Chapter Ten
Can’t Get You Off My Mind
Charlie
It’s my first time arriving at the office before eight in the morning and Faith eyes me with blatant suspicion as I walk up to our bank of desks.
“Are we in trouble? Did we fuck something up?” she asks, an arched eyebrow high on her forehead. I’m not surprised she’s panicking. I may well be a so-called ray of sunshine in the office, to quote Mina, but that sun rarely starts shining before eight-thirty.
“No. Just wanted to do some things before my nine o’clock meeting.” Which is an absolute lie. What I really want is to see Mina as soon as possible. Just to check we’re still as cool as we said we’d be. After our cloakroom shenanigans, we spent the rest of the party together guessing people’s names – completely incorrectly – and we even got back out on the dance floor whenever my mother’s ancient iPod shuffle graced us with a song we could either waltz or headbang too. We ended the night getting take-away – a brilliantly disgusting kebab for me and a much less greasy falafel salad for Mina – where we played the name-guessing game with all the drunken clientele that stumbled in before we finally called it a night. I insisted on ordering her a taxi and waiting with Mina for it to arrive, and I was very restrained and only texted three times to check she got home. When she texted back, she thanked me again for her orgasm, and I don’t know why but I felt compelled to read that text over and over again in bed just before I fell asleep.
And when I woke, I felt the contradictory mix of feelings that came with a hangover and the memory of Mina’s hands in my hair as I fucked her with my mouth. The only way I’d managed to shake the hangover completely was by staying in bed, cuddling Goldie and listening to Lenny Kravitz’s Greatest Hits on Spotify, smiling far too hard whenAre You Gonna Go My Waycame on and I remembered us head-banging together.
“Well, you’ll see three from me about British Airways. You’re on CC so feel free to ignore if you want. And then there’s also that email from Nigel Hutchins, you know, from HP Sauce. They have some feedback from the latest concepts we sent over. If you want I can reply…” Faith’s voice fades into the background because no sooner am I sitting at my desk waiting for my laptop to fire up, but Mina is walking into the office wearing black jeans and a black fitted shirt tucked in at the waist. Her Doc Martens are a deep shade of purple and I never noticed how her septum piercing glints in the overhead lights.
Mina’s desk is on the other side of the large open-plan room and I watch as she crosses the space, stopping briefly at the kitchen to put something in the fridge, fill the kettle and switch it on. She then continues to her desk where she starts emptying her bag. Mina’s the first of her team to arrive, which is no surprise because the art and design team are notorious night owls, but I had no idea Mina got here quite as early as this.
“Do you want a cup of tea, Faith?” I push up to stand.
Faith looks startled, like I just interrupted her, which is entirely possible. “Err, no, thanks.” She gives me another weird look.
“Well, I’m just going to go make one.”
“And do you want me to reply to Nigel, or do you want to read what he says first?”
“Nigel, who?” I ask but then realise I don’t care. “Yes, sure. Reply if you know what needs to be done.”
And I leave before Faith can reply.
Once in the kitchen, the kettle is steadily rumbling towards its boil and I have plenty of time to get two mugs and retrieve tea bags and the milk out of the fridge before I then lean back against the countertop and watch as Mina approaches.
“Morning, Charlie,” she says without making eye contact.
“Good morning, Mina,” I practically sing. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Well, that is why I put the kettle on,” she says in a slightly scolding tone. A slither of panic snakes its way down my spine at the possibility that despite what we said, we are very far from being okay after Saturday night.
“Are we…” I double check nobody is nearby or on the approach. “Are we okay? We said it wouldn’t be awkward and—”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Mina waves her hand around, gesturing that I should get out of her way, which I do, stepping to the side with possibly a bit of a shimmy. “We’re completely fine. It’s only awkward because you’re standing between me and my first cup of tea.”
“But you don’t even drink caffeine?”
“I still need hydration.” She tuts at me.
“Right, yes, of course, so no PG Tips for you?”
“No, I drink redbush in the morning,” she says and I make quick work of removing one of the tea bags and rummaging in the cupboard until I’ve found her a redbush tea bag.
“Thanks,” she says quietly as I pour the water in.
“Milk?”
“No, thanks.”
“So, before this meeting…” I begin. “I wanted to thank you again, for Saturday.”
“Charlie you thanked me several times in the kebab shop, and then at least twice in the texts you sent.” She reaches past me and picks up her mug.
