It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime…

In reality it was a business trip, prettied up as a romantic holiday, but the man behind the wheel was meant to be Candice Hart’s boss and (married but separated, I swear!) lover. Not Danny the new guy!

Not only is Candice faced with a new driver, but the office’s far too handsome hipster expects her to share the cramped space inside his ‘fully’ restored VW Beetle, aka the Love Bug, and put up with his constant opinions about her life…

Before long she is tired of playing the ‘good girl’ and, with Danny’s help, is determined to finally show the world the real Candice Hart!

Also available by Portia MacIntosh

Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place

How Not to be Starstruck

Bad Bridesmaid

Praise for PORTIA MACINTOSH

‘How Not to be Starstruck was impossible to put down, hilarious, fun, flirty and packed with excitement.’ Victoria Loves Books

**

‘A brilliant story full of fun, gorgeous rockstars, big egos and great friendships.’ A Novel Thought on How Not to be Starstruck

**

‘absolutely hilarious’ Books and Bookends on Bad Bridesmaid

**

‘For a Sex and the City meets Gossip Girl meets “Life of the rich and famous” -vibe: get yourself a copy of both Portia’s novels. Very, very enjoyable read and can’t wait for more!’ M’s Bookshelf on How Not to be Starstruck

**

‘I can not recommend this book highly enough, it is a must read for any one fancying a light heart and humour read, which can be devoured in one sitting.’ Compelling Reads

**

‘How Not to be Starstruck had me laughing the whole way through. It was fun-filled, sweet, crazy and always entertaining. Portia MacIntosh wrote a fab book.’ 4/5 stars from Sophie*

**

‘I loved this clever satire on the world of celebrity. It’s a witty, wry look at the showbiz lifestyle and I veered from being envious of Nicole’s life, to being glad it was nothing like mine!’ 5 stars from Mrs K J Barrett*

*Amazon reader reviews

Drive Me Crazy

Portia MacIntosh

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © Portia MacIntosh 2015

Portia MacIntosh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474035606

Version date: 2018-07-23

When she was fifteen years old, PORTIA MACINTOSH fell in with a bad crowd…rockstars. After disappearing on tour and living the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle for a few years, Portia landed a job in the music industry – but only so that she didn’t have to join the real world just yet.

Now in her twenties, Portia is ready to spill the beans on the things she has witnessed over the years. Well, kind of. If her famous friends knew that she was borrowing their lives to inspire her fiction, they would stop inviting her on tour and banish her from the inner circle. Then she really would have to rejoin the real world, and she’s still not ready for that.

Portia only started writing novels to share her secrets, but then she realised she actually quite liked writing – maybe even more than she likes living on a bus with a bunch of smelly boys – and has since tried her hand at writing about other things.

Check out Portia’s blog at: portiamacintosh.tumblr.com

Follow her on Twitter: twitter.com/portiamacintosh

…and Facebook: facebook.com/macintoshportia

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Praise

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

A massive thank you to my editors, Victoria and Charlotte, and to the rest of the HQ Digital UK team for all of their hard work on my books.

A shoutout to my Pink Ink girls, Tay and all the lovely reviewers for all of their support. Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of any of my books, and thank you for all the lovely feedback - I hope you enjoy this one as much as my others.

Finally, huge thanks to my family and friends for all of their support. And for celebrating every little victory with me with cocktails/coffee.

For my family

Chapter 1

‘We should get up.’

‘Just five more minutes,’ I plead as I snuggle closer.

‘Two more minutes,’ he negotiates. ‘Someone will be round with the post any minute. Do you want them to see us like this?’

‘Let them see,’ I gasp. ‘I’m too happy to care.’

Of course I’m joking, and Will knows this.

For two peaceful minutes we just cuddle up, naked, in perfect silence. I have my head resting on Will’s chest, gazing down at his bare stomach. He’s starting to get a bit of a belly, the one a lot of men seem to develop as they approach the big 4-0. Will can’t be blamed for ‘letting himself go’ a little, though. As the managing director of his family’s massive haulage company, he works tirelessly to keep the business running smoothly.

