Page 32 of Sleep

Ha-ha. And what business of his was it to know? Maybe I’d offered Mabel Donovan a job. Maybe there was something brewing that he didn’t like. I’d had good people headhunted from right under my feet before. I knew how easily someone could be swayed. Not that I had any intention of offering Mabel a job.

I knew what I wanted to offer them. Something no money in the world could compensate for.

I wanted that feeling back. The easy conversation. Laughter. A stroke of their cheek.

I squirmed at my own thoughts.

He was squirming too. Perhaps it was the way I’d drifted off, my eyes still pinning him like the complete bastard I pretended to be. For the record, I was no bastard, and I was skating on thin ice with no actual ability to skate.

But he didn’t need to know that either.

“I can try leaving them a message,” he said quietly. “Off the record? I think they might appreciate a friendly face.”

“Is that so?”

“Did you speak to them?”

Ah, so he was still stewing, and Mabel was no doubt still hurting. Hiding out somewhere. And I…

I never swore, though I often felt like doing so, and I was certainly not going to spill out some grand admission of wanting to check on someone I…

I liked them. Very much.

My mouth was moving, trying to find words when I had no idea what to say. Eventually, I fished a business card out of my pocket and threw it carelessly onto the desk.

“Get them to call me,” I said. Then I walked out.

I barely acknowledged my building’s concierge, someone I didn’t recognise, trying to wave me down with an envelope before I snatched it out of his hand, letting the lift doors shut in my face. I was tired, irritable, and a little—I hated to admit it—heartbroken. Perhaps a handwritten note thanking me for my hospitality. I pooh-poohed that notion as I ripped open the envelope. Another contract to sign. I shoved it into my pocket as my mind went elsewhere. Mabel was not my mother, and I certainly wasn’t anything like my mother. So why was I so disappointed that it had not been a handwritten note?

I stepped into the hallway and paused. The door to my flat was wide open—something that could have been disturbing but wasn’t at all, because the large pram propping the door open was familiar, as were the two toddlers jumping up and down on my sofa. I almost shrieked in distress that the pillows had been moved, disturbing my shrine to a person who was evidently ignoring me. I should know better. In Mabel’s words, Move the-fuck-on.

“J-honny!” Two small humans advanced at speed and clung to my legs, snotting down my trousers. Children. I picked one up for a saliva-filled smear on my cheek while the other one ran off.

“Hey.” Jenny kissed my other, still dry cheek and offered a warm smile. “Seeing you with the kids makes me wish you were my baby daddy. The easy life I would have…” Jenny rolled her eyes. I laughed.

“God. You’d hate me. The divorce would be messy.”

“I would be rich.”

“You’re already rich with all the money I pay you.”

“Well, you are the kids’ godfather.”

“And the baby daddy?” I teased.

Jenny grinned evilly. We were a good team, she and I; there was nothing off-limits here. Not even the fact that her scumbag baby-daddy had left her halfway through the pregnancy, declaring his newfound dislike of impending fatherhood.

“How did the doctor’s go?” she asked.

“I’m still naughty. I half expected him to bend me over the treatment bed and give me a good spanking.”

“You should have taken him up on it.”

“Jenny!” I gasped, trying to cover the ears of the child in my arms, missing completely and instead getting a palmful of snot. I wiped it down my trouser leg—it made little difference by this point—while Jenny moved back to the laptop she had set up on the kitchen island.

“I threw away your mouldy food, incidentally.”

“Thanks.”

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