Page 35 of Sincerely Yours, Anna Sherwood

I don’t want to spend time getting to know you. I don’t want to spend any time at all with you, but you seem to be making it impossible to do anything else. It’d be a lot easier if you weren’t always popping up and asking me stuff about projects. (Why do you do that, anyway? Does it have something to do with whatever you were working on tonight?)

But I am getting to know you, and it feels like the more time I spend with you, the less I actually do know you. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be looking for the guy who kissed me, the golden boy of Arrowmile, or someone else. I resent that you occupy enough space in my brain that I keep wondering. I resent how much I want to like you.

Who are you, Lloyd Fletcher? And why do I want to know you so badly?

So much for not letting anything distract me this summer. Consider me suitably distracted.

Sincerely Yours,

Anna Sherwood

Sitting squashed between some of the girls on a sofa, bloated from eating too much pizza, and with a bad action movie on TV that nobody’s really watching, is much more fun than I was expecting it to be. Everyone is lethargic – a combination of a month of intense work and the summer city heat; voices are slow and hazy, bodies limp and cosy.

My flatmate Louis tells us about a date who ghosted him, and the date he’s got lined up for Monday after work. Quiet Freya talks dreamily about her cousin’s wedding in Greece next weekend. There are in-jokes that skip over my head, references that I’m left wondering about, and I realize how much I’ve been missing out on – which is nobody’s fault but mine.

Although we try to talk about anythingbutwork, it’s not very long before conversation turns that way. Monty and Verity have seemed a bit funny with eachother all evening – it turns out it’s because they’re both constantly trying to one-up each other to impress Nadja, to the point where they’re cutting each other out of meetings or emails; Burnley overslept a few days ago and gave the first ‘sorry, I had a doctor’s appointment’ lie of our cohort; Elaine is still humiliated after forgetting her team meeting had been moved to lunchtime, while she took a break at a nearby gym and missed the whole thing.

‘Ugh,please, enough,’ Elaine groans, while we’re still laughing at her. She grimaces, then nudges Monty with a foot and gestures for him to pass the veggie pizza over. ‘I can’t keep reliving it. I should’veknownsomething was up when I got back and everyone’s desks were empty, but did it twig?No. And now, I’m going to have to make up for it like hell so that it doesn’t get held against me. What about you, Anna? You’ve got that big presentation coming up, right?’

‘Huh? Oh, yeah.’ I peel myself out of the opposite corner of the sofa, wriggling into a slightly more upright position as heads swivel towards me expectantly. ‘It’s my first proper presentation. It’s about the latest stuff on the Vane engine project, to some senior managers and heads of department.’

‘Oh!’ Freya says suddenly. ‘I’ll be there, too. Topherforwarded the meeting to me; he thought it’d be a useful one to sit in on with him.’

‘With – I’m –’ I choke a little on the words, struggling to breathe for a second as I twist around to look at Freya. ‘With him?As in … Topher Fletcher’s going tobe therewhen I give my presentation?’

‘You didn’t know?’ Dylan asks, cocking his head to one side. ‘I thought that’s what you and Lloyd were talking about the other day.’

‘What? When did –’ I want to say:when did you see us?But that sounds weird, so I correct myself abruptly to say, ‘I didn’t see you around.’

‘I had to talk to Craig about some stuff for Phoebus IV. I waved, but you guys were so busy talking that you didn’t notice. I figured I’d just leave you to it.’

‘We were just going through my presentation. He was being nosy. Curious, I mean.’ It’s true, and it’s not a big deal, because that’s the kind of thing Lloyd does with everybody, except then Tasha scoffs from her spot on the floor, where her long legs are stretched out and her hands are braced behind her, her back to the TV. When we look towards her, she tosses her hair over one shoulder and gives an exaggerated eyeroll.

‘Please. He’s always hanging around at your desk. I see him thereallthe time. If you thought you were being sneaky, you’re not. It’s an open-plan office, babe.I can see you from where my team sit. Does he fancy you, or something?’

His body shifting closer to mine, his hand on my cheek and breath on my skin, the way he murmured my name and teased his tongue along my bottom lip …

I hope to hell I’m not blushing.

‘Of course he doesn’t! It’s – he’s just –’

Pretended I didn’t know you … I was doing you a favour …

‘He’s always loitering around asking for updates on projects and stuff, that’s all.’

‘He does that with us, too,’ Dylan says – and honestly, thank God for Dylan. ‘I think he just likes to know what’s going on. It’s kind ofhiscompany too, right? Everyone says he’s being groomed to take over when his dad retires. I think it’s cool he takes a real interest. He’s always in the labs if any of us are there.’

Tasha rolls her eyes again, but even as the others carry on talking about Lloyd, her gaze lingers on me, and it’s … not nice. Judgey, somehow. Suspicious, maybe a little bit, too.

I feel like there’s something she’s not saying. I don’t think I want to know what it is.

It quickly becomes clear that Lloyd’s been hanging out with some of the others over the last few weeks, too, which is a saving grace. Dylan and Monty havegone for lunch with him a few times, Elaine chats to him when he drops by the Finance department …

‘He’s been to a couple of client meetings with us, hasn’t he, Monty?’ Verity says, smug – although I’m not sure if it’s her natural inflection or if she means to brag. ‘He’ssucha nice guy, don’t you think? Andsogood-looking.’ She giggles and some of the group murmur agreements; I’m trying hard not to react, in case I blush.

Tasha asks, ‘You’ve talked to him lots, Monty – does he have a girlfriend? You should find out for Ver. I bet you’d have a chance if you went for it. Not like you’d be off limits or anything – he dated an intern last year, I heard.’

I look at Verity, who’s classically beautiful with her heart-shaped face and honey-blonde hair, with her small, upturned nose, and boobs in perfect proportion to her waist. And I immediately picture them kissing, wrapped in each other’s arms, and there’s a flare of something sickening and corrosive in my chest. I grit my teeth and shove the image away.

---