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‘Oh, I don’t know. I probably would.’ Will laughs, and I warm to him a little more. He opens his mouth, second-guesses whatever he wants to say, but then blurts in a rush, ‘Everyone normally fawns all over him around here.’
‘They don’t fawn over you?’
He’s visibly surprised by the mere idea of it, and I suddenly feel kind of bad for him. I should have guessed Lloyd would bethatsibling: the one stealing all the limelight, pushing his twin out of the picture because he can’t share. I mean, thisisthe same guy who let his brother get a tattoo of SpongeBob SquarePants on his bum but bailed out of getting his own.
Not to mention the guy who pretended not to know me to save his own reputation.
‘It’s kind of like you said,’ he tells me at last, ‘I don’t hang around here much. I’m just here to drag Lloyd away – we’ve got plans with some friends soon, and I know what he’s like.’
I scoff before I can catch myself, thinking –yeah, he’s pretty egocentric, and don’t I know it. But Will starts to say something, then reconsiders, and I realize that’s not what he meant at all, and I’ve messed up – again.
His mouth closes into a smile that at first I think is fond, but there’s a sadness to the edges of it that seems to weigh it down, and he lets out a quiet sigh. He pushes his glasses a little further up his nose and then finally tells me, ‘I know my brother can seem like a prat sometimes, but try not to hold it against him.’
‘Don’t you have to say that? You’re his brother.’
‘That’s exactly why Idon’thave to say it. Anyway – I’d better go find him. I’ll tell him you said hi?’
‘Sure. Nice to meet you.’
‘It was good to meet you too, Annalise.’
Will smiles broadly at me, stepping around me to head back to the lifts. He raises a hand in farewell, and it’s only after he disappears behind the doors on the way to the twelfth floor that I realize what he called me.
Maybe Lloyd did tell his brother about me after all.
On Friday night, the office is dead and I’ve been hunched at my desk for so long that the motion-sensor lights have turned themselves off.
Elaine texted earlier asking where I was, since I wasn’t back at the flat; I told her I’d gone to meet some other friends – much easier than explaining I’m still in the office at midnight because I’m struggling to keep up with the immense workload I’ve taken on.
Being a ‘yes’ person is seriously backfiring on me.
A tiny hammer is pounding against the inside of my skull and my eyes are feeling the strain of staring at the screen so long. I save my work and close the laptop, getting up to stretch. The lights flicker back to life; it’s so quiet I can hear the low whirr of the bulbs.
It’s probably time to call it a night, but first, I need a cup of chamomile tea to unwind, or a big glass ofwater. Hopefully there are some snacks left in the kitchen I can grab, too …
I have no luck on free food in the kitchen on my floor of the office, but there was a big board meeting upstairs this afternoon, so there’s every chance there’s something left in the fridge on the twelfth floor. Worth a shot, anyway.
Upstairs, I make a beeline for the kitchen area, lights sputtering on in my wake.
And through the silence that blankets the entire floor, a voice cries out –
‘Bloody hell, you scared the life out of me!’
I jump back with a shout. I think I might even black out for a second from the fright, but that could just be a side-effect of exhaustion. Gulping down a breath, I straighten back up, eyes adjusting again in the new light to see someone (very literally) lying low on the sofa in the nearby break-out area.
Lloyd’s head peeks up, barely visible over the back of the low sofa. His knees hook over the arm, feet dangling to the floor. Papers and files are splayed out on one of the tables nearby, and his face is illuminated by the blue light of a laptop screen resting on his chest.
It reflects off his glasses, which is when I realize aloud, ‘You’re wearing glasses. I didn’t know you wore glasses.’
Lloyd grimaces. He puts the laptop aside, on top of his sprawled collection of papers, and then he gets up in the same kind of way I just did – stretching out his neck, his back, fingers working under his glasses to rub his eyes. He doesn’t seem to notice the smudge he leaves behind on one of the lenses.
He looks … different, somehow. Same pair of smart-casual trousers and same shirt with the sleeves rolled up as he normally wears around the office, but now it looks rumpled. Softer. Some of his curls spring up around his temples, unruly and tousled, and others are squashed flat where he’s been lying on the sofa. The glasses are large, squarish, with thick black frames; they suit him, complement the lines of his high cheekbones and jaw, and make him look older – more sophisticated. A few butterflies cartwheel around my stomach, but I can’t bring myself to look away.
He looks disoriented, oddly vulnerable, and more like the boy I first met.
‘What’re you still doing here?’ he asks me. His voice is thick, a hoarse quality catching on the consonants; not quite sleepy, but more from disuse. ‘It’s gone midnight.’
‘I could ask you the same thing.’ I finish making my way into the kitchenette and Lloyd follows. I set down a mug to make myself some tea and silently offer him one too. He nods. ‘I had to make a few changes to mypresentation, and it’s easier to rehearse when you’re not worried about people overhearing.’
