Page 62 of Be More Lucy

‘I’m sure there’s some sexual tension between them. You know how good I am at sensing it.’

‘I don’t even think they’re gay, despite the name,’ Lucy said as she got up to photograph the notes on the whiteboard.

‘If they’re not out, they should be. I can imagine them ripping one another’s clothes off when they get back to their office.’

‘Thank you for putting that lovely image in my head.’ Michael and Aaron were always smartly turned out, but neither of them had the sort of physique Lucy wanted to see naked. ‘I think you’ve been reading too many male-on-male romances.’

‘Talking of romance, how did your weekend in London with Josh go?

‘About as well as the meeting we’ve just had! I dumped him.’

‘Why?’

‘We discovered we wanted different things.’ Other people’s partners, but Lucy didn’t mention that.

‘How did he take it?’

‘He called me a boring cow.’

‘Nice - you’re well shot of him. What’s Mark’s new woman like?’

‘She ignored me for most of the time. She was too busy making eyes at Josh.’

Kizzy looked appalled. ‘What about Mark?’

‘He wasn’t making eyes at Josh.’

‘You know what I meant!’

‘Mark is still as attractive as ever, unfortunately.

That evening, Lucy was on her own in the office, trying to come up with a marketing strategy that neither Michael nor Aaron could disagree with. Flynn and Kizzy had gone home hours ago. She ought to do the same.

Her phone buzzed. A phone call from Em. Good. She could get Em’s opinion on the weekend’s events. Lucy clicked the green button.

‘How’s things?’ Em asked. She sounded on edge. Not her normal bright and breezy self at all.

‘Where do I start?’

‘How about how you managed to keep your cool with the manchild making a play for the ice maiden?’

Lucy laughed. ‘Sounds like a synopsis for the latest video game. He said he was sorry. He went off with Hannah as revenge, and he didn’t enjoy it.’

‘Oh he did, did he? Or was he just trying to get back in your knickers after Hannah rejected him?’ Em sounded angry.

‘What do you mean Hannah rejected him?’

‘Jack overheard them talking outside the front door to the building when they came back on Sunday. He was in the basement, putting our rubbish in the communal bins. Their voices carried through the open window. They had no idea he was there.‘

‘What did they say?’

‘Hannah told Josh that it had been fun, but she wasn’t leaving Mark. Then Josh had a go at her for using him. Jack said he sounded really cut up about it.’

Lucy was trying to take it all in. So Josh hadn’t been bored by Hannah at all. He’d wanted to carry on seeing her, and when she’d refused, he’d tried to mend things with Lucy.

‘Jack’s only just told me. I don’t know why he sat on that information for a day. We’ve had a discussion about that.’

From the agitation in Em’s voice, it sounded like the discussion might have been a row. ‘Are you ok?’

---