I use a finger to trace lines on his body, of where his six-pack used to be. His heart is pounding, but the gentle rise and fall of his chest relaxes me, quickly returning my own heart rate to normal.

I wonder what he’s thinking right now. I often wonder what’s going through his mind, and how often he thinks about me when we’re not together.

‘I’m starving,’ I say out loud, although I’m pretty sure I only meant to think it.

‘You’re always starving.’ He laughs. ‘Sticking to the diet though?’

‘Of course,’ I lie. I mean, I am sticking to it for the most part, but it’s so hard when you have to pass a branch of Millie’s Cookies on the way home from work – that temptress still manages to seduce me every now and then.

Conscious of the tummy he’s developing, Will is on a health kick at the moment, and knowing how much I love my junk food, he suggested I might like to join him. I suppose I was a few pounds overweight – and maybe this was his tactful way of telling me – so I agreed to do the same. Oh, how I wish I hadn’t now.

‘OK, fine, I’m getting up,’ I say, although I make no attempt to move whatsoever. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’

‘Please,’ he replies, also remaining in position. ‘This thing wreaks havoc on my back. It’s not very comfortable, is it?’

‘Well, it’s a desk, not a bed,’ I say as I pull myself upright. ‘It’s not supposed to be comfortable.’

‘Maybe we should get a bed for in here. Well, not a bed, that would seem odd.’ He laughs as he glances around his office, as though trying to figure out where one could go. ‘Maybe a sofa bed?’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ I reply, unable to fake even a little enthusiasm. He makes it sound like we’re a married couple, picking out furniture for our home.

A few more seconds of silence together, me alone with my thoughts and him with his – that is until a knock on the door breaks us from our thoughts. We know the drill.

‘Damn,’ Will says quietly as he wrestles on his trousers before calling to whoever is behind the door: ‘One minute, please.’

‘It’s locked, right?’ I ask as I hurry on my underwear, then my dress.

‘Yes, it’s locked, but that still makes us look bad.’

This isn’t our first moment like this; you think we’d be better at it by now.

‘No rush, Mr Starr.’ It’s Caroline, his secretary. ‘Except I’ve got the post for you, and it’s quite heavy.’

‘She’s not going anywhere,’ he whispers to me, panic in his voice.

I exhale deeply. Being romantically involved with your boss is not all it’s cracked up to be, especially when you have to keep your relationship a secret.

Will and his wife, Stephanie, were in love, once upon a time. They got married, had a couple of kids but then, as Will moved through the ranks of the company, eventually reaching the top spot when his dad retired, they just fell out of love and decided to call it a day. The thing is, Will is very much the face of the family business, and despite the company being huge, they really play up the family angle. Now that Will is in charge, they paint him as a good guy, a family man, so leaving his wife and two young kids simply because he didn’t want to be with his wife any more would not have painted a pretty picture. And in a way Will was lucky that Stephanie agreed to pretend they were still together, to keep up appearances, and to keep Will’s/the firm’s wholesome reputation in tact. So, despite Will and Stephanie’s understanding, divorce isn’t on the cards any time soon, and if Will were to be caught sleeping with his assistant, it would ruin him. So it isn’t exactly unusual for us to sneak around and keep our relationship a secret.

‘You’re going to have to hide,’ he snaps at me in a whisper – like this is my fault.

‘Hide?’ I ask in disbelief. I’ve never had to hide before. ‘Where?’

‘Under the desk,’ he instructs, pushing me under the large, oak desk in the centre of his office.

‘You’re effing kidding me?’ I ask, and Will shoots me a look – I know that he doesn’t approve of swearing, but I thought that might be OK given the circumstances. I can tell from the look in his eyes that he is dead serious. ‘Fine.’

Down I go, underneath his desk. I watch as Will straightens up his tie before bushing his suit down, exhaling deeply as he heads for the door. I am just about to tuck myself away when I realise that I forgot to put my stockings back on. I spy one of them on the floor, and it’s within arm’s reach so I grab it. No sign of the other one, but there’s nothing I can do. Will is opening the door.

