Page 31 of Falling for You

Annie

‘Penny, Penny, Penny, Penny. Tanya, Tanya, Tanya, Tanya!’ I cry, running in between their doors and knocking wildly. ‘Wake up!’

Tanya appears first, her eyes wild with alarm.

‘What is it? Are you okay? Is it the mouse?’

I beam at her. I can’t help it. I’ve been grinning like a madman since last night, since I realised that I’d actually managed to find him.

‘What the fuck?’

I turn to see Penny, her eyes barely open. She looks like she’s just come out of hibernation. ‘Annie, it’s like eight in the morning.’

‘That’s not early.’

‘It’s a Sunday!’

‘I need to talk to you both,’ I say, the words falling out of my mouth. ‘I’ve made us all a tea. It’s in the living room.’

As we walk through, Tanya eyes me suspiciously. ‘What time did you get in last night? I didn’t hear you. Who was that guy you left with? Your message was so mysterious! Are you okay?’

‘I’m great!’

Penny stumbles past us, immediately crashing onto the sofa. ‘I’ll listen with my eyes closed,’ she mumbles as I bounce after her.

Tanya picks up her tea and I drop down into the beanbag, which swallows my body at once.

‘Okay …’ Tanya says slowly. ‘You’re weirding me out a bit. What’s going on?’

‘Guess who I saw last night?’

‘Peter Andre,’ Penny says, her voice muffled by her pillow.

I roll my eyes. ‘No.’

‘Oh!’ Tanya sits up a bit straighter. ‘Rod Stewart?’

‘Boris Johnson?’

‘No and no.’

‘Our landlord?’

‘No!’ I cry, swatting away their guesses with my hand. ‘American Boy.’

It takes a minute for the penny to drop, and then I see Tanya’s mouth drop. Penny peels her eyes open and smiles.

‘So it was him.’

‘What, was he there?’ Tanya gapes at me. ‘Did I date him? Is that who you ran off with?’

‘Yes, no and yes.’

Penny slowly pushes herself up to sitting straight on the sofa, a big tuft of her blonde hair sticking out vertically. ‘I need more information,’ she says, picking up her mug and wincing as it singes her hands through the thin china.

I reposition myself on the beanbag and tell them everything. We ended up staying in Infernos until the lights came on, dancing and yelling lyrics at each other and laughing. There was so much laughing. And so much kissing . I haven’t kissed someone like that since I was a teenager.

‘Sorry.’ Penny holds up a hand. ‘You took him to a kebab shop and then to Infernos? Are you mad?’

‘He kept talking about how he really wanted to see London ,’ I say.

‘That’s a red flag for me,’ Penny says.

‘He loved it!’

‘Even more of a red flag.’

‘Hang on, wait,’ Tanya says, interrupting us both before we can start one of our bickering matches. ‘You kissed?’

I beam. ‘Yup.’

‘And what next? A second date? How was it left?’

‘He asked to see me again and then said he’d message me.’ I turn over my phone and it blinks back up at me, blankly.

‘But nothing yet?’ asks Penny.

‘No.’

‘Well, it’s only first thing in the morning,’ Tanya says fairly. ‘I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon.’

I hold the phone, basking in my warm glow. ‘I’m sure I will too.’

Potential reasons why I haven’t heard from Nate:

He’s lost his phone. He dropped it down a gutter on the way home, never to be seen again, and has absolutely no way to find me. He was so horrified at Infernos that he’s moved back to America. I’m a terrible kisser (worst one, please don’t let it be this one). He’s dead.

I twiddle my pen between my fingers and glance up at the wall clock which hangs opposite the entrance to our office. It’s steel grey with shiny hands and crisp, neat numbers. It’s almost the only thing in the office that I let Pam choose – except for her office chair.

My eyes flit back down to my phone, laid next to the keyboard on my desk, silently taunting me, just like it has been for the past two days.

Two days! It’s been two days since we went on our date and he still hasn’t texted me. Why? What could he possibly be doing?

I would text him, being a modern woman and all that jazz, but at the end of the night I was being all aloof and hard to get and acted like I wasn’t fussed about getting his number so left without it.

I am fussed. Of course I’m fussed! Although it’s probably a good thing that I don’t have his number, or he would have received a desperate, dreadful message begging him to see me again and promising that I’m not actually that bad at kissing.

Or, worse, a stern message giving him a piece of my mind which would be chased immediately with a terrified ‘sorry, wrong number lol!’ which would then live in my head, rent free, for the rest of my sorry little days.

Argh! I hate dating. Why do I ever trick myself into thinking it’s fun and sexy and spontaneous?

When really, it’s a torturous game of chess where everyone seems to know the rules apart from me.

I don’t even have a sodding board. I should just stay at home and make jumpers and costumes and stitch myself a felt boyfriend instead.

I look up in alarm as I hear the zip of a lighter and spot Pam holding an open flame inches from her face.

‘Pam!’ I scold. ‘The fire alarms!’

Pam jolts like I’ve pulled her out of a trance and shakes her head. ‘Thanks, love,’ she mutters in her gravelly voice. ‘Why are you here?’ she adds, almost as an afterthought. ‘Don’t you have some properties to look at today?’

It’s just me and Pam in the office. Every now and then, you can hear the finance wankers on the floor above us making a loud cheer or yelling something across the floor, but otherwise it’s just silence.

I wiggle my mouse and watch my laptop come back to life, pulling the email I’ve been ignoring right back to the centre of my attention.

‘Not until this afternoon,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to deal with a list of essentials first.’

After much deliberation, I managed to get a client to agree on a five-bedroom house in Knightsbridge (they acted like I was trying to trick them into signing a six-month tenancy agreement for the London Dungeon).

