Page 48 of You, As You Are

If they were going to do this, then Maisie wasn’t in any way prepared for Iain to turn on any real charm like that again.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MAISIE

Morgan

Don’t get too drunk at nain’s birthday party

Maisie

Very funny. You all better have called her today!

Morgan

Bright and early!

Maks

Any news?

Maisie

None yet.

Miles

I’m in a lecture! Be quiet!

Morgan

HI LITTLE BROTHER!!!

Maisie

You’re all idiots (except you Maks).

“What a miserable Wednesday.”

The houseplant that she’d bought from the supermarket in an attempt to make her flat feel not so cold and empty didn’t judge her for still being in her pyjamas at midday, working. She didn’t know what the technical name of the plant was, its waxy leaves bigger than her palm, but she’d called it George. It came in a striped orange and white pot that’d caught her eye more than anything else.

Between the tasks her boss sent through, Maisie’s own project for the last couple of days had been to update the website for Faye’s bakery. She’d been the one to design everything online forBaked By The Dozensince it opened its doors, and most days the website pretty much ran itself. Though when there was an update to a menu, for example, she had to step in, and now there was a new location to be added to the homepage. In a month, when renovations were complete at the new bakery in Manchester, she’d be able to add photos too.

It was all so exciting to watch her friends thrive, and she couldn’t wait to see them all again. Time wouldn’t move fast enough to bring her toBaked’sopening day. It was on a Saturday, so she’d have to miss a hike. She hadn’t looked up how to get there just yet, but Maisie was determined to be there. She was sure that everything would be fine. How hard could it be to get a hundred miles north from here?

Shoppers braving the rain walked by beneath her window, and Maisie looked over at George on her desk. “You’re right,” she said. “Time to get dressed.” Her bed-rotting attire would have to wait another day.

Maisie took a quick body shower and pulled her comfy work-from-home clothes out of her wardrobe to toss on her bed whilst she dried and moisturised. She couldn’t quite look at the organised spread of her underwear in their drawer anymore without thinking of Iain, how every bra she owned had covered his feet and the sound of his unbidden laugh as Vera made jokes. She’d only heard it once. Merely tiny cracks of a chuckle had broken since then which sounded more like the beginnings of choking instead of laughter.

Once she was lathered up and smelling like cocoa, Maisie grabbed the ugliest bra she owned in the hope of getting Iain out of her head. How he’d decidedly and slowly drawn the zip of her coat down over her breasts the other daydefinitelyhadn’t been fuel for a few of her fantasies as she’d lulled herself to sleep at night – not at all. Ithadn’tbeen the hottest moment of her life …

Four days and she still couldn’t convince herself of that.

Their plan to fake date had been spontaneous and uneventful as of yet. Maisie hadn’t even had a text from Iain to discuss it further, though maybe it was too corporate of her to expect one? She didn’t know what they would discuss anyway. The plan wasn’t really much of a plan at all, which was a problem – one that they needed to sort out soon if they had any hope of Vera and her co-conspirators backing off from setting them up. Slightly selfishly, it was an unorthodox method of obtaining someone her own age to be around, and it seemed to have worked in her favour for now. Iain would likely begin to find her intolerable the more and more relaxed that she became around him.

Maisie couldn’t pinpointwhenexactly she’d subconsciously decided that it was her task – as afriend– to inject some vibrancy into his life. He’d never said outright that he was unhappy, but he didn’t need to when it was in everything that he did. And with what he’d told her about his suspended stateof pending job termination, she wasn’t surprised that he was stressed.

Her bum landed in her seat at her desk for all of three seconds before her phone rang.

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