Page 72 of Begin Again Again

“Yeah, Wine Wives. But me and my co-host stopped recording pre-COVID.”

Beth shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. She looked so strange, so put together. It was hard to believe she’d been coming on his hand less than five minutes ago. He waited for her to say more about her podcast, but she let the silence ring out. Behind them the mystery cat hissed again. Beth didn’t even turn her head. He had to give it to her, she was stubborn. The next move was undoubtedly on him. “What’s your new podcast about?”

She turned toward him. “Oh, um, the way people show female friendship in media. How they used to do it. How they’re doing it now. That sort of thing.”

“Oh.” Byron struggled for a way to ask, ‘Why the fuck would you do that?’ without sounding like a cunt.

“It’s hard to explain,” Beth said, staring down the street. “But when men wrote and created everything, the value put on female relationships was like, zero. But now women have a platform to make art, especially books and TV. There’s some really interesting patterns in how we show our relationships with other women. I want to explore that.”

Her eyes had brightened but she seemed wary, as though she shouldn’t be talking about her project but couldn’t help herself. Byron wanted to ask her something that would keep her talking, but as he scrambled for a question, headlights rushed around the corner. A red Yaris pulled up in front of them and Beth glanced at her phone. “That’s me.”

She kissed his cheek and strode toward the car. “See you soon.”

“Definitely,” he said, feeling hollow. “Message when you get home.”

He didn’t mean it like that, but she shot him an evil smile. He grinned back; glad he couldn’t have cocked everything up.

Forty minutes later he was in bed, whiskey in one hand, phone in the other. Beth’s photos still hadn’t lost their magic, but he wasn’t ready to go just yet. Instead, he tortured himself studying the soft pink of her nipples, the shape of her lips, remembering how she’d rocked on his hand begging him for more. She liked him talking dirty to her. Maybe next time, they’d be in his bed, his cock where his fingers had been. His phone buzzed, the moment he’d been waiting for. He read Beth’s message.

I just fucked myself thinking about you.

He wrote back.

That isn’t a picture, Horoscopes.

He put his tumbler on his bedside table and lay back, waiting. He pictured Beth on her bed, both hands inside her G-string. He stroked himself softly, picturing her face as she came. Remembering how wet she’d gotten when he told her he’d let his workmates watch. He didn’t work with anyone he’d let within a mile of her, but that didn’t matter in the fantasy. His phone buzzed and he picked it up, heart pumping.

Byron, I miss you. Are you home? Can we Facetime?

His throat closed and he released his cock. Audrey was drunk, Byron guessed. It had to be four in the afternoon in London. He set his phone aside, ignoring the fresh buzz he was sure was Beth. His cock was so hard it hurt. He ignored that too. He grabbed his whiskey and stood. Another cold shower. Another drink. There was nothing else for it.

Chapter 12

Beth woke at five to nine, her fingers aching from pretending they were Byron’s. It had been three days since their date, and she couldn’t sleep. Ever. She seemed likely to die soon. She licked the roof of her mouth, trying to focus. She had a meeting in ten minutes. She needed a shower, a coffee, and maybe a fistful of Ritalin, but there was no time for any of that. She dragged on her silk dressing gown and stumbled downstairs to the kitchen-cum-office. Lara looked up from her laptop. “Good morning! You made it!”

“Just in the nick of time.” Beth flashed a smile at Angus who was burbling happily in his high chair and pounded the start button on her work HP. “This meeting’s gonna be a nightmare. I can feel it.”

She could also feel Lara studying her as she punched in her login details. She was going to say something annoying.

“Hey, Beth…?”

Called it.

“Yeah?”

“Can we talk about something?” Lara asked in a bright, regional manager’s voice. “Nothing serious, but when are you free?”

Beth bit back a grimace. “Ahh, after my meeting?” She held up her headphones. “We can chat when I’m done?”

“Great!”

Deeply confused, Beth joined her team meeting with her camera and microphone off. She was on time, but the screen was already full of faces.‘On time is late,’her mum had said whenever Beth rushed out the door to catch a shift at Valentines Buffet. Stupid mum. Stupid Valentines Buffet.

Her Chief of Staff was talking from what looked like his shed, screaming kids audible in the background.

“We need to be prepared for the challenges to keep coming,” he said, looking miserable. “With Claire on leave, we’re seriously behind in…”

He said things that made zero sense to Beth. She’d been in this role for close to a year, but everyone in her department talked in a kind of corporate pig Latin, peppered with unintelligible acronyms and slang. If she’d been working in the office, she was sure she would have picked it up, but as a remote receptionist, she mostly spoke to customers who were even more confused than she was.

---