sort of half-stood, but then seemed to change his mind. Maybe he thought standing up to greet a woman was unacceptable in a modern workplace. Maybe he decided he couldn’t be bothered after all. Maybe he suddenly realised his fly was open. I had no idea.

But whatever the reason, it worked out badly for him. By the time he sat back down again, his wheeled chair had scooted further back than he’d realised. His descending bum just clipped the edge of the seat. The chair went one way and he went the other and ended up on the floor with a jolt that must have felt like his spine was going to shoot through the top of his head.

There was a moment of silence, then the handsome bloke let out a guffaw that practically took the roof off. The skinny dude joined in, and Mr Middling stayed down on the floor. I felt a rush of sympathy for him – what if he was hurt? What if he felt awful because everyone was laughing at him? What if he was going to actually cry or something? Then I realised that he, too, was doubled over with mirth.

‘Smooth move, bro,’ said Handsome.

‘Give us some warning next time,’ complained Skinny. ‘We could’ve videoed that and made a fortune.’

‘What did I miss?’ Budgie, hearing the commotion, hurried back to the group, a clean T-shirt sticking damply to his chest.

‘Ross arse-planted in front of the new girl,’ said Skinny.

‘Most spectacular pratfall, like, ever,’ said Handsome.

‘Uh… are you okay?’ I asked.

Middling – who I gathered was Ross, usurper of the job that should have been mine – picked himself up off the floor. ‘Only my pride’s hurt,’ he said. ‘But that won’t recover any time soon. Show’s over, guys, pretend it never happened. As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, you must be Lucy. I’m Ross.’

‘Easy to remember,’ quipped Handsome. ‘Ross took a toss – gettit? I’m Marco.’

I realised after a second that he had extended his hand for me to shake, and I took it. But I wasn’t really looking at him – I was looking at Ross. There was an amiable grin on his face. He seemed totally unfazed by his embarrassing mishap, by being a figure of fun in front of his colleagues and in front of me.

Was it a man thing? Or had he just decided, after his first glance at me, that my opinion wasn’t worth bothering about?

‘Chiraag,’ said Budgie.

‘Neil,’ muttered Skinny, glancing up from his screen then glancing straight back, as if the sight of me was too awful to endure.

‘I look after News,’ Marco went on, ‘Chiraag’s Sport, Neil’s Money and Ross is Tech. At least he is when he’s not crashing his hard drive. Simon and Barney are Fashion and Lifestyle, but they’re out on a shoot today. The subs and production guys are over on the next pod and Art’s beyond that. Greg said to show you round but I guess you’ve seen it all now, right?’

‘Uh, yeah.’ I put down my bag and sat down at the vacant desk, which was the one opposite Ross, placing my mug and the photo of Astro next to my keyboard. Then I opened a drawer and slid in my venus fly trap. I’d it home this evening, I decided.

Five minutes in these guys’ company had taught me one important lesson. They hadn’t been unfriendly or hostile or even overtly sexist – nothing like that. But I’d realised that if I did anything foolish – anything at all – they’d laugh at me.

As the only woman in the team, I was going to stand out enough as it was. I wasn’t going to show weakness and I was categorically not going to be laughed at. I switched on my computer, got it set up the way I liked, and logged into my email.

Over the next few days, I learned a few more things about my new colleagues. I learned that when there was a collection for someone’s birthday, Neil took round the card to sign and the envelope for everyone to chip in a couple of quid, or even a fiver if they were feeling flush, but added nothing himself. I learned that Chiraag spent a good five minutes each morning painstakingly shaking a protein drink at his desk – the rattle of ice cubes and scrape of the metal blendy thing against the plastic container got very old, very quickly. I learned that when Marco sat down each morning, he’d spend a few moments artfully rearranging his hair, using his blank computer screen as a mirror before switching it on.

And I learned that Ross was the social one in the group. He suggested heading out to have a few pints and play darts, or go to a Crossfit session at lunchtime, or go to the corner shop for mint Magnums when it was hot and the afternoon was dragging. And, because he was the one sat opposite me, he was the one I noticed the most. He ran his fingers through his hair when he was thinking, messing it up and pulling locks down over his forehead. He seemed to go from clean-shaven to designer stubble to not-so-designer stubble on roughly a four-day cycle, so clearly he didn’t take his appearance particularly seriously. He had nice eyes, a clear, bright hazel colour. Like all the rest of us, he wore jeans, hoodies and trainers. When I’d brushed past him in the kitchen, I’d caught a waft of a clean smell coming off him, a mixture of laundry detergent and soap.

Although maybe that was just the free toiletries provided in the showers down at the Crossfit box – I had no idea.

I supposed that if I’d been in the market for meeting a man, I’d probably have stuck Ross on the shortlist and started inviting myself along to the pub and the gym. Okay, maybe not the gym – even the mythical in-the-market-for-a-man Lucy would have thought that was a bridge too far. But I could see the appeal of Ross, objectively speaking. But I wasn’t in the market for a man – especially not a man I worked with - so Ross was just another guy, another member of the male sex in which I had zero interest. And even if I was interested, there was no way I going to allow even a flicker of that interest to show – I’d learned the hard way that that was a surefire route to humiliation and heartbreak.

And sadly, it appeared at first that men had no interest in Adam, my alter ego, either. Adam’s debut was announced with great fanfare in the final print edition of Max!. A stock photo of a friendly, innocuous-looking bloke in his mid-thirties looking serious and chewing a pencil, together with the ‘Ask Adam’ logo, went out on Max!’s social media channels shortly afterwards, but the following week, no problems arrived in the designated inbox.

By Friday, I was beginning to worry that my new job was dead in the water before it had even begun.

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