'Is that a bus?' she says, staring. 'What's it doing here?'
'It's my bus,' I say. 'It took me home.'
I wave to the driver, who waves back, and the bus rumbles off into the night.
'I don't believe it!' says Lissy slowly, gazing as it disappears round the corner. She turns to look at me. 'So … it was OK in the end?'
'Yes,' I say. 'Yes. It was … OK.'
FOURTEEN
OK. Don't tell anyone. Do not tell anyone.
Do not tell anyone that you were on a date with Jack Harper last night.
I mean, not that I'm exactly planning to tell anyone. But as I arrive at work the next day I feel almost convinced I'm going to blurt it out by mistake.
Or someone's going to guess. I mean, surely it must be obvious from my face. From my clothes, From the way I'm walking. I feel as though everything I do screams 'Hey, guess what I did last night?'
'Hiya,' says Caroline as I make myself a cup of coffee. 'How are you?'
'I'm fine, thanks!' I say, giving a guilty jump. 'I just had a quiet evening in last night. Just … really quiet! With my flatmate. We watched three videos, Pretty Woman, Notting Hill and Four Weddings. Just the two of us. No-one else.'
'Right,' says Caroline, looking a bit bemused. 'Lovely!'
Oh God. I'm losing it. Everyone knows this is how criminals get caught. They add too many details and trip themselves up.
Right, no more babbling. Stick to one-word answers.
'Hi,' says Artemis as I sit down at my desk.
'Hi,' I say, forcing myself not to add anything else. Not even about which kind of pizza Lissy and I ordered, even though I've got a whole story ready about how the pizza company thought we said green pepper instead of pepperoni, ha ha, what a mix-up.
I'm supposed to be doing some filing this morning, but instead I find myself taking out a piece of paper and starting a list of possible date venues where I can take Jack tonight.
1. Pub. No. Far too boring.
2. Movie. No. Too much sitting, not talking to each other.
3. Ice skating. I have no idea why I put that, since I can't even skate. Except it was in Splash. 4.
God, I've run out of ideas already. How crap is this? I stare at the sheet blankly, half-tuning into the idle conversation which is going on around me.
'… really working on some secret project, or is that just a rumour?'
'… company in a new direction, apparently, but no-one knows exactly what he's …'
'… is this Sven guy anyway? I mean, what function does he have?'
'He's with Jack, isn't he?' says Amy, who works in Finance but fancies Nick, so is always finding excuses to come into our office. 'He's Jack's lover.'
'What?' I say, suddenly sitting up, and snapping the end of my pencil. Luckily everyone's too busy gossiping to notice.
Jack gay? Jack gay?
That's why he didn't kiss me goodnight. He only wants me to be a friend. He'll introduce me to Sven and I'll have to pretend to be all cool with it, like I knew all along—
'Is Jack Harper gay?' Caroline is saying in astonishment.
'I just assumed he was,' says Amy with a shrug. 'He looks gay, don't you think?'
'Not really,' says Caroline, screwing up her face. 'Not groomed enough.'
'I don't think he looks gay!' I say, trying to sound light-hearted and just kind of vaguely interested.
'He's not gay,' chimes in Artemis authoritatively. 'I read a old profile of him in Newsweek, and he was dating the female president of Origin Software. And it said before that he went out with some supermodel.'
A huge surge of relief floods through me.
I knew he wasn't gay. Obviously I knew he wasn't gay-
Honestly, do these people have nothing better to do than engage in stupid mindless speculation about people they don't know?
'So is Jack seeing anyone at the moment?'
'Who knows?'
'He's pretty sexy, don't you think?' says Caroline with a wicked grin. 'I wouldn't mind.'
'Yeah right,' says Nick. 'You probably wouldn't mind his private jet, either.'
'Apparently, he hasn't had a relationship since Pete Laidler died,' says Artemis crisply. 'So I doubt you've got much of a chance.'
'Bad luck, Caroline,' says Nick, with a laugh.
I feel really uncomfortable, listening to this. Maybe I should leave the room until they've stopped. But then, maybe that would draw attention to myself.
Just for an instant, I find myself imagining what would happen if I stood up and said, 'Actually I had dinner with Jack Harper last night.' They'd all stare at me, dumbfounded, and maybe somebody would gasp, and …
Oh, who am I kidding? They wouldn't even believe me, would they? They'd say I was suffering from delusions.
'Hi, Connor,' comes Caroline's voice, interrupting my thoughts.
Connor? My head jerks up in slight dismay. And there he is, with no warning, approaching my desk with a wounded look on his face.
What's he doing here?
Has he found out about me and Jack?
My heart starts to thump hard and I nervously push my hair back. I've spotted him a couple of times around the building, but this is our first moment face to face, since we broke up.
'Hi,' he says.
'Hi,' I reply awkwardly, and there's silence.
Suddenly I notice my unfinished list of date ideas lying prominently on my desk. Shit. As casually as possible I reach for it, screw it up and nonchalantly drop it in the bin.
All the gossip about Sven and Jack has petered out. I know everyone in the office is listening to us, even if they're pretending to be doing something else. It's like we're the in-house soap opera or something.
And I know which character I am. I'm the heartless bitch who chucked her lovely, decent man for no good reason.
Oh God. The thing is, I do feel guilty, I really do. Every time I see Connor, or even think about him, I get a horrible tight feeling in my chest. But does he have to have such an expression of injured dignity on his face? A kind of you've-mortally-wounded-me-but-I'm-such-a-good-person-I-forgive-you look.