‘Good morning, Caroline,’ he says breathlessly. ‘I thought you were at the doctor’s this morning?’

‘I was,’ she replies. ‘I’ve been, all is well. I know I took the morning off, but I thought there’s no sense in waiting until the afternoon to come in – may as well make myself useful. I see Candice is running late.’ Caroline sighs. ‘Ah well, best she has a lie-in. I think that one is getting a lot of late nights at the moment.’

I can only see Caroline’s feet, but I feel my eyes narrow as I shoot them a death stare.

Sweet Caroline (that’s what I call her – because she isn’t) may just be an evil genius, and were I not the target of her evil master plan to oust me from the company, I might actually be impressed by the way she operates. You see, Sweet Caroline is nothing but sweetness and light to me – in front of other people. Sometimes, I even hear her saying nice things about me to other people, making caring excuses for any mistakes I might make, or excusing my lateness for me like she did today (by making it sound like I’m out partying every night). This means that, to everyone else at the firm, Caroline is Sweet Caroline, but when it’s just me and her she is horrible to me, and because I know her niceness is an act I cannot be nice back to her, or be nice about her to others. This leaves everyone else wondering why I don’t like Caroline, because she’s just so nice to everyone, and speaks so highly of me… I’m telling you, she’s an evil genius.

There aren’t too many female employees here, but Caroline is certainly the queen bee. As female employees come and go, she takes them all under her wing (everyone but me, who she took an instant disliking to) and I’m guessing she drips poison in the ears of them all, because none of the women seem to like me. Thankfully, I always have Will on my side.

‘You look warm,’ she observes, not suspiciously as far as I can tell, just curiously.

‘Yeah, I was just getting a bit of exercise in,’ he tells her, before laughing it off. ‘Getting a bit portly in my old age.’

Oh, that was fast thinking. I’d probably be impressed were I not so incredibly mortified right now.

‘I just bumped into Stephanie,’ I hear Caroline say.

‘What, she’s here?’ Will replies.

‘No, no. I saw her at the doctor’s – how is she doing? She looked a little peaky.’

‘She’s fine, she’s fine,’ Will babbles, instantly arousing my curiosity. I get that Will is sticking around for his kids, and because it’s a smart business move, but it never occurred to me that he might be staying around for other reasons – is his wife ill? I mentally pinch myself as Will and Caroline chat about work stuff. It’s this silly situation; it makes me paranoid and needy and feel just plain bad about myself. I know that we’re not doing anything wrong and that it’s only a matter of time before we can be together properly – Will assures me every day – but on days like today, when I’m hiding underneath a desk clutching one of my stockings, it doesn’t feel like I’m not doing anything wrong. I feel very much like the ‘other woman’ that I am most certainly not.

As Will and Sweet Caroline chat, I watch them from my hiding place – well, I watch them from the knees down, like the opening sequence of The Bill circa 1985. That’s when I notice my other stocking, caught on the heel of Caroline’s shoe.

I slowly peep out from under the desk, in an attempt to quickly grab the offending hosiery before it can be spotted. I pull it, but it’s not budging. It’s well and truly caught on her heel. I give it a hard yank and it finally comes loose, but Will spots me out of the corner of his eye.

‘Come here,’ Will instructs Caroline, pulling her close for a hug. ‘I’m glad you got on OK at the doctor’s.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Caroline replies brightly. I quickly crawl back underneath the desk and Will finally releases her and she leaves.

With the door closed, Will locks it before leaning back against the wall and breathing a sigh of relief so huge, I practically feel my hair blow in the breeze.

‘That was a close one,’ Will says.

‘Yep,’ I reply, scooching out from underneath the desk. I feel deflated at having to hide, but I do my best to remain positive.

‘You want to be careful hugging Caroline like that.’ I laugh brightly. ‘She’ll have you for sexual harassment.’

