Page 36 of Collision

“Mik, come on. We can’t just pretend -”

“Yes,” she spits, “we can. We can pretend it didn’t happen because itshouldn’thave happened and it won’t happen again. Now go away, before Jamie comes out here and wonders why the hell you are still at my desk looking at me like that.”

“Looking at you like what?” I challenge.

“Like a sick and wounded animal, Ben. Like last night meant more than it did.” Anger flashes behind her eyes as she glares up at me and I feel my hackles raise.

Last nightdidmean something, and I’m not going to pretend it didn’t.

She continues on as her eyes dart to Jamie’s closed door and pulled blinds, and her nostrils flare. “Like it was more than a drunk mistake in the middle of the night.”

“Maybe it was more than that, Mik,” I bark back. “Maybe it did mean something. You can’t tell me you really think it didn’t.”

I step back when she pushes to her feet and barges past me, making her way to the kitchen without so much as a glance in my direction. “It didn’t.”

“Bullshit.” I push into the room behind her, standing close enough I can feel the heat radiating from her, and place my hands on the counter on either side of her body. “It meant something and you know it.”

Her shoulders tense as I stand pressed up behind her, my voice unashamedly low and desperate. I can feel her heart racing and her breath becoming short and rushed as I lean in to her, my lips brushing against her skin, and I whisper. She closes her eyes.

“It meant something to me, Mik.” I press a soft kiss into her shoulder. “And I think it did to you too.”

“No.” Her voice is shaking and she stands as still as stone, waiting for me to take a step away from her. My chest caves when she shakes her head. “It was a mistake, Ben, and we’re lucky Jamie didn’t see anything. So no. It didn’t mean anything and you need to drop it. It won’t happen again.”

Moving away, I say nothing as a lump forms in my throat, thick and heavy and carving pain into the depths of me as it makes its way to my gut.

She still hasn’t turned - she still won’t look at me - but her words cut at me with every syllable.

“Please.” It’s just a whisper, but it smashes into me forcefully. That word, that final utterance, the plea for me to understand. It’s all it takes. I turn on my heel without another word and move from the room with a painful silence.

Thedroneofthisman’s voice is sending me to sleep. There is something lifeless and dreary about the way his pitch always drops down at the end of a sentence and the sound of a hacking cough punctuates every other phrase.

I rub my eyes, sighing as Jamie mutes the line and presses the intercom button.

“MikMak?”

He watches her as I stare blankly at the file in front of me. I hear as she snaps her laptop closed and Jamie shudders with the impact before she responds.

I want to look at her.

“I told you not to call me that here,” she grunts.

I glance her way, a small spark of me desperately hoping to see her staring back at me, only to be shattered within an instant.

Her shoulders are tense and her jaw is tight. “What do you want?”

“I need coffee.” Jamie grins as he watches her place her head on the desk and I hold back the urge to walk out. “And cake. I need cake.”

“Then take a break and get coffee and cake, Jamie,” she snaps. “I’m not your PA.”

“I know.” He laughs when she swivels to look at him, before he shoots her wide eyes and an apologetic pout.

My body tenses when her eyes brush over me and my entire being bristles under the weight of her indifference, even from the other side of the office.

“But,” he continues, “I’m stuck in the worlds most boring negotiation meeting. I’d ask Ben to get it but -”

“Fine. Just stop talking.” She slams her finger down to cut off the line, before ripping her bag from the back of her chair.

Jamie laughs as she storms towards the stairwell and disappears from sight before turning his attention back to the conference call we’re stuck on.

---