Page 81 of Spiralling Skywards
“As crystal,” she replied.
“Good. Get your coat, we’re leaving.”
***
I tried Sarah’s number continuously on the train ride home. It’d been switched off, which pissed me off. I didn’t care what she said about not speaking to me, we would talk and we would get this whole mess sorted out.
Mel, who had been quiet on our walk to the station, now rambled on from her seat opposite me. I tuned her out.
When my battery was finally down to its last ten percent, I stopped attempting to call Sarah in case she attempted to call me. Either way I would go to her house straight from the station and talk to her face to face.
“So who is she?” Mel interrupted my thoughts.
“What?”
“Your girlfriend, who is she?”
“Did you not listen to anything I said before we left the office?”
“Oh come on.” Her long legs were crossed and she poked me with the tip of her grey shoe. I looked down at where her foot had made contact with my trousers and then back up at her.
“I’m your fucking boss. You do not poke me with your shoe.”
“It’s almost eight thirty, I’m off the clock.”
“We paid you travel time today, and we paid your travel fare. You are not off the clock.”
Fuck me, she was a pain in my arse. She might be good at her job, but she was a fucking pest. I had no clue how Luke put up with her as a girlfriend.
“You are one—”
I raised my eyebrows, daring her to carry on with whatever insult she was about to throw my way. She huffed, turned her face to the window, and folded her arms.
My phone rang, I nearly hit the luggage rack above my head.
Luke.
Great.
“Speak, arsewipe,” I answered with.
“How’d it go?”
“Pretty good. The Germans, Malaysians, and probably the Scottish companies are mostly in, the rest have gone away to look at figures. They need to calculate what they’d save on man hours by handing things over to us, obviously I’ve told them that they also need to factor in the discount we can get on rental accommodation, saving them even more.”
“Where are you now?”
Ah, so that was the real reason for his call. It was late, he was just checking that I wasn’t with his sister.
“We’re still on the train, about ten minutes from home.”
“We’re?”
“Yeah, Mel’s with me.”
“Is she now? Behaving herself I hope?”
“Nope.”
