Page 17 of Love Spell

Slowly, stiffly, he stood, teeth aching from his clenched jaw, eyes burning and vision spotty from the pressure on his face.

He shook out his hands, worked his jaw, sucked in a breath, straightened suit and tie, rolled his shoulders, and marched down to Timo’s office.

* * *

“Come in,” Timo called in answer to the knock on the door.“Hello, Noah.I hoped you might call on us.Please, have a seat.”

Timo’s palatial, windowed office accommodated not only his twelve screens, all begging for attention with global headlines scrolling ever downwards, chat windows, Bloomberg Surveillance running in a small window to the side, endless rows of flickering green and red numbers, but three extra chairs to host guests.Temporary guests.Timo had made sure they were wickedly uncomfortable, clean line wooden affairs of the kind that looked nice for modern interior design.

It wasn’t often that those chairs let him down in the form of having to keep company with the likes of Dave for this long.Dave had, in fact, spent the first ten minutes in here on his knees and doubled over, sure he needed a hospital.Best to start early making statements that might later be needed in any legal or medical capacity?If anyone ever rear-ended Dave’s car, he’d probably stagger from the vehicle screaming about the burns and crushed bones.

Funny, Timo was the one who wanted Noah to touch his balls, yet here they were.

Noah did not accept the invitation to sit.Looking at Timo instead of Dave, who still sat rather folded in on himself, glaring at Noah, he said, “I just wanted to talk to Dave.”

“By all means.”Smiling at him, Timo extended a hand to Dave, palm up, as if serving the conversation to Noah.

Noah started to speak, changed his mind, took a chair after all, turning it to face Dave.“I’m really sorry, Dave.”His tone was stiff, struggling not to be, to make this real.He was a poor actor, but you had to give the kid points for trying.“That was completely out of line and unacceptable behaviour for any situation, much less in a workplace.I’m really, really sorry I struck you.”

Having just come down from a long rant to Timo about what a useless, scheming, homicidal little son of a bitch Noah was, Dave, for once, seemed at a bit of a loss.

“Are you okay?”Noah asked.“I’ve got ibuprofen, and I can run down to Boots to get anything you need.”

Dave mumbled about already having such things in the kitchen as Timo became aware of the hot fluid trickling over his own upper lip.

Honed from years of practice, he was sitting forward in a flash, one bright crimson drop hitting the floor, but never his clothes, and the handkerchief was in place against his nose in two seconds flat.

“Excuse me,” Timo said thickly as he scrambled up, one hand and silk over his nose.

The two men in the designer chairs only glanced at him.Timo’s nosebleeds were hardly headline news.

As he stood with his head in the sink a minute later, breathing through his mouth, he wondered if he should tell Noah that he’d just managed to talk Dave down from threats to file charges.That Dave had, in fact, said he’d let it go if Noah apologised.

Why spoil the day?No matter how much Timo wanted to be the hero in Noah’s eyes — and yes, Timo was the one who’d talked Dave down, not Noah, not Dave’s natural magnanimity, definitely Timo — he wanted even more to give Noah that rush of feeling that he’d saved himself.It would be enough for Noah to know Timo had calmed Dave down and that Timo was on his side.He’d never have really let Dave pursue Noah legally, of course.But he’d not needed to resort to gently pointing this out to Dave since diplomacy had won the day.

Wasn’t it nice when everyone got along?One big happy family, as they said.

Timo needed a happy family right now.

He released the pinch on his nose but it was still flowing.

How much had he slept last night?It had to be an hour or two because he remembered nightmares about seeking Noah in a dark, shrinking space.Barring that, the sleeplessness had left him with plenty of time to search for Noah on Google and every possible social media he could name.

The most interesting had been the Instagram account, inactive for years, but replete with all black-and-white photos before then of New York City and Seattle, then scrolling down and down, Fairbanks, Prudhoe Bay, and unspecified Alaskan wilderness and everyday pictures of the type people posted: dogs, a few wild animals like moose, reflections in summer puddles, a carved pumpkin in snow, a holiday meal, the northern lights.

There was not one photo in 644 that showed Noah, even the profile picture being of a tiny, round cactus in a terracotta pot; the same cactus, presumably, that Noah kept on his work desk.

There was, in fact, not one photo of a human being anywhere in his feed.And, other than the first year or so, when Noah would have been in his mid- or late teens, not one photo in colour.

There was something so unsettling about the feed, Timo had completely forgotten his original ambition of finding a good photo of Noah to jerk off to, though he still couldn’t put his finger on it.Plenty of people didn’t post human photos.Plenty of people were into black and white.So what?

Noah didn’t even keep up the feed anymore, followers in the double digits only, probably just family and old school friends.Then why had Timo spent half the night looking at those pictures, reading every single sparse caption?

Timo gave his face a final rinse, then studied his nose in the mirror.

Impersonal was what they were.Cold, flat, some of them beautiful; he had a good eye for an amateur only taking phone snaps; but devoid of life, of context, of any kind of story or feeling.If he didn’t care, why had he posted 644 photos across several years?If he did care, why didn’t he put any soul into what he was sharing?

Timo dried his face with paper towels, dragging himself back to focus on the situation in his office that hopefully had resolved itself.Those two should have moved on by now and Timo could find Noah returned to his own desk and ask if he was okay and what had happened.

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