Something in the Air, Page 5

I realised I’d been quiet, lost in my thoughts for far too long, when I glanced up and found James studying me with the oddest expression. I couldn’t for the life of me decipher what it meant.

  “Forget I said anything,” he said hastily. “It was a stupid idea.”

  Without thinking, I reached out, placing my hand on his forearm. I stared into his earnest brown eyes and got a little lost for a second. I had to force myself to focus on what I’d been about to say. “It’s not a stupid idea. What’s stupid is you not taking me up on my offer of help. I love a challenge, especially one that’s centred around organising stuff. That’s my jam. In fact, it would hardly be like work at all.”

  “Can I mull it over for a day or two?” he asked.

  “Sure, take your time,” I said, while my subconscious yelled at me. What do you think you’re playing at? Living in James’ house is a BAD idea. Yes, that’s right. All caps BAD. James had no clue how I felt for him. If he did, not only would he never suggest I stay at his place, I was pretty sure he’d back out of the room right now, holding up a crucifix.

  I pulled my mug out from under the spout of the coffee machine then placed another one under for Neil. James didn’t leave, and I felt an unusual urge to fill the silence.

  “Is Diana feeling any better?” I asked. His fiancée was the last person I wanted to discuss, but she was the only thing that popped into my head.

  James’ expression showed a flicker of frustration with a hint of vulnerability, and that odd protective instinct I’d had after I overheard their fight returned. What was going on? Was James okay?

  “She’s fine. She just needed a night at home, a little self-care,” he answered.

  “Ah, well, I’m glad to hear it wasn’t anything serious.” Are you though? the devil on my shoulder asked.

  I wanted to delve into that glimpse of sadness I saw in his eyes, ask questions, but it wasn’t my place. We fell into silence again. Thankfully, the coffee machine whirred to life and for once, I was glad it was so loud.

  “Diana thinks I spend too much time with my friends and not enough with her,” James blurted once the noise died down. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to disclose personal things with me, usually family stuff, since he came from a large family, but he rarely discussed Diana. Not unless I brought her up myself, like I did just now.

  “She does?” I replied, trying to keep my voice neutral. I couldn’t help the way my lips thinned unhappily though. I was beginning to think I was correct in my assumption that Diana was controlling. And there was nothing I hated more than people who emotionally manipulated those close to them. James didn’t spend too much time with his friends. He spent a normal amount of time with them. In fact, I was privy to his schedule and every week, he always made at least two days free to spend with Diana. When you factored in all his work commitments that was pretty decent. At least I thought so.

  “Do you think I don’t spend enough time with her?” he asked pointedly.

  I made sure to look him in the eye, my tone deadly serious. “You spend more than enough time with her, James. Plus, you work so hard to build a future for the two of you. It’s got to be tough juggling everything.”

  He tilted his head, and I really wished he’d stop staring at me with those handsome, probing eyes. They made me feel way too many things. His expression was perplexed. “So why would she say I don’t?”

  Because she’s trying to control you, I wanted to yell, but I was letting my own personal history affect my opinion. I needed to calm down, find another, less blunt way of putting it. “Sometimes, people bring up one issue because they don’t have the courage to say what’s really bothering them.”

  James rubbed his jaw, his expression thoughtful. “Hmm. You could be onto something. Maybe all this will die down after the wedding,” he said, as though talking to himself, and I ignored the pang in my stomach at his mention of the ‘W’ word.

  He brought his focus back to me, a hint of affection in his voice. “How’d you get to be so insightful?”

  I shrugged. “My dad is a vicar. I’ve listened to him give people advice for years. I’m bound to have picked up a thing or two along the way.” He nodded, the affection trickling into his face now, and I coughed to clear my throat.

  “Well,” I said, needing to break whatever moment we were having. “I better go bring Neil his coffee.”

  “Sure, right,” James said, stepping out of my way.

