of my nose.
“He said to take care of it. That means to destroy it.”
“Only in Guy Ritchie films.” He looks winsomely at me, and I shake my head. “Aaron, you need to learn to listen properly to the customer. Not just pay attention to the first two seconds and then make the rest up yourself. Now, you’re going to trip along to Mr Harkin’s house, and you are going to drive him to the garden centre and buy him a new shed and a fence. You are then going to put both things together. And you are not going to return to the office until that is done, because I cannot answer for the sharpness of my tongue if Mr Harkin is still unhappy.”
“The sharpest,” he says in an awed voice. He bites his lip and gets up but then hovers. “I presume this will have to come out of my pay, Felix?”
Internally, I give a huge sigh because I know when I’m beaten. “It should do,” I say, eyeing him and the subsequent droop of his shoulders. “But you can use the company card to pay for it this time.”
He brightens. “Really. Oh, thank you so much, Felix. I know I should pay, but I’m helping my brother out with his rent after the accident and—”
“I know,” I say. “But you need to listen now. I can’t do this again, and I might be soft, but I’m not stupid. I’m definitely not paying your wages on this. That was already covered during your arsonist phase.”
“You’re the best,” he cries, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair and hightailing it out of the office before I can change my mind. “I’m so glad Zeb made you the manager of the agency. I’d have shit myself if I’d had to answer to him. Mr Crossy McCrosspatch would have …” There’s a stuttered pause, and his voice, when he speaks next, is hushed. “Oh, Mr Evans, I didn’t see you there. How are you?”
“Well, Aaron, I have to say that I’m doing very well for a Crossy McCrosspatch,” Zeb’s voice drawls, and I can’t repress my smile.
There’s the hurried sound of footsteps and the slam of the outside door, and then my old boss appears in my doorway. I blink at the sight of him. Once upon a time, my day would have started with eyeing whichever designer suit he’d chosen to wear. Now, he’s dressed in disreputable jeans, a T-shirt, and a liberal coating of brick dust from his latest property renovation.
“You’d better not get any of that shit in my office,” I warn him.
He grins. It’s a lazy, happy grin. The sort he’s worn ever since he ditched Patrick and got involved with the lovely and irrepressible Jesse.
“Wasn’t this my office, Felix?”
“Yes, and it was full of repressed yearning and angst. Then you got involved with a younger man and left to knock walls down in old houses or whatever you do now, and I inherited it along with half of this very up-and-coming firm.”
He leans against the door, folding his arms over his chest. His eyes are bright and knowing. “Can you still say that with a straight face after the little firebug just left with the company credit card clutched in his arsonist hands?”
I shake my head. “Let’s not discuss it, Zeb. I have a wrinkle forming over my left eye that is solely down to him, and I’m far too young and single to cope with that.”
“Thought you had a fancy new man,” he says lightly. He sneaks a look at me that he thinks I don’t see.
“Andrew?”
He nods.
I laugh. “He’ll probably just be a variation on all of his predecessors. Promising, yet ultimately useless.” A frown of concern crosses Zeb’s face, and I wave my hand at him. “At least I’ll get a dirty weekend in the Cotswolds for my trouble. It’s better than a shag in the bathroom of the Lyceum. I’ll even get breakfast.”
“Ah, yes, the Cotswolds. Hmm.” He shifts against the door, a slightly apprehensive look on his face.
“Is there a problem with the Cotswolds that I’m not aware of, Zeb? Have the tectonic plates shifted and swallowed them whole along with all the sheep and antique shops?”
“Oh, ha-ha, yes. No, it’s just that I wondered if you’d do me a huge favour?”
“Does this favour involve me shagging Andrew in a four-poster bed and then eating room service in one of those lovely dressing gowns that I fully intend to nick