Page 23 of Total Creative Control
“I don’t have time to fetch you lunch,” Aaron said, going back to work. “Not if you want these script notes before the meeting. Also, Dot’s waiting in your office. She needs a word.”
Lewis groaned. Dot Thomas was head of finance and a constant thorn in Lewis’s side, always wanting to go over budgets and spreadsheets that made Lewis’s head ache. “What does she want now?”
Aaron shrugged without looking away from his screen. “She didn’t say.”
Lewis felt a small stab of annoyance over Aaron not looking at him. He frowned.
After a moment, he said, “You’ll be pleased to know I don’t need you to fetch my lunch. Look.” He held up his own bag from Grinder, only belatedly realising that he should probably have brought Aaron something back too. He’d been rude to him as well this morning, hadn’t he? Crap. He never thought of these things until it was too late or until Aaron pointed them out.
Not that Aaron seemed particularly bothered. “Great,” he said, glancing up briefly before returning his gaze to his computer screen.
Lewis remembered then that there was something he needed to mention to Aaron. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. “Actually, I… need to ask you something.”
“Oh yes?” Aaron said, his fingers drumming out words even as his eyes scanned his handwritten notes.
Lewis cleared his throat, his gut already twisting unpleasantly. “I was wondering—that is, Toni and I were wondering—whether you could come with us to Charlie Alexander’s place this weekend?”
Aaron’s fingers stilled on his keyboard. Slowly, he looked up, and their eyes met. Then he blinked. “You want me to… come to Safehaven? With you?”
“And Toni,” Lewis said quickly. “She’ll be there, too. Actually, it was her suggestion.” Something in Aaron’s grey eyes went flat at that comment, and Lewis found himself adding stupidly, “Though we both want you there, of course. To brainstorm with us.” He paused, then said roughly, “So, are you up for it?”
Aaron was still staring at him. And so was Jason, whose head had popped up above his screen like a fucking meerkat as soon as Lewis started talking.
“It’ll be work, so I’ll sort out overtime pay if you can make it,” Lewis added. That comment was mainly for Jason’s benefit, to avoid any misunderstandings as to why he was asking Aaron along. Not to mention the fact that Jason was a bit of a self-appointed shop steward at RPP.
Aaron was quiet for a few moments. Then he said, “Actually, I do sort of have plans this weekend.”
Lewis should have felt relieved, but… he didn’t.
Not at all.
Perhaps it was because he’d just assumed Aaron would agree to come—he usually fell in with Lewis’s requests without complaint.
Suddenly, all Lewis could think about were the reasons that it would be good to have Aaron there. He'd back Lewis up when Toni wanted to give way to Charlie’s demands, and he’d come up with smart workarounds for any problems they encountered. But most of all, he’d understand how Lewis felt when he was at Safehaven. Because Lewisloathedit there. Every time he went, he ended up surrounded by a bunch of posh arseholes swanning about with their half-chewed silver spoons hanging out their mouths.
A pulse of angry irritation swept through him, fuelled by the mortifying self-knowledge that he just… didn’t want to face it alone again. Toni was fine, but she fitted in with them. She might not be in Charlie Alexander’s league, but she’d gone to the right sort of school and had her Oxbridge degree. She didn’t understand the true depths of Lewis’s discomfort. Not really.
But Aaron would. If he would just fucking agree to come.
Even as he recognised that his irritation was unreasonable, the words tumbled out of his mouth. “For fuck’s sake, can’t Colin polish his own football boots for once?”
Aaron’s eyes widened, his cheeks pinking. “Actually, Colin—”
“No.” Lewis held up a hand to cut him off as his stomach pinched again in that annoying way. “Don’t. I have zero interest in your tedious boyfriend’s tedious plans. Less than zero. Negative interest.”
Unreasonable or not, he hated fucking Colin. At the last two office Christmas parties, he’d been forced to make small talk with the man and had almost fallen asleep. Colin wasthemost boring human on the face of the planet. His only interests were football, cars, and fucking protein shakes. Subjects upon which he could wax lyrical until your ears bled. God only knew what Aaron saw in him. Couldn’t be the conversation, so it must be the sex. And that thought only pissed Lewis off more. Frankly, the very concept of Colin pissed him off.
Of course, Jason, the little suck-up, chose that moment to jump in. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Colin can be quite a laugh sometimes.”
Lewis snorted. “Really? Since when?”
Ignoring him, Aaron said, “Thanks, Jase. But I know Colin was a bit… well,staidfor the RPP crowd.”
Jason’s eyebrows rose. “What do you mean ‘was’?”
“Er…” Aaron rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck, darting a quick look at Lewis then back at Jason. “Colin and I kind of split up. He moved out a couple of weeks ago.”
“No!” Jason slapped a hand over his mouth in horror.