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‘Ah,nowI know why you wanted to meet me. Corporate espionage – isn’t that what they call it? Trying to uncover company secrets to sell to our enemies, Annalise?’
‘Enemies,’ I repeat, rolling my eyes. ‘Jeez. You realize you sound like a bad movie villain when you say things like that, right? You sellscooters.’
‘We’re revolutionizing the industry. Careful, bad-mouth us too much and I’ll have to have “my people” deal with you.’
‘Colour me terrified,’ I deadpan, but crack a smile when he laughs. Considering we talk a lot about ongoing projects at Arrowmile whenever he drops by my desk, Lloyd is being weirdly secretive – and making me think whatever he’s doing, it’s more serious than filling time by hanging out at his dad’s company while he takes a break from uni. Unless … ‘Was it about uni? Were you looking for a new course or something, because you don’t like yours?’
Lloyd looks at me in open surprise, blinking rapidly while his green eyes go large. At first I think he’s surprised I remembered, but then he looks away and says quietly, ‘I can’t say that’s an option for me.’
‘What? But – but you don’t like your degree, right? Law and Economics? You said it wasn’t really your thing.’
‘I’ve only done one year. It’s … I might change my mind.’
‘Well, yeah, but you seemed pretty sure, that –’That night you kissed me. ‘That first time you talked about it. Why don’t you just switch and do something else? Or leave? It’s not like you don’t obviously have a place at Arrowmile if you wanted it, so –’
‘It’s not that simple, Annalise,’ Lloyd tells me sharply.
Andthisversion of him, I think, is a complete stranger. There are glimpses of the boy I kissed by the river when I see him in the office; there, he seems like a parody of the guy I met. Rearranged into someone else, but parts of him still there, somewhere.
But right now, I don’t recognize him at all. His voice is low, an undercurrent in it like a warning, and he hunches over his mug, cupping it with both hands now. This boy who’s always so much larger than life makes himself smaller right in front of my eyes, and there’s a wild part of me that wants to grab his hand and yank him back.
‘I don’t get it,’ I press. ‘I mean, I know it’s scary starting over or doing something new – I was terrified about starting this internship – but you could still change your mind. People go back to uni and retrain to do something totally new when they’re, like,forty, soyou could do it at – what, nineteen? Twenty? It’s not a big deal. I bet all you’d have to do is talk to the student services at your uni or whatever and –’
‘Anna. Just drop it, okay? It’s … Look, whatever I said that night, I was – I was talking out of my arse.’
That was maybe the only time I’ve seen you that youweren’ttalking out of your arse.
But I don’t say that. I can’t say anything at all. Retorts turn to ash on my tongue and my lungs become tight as I breathe in the pain of it –hispain, which seeps across the table, palpable. He hunches smaller again, scowling, not at me, and maybe not entirely at himself either. A breath shudders out of him.
And my brain stalls as all I can think is that he called me Anna.
All those times I’ve bugged him about calling me Anna instead of Annalise, and now he finally does, it feels wrong. Twisted.
I miss the way he says my name.
I don’t know this version of Lloyd – the tightness of his jaw or the angst in his eyes, the anguish that cuts his words into sharp, cruel edges.
Deciding to back away from the topic of uni, I say more gently, ‘The others were asking if Will was going to be at the party next week. I don’t know if Dylan or Monty got around to asking you; they never messagedthe rest of us to say either way. He’s kind of upstaging you, you know – the mystery man, all elusive. Everybody’s wondering about him.’
Lloyd’s face eases into one I’m more used to. The corners of his lips tug up a little, a laugh chuffing out of the thin, pressed lines of his mouth. ‘Mystery man. He’ll like that. Think they’ll be disappointed when they find out he’s just kind of shy?’
‘Nah. So, he’ll be at the party?’
He nods, shakes himself out, wriggling his shoulders like he can force them into a more relaxed position, before slumping back in his chair again. His leg knocks back against mine. I tuck my feet underneath my chair, out of the way.
‘Yeah. Dad kind of expects him to show his face, so … But it’ll be fun. It always is.’ He smiles, and this time, it’s more sincere; it sticks. ‘You heard there’s basically an open bar, right? So one year – we must’ve been fifteen, I reckon – Will and I are there, like always, and we sneak off during the presentations about the quarterly report and whatever and found this crate of beers they’d ordered. It was back at the office, then – the old office, it was way smaller. They basically just bought in booze and pizzas for everybody. Anyway, Will and I got completelysmashed. I reckon we only had about four cans each, but, you know. We were kidswho’d never really had a drink before.’ He laughs, eyes glittering in the soft yellow glow of the lights. ‘Will threw up. He was trying to mop it up before anybody could find out, and because I was drunk, I thought the best way to help would be to cause a distraction.’
‘Of course you did. Don’t tell me you pulled the fire alarm or something?’
‘Thatwould’ve been smarter. No, I go up to where the head of HR is talking to everyone about some new mental wellbeing initiative they’re rolling out, take the microphone off her, and start teaching everybody yoga.’
‘I’m – I’m sorry,what?Why?’
‘In my defence,’ he says, still laughing, his cheeks pink, ‘she’d been saying something about the benefits of simple exercise like walking or stretching, and I just ran with that. My mum used to do a lot of yoga and Pilates and stuff, so I just copied some of the poses I saw her do. The best part was, everybody justwent along with it. I’m pretty sure it was obvious I was drunk, but …’ He shrugs, not looking the least bit ashamed or regretful.
Of course they went along with it. He’s the golden boy, beloved by all. I bet, even then, he had everybody wrapped around his little finger. Maybeespeciallythen, when he was a bit younger.
‘How’d it go?’
