Page 62 of The Retreat
‘Ready?’ Rebecca yelled, and they moved awkwardly to the start line with all the other teams. ‘Set. Go!’
They made it maybe six hops before disaster struck. Talia caught her foot on the grass, lurched, and Imogen instinctively grabbed for her. Which meant, of course, that they both went down. Hard.
Imogen landed half on top of her, chest to chest, nose to cheek. For one suspended second, no one moved.
Talia muttered, ‘Sorry.’
And Imogen, to her immense surprise, found herself replying, ‘Anytime.’
Talia laughed nervously.
They disentangled themselves and climbed to their feet awkwardly. Everyone was ahead of them. ‘I don’t think we can win,’ Imogen told Talia.
‘I’m past caring,’ Talia said. ‘Come on, let’s just finish.’
And they hopped across the finish line, laughing.
‘What’s next?’ Imogen asked.
Talia checked her laminated schedule. ‘Tug of war,’ she said with a sigh.
‘For god’s sake,’ Imogen said. But she didn’t mind. She was having fun.
Forty-One
There were many things Talia had prepared herself for this weekend. Small talk, poor sleep, the weight of pretending to be in a happy relationship. Tug of war had not been on the list. Especially not one refereed by Rebecca, who treated every children’s game as if the players very lives depended on which team of corporate lawyers could drag the other through a patch of cow shit.
‘Rebecca’s really going for it, isn’t she?’ Imogen murmured beside her.
She was standing close. Not too close. Just near enough that Talia could feel the warmth of her body through the light fabric of her T-shirt.
Imogen ran warm, Talia realised. It was one of those ridiculous details Talia had noticed about her. Like how she smiled when she was nervous and that her eyes flickered with a kind of quiet mischief when no one else was looking. Those small things made her impossible to ignore.
‘She’s got a clipboard and a dream,’ Talia muttered, eyes still on the rope. ‘That’s a dangerous combination.’
Imogen smiled. Talia smiled back. And then stopped herself. She was gonna have to stop grinning at this woman. It was getting silly.
They weren’t supposed to be on opposite teams, but Rebecca had announced they needed to “mix it up” and “model adaptive collaboration” — whatever that meant — so now Talia was leading Team Resilience and ‘Alex’ was on Team Innovation. It was all a bit Alan Sugar for Talia’s liking.
‘You ready to lose?’ Imogen asked.
‘Not remotely,’ Talia told her.
She tried to keep it light, teasing. But it was getting harder to control the way her voice changed when she spoke to Imogen.
She looked away before she could linger on that thought. Across the lawn, Marcus Talbot was hyping up his teammates with what appeared to be a pre-game chant. Daniel Parsons—inexplicably shirtless under his gilet—was shadow-boxing. Jade was trying to get Peter Chen to bet on who would fall over first. But he wasn’t looking up from his phone.
Talia retied her shoelaces till they pinched. She could do this. She’d survived a twelve-hour negotiation with a South African mining company on four hours of sleep. She could survive some rope-based theatre.
And then she looked up and saw Imogen. Pulling her hair back. Tying it off. Laughing at something Rhona had said. The laugh reached her eyes.
‘You’re staring,’ Jade said suddenly from behind her.
‘Jesus,’ Talia said, clutching her heart.
‘Eyes on the prize, Knox.’
‘She’s my girlfriend. I’m supposed to stare,’ Talia said quickly.