‘Candice, that’s not funny,’ my lover ticks me off. ‘That was too close. Way too close. And when she mentioned Steph, I thought she might be here.’

‘Is Stephanie OK?’ I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

‘Yes,’ Will replies quickly, ‘why do you ask?’

‘Just that Caroline said she’d seen her at the doctor’s… I was just checking.’

I smile sweetly, hoping that if my face looks happy then my mood will follow. The truth is, I’m starting to grow tired of our situation. I mentioned this to Will recently and he promised to do something about it.

‘Your stomach is looking a little…full today,’ Will observes, changing the subject.

‘What?’ I run my hands over my tummy self-consciously. ‘Oh, I ate a bagel yesterday – wheat makes me a bit bloated,’ I explain.

‘Wheat isn’t great for the body,’ he reminds me. I know that he’s just trying to help me keep healthy and in good shape, but sometimes it feels like criticism and it makes me feel self-conscious.

Will walks over to me and helps me up from the floor.

‘Don’t be grumpy,’ he says, pinching my cheek between two of his fingers as he flashes me a smile. I am weak for him; I wish I wasn’t, but I am. ‘Everything will be better next week, when we have our little holiday from the world.’

I feel myself defrost almost immediately and my forced smile blends seamlessly into a real one. I cannot wait for my holiday with Will. It’s going to be an entire week, just the two of us. We won’t need to sneak around or hide, no sex on uncomfortable desks, we can hold hands in public and go out for dinner together – all the little things that couples take for granted. It’s going to be pure bliss, and the mere mention of it appeases any doubts I may be having about our relationship. I just want things to be normal, and this holiday is going to be a glimpse of that. Depending on how it goes, I think this will be make or break for us, which just makes me all the more determined to make sure things are perfect.

I examine my stockings before I put them on and realise that the one I yanked from Caroline’s shoe is laddered. I toss them in the bin. It’ll have to be bare legs today. Thankfully I keep on top of waxing them, or I’d have been in big trouble.

‘So, how about that coffee?’ he reminds me as he starts tapping away on his laptop. ‘And, Candice, maybe put those in a bin somewhere else. And make sure no one sees you leave.’

‘Sure,’ I reply, grabbing them from the bin before heading for the door. He isn’t exactly in my good books after making me hide under his desk, but that combined with the fact he now expects me to reach into the bin…! If we were a normal couple I’d be able to tell him to get his own fucking coffee. I’ve no choice today, though. He is my boss, after all.

Chapter 2

There are certain things that we, as women, just know not to do. No one ever told us that we shouldn’t do these things but we just know, deep down in our ovaries somewhere, that certain things are a bad idea.

One should not, for example, become romantically involved with any of the following types of men: married men, bosses, control freaks and egomaniacs. We know this. We know this like we know never to over-pluck above our eyebrows. We know this like we know never to brush our hair when it’s wet. It is instilled in us by every failed relationship we’ve ever seen play out, every cruel-to-be-kind piece of advice our best friend has offered us, every romcom storyline we’ve ever watched and every magazine article we’ve ever read on ‘types of men to avoid’.

Despite all of this knowledge, my fella ticks every box on the list. Well, I say ‘my fella’ but he’s not my fella at all, he’s his wife’s fella. He’s my boss.

I worked in the sales and marketing department at Starr Haul for a year before Will even noticed me, and our first conversation actually took place when he called me into his office to fire me. The truth was that not only did I hate working for the sales team (haulage, warehousing and distribution – yawn) but I wasn’t particularly good at it either, and I think those two factors only made each other worse. Combined with the fact that I was often late, employee of the month I was not, and if I were Will, I probably would’ve fired me too.

I could tell from the look on his face when he called me into his office that he was going to let me go, but with everyone always banging on about what a kind, generous family man he was, I thought I’d try and appeal to his better nature. I told him about losing my parents, about being alone in the world and barely having enough money to live on. Suddenly, Will started talking to me about his problems too. About how things weren’t working with his wife, telling me they were separated but pretending to still be together to save face. It was nice to have someone to talk to and our long chat comforting each other about the state of our lives eventually turned into a kiss, which quickly turned into sex on his desk – the first time of many.

