Page 61 of Unwanted
He didn’t even spare Kira a look this time. In response, she spun on her heel and stepped right into his personal space. His arms were crossed over his massive chest, and he was still pretending that Kira wasn’t there. She held her fist out for a bump. When he didn’t uncross his arms she simply bumped one of the closed fists that he had resting against his chest, before making her own fist explode and mime showering over him, complete with sound effects. Throughout the whole performance, Sam’s mouth twitched once, but the rest of him remained statue-like. Kira sighed and made her way back to the group.
“He’s like, super serious about his job. You’ll have to take my word for it – I can have those bastards locked up in the Tower. Just give me the signal.”
“V?” Max drew up next to me. “It’s speech time.”
“Oh crap,” I said, glancing at my watch to see that it was already eight. “We should have started ten minutes ago.”
I smiled at everyone and gave our excuses, then dragged Max up towards the stage. Toby followed along behind, signalling for Harry to join us. I deliberately didn’t look over to where he was still standing with his family, not wanting to be on the receiving end of any more dirty looks. But on my way to the stage, something caught my eye. The familiar figure of Giles Bartholemew-Smithe was standing with a large group of men by the bar. He’d put on weight, lost some hair and, if the broken veins around his nose indicated anything, drunk a fair bit of alcohol since school. For some people, things only went downhill after their teenage years. I remembered Harry’s embarrassment when he’d admitted to having been bullied by this man, and the shyness and insecurities that it had clearly caused. My vision clouded with red.
“V, what the fuck are you doing?” Max asked as I changed direction to veer off towards Giles.
“Smithe!” I said as the crowd around him cleared for me and I was left facing the slimy piece of shit.
“Lady V!” he said with the same guffawing laugh he’d had in school. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
One of my eyebrows went up. “Afraid I can’t exactly say the same, although I expect at least one of your assets will have remained disappointingly the same.” I glanced down at his groin then back up at his increasingly red face.
“Ha, you always were a joker. We had some right laughs at school, eh?”
“Hmm, by ‘right laughs’ do you mean flashing me your penis when I was only fifteen in the pool changing rooms and asking me if I ‘only liked nerd dick or did I want to chomp on this?’ Or when you lied to half the school about fingering me behind the bike sheds after the tenth time I’d turned you down? Any of that ring any bells?”
“I– I– I don’t know what you’re–”
“Get out,” I snapped.
“You–you can’t just–”
Giles was cut off by Sam, Kira’s surly security guard, taking him by the back of his jacket and propelling him towards the exit. It seemed that Kira might not have been totally full of shit. I sincerely hoped that Barclay did have the power to throw people into the Tower.
“Gentlemen,” I nodded to the group around me and turned on my heel to march up to the stage, nearly colliding with Harry on my way there. His hands went out to steady me and when I looked up at his face, he looked a mixture of angry and amused.
“If I’d have known Giles had done that to you, I would have made destroying him much more of a priority. As it is I’ve only sabotaged two of his start-ups. Fucking prick.”
He looked as if he wanted to go after him, but I put my hand on the centre of his chest to stop him. “He’s not worth it, Harry. And we’ve got a speech to give.”
Harry stopped frowning after Giles to focus on me. As his anger drained and amusement set in he let out a short laugh as he searched my face. “I love that you told the entire room that Giles Bartholemew-Smithe has a small dick.”
I shrugged. “All true. Can’t believe he had the balls to show up here to be honest.”
Harry’s hand came up to my face, tracing down the side of my cheek with his fingertips. “You’d slay dragons for me, wouldn’t you?” he said softly. “My own little Astrida.” I smiled up at him as I rolled my eyes, took his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze. Astrida was a kick-arse character from LP Mayweather’s book – she killed various monsters; dragons were actually the least of her worries.
“Smithe is hardly a dragon. More a toad-faced, tiny-dicked loser. Verbally slaying him isn’t really an accomplishment. Right, we best get going.” I tried to pull my hand from Harry’s, but he just grasped it tighter in his and we ended up walking up onto the stage like that, with Toby and Max in our wake. Once the four of us were up on the stage, Harry gave my hand one final squeeze before letting it go so that he and Toby could take their turns at the mic. The whole crowd fell silent as the two of them spoke about the building and how they hoped it would help the community, as well as be a centre of excellence for the LSE. Toby was charming and smooth as always, while Harry played the straight man to Toby’s banter. They had the crowd smiling and laughing – everyone was well oiled with champagne by now and it showed.
“And, of course, the genius behind all of this was Blue Sky Design. We have Verity Markham and Max Hardcastle here tonight to speak about the building and it’s cutting-edge, high-performance credentials. These two are transforming the landscape of architecture and how we live and work in buildings.”
“I’m sayin’ nowt,” grumbled Max as we made our way forward. Harry gave me an encouraging smile as he and Toby stepped down into the crowd.
“No change there then,” I said out of the side of my mouth whilst keeping a fixed smile on my face. “You’ll have to saysomethingMax.”
“Fine.”
The applause died down as we reached the microphone. Max surprised me by grabbing the mic first, saying “Cheers,” then stepping back and nodding to me. I held back an eye roll. Clearly in Max’s mind that one terse word was more than enough. Fine. This was what I was best at anyway. Public speaking was my jam.
“Thank you, Max, for that moving speech,” I said into the mic and the large space echoed with laughter. “We feel so privileged to be part of this project. Max and I have always been passionate about sustainable design and helping to create a carbon neutral future. This building takes our industry a step closer to that. When Toby and Harry chose us for this project we were thrilled, and to know it will do so much good is a dream come true. I’ve so many people to thank that I need to get to that first. Dave and the construction crew – I know that we are massive pains in the arse.” Another ripple of laughter went through the crowd. It nearly, but not quite, drowned out an angry, high-pitched shout from somewhere near the back. A shiver went down my spine at the familiarity of the voice, but I dismissed the worry as my mind playing tricks on me. It was the stress of the situation. Maybe I was more worried about this speech than I thought. “And I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t want to work with us again – although that would give me a very sad face.”
“You’re alright, love,” shouted Dave from the crowd. “All you design monkeys are pains in my arse. I’m used to it.” Some more laughter went through the crowd at that, and again I heard that familiar shout – this time verging on a scream. I gripped the microphone tighter, my laugh was shaky when I managed to force one out.
“Thanks, Dave,” I said, my voice shaky as well. “Good to know that we ‘design monkeys’ universally piss you off.” More laughter. My heartbeat was banging in my ears now as I strained to hear that voice again. I let out a relieved breath when there was nothing in the background. “This building will serve many purposes. It will be an educational space for the LSE, but the youth project championed by Mr York will also provide invaluable support to the local community. Without the real-world, practical construction experience that–” There was a commotion in the crowd. People were being pushed out of the way to allow someone through.
