Page 2 of CowSex

“Iknowyou have to work, I get that, but you’ve got more than enough holiday saved to take two months off, three months even, and there’s plenty you can do from your laptop and phone.”

“I have meetings in Berlin and St Tropez in early January, I need to prepare for them.”

“And I suppose there’s no one else who can go. I thought that was why you worked so hard to become head of the department! So that you had staff to do all the travelling, so you didn’t have to anymore.”

“Grace…”

“No, no, Reggie. Be honest with me right now, is it that you can’t take time off, or is it that youwon’t?”

He looks away from me and around the room, letting out a heavy sigh before his gaze comes back to me.

“I like my job, is that such a bad thing?”

“No, and I’ve never said it was, but is your job more important than me, than us?”

“It’s......no, it’s not more important.”

“So why does it always come first? I don’t wanna sound like a whiney little bitch, Reggie, but that’s what you’re turning me into. You work hard, but when was the last time we had any time for us? You took no holiday over the summer because you were planning to take this trip with me. Now you’re cutting what was supposed to be six weeks away to less than one.”

“Well, unlike you, I don’t own the company I work for, I can’t take off whenever I feel like it.”

“I know that. That’s why we talked about all of this a year ago, that’s why I told you to make sure the time off was booked with HR at the beginning of the year.”

I know him well enough to notice the slight flinch he gives at my words and again, my belly churns.

I feel sick.

“You didn’t book the time off did you?”

He chews on his lip and simply stares at me.

“Did you?”

“No.”

“You never intended coming with me, did you?”

“I thought......I was thinking maybe we could grab a week in Seychelles in the New Year?”

“The Seychelles, for a week?”

“Yeah, you like it there.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No. Why would I—”

“It’s not about thewhere,Reggie, it’s about theus. It’s aboutusspending time together. I’d spend six weeks in a cardboard box outside Liverpool Street Station if it was with you.”

He’s not getting this. He’s not gettingme.I could bang on all night, and he’ll still not get where I’m coming from.

I give him a smile.

“Do you not understand that I just wanna spend time with you? That I want us to get back to where we used to be? We haven’t had sex in over two weeks. I’m thirty-two, that’s not normal.”

He rolls his eyes, and that instantly pisses me off even more.

“I’ll take a month off in the summer. Things are always quieter during the summer months.”