  “And don’t forget to think about my offer. I’d honestly be happy to help you with the house,” I said, genuinely meaning it. Maybe it was because of how I felt for him, or maybe it was some kind of learned altruism that I’d gotten from my father, but I really did want to take some of the load off his shoulders. He seemed extra stressed lately.

  “I will,” he answered, and I turned to leave the room.

  In my head, I went through the pros and cons. If James agreed to this arrangement, it would make my life easier because I’d have more space, more time alone, which as an introvert, I thrived on. One for the pros. But then it would make my emotional situation so much more complicated. Would it help with my plan to get over my crush? Would I build up an immunity to James if I was around him all the time? Or would it only make my feelings grow stronger? Possible con. On the other hand, helping James with his house would be an act of kindness, even if I was also getting something out of it. So, a pro?

  Ugh, this was confusing.

  ***

  When Neil and I finished up work and I finally got home, I fell onto my bed, in desperate need of a nap. I’d barely closed my eyes when I heard someone shuffle in. I cracked one eye open and found Sarita sitting on her bed, looking shifty.

  “Sorry about last night. I didn’t think you’d be home until much later.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It was just one night.”

  “Well, the thing is…”

  Oh, no, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like where this was headed. I sat up, suddenly wide awake. “What’s the thing?”

  Sarita exhaled heavily. “Mabel’s landlord has given her and her roommates notice that the building needs urgent renovation work, so they have to move out. It’s a dirty trick they pull to get you out so that they can put the flat back on the market a few weeks later at a higher price.”

  “That’s awful,” I exclaimed.

  “I know,” Sarita agreed and a silence fell.

  “So,” I said, guessing what she was after. “You want to let Mabel stay here?”

  “Just for a week or two until she finds a new place. She’ll stay in my bed with me, and she works full-time so she won’t be hanging around in the day or anything.”

  Hmm, I could share with Afric, but she talked in her sleep and that would keep me up all night. It was the main reason why Sarita and I shared and allowed her to have her own room. I might’ve also suggested Mabel sleep in the living room, but our couch was extremely uncomfortable (I could attest to that), and Afric was often up during the night, making snacks and whatnot in between gaming sessions. Since Mabel was a palliative care nurse, sleep was important for her. Needless to say, it’d be a dick move for me to expect her to sleep on the couch.

  “Have you mentioned this to Afric?” I asked.

  “Yes, she’s fine with it, but it’s not her room Mabel will be sleeping in,” she said, turning her pleading eyes to me.

  “With three grown women sharing one tiny room, things will get very crowded very quickly,” I said.

  “True, but it’s only temporary,” Sarita argued and I could see how much she wanted me to say yes. She didn’t want her girlfriend out on the streets, and since Mabel was from France, I was guessing she didn’t have any family close by who she could stay with. I couldn’t say no, especially given her job. If anyone deserved a place to stay, it was the woman who cared for the sick and dying in their final days or weeks.

  I thought again about the prospect of living at James’ place. With the new Mabel situation, it would be a per
fect solution. However, I was still unsure how it would affect me emotionally, and there was the fact that he refused to agree to let me help him with the renovations. For me, it needed to be an even exchange. That way, it would be a mutually beneficial arrangement, a professional agreement, instead of the man I fancied letting me crash at his empty house as a personal favour. That would make me feel grateful, and gratefulness leads to affection, which would lead to deepening my feelings instead of eradicating them.

  “Okay, she can stay.” As soon as I said it, Sarita leapt across the room to hug me.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “Thank me later. Right now, I need to sleep.”

  She got up and backed away toward the door. “I promise you won’t regret this.”

  I hoped not. Turning over, I buried my face in my pillow and tried not to let James invade my thoughts while I took a nap.

  It was a losing battle.

  ***

  Later on, I joined Afric on the couch to watch a re-run of Titanic, both of us in our pyjamas. While I’d only changed into mine a little while ago, I was pretty sure Afric had been in hers all day, a perk of working from home.

