Page 2 of The Work Husband

Because Sam was perfect. Not in the glossy, groomed way Jamie was, but in his own imperfect way. While Jamie never had a hair out of place, Sam’s mid-brown curls were often dishevelled and overdue a cut. In contrast to Jamie’s immaculate office attire, Sam headed off to work in battered, faded jeans held up above his (frankly irresistible) bum by a vintage leather belt. While Jamie was always surrounded by the fragrance of Parma violet aftershave, Sam would usually emerge from the shower smelling only of soap, having not bothered to shave at all. Normally, imagining Sam in that state would have me feeling all the feels, but now not even that image could take my mind off my current predicament.

With a gusty sigh, I turned back to my computer and refreshed the Ash and Brine reservations site. Nothing, obviously. I was going to have to ring Cormac and explain that, in spite of the Devereaux Partners slogan (‘Everything is Possible’), this, in fact, was not. I was going to have to let down a client and endure the ensuing tantrum. I’d be on the receiving end of one of Jasper’s famously sarcastic bollockings. When I met Sam in the pub after work, I’d probably cry on his shoulder.

There was no point breaking the bad news just yet, though. Nothing was going to change in the next half hour, but if I told Cormac too quickly that I’d failed to deliver what he wanted, he’d think I hadn’t tried. I was going to have wait, the anticipation of my client’s reaction even worse than the actual reaction was likely to be.

Then I heard Jamie’s footsteps behind me. He hitched his hip on the corner of my desk and said, ‘So a horse walks into a bar…’

‘And the barman says, “Why the long face?”’ I finished for him, giving my second eye-roll of the afternoon. ‘Your face would be long too if you were about to have to ring Cormac Kennedy and tell him his dinner plans are a non-starter.’

‘Except they’re not.’ Jamie grinned. ‘I fixed it for you. Table for six at eight p.m. for Mr. C. Kennedy.’

‘What?’ I spun my chair round to face him so quickly I overshot and completed a full 360 before coming to rest. ‘You never.’

‘I did.’ Smugly, he adjusted a cufflink. ‘You know what they say around here?’

‘“Everything is possible”,’ I quoted, amazed. I was aware my jaw was hanging open like a goldfish mid-bubble, but I couldn’t seem to close it. I shook myself. ‘But it literally wasn’t.’

‘It literally was,’ he said. ‘You can thank me later.’

TWO

Spotting the familiar, tousled back of Sam’s head when I entered the bar after work that evening, I hurried over, wrapping my arms around his waist from behind and burying my face in the back of his neck, inhaling the clean smell of his hair and kissing his warm skin.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ My voice was muffled by his collar. ‘You know, I was⁠—’

‘Working.’ Sam turned and stood up, smiling down at me and kissing me on the lips.

At six foot two, he had to bend down to reach me, which I loved – it always made me feel like he could sweep me off my feet literally as well as metaphorically. I leaned in to him, relishing the feeling of safety his hugs always gave me. There was something about him – not just that he was good-looking, although he totally was, with his wavy, collar-length brown hair, his clear blue-grey eyes, his height and broad shoulders. It was something else: an air of kindness, friendliness, amiability – of being so totally at ease with himself that he made everyone else feel that way too.

‘Sometimes I wonder if that place is a job or a prison sentence,’ he said with a grin.

‘Hey, at least they let me out in the evenings. Weekends even, sometimes.’

‘Glass of rosé?’

‘God, yes please. Better make it a large one.’

‘On it.’

He turned back, and I slipped into the space next to him, resting my forearms on the varnished wood beside his, watching as he smiled at the woman pulling pints and she instantly smiled back, making a ‘What can I get you?’ face.

When Sam smiled, women always smiled back. It wasn’t just that he was handsome; his handsomeness was something you only noticed later, once you’d been captivated by the pleasure of just being around him. It was just that he was totally, overwhelmingly nice.

I followed him through the pub, letting him weave a path through the crowd and locate a free table by the window. Although it was gone seven thirty, the summer evening was still light, sunlight washing through the frosted glass, spilling onto the retro patterned carpet, lighting up the faces of the women at the next table and reflecting off their sunglasses.

‘So.’ Sam raised his glass of lager to me. ‘Do you want to complain about work now or later?’

I laughed. ‘Now, I guess? Let’s get it out of the way, then we can give our full attention to whether we’re going to go for pizza or tacos.’

‘Damn.’ The skin around his eyes and mouth crinkled in amusement. ‘If you were mid-complain, I’d be able to overrule you and pick pizza before you realised I’d won.’

‘See? It’s all part of my master plan.’

‘So, who’s been stressing you out today? Jasper? Cormac Whatsisname? Or that woman off Love Island who you told me off for following on Instagram?’

‘Come on, that was fair! Endless pics of her Brazilian butt lift in gifted swimwear – I’d have to be made of stone not to mind you gawping at her grid.’

‘Is that what they’re calling it now?’ Sam joked.