Page 11 of Unleash Hades
I’d need to make a mental note to give him a pair of Richard’s discarded shoes when we threw out last year’s things.
The bustling office hummed with life. I drew a lot of comfort from that. In the noise, in the shuffling of people.
The sensation that someone was watching wasn’t as profound because someone was always watching here. Friends, enemies, supervisors, colleagues. We all watched each other like hawks. It was the nature of the business.
Colleagues in the industry weren’t friends… except for Gavin.
The Irishman was a silver-haired man who had grown up in a time before MacBooks. He increased his knowledge of them as the technology developed to feed his insatiable thirst for information. It didn't matter what kind of information. He just wanted it all. His brain was a processor in itself.
I slipped the USB drive towards him on the desk, and without looking, he grabbed it and placed it in his jean jacket.
“How are you? About the Kaliningrad thing…” He said, a little too loudly as one of our colleagues walked down the aisle. His bright colored ascot preceding him, long before I saw his face.
Lucien Bellamy.
“Coucou Gavin!” Then to me, he nodded. “Calissandra.”
I nodded, in lieu of a greeting, because he didn’t deserve words.
“Boss lady is too good for a normal greeting?” Bellamy lifted a single, elegant brow. He rested his arm on the half-wall dividing Gavin’s cubicle from the others and looked down at us from above his creamy, pink ascot.
Who wore an ascot in this day and age?
His jacket had orange paisley stitching, and a lining of sunset peach. It was far too bright for New York City and far too brazen for this office, which lived in navy blue, black and gray wool. The satin sparkle of his shirt matched the glint in his eye, and the topping on this creamsicle - the real cherry on top - was an undeniably gorgeous face and triangular, muscular body that was all too much for one person to take in.
“Well, I can tell when I’m not wanted.” He flicked his non-existent long hair over his shoulder and stuck his nose in the air.
Then he stopped and sniffed.
“Is that pomegranate I smell?” He sniffed again, leaning over the partition towards me. “Is that you Gavin? That cologne is divine.”
Bellamy gave a slight, approving smile, then winked.
The pomegranate smell was me. It was the favorite fruit of a certain Legionnaire from my past, and I wore it for some ill-thought sentimentality. A reminder that happiness could exist in this world for others, even if not for me.
Bellamy turned, and walked away, his hips swaying with his waistcoat as he moved.
I looked at Gavin and rolled my eyes. “Holy Hades, the man’s insufferable.”
“He’s a good journalist,” Gavin said, noncommittally. “He might be a bit strange but he’s sharp, that one. It’s why he keeps giving you a run for your money.”
Gavin looked around us, his head pivoting like an owl as he surveyed our surroundings.
“If you consider fashion, and celebrity gossip as journalism, then maybe…” I said, after we determined that the place was empty now.
“Don’t be unkind, young lady,” Gavin’s thick accent grew thicker when he was lecturing, I swear. “The Korean Celebrity trafficking ring was worth that Laurent Prize you two always compete for. The piece he did on the Russian clubbing scandal?” Gavin brought his fingers to his lips and did a chef’s kiss. “Truly great work.”
“If you say so,” I said, feeling heat go up my neck, to my ears. “Though the Russian clubbing scandal was only because he was sleeping with what’s-her-name.”
“The oligarch’s daughter? Yes,” Gavin nodded. “They were quite the cute couple at the MET. They wore matching capes. Did you see that?”
Yes, I had. The two of them had kissed and gushed along the red carpet, with matching embroidered capes that, when photographed side by side, formed the image of two bodies lusciously intertwined.
In that same evening, he was photographed getting a lap dance from a Miss World Idol winner, while his arm lay seductively over the shoulder of some venture capitalist who had his tongue in Bellamy’s ear.
That was the way he got his stories.
I wouldneveracknowledge that he did good work. But yes, Gavin was right. Bellamy was a good journalist and his stories were poignant, well written, with a slight flourish that I envied. I hate-read every damn thing he’d ever written. It was an obsession. I wanted to relish in his failures, but never could because he was just too damned good.
