Page 24

Marcus walks down the corridor, bending one arm at the elbow to adjust his cufflink as he moves, looking maddeningly good in that fucking navy suit that fits him so perfectly, it makes me want to cry.
Angela follows my gaze and smirks. “Lila. You’re doing it again.”
“What? No!” I spin around so fast I almost knock over the large cup of coffee slowly going cold on my desk. “I was just… looking for Stephen. I need to ask him something before the meeting,” I say, sweeping my hand through my hair and hoping that the heat spreading across my face hasn’t manifested in an instant shade of bright red.
“Uh-huh,” Carter calls from the sofa nearby, not even looking up. “You’re definitely looking for someone, alright.”
“Shut up.” I crumple a sheet of paper and throw it at him.
“What?” Carter laughs, getting up and coming over to stand behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders as he leans over playfully. “Weallknow how much you want him,” he teases. “How much youneedhim. How much you want tomarryhim and have hisbabies!”
“Get off!” I laugh, giving him a playful shove and glancing behind me to make sure Marcus is nowhere within earshot. He’s standing by the water cooler near the front of the office, a good twenty metres away, talking to someone from accounts whose name I can’t remember.
Angela cackles as Carter stumbles backwards dramatically, mimicking a slow-motion fall, one hand clutching his chest in feigned shock before he drops back into his chair. The three of us burst into laughter, Carter’s antics helping to settle the nerves in my stomach, albeit momentarily.
“Do you know what you’re wearing tomorrow?” Angela asks.
I don’t try to stop the smile that creeps across my face. “I got the cutest dress the other day! It’s a little black dress, obviously -”
“Obviously,” Angela interjects. She knows as well as I do that my wardrobe consists of about twenty different versions of the little black dress.
“This one only has one shoulder though, going down across the chest here, with a thin strap here,” I demonstrate, tapping my right shoulder as Angela’s eyes sparkle with curiosity. “And it’s got like, a nice little gold detail across it. It’s dead cute!”
Angela’s eyebrows shoot up, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. “Ooh, check you out! Do you know ifyou-know-whois going?” she teases, raising her eyebrows and lifting her chin to indicate towards the water cooler, where Marcus is still hovering.
I refuse to turn around again and try to fight a smile, but a twitch at the corner of my mouth betrays me and I can’t stop my eyes from lighting up as I picture him seeing me in that dress. I shake my head because unfortunately, I don’t know whether he’s going or not, and I may or may not have been thinking about little else the past few days.
“Seriously, babe, it’s been two fucking years. Have you ever even had a private conversation with him that hasn’t been in a meeting or a passing bit of chat in the staff room?”
I’ve never told her and Carter about the coffee shop run-ins, and thankfully they’ve never seen us there together. Those mornings are the closest we’ve ever had to a proper conversation that hasn’t been directly about a project, but even those have never lasted longer than about five minutes, and that’s on the lucky mornings.
“Oh my God, Carter, I completely forgot, you totally missed it yesterday!” Angela exclaims. “Lila practicallycombustedwhen we ran into Marcus in the lift!”
“I didnot!” I mutter, burying my face in my hands.
“Ooh, this Ihaveto hear!” Carter asks, leaning over the edge of his desk toward Angela. I shake my head but it doesn’t stop her launching into retelling the horrifying story with an evil grin on her face.
“Stephen was saying that he needed some of the things clearing from last week’s smoothie event to the storage closet on the fifth floor. He didn’t directly ask us, but you know how this one is, bloody throwing herself at any opportunity to get up there,” she says and Carter bursts out laughing as I drop my head down onto my desk in mortification.
“So, I’m carrying this big ass cardboard cutout of a fucking smoothie, and Lila was trying to carry a stack of files that, I kid you not, were the slightest breath away from falling and going all over the fucking floor!”
“They were a lot heavier than they looked!” I cry, trying to defend myself despite knowing it’s futile.
She throws a sarcastic glance my way before focusing her attention back on Carter. “So, there we are, carrying these big, bulky,heavythings, we just about manage to press the button for the lift, when the doors open andwho’sstanding there?”
I glance at Carter between my fingers and have to hold back a smirk at his expression. He has his hand over his mouth in a wide grin and his eyebrows are raised up high, his whole body just waiting to explode with laughter.
Angela goes on. “Mister Dreamboat himself, looking all smooth, suave, sophisticated, as he does, and he ever-so-casually asks, ‘Going up?’”
She pauses, looking at me to see if I want to take over the narrative but I shake my head, taking a sip of coffee as another excuse to not have to look at either of them.
“Well, Lila here, smooth talker that she is, starts stammering about,oh, uh, no, I don’t know, oops, haha, silly me. I mean, uh, yes, please, fifth floor, please, marry me, sir, please,”she mocks in a high-pitched voice, flicking her long braids over her shoulders with every few words.
My hand shoots up to my mouth to stop me spitting my drink everywhere as my other hand grabs the nearest thing it can find and launches a red marker across the table at her, which misses its mark by a mile.
“You are the fucking worst!” I exclaim, picking up my cup for another sip.
She laughs. “So, he holds the lift door open for us,andhe offers to take a few of the files off Lila to help her out!”