the underground platform would swallow me up. Blown out by James Clarke, so totally and utterly. I’d hardly be able to look at him ever again. What an idiot. Hey, James, fancy hanging out sometime, check out my project notes? Idiot. I stepped onto the train, wedged amongst all the other commuters battling through rush hour. This crush thing, whatever it was, was getting ridiculous. Yeah, James Clarke looked good in a suit, yeah, he was smart, and dedicated, and mysterious, and really goddamn talented and so infuriatingly in control of everything it turned my legs to jelly. But so what? Blown out. Time to let it go. I’m good at that.
I really thought I was onto something, really believed we’d had a moment in Brighton, whatever that even means. I figured moving in with Bex might be the start of a friendship, or at least the chance to have a conversation outside of work, but nothing. He barely even spoke to me, no questions, no chat about Rebecca, or how life was going, no anything. He’d asked once. Once. Weeks ago. I figured maybe he was awkward, maybe we’d overstepped the mark in Brighton, maybe, maybe, goddamn maybe. Who even cared?
I’d asked him over, he’d said no. Not interested. Not in me, not in a friendship. I’d just have to forget about it, just like everyone else in the office that had ever fancied a shot and got nowhere. Hell, it’s not like I hadn’t got over worse.
It was rebound, of course it was rebound. I probably wouldn’t have even done it when it came to it. Work flings are never, ever, ever a good idea. Ever. Just ask Stuart. I wondered fleetingly how he was doing without me. He’d been round to Steph’s a few times, desperate apparently, begging to know where I was. He was worried, he said, worried I’d be cutting myself to shit, no doubt. He needn’t have been. It felt so far away now, my time with him. Like someone else had lived through the whole thing and I’d been asleep underneath it all. Strange. Maybe one day I’d need therapy, cry it all out and start popping the Prozac. Better to keep it repressed, and keep looking for my perfectly-healthy rebound fling. I mentally erased James Clarke from the list. I’d have to find a new crush now, someone else to capture my imagination.
James had been right in Brighton, Stuart didn’t get me off, not really. It had taken James’ questioning to make me realise, but realise I had. I’d been giving Stuart a helping hand for as long as I could remember, and eventually I’d lost track of what was fake and what was real. I needed more than that, something hotter, dirtier, grittier. Something all-consuming and wild. Something crazy. Something real. Something like the James Clarke of my fantasies. The James Clarke who told me he vents in the bedroom. The thought had whirred around my brain ever since. He was big. Big enough to throw me around like a little doll and use me any which way he wanted. Yeah, sure he would, Mr Perfect. Real life James Clarke was probably as corporate in the bedroom as he was out of it. I consoled myself with that thought.
Bex was already in when I got home, propped in the kitchen with the stereo on, playing thumping tunes I didn’t know.
“Hey, Lyds, good day?”
I gave her a sigh. “So-so.”
She eased me aside for a path into the fridge, pulling out a bottle of cold white. “Just what the doctor ordered.”
I took a glass, let her fill me a large one. “Good idea.”
“So what’s with your shitty day? James being a nit-picking asshole?”
“He’s not that bad,” I lied. “He mentioned he’d seen you today.”
“That’s a turn up. Getting anything from that guy’s like milking a rock.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Don’t take it to heart.”
I drank my wine. “I don’t get him.”
“Nobody does.”
“You do.”
“Sometimes,” she smiled. “Did you give him your super-duper project file?”
“Yeah, he said we’ll look at it next week.”
“Next week?! So much for beavering like a crazy to get that done.”
“It wasn’t compulsory.”
“I hope he was grateful.”
“Can you even imagine him with a grateful face?” I grinned at her, loosening up. “It’s my own fault, working too hard on something that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Are you talking about the project file, or about James?”
“The project file!” I said. “Have you been drinking?”
“A few in the studio earlier.” Her eyes glinted at me. “He’s