Page 65 of Read My Lips

“I thought we were in this together.” My voice felt too small. For once, I wished that made a difference to how well Simon understood me. But he knew my word shapes too well when he was locked-in, paying attention – he’d never once asked me to speak up. He was one of the only people who never had.

“You heard Mel.” Tension simmered in his voice, but the slope of his shoulders slackened, sagging like someone had let the air out of him. “I can’t pay you to be here; I’m suspended.”

“I don’t care about you paying me.”

His tongue clacked loudly against the roof of his mouth. “You should.”

“Why?” Conscious of the crowd, I switched to signing. “It’s my bare arse all over the internet for no good reason unless we make this stick. I’m dead flattered you think I can magic-up other clients with five minutes’ notice, but I’ve got nowhere else to be today.”

He executed entire media campaigns and ran rings around everyone with his machinations, but he was still as thick as chip butty when it came to me.

“We still need to do all that social media stuff. Don’t we?”

For the longest moment, Simon stared off down the river. In the sunlight the tips of the choppy waves turned silver-bright and hypnotic. I held my breath. Nothing I’d done in the past forty-eight hours had anything to do with my paycheque. I’d show him, if he just trusted me.

“You’re right.” He straightened up to me. Slowly, the frustration softened out of his face. “We do.”

“So.” I risked it. “We might as well make a start at least?”

Drawing himself up, Simon took a deep breath and nodded. “You know, most people would rather have gone home.”

“Yeah well.” I let myself breathe. “Most people have furniture in their living room.”

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

I bet Simon’s living room furniture was dead nice, but I wasn’t going to see it. Down the steps at the far end of the long platform, out of the station, Simon turned us towards Waterloo along the river walk, through the tunnel. We fell into stride, looking at each other more than the way ahead.

I didn’t care who I barged into, I wasn’t breaking eye contact this time. There was too much of him to figure out.

“Where now?” I asked.

Simon shrugged. “Your idea. You tell me.”

I hadn’t had a plan beyond catching up with him and finding out what had made him shoot out of the meeting room so fast. He was the social media guru – I barely ever updated mine.

“Erm. You fancy an ice cream?” The South Bank had all kinds of food stalls up by Festival Hall. There had to be an ice cream van in this heat, or someone was missing a trick. “That’d be all date-like, wouldn’t it?”

Simon gave a sigh, almost smiling. “Would it?”

“When I steal your flake it will be. Come on. Couple of snaps and Mel’s happy again.”

“I sincerely doubt that.” Grouchy Simon was new. Maybe he only came out in the middle of sleep deprivation and personal disasters.

The tiny wheels of his free-rolling suitcase rutted into the gaps between the square concrete pavers, stalling him and his bag every three and a half steps, ratcheting his frustration visibly higher.

“Here, let me.”

Telescoping the handle back into the body of the bag, I hoiked the miniature case up before he could argue. Carrying it one handed was easy enough. It wasn’t heavy.

“Thanks,” Simon bit out, more grudging than sincere, but he didn’t snatch it back.

“Missed going to the gym at the weekend, didn’t I? So, you’re doing me a favour.”

Our knuckles dusted together as we passed the narrow bit by the OXO tower, and then Simon’s fingers snaked between mine and stayed put.

And then we were wandering along the dappled path under sap-sticky trees like holding hands was not completely out of the ordinary for either of us. If I didn’t mention it, maybe he’d never let me go and never stop looking at me like that, either.