A few years ago, I would have cracked open a celebratory bottle of prosecco and given myself a big pat on the back.

A hard job well done. Congratulations to me.

Now that I am older, wiser and jaded, I know that difficult clients are like leeches. They suck the life out of you and are incredibly difficult to shake off.

So, as expected, after signing the agreement, the expected list of ‘essentials’ came through.

And it’s my job to source all of these items before they arrive, make sure they’re ready for them in their house and time the whole process so that the oven pings with a fresh loaf of bread moments after they turn the key for the first time.

I’m exaggerating, but I’m sure they’d gladly take me up on the loaf of bread if I offered it and see it as no big deal whatsoever.

But this is why Pam and I have stuck together all these years.

Pam sorts the logistics, she schmoozes the clients and negotiates the rates, and then she passes it over to me.

She knows that I’ll source whatever weird and wonderful request the client has, and that I won’t rest until everything is perfect.

Which is why so many clients come back to us. We’re the best. We are the dream team.

Pam lets out a groan, arching her back and resting her hand below her shoulder blades.

I frown. ‘Are you all right?’

Her face contorts but she shakes her free hand at me, the unlit cigarette still clasped between two fingers.

‘How long have you been sat in that chair for?’ I ask. ‘Have you even moved today?’

Pam is always here before I get into the office, and I’ve never really had a firm grasp of what time she leaves the office every day.

When I first started working with her, we were based in her house, so obviously she stayed there longer than I did and worked insane hours.

But since we moved to an office, I was hoping I might get in before her and have time to make her a coffee and toddle around by myself for a bit.

Two years on and it feels like nothing more than a pipe dream.

I get in for 8 a.m. every day, and each time I walk in to see Pam craned over her laptop, her nose almost touching the screen and her eyes squinted behind her thick glasses. Cigarette in hand, coffee half drunk.

‘What?’ she barks, letting go of her back and hunching over her keyboard again.

‘Come on!’ I say, getting to my feet and marching over to her desk. ‘Get up. You need to move your body. You’re getting stiff.’

She rolls her eyes at me. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Pam,’ I place my hands on my hips, ‘you already refused to use an ergonomic chair. If you don’t let me help you, I’ll report you to HR.’

She snorts. ‘I am HR.’

‘Exactly.’

She catches my eye, a naughty smile on her face like she’s a child who’s been caught snaffling ice cream. After a moment, she thrusts a tanned hand in my direction and I pull her to standing. She groans again, grabbing her back.

‘You need to stop working so much,’ I say, leaning forward to grab her as she rests on her desk for support. ‘When was the last time you had a massage?’

She shakes her head. ‘I don’t have time for that. I’m fine, Annie. Just a crick in my back.’

I press my lips together, ignoring her knowing smile. ‘Well, just stay standing for a minute and do some stretches. Like yoga,’ I say, aware that I know absolutely nothing about yoga. ‘It’s important that you move your body.’

Pam nods at me, batting me away and closing her eyes. At least I got her to stand up and spend a few minutes away from her laptop. That’s more than I’m usually capable of doing.

‘If you do go travelling to India then you’ll need to know how to do yoga,’ I say, giving her a knowing look. ‘Penny always talks about going there for a month to become a qualified yoga teacher.’

I mean, a typical Penny thing to do. Not only is she a scientist with a PhD, but she also runs marathons and casually wants to become a qualified yoga teacher, as if she isn’t impressive enough already.

Pam twists her back and winces as it cracks. ‘If I do go to India, I won’t be doing any of this shit.’

‘It’s not shit!’

Her back cracks again and she lets out a groan before dropping back into her seat. ‘Are you happy now? I’ve had a stretch. I’m fine.’

‘Oh,’ I say, catching sight of my swollen rucksack. ‘Before I forget … I’ve got a surprise for you. Close your eyes and put your hands out.’

‘Why?’ She eyes me suspiciously.

‘Just do it,’ I say. ‘Please.’

Pam rolls her eyes but she does comply, holding one limp hand in my direction.

I unzip my rucksack and pull out a scarf.

It’s one I’ve been working on for a few weeks.

It’s knitted with four different shades of green wool that I found at a charity shop, along with an amber thread from the bottom of my sewing kit.

I place the scarf in her hands and Pam smiles as soon as she feels it.

‘Can I open my eyes now?’

‘You can.’

Pam opens her eyes and her face lights up. She sits back in her chair so she can hold the scarf with both hands, running it through her fingers before winding it round her neck. ‘Oh, it’s lovely. So soft. You’re very talented, Annie.’

I feel a warm glow. ‘It was nothing.’

I really struck gold when I stumbled across her job advert all those years ago.

Pam swears a lot, she doesn’t like small talk and she refuses to go to the pantomime with me every Christmas, but she’s my biggest fan.

I could knit her an all-in-one sleepsuit for the summer and she’d wear it, even if it meant drowning in her own sweat.

I go back to my desk and, to my annoyance, feel myself glance expectantly down at my phone. It stares back up at me, motionless. Like the arrogant little shit it is.

Oh my God, this is going to drive me insane.

‘Right,’ Pam says, getting to her feet. ‘Annie, I’m going to go and meet a client for lunch. Can you man the phones for an hour or so?’

‘Sure,’ I say at once. ‘Of course.’

I wiggle my mouse again to bring my laptop back to life when, next to me, my phone vibrates. I almost fall off my seat.

It’s Nate. He’s finally messaged me.

I scrabble to open it, adrenaline flying through my veins. As I read the text, my heart sinks and I feel a cold wash all over my body.

Right. Well, that’s that, then.

It’s over.