Page 31 of Read My Lips

“Oh good.” With a heavy exhale, Simon pulled his laptop out of the work bag he had stashed in the footwell.

His fingers pitter-pattered over the keys like rain on a window. The ring on Sev’s thumb clacked as she drummed the steering wheel, and I sagged against the back seat. The air conditioning roared. Through the mirror on the side of the car, I could see the lines in Simon’s forehead wrinkle. His face was set to concentration. Do not disturb.

Sev flicked the radio on⁠—

…vestigating a toxic gas cloud from a water treatment plant halting traffic on the M25 this morning. The large volume of chlorine gas appeared earlier today after a mixup at the plant and police are working–

“Did they say gas cloud?” Sev shook her head, visibly weary. “This weekend has to be cursed.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Sev scrolled through half a dozen stations of adverts. Not a single song came on the radio. She clicked it off and started drumming the wheel again.

Twenty minutes later, the threat of small talk shimmered through the heat haze rising off the road, ever more vibrant with every glance Sev shot at me in the rear-view mirror. The traffic on our side was crawling. It’d be hours before we got anywhere if this kept up.

My phone buzzed – what a saviour of a thing – and I fumbled it out of my pocket faster than I could say socially avoidant.

Gran Calling!

Damn it.

“Who’s that?” The clacking of Sev’s rings slowed as she rubber-necked to see.

I pinched the side button to silence it.

“No one.”

But my phone flashed at me, the backlit screen calling me a liar.

Gran Calling! Gran Calling!

“You should probably pick up.”

Oh, déjà vous. Why did everybody have a vested interest in me not sending my calls to voicemail?

“It’s only my gran.”

“And you don’t think the poor dear should know you’re about to spend the afternoon filming a sex tape with your boss?” Her eyes sparked with mischief. No wonder Simon and her got on.

“Wasn’t planning on telling her that, no.”

Sev’s shoulders visibly shook with her rolling chuckle. “Out of interest, why did you say it was you and Simon in the film?”

I tugged the collar of my t-shirt. Next to her, Simon was plugged into his laptop, tapping away, oblivious to becoming the conversation topic. My guts slithered talking about him. Even with his hearing aids in, Simon needed mouth-shapes to understand. Moral and professional duty said I should loop him in – make him aware of the conversation at the very least.

I already knew I wasn’t going to. Which made me a total shit.

“Quite fancied keeping my job, didn’t I?” Guilt twisted my stomach. Or maybe I was getting car sick again.

Technically, I was off the clock. Probably the ethics committee would have more to say about the sex tape we were about to film anyway. He was busy, and me being here wasn’t really part of my interpreting work. So why did all that feel like so many excuses?

“Hmmm.” Sev coloured the syllable with a surprising amount of incredulity. “So, you’re not worried you’ve made it really easy for them to keep going at it while you play alibi?”

Well, fuck. I hadn’t been.

“C-ourse not.” I full-on choked. Why hadn’t I been, this was the question.

Sev made a face at me spluttering all over her upholstery. “Easy Spartacus. Don’t go dying on my back seat. It’s just a possibility. Because Simon – love him to bits – but he’s a bit of an indiscriminate man-whore, you know?”