  “Did you know that on James Cameron’s last day of filming this movie, the cast and crew were given chowder and someone spiked it with PCP?” Afric said.

  I glanced at her, eyebrow raised. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I read an article about it online. About sixty people ate the chowder and started running around high as kites and laughing their heads off for no reason. When they were brought to the hospital, the staff couldn’t keep them under control and people were flying down the corridors in wheelchairs. Someone even stabbed James Cameron in the face with a pen and he couldn’t stop laughing.” She gave a loud chuckle. “Now that would make for a good movie.”

  “That’s insane,” I said. Afric loved urban legends. She was always regaling me with interesting stories that may or may not have happened.

  “It’s still a big mystery. No one ever found out who spiked the chowder,” she replied just as Sarita emerged from the bedroom.

  “You two are coming to my gig tonight, right?” she asked.

  “That’ll be a no from me,” Afric replied emphatically.

  “Oh, come on,” Sarita pleaded. “I love it when you come to my shows. And you never know, you could meet the man of your dreams.”

  Afric glanced up from the television screen. “Will Tom Holland be there lip-syncing to “Umbrella” by Rihanna?”

  Sarita furrowed her brow. “No.”

  “In that case, I won’t be meeting the man of my dreams.”

  “Yes, well, it’s always good to lower your expectations,” Sarita replied as she sat down on the arm of the couch.

  “I don’t want to lower my expectations,” Afric shot back. “I want a man with a toned, muscular body, whose affectations are approximately fifty percent masculine, fifty percent feminine, who looks amazing in hot pants and lingerie and can dance like Fred Astaire. I mean, that’s not too much to ask, is it?”

  “That is a very specific description,” I said past a laugh. “You’ve thought about this quite a bit, haven’t you?”

  Afric grinned. “The heart wants what it wants.”

  Tell me about it. I couldn’t remember the entirety of the dream I had while I napped, but I was fairly sure James had featured prominently.

  “Maybe if you actually took a shower more than once a week and wore something that doesn’t double as sleepwear your heart would get what it wants,” Sarita put in.

  “Ha!” Afric gave a loud, sarcastic-sounding laugh. “Never going to happen.”

  “Then I doubt the likes of Tom Holland is ever going to come knocking.”

  “His loss,” she said, and I honestly envied her confidence. Afric was unapologetically herself and you either got on board with that or she waved goodbye to you, middle finger raised.

  “I’ll come to the gig,” I told Sarita, and she smiled at me.

  “Thank you, Michaela. At least I have one friend who makes an effort to leave the house.”

  “Overrated,” Afric replied, deadpan.

  Sarita shook her head in exasperation.

  Before I discovered Greenforest, I’d never met girls like these two. Aside from being adopted, my upbringing had been cookie-cutter, uneventful. Most people in my little village had lived there for generations and few new faces moved in. Then I started playing online games and met two girls who were from completely different backgrounds. It opened up my eyes, helped me see the world from a whole different point of view.

  Sarita had grown up here in London, a city girl through and through. She was born to middle-class Indian parents and had struggled to come out to them when she was a teenager. At first they’d rejected her, told her it was just a phase, but finally, they accepted the truth of who she was and now they had a much better relationship.

  Then you had Afric, born and raised in a large working-class family in Dublin, the second youngest of eight siblings. She left school at sixteen and worked in various minimum wage jobs before discovering her talent for computer games and live streaming.

  I felt incredibly glad to have these two girls who were so opposite from me in my life. We were all the same age, but I felt like we had so much to learn from each other.

  “I’ll be leaving in about an hour, so make sure you’re ready,” Sarita said before going to take a shower.

  ***

  It was wintery cold out, so I found a black wool dress and some thick tights to wear to the gig. We arrived at The Dublin Castle, a pub in Camden where Sarita’s band played regularly. I headed to the bar for a drink, while she went out back to get ready for her set. I sat sipping my glass of red wine and wishing Afric had come along so that I wouldn’t be sitting here all alone.

