Page 14 of Musical Games
He glanced up in surprise. ‘Jesus, Jamie, no.’ He sighed and tapped the pen on the table. ‘Are you happy?’
Jamie looked at him blankly. ‘Happy?’
‘Yeah. Happy? Do you wake up every morning excited about the day? Do you come to work with a spring in your step?’
‘I dunno.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve not really thought about it.’
‘You’re twenty-seven now? Nearly twenty-eight?’
Jamie nodded.Where was this going?
His boss sighed again. ‘Don’t you want more out of life?’
His heart was racing double time. ‘Don’t you want me here?’
‘Jesus, Jamie. If I had four of you, I wouldn’t have to employ twenty useless Neds. If you could clone yourself, I’d retire within five years. But that’s not it. I want more for you. Think about the money you could make if you worked offshore.’
Jamie shook his head violently and Gregor held up his hands.
‘Sorry, son, I forgot.’ He rubbed his head again. ‘You can do this work with your eyes shut. Don’t you want more of a challenge? Be your own boss?’
Jamie shrugged again. Hehadthought about it. But with each passing month and year it seemed harder to make that change.
There was a knock at the door. Gregor stood and checked his watch, his expression suddenly bland.
‘Ah, that’ll be Lois.’
‘Lois?’
‘Yeah, yeah, my niece. First year civil engineering at Edinburgh. I’ve told you all about her, remember?’ He didn’t wait for a response. ‘Anyway, you’re perfect… to give her a site visit. I can’t do it. I’ve got a meeting. Somewhere else.’
He pushed past Jamie and opened the door for a small brunette wearing a yellow hard hat.
‘There you are, lass,’ he said, pulling her in for a hug. ‘This is Jamie, the one I told you about.’
Jamie stood and held out his hand. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said woodenly.
She took it and smiled at him, blushing furiously.Fuck. She looked like a teenager straight out of school.
‘So I’ll leave you to it then? Take the whole day if you need it,’ said Gregor. He rushed back to his desk and pulled the coffee machine forward. ‘Jamie, why don’t you start by making Lois a coffee and you can get to know each other a bit before you give her the tour?’ He opened a drawer and pulled out a box of fresh pastries and two china plates with roses on them. ‘Help yourselves, kids, I’ve already eaten.’ He grabbed his phone and briefcase. ‘Okay, have fun.’ He gave Lois another hug and stared over her shoulder intently at Jamie before dashing out the door. Lois glanced at him, her cheeks still bright red, and a nervous smile on her face.
Fuck’s sake. Jamie repressed a sigh.
‘Okay, Lois, what’s it to be? Espresso, flat white, mochaccino, or your uncle’s specialty, sludge-a-chino?’
5
Sam had spent her life wanting what she couldn’t have. Growing up in a family of Vikings, she wanted to be taller. At drama school she wanted better parts. Now she was working, she wanted bigger jobs. But never, in all her thirty years making the planet quite a bit noisier, did she expect to be jealous of a tiny woman in her eighties.
That morning, coming out of her room at the sound of Morag screaming for Jamie, she’d run into a wall of hard muscle and heat.Where the fuck had he been hiding all of that? There was no joke to be made, no witticism to be plucked from the air. She’d simply frozen whilst her hormones ran off for an emergency meeting, returning a millisecond later with the unanimous decision she should have sex with him immediately. Who evenhada body like that? He was a bloody electrician, not an underwear model. And he’d just woken up so hadn’t had time to do a hundred fifty press ups to get his pump on. She thought back to one of the bedroom scenes she’d done with Ian forElm Tree Lane. He’d come straight from the gym to the studio and had a set of weights behind the camera. Between each take he’d leapt out of the bed and started furiously lifting, determined to look his best. Sam had deliberately annoyed him by slowly eating a bar of chocolate whilst moaning more effectively than when he’d been grunting above her five minutes earlier.
She’d been so shocked at the sight of Jamie’s nearly naked body she hadn’t been able to move once he’d disappeared into his room. Then he’d returned, buttoning up his jeans and that had been even worse. Her eyes had been drawn to the line of black hair running down from his navel as his fingers fastened the top of his trousers. She could feel her nipples hard and aching underneath her pyjama top, her skin hot, her head pounding. He’d run straight past her down the stairs and she’d staggered back, pressing her palms against the cool lines of the vinyl wallpaper, her chest heaving as she let out the breath she’d been holding. With every gasp, her body criedYES!whilst her mind ran around like an out-of-control schoolteacher, screamingno, no, no, no, no!
She’d dressed shakily, forcing herself to focus on Brad while her body chanted Jamie’s name. Shortly after, standing outside the back door, she’d watched as he strode towards her, Mrs McCreedie singing in his arms. He’d seemed absolutely mortified, which made the situation even funnier, but her body had been raging with jealousy. It had taken all her years of acting training to hide what she was feeling and focus on entertaining an eighty-year-old woman who wouldn’t stop banging on about being carried by ‘such a braw young man’.
And now she was preparing to go to the castle so Zoe could introduce her to Brad. She’d been thinking about this moment ever since she’d seen her best friend sitting next to the world’s most famous movie star on his Instagram feed. Chances like this came about once in a lifetime and she was going to seize hers with both hands and hold on for dear life. She knew all too well the fickleness and vagaries of her business. Success had little to do with talent. It was about your appearance, who you knew, how old you were and your sex. Sam knew she wasn’t ugly and she was short enough to make even the smallest male actor feel tall. But she didn’t come from an acting family, was now thirty and, being a woman, the number of available roles were tiny compared to what was on offer for men.
So she networked, she schmoozed, she smiled and she went for every opportunity without hesitation. She hardly saw her family and apart from Zoe, all her friends outside the acting world had fallen by the wayside. She couldn’t begrudge Zoe her happiness with Rory, but her departure from London had left a far bigger hole in Sam’s life than she’d expected.
