CHAPTER 26
I sat on a chair in the middle of my “cell” and waited for him to close the door on me. I was trying to be slightly offish and nonchalant about this whole thing, but that was really just to hide how much I was starting to freak out inside. But he didn’t close the door. Instead, he simply looked at me. I could see his mind was racing. I could see thoughts swirling around in his brain. I imagined some hectic piano concerto was playing in his head right now, fingers slapping down on piano keys frantically, off-key and hard and strange, making his skin crawl and making him feel slightly mad. Well, that’s how I felt as he stood there and glared at me.
What the hell was he thinking? What the hell did he think of me? And, when the glare was finally over, he hung his head.
“I can’t,” he said softly.
“Can’t what?” I asked, standing up slowly. That statement had such an ominous, final kind of quality to it, I didn’t know what to make of it.
He stepped away from the door and gestured for me to walk out of it. “You hungry?” he asked.
I smiled at him. “Are you kidding? I’m starving.” I exited the room as quickly as I could and followed him down the passage and into a small room at the end of it. It was a dark office, by the look of it. There was a large desk and an old brown couch that looked like it had come from a student’s dormitory, bits of sponge sticking out of the corners that had been worn down with time. Mike pulled a seat out for me and I sat down. The tracksuit top I was wearing was huge, I was drowning in it, and I had to pull up the sleeves again.
“Is this your office?” I asked.
He nodded and opened one of his drawers. He pulled out a Tupperware box and slid it across his desk. “We don’t have Uber Eats here, let alone any restaurants that are open at this time.” He looked up at the clock on the wall behind him and I couldn’t believe it. It was already midnight. He opened the Tupperware and I gazed inside. Neat little sandwiches with no crusts, wrapped in wax paper, sat inside like soldiers. He reached in and passed me one. I took it and looked at it.
“Pastrami and gherkin.” He took a bite of his and then leaned back in the chair, putting his feet up on the open drawer of the desk.
I bit into the sandwich and my stomach immediately growled at me. I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We sat chewing in silence for a while.
“So where is everyone else?” I asked, looking around the office.
“It’s just me tonight. There is someone else that works two days a week and then every second weekend. But he’s not here.”
“I thought you said there were no other people for the calendar?”
“Well, no other people who could have taken their shirts off.” He seemed slightly coy, having made this statement.
“Ooooh,” I said. “So you think you can take your shirt off, do you?”
He stopped chewing, swallowed and raised his eyebrows at me. “Do you?” he asked, and his voice had a slightly husky tone that was making it hard for me to swallow.
I felt my head nodding before I could stop it. He smiled at me and our eyes locked. A wave of something moved through me and suddenly I was feeling very awkward.
“Delicious,” I mumbled, with food in my mouth, trying to steer the conversation away from semi-nakedness.
“The secret is the Dijon mustard,” he said, his smile growing as he looked at me.
“Well, it’s not a secret anymore,” I said quickly, feeling like I needed to fill the silent moments with words, because something strange seemed to be buzzing in the spaces between the words and I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, and nor was I that comfortable with it.
We finished our sandwiches in silence and, when we were done, sat there looking at each other for a moment.
“You’ve seriously put me in a very difficult position, Becca.” His tone was serious, now. Quiet and thoughtful and reserved.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He reached into his drawer again and pulled out a bag of crisps.
I looked down at the bag. “Oh my God—my favorite,” I said, lighting up at the sight of them.
“What? No one likes this flavor.” He looked at me.
“I do!” I opened my hand and he poured some wasabi-flavored crisps into it. “I can never find this flavor in stores, though.”
“Amazon,” he said, shoving a few in his mouth. “I order them in bulk.”
“Really?” I said, mouth full of crunchy, burning crisps. “I never thought of that.”