  Feeling self-conscious, I pulled out my phone to check through my messages. There was one from Leanne, reminding me she needed me to accompany her to a photo shoot for a sports magazine next week, and another from Paul thanking me for setting up the TV and internet in his new flat. I held my breath when a message from James popped up as I was scrolling.

  James: Hey, M. So, I’ve been thinking more about what you said and maybe it could work…

  A second later, another message popped up.

  James: However, I want to pay you for whatever hours you spend organising the renovations. That’s non-negotiable. What do you say?

  I chewed my lip, frowning at the screen. Him paying me messed with the even balance of things. I started to wish I’d never told him about my cramped living space to begin with. In fact, I shouldn’t have even entertained the offer of living in his empty house. A better person would’ve flat out said no. Unfortunately, there was a rebellious part of me that fought against the suppression of my crush. A part that yearned to latch onto whatever opportunity arose to be around James. It was that part I struggled to make smaller and smaller each day. If I just kept fighting, eventually I’d win the battle, right?

  “Bad news?” a voice asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  I glanced up and found a tall, dark-haired guy with glasses staring down at me. He wore a kind smile and it took me off guard considering the turmoil in my head.

  “Um, no, just a tricky situation.” I slotted my phone back in my bag as the guy lowered himself onto the stool next to mine.

  “Sounds intriguing,” he said, still smiling as he offered his hand. “I’m Louis.”

  “Any relation to Louis the 16th?” I asked, the quip automatic.

  He rested an elbow on the bar. “Yes, actually. If only they still had a monarchy, I could be the next Dauphin of France,” he answered without missing a beat.

  “At least this way you’ll avoid the guillotine.”

  “I am quite partial to keeping my head on my body,” Louis agreed, soliciting a smile from me. Anyone who could keep up with my French Revolution banter passed muster in my book.

  “Let me guess, you’re a fe
llow history student,” Louis went on.

  “Past tense. I graduated a little over a year ago.”

  “No way! I graduated two years ago.”

  “And are you putting your degree to good use?” I questioned, lifting my wine glass for a sip.

  “Oh, let me tell you, I’m putting it to great use by cold-calling people and convincing them they need better home insurance,” Louis said with equal parts humour and sarcasm.

  I laughed. “Well, I’m also putting my degree to excellent use as a personal assistant, though it’s not as bad as it sounds since organising is my second passion after history. I’m Michaela, by the way.”

  “I’ve been deemed worthy of a name. Nice.” Louis grinned. “So, do you want to talk about your tricky situation, or is it strictly confidential?”

  I studied him a moment. Louis was a complete stranger, and I’d likely never see him again after tonight. Maybe it would be good to get an outsider’s opinion, especially since I was too ashamed to tell Sarita or Afric about it.

  “Well,” I began. “It’s not confidential, but you might find yourself judging me harshly if I tell you.”

  “How bad can it be? Anyone with a face as sweet as yours has to be a nice person,” he complimented, but it didn’t feel contrived.

  Don’t get me wrong, I could tell he was trying to chat me up, but in a genuine way rather than a sleazy way.

  “Okay, you asked for it.” I took another long gulp of wine, then twisted in my stool to face him fully. “I have a crush on my boss.”

  “How very scandalous,” Louis replied, waggling his eyebrows.

  “It gets worse,” I went on. “He’s engaged.”

  “Ouch. That is tricky.”

  “Very. He’s also doing up a house to move into after the wedding and I volunteered to help him oversee the renovations.”

  Louis tutted. “Now why would you go and do something like that?”

  “Because I’m an idiot, clearly,” I answered and he gave a soft, commiserating laugh. I blew out a breath. “What do you think I should do?”

  Louis leaned an elbow on the bar. “Real talk?”

  I nodded earnestly while Louis ran his eyes over me. “Maybe you should tell your boss you like him and see what he says? Who knows, he might call off the wedding.”