Page 74 of Something Borrowed

“Until someone special comes along.” Stan finishes our promise, his voice completely flat. He taps the table and then stands up so suddenly that I jump. “I’ll go and give him a ring then, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I whisper and watch him go. If his image is blurred, then that’s no one else’s business.

“Rafferty Albert Kendrick.”

I jump and spin around in my chair.

“Ah, he is with us,” Ingrid says. She and Joe are perched on the side of his desk, sharing a bag of white chocolate toffees.

“Sorry?”

“We’ve been talking to you for the last five minutes,” Joe adds. “Where were you?”

I look back at the window. “I was just thinking,” I finally say, aware that the silence has gone on too long.

“Ah, I wondered where the sense of impending doom had come from.”

I glare at him. “I’ll have you know I do a lot of thinking.”

“Usually guided by your penis,” Ingrid offers helpfully. She looks in the empty chocolate bag and makes a sound of disapproval before hunting around on Joe’s desk.

I roll my eyes. “You won’t find any in there. Mr Perfect actually gives them out.”

“That’s actually what you’re supposed to do with sample packs,” Joe protests.

I open my desk drawer and chuck her a packet of lavender and rose chocolates. “Try those. They’re lush.”

“What were you thinking about?” Joe asks as Ingrid tears open the bag and descends on the contents in a manner last seen in a wildlife documentary narrated by David Attenborough. “Rafferty?”

I look up at him. “Thoughts?” he prompts.

“Oh, I was just wondering if Leo and Richard were happy with last night. I need to give them a ring.”

“They were ecstatic about the party,” Ingrid says with her mouth full. Joe and I utter sounds of disgust, and she swallows before adding, “I think they were less happy with Bennett's marital grandstanding.”

“That twat,” Joe says, ever my loyal friend. “What a cunty thing to do.”

“Lovelyoffice language,” Jed calls through his open office door. “I do hope Mrs Bellington-Smythe is visiting. You know how she embraces counterculture.”

“Like it’s a coat hanger connected to the mains,” I say gloomily. “She pulled my hair last week to emphasise that it needed cutting.”

Joe raises an eyebrow. “She wasn’t wrong.”

“Yes, but usually hairdressers have scissors. They don’t rip out the offending article by the roots with their horrible pointy fingers.”

The doorbell chimes, and Ingrid goes to get up.

“I’ll get it,” Jed says. “I need to grab my printing.”

He walks out of the office, and we all take a moment to admire his broad shoulders, narrow hips, and an arse that’s displayed to its best advantage in pinstripe tailoring.

“Yummier than one of these chocolates,” Ingrid says, and we nod.

“And probably cheaper per bag,” I offer. “It’s like the chocolatiers imagined that they’d coated them in gold.”

She turns to me. “So?”

I blink. “So what?”

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