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CHAPTER TWELVE
NISHA
Iworked December twenty-sixth nursing a massive hangover and cursing into my mic as I wound my way between shop owners and workmen, taking down the slightly wilted plastic trees and decorations around the city, replacing them with the promise of glimmering, glitzy new things for the new year.
No phone calls or messages from different numbers, no sense of Ford anywhere. The FCMC building–Ford Colton–his deceased brother, I learned through an internet search–Millham and Co never went up for sale, its owner still as elusive as ever, having disappeared and taking his mini media storm with him. They never returned to my apartment block, thankfully, though Jeremiah kept a steady watch each morning.
Denise wanted to share my tour shifts in a bid to let me grieve for my heart, but I needed to keep busy. By the time I said farewell to my slightly dazed tour, collecting my tips and stuffing them in my pocket though Ford’s payout made them obsolete for now, my feet ached, I limped a little as I pushed my weary limbs back to my apartment. I barely had the energy to say hello to Jeremiah, and Denise was still out when I collapsed on my bed without undressing and snoring my way through until dawn.
Rinse and repeat.
All the way right up until New Year’s Eve.
Not that much changed as I collected my tips that afternoon, slightly numb and absently wishing everyone a Happy New Year, though I might have slipped a few ‘merry Christmases’ in there by accident from some of the odd looks I got.
Meh. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t seeing any of these people again. The attitude I always hated in tour guides that came back to haunt me. But the same values I clung to no longer mattered as much. I did my tours with the bare minimum, all the same spiel, none of the same heart.
That went home on the back of an alpaca riding off into the sunset, or some such bullshit. My heart hurt too much to take on extra weight.
Cash was stuffed into my hand, a tiny lady poking me. “Next time, speak up!” she yelled in my face, pointing to her hearing aid.
I leaned around her, studying the tiny contraption and wiggled my fingers near her ear. She nodded and I squeezed the bottom of the device, the battery door clicking into place. “Better?”
She nodded, a wide grin on her face and patted me, pushing a few extra notes into my hand. “Thank you!” she yelled again, rubbing her ear.
“You’re welcome,” I said, bemused, the world suddenly less muted and more real, as though my own device had finally switched on, too.
“Good to know you're still helping out strays,” a deep voice said behind me.
The world froze. A single snowflake drifted between us as I turned to face Ford, wearing the same shirt he had the day he left my apartment, standing there with his hands in his pockets and a cautious, albeit goofy grin spreading across his face as he looked at me like it was the most natural thing in all the world.
“I should slap you,” I whispered.
Ford winced. “I deserve that. But let’s do it in private, yeah? Dole out all the punishment you like, elf girl. But I can’t deal with any more legal action right now.”
I frowned. “What happened?”