After that first time, as I buttoned up my white shirt (as best I could considering he’d ripped a few buttons off) and watched Will thoughtfully rub his stubbly chin (probably pondering whether or not it would be wise to fire me so soon after fucking me), I swore to myself that it wouldn’t happen again. Separated from his wife or not, I didn’t want to get involved.

Unsurprisingly, Will decided not to fire me, taking me out of the sales department so that I could work under him (yes, I did just say that). As we started spending more and more time together, we started getting closer and closer and here we are. Nearly a year together and still sneaking around.

I push my key in the door to my flat and let out a sigh before letting myself in.

‘Honey, I’m home,’ I call out as I ditch my handbag on the sideboard. No, I’m not so lonely that I’ve resorted to cracking witty jokes to myself about my situation – Honey is my cat. So not so lonely that I’ve started talking to myself, but lonely enough to talk to my cat, it would seem.

‘Well, it’s about time,’ a voice calls back and, despite being a familiar one, it is unexpected and causes me to jump out of my skin.

‘Gosh,’ I exclaim. ‘Don’t do that to me, Aims.’

‘I told you I was going to be here. You must be missing me if you’re talking to that thing.’

My soon-to-be ex flatmate nods towards Honey, who hisses back at her.

‘You two still not getting on?’ I laugh.

‘Let’s just say it makes me feel less bad about hardly ever being here, and the fact that in just over a week I will be officially moved out helps too. Nice use of “gosh” by the way. I take it your old bloke doesn’t appreciate you blaspheming, as well as swearing.’

Amy wanders into the kitchen. It’s only now that I notice the smell of food drifting through the house.

‘There’s nothing wrong with being more ladylike,’ I call after her. ‘I can’t believe you’re getting married and moving out like a grown-up.’

Amy returns, spoon in hand, and points at me with it as she speaks.

‘And I can’t believe you’re wearing that disgusting dress,’ she says harshly. ‘Or what you’ve done with this place. Or that you have a cat. Or that you have nothing but vegetables, chicken and milk made from fucking almonds in your fucking fridge – thank God I brought shopping.’

My friend puts extra emphasis on the word ‘God’ and she reels off her list of things that she can’t believe about the new me. Well, the new new me.

As Amy stands there, still brandishing her spoon in an attacking position, she waits for me to justify all of the above. I don’t see her as much as I’d like to these days, and I guess I must be changing a lot.

Amy Kelly is my best friend, and she came into my life when things were the most difficult for me. By the time I was twenty-four I had lost both my parents. With no grandparents, siblings or even so much as a distant aunt I could turn to, when my dad passed away I became an orphan. Both my mum and dad were very ill in the years before they passed, so as soon as I finished sixth form, rather than going to university or travelling like the rest of my friends, I stayed at home to take care of them. I was happy to do it, and if I had the time again, I wouldn’t do things even a little differently, but it had a huge impact on my life. I stopped seeing my friends; I had no social life, no love life. When my mum passed, it just made my dad and me even closer. As he got worse, he had to go into a home and that’s where I met Amy – she was one of the carers who looked after him. When my dad died I was left with pretty much nothing. That’s when Amy told me she was looking for a new flatmate. Growing up so shy combined with my lack of a social life as an adult had turned me into this quiet little mouse, and Amy saved me from that. It took a year of my life to get there, but I was happy. Truly happy.

Growing up, I was not a tidy child. I would take out a toy, play with it for a while, and then take out another, leaving the previous one on the floor. I never made my own bed, and any clothing I took off would wind up inside out on my bedroom floor. My mum would be constantly telling me to tidy my room, and every now and then she would offer me something in exchange for cleaning up and I would do it, and for a day or so my room would be tidy…until it wasn’t again. I wish my mum were still around to see my Manchester city centre apartment, because she wouldn’t believe just how tidy it was.

When I first moved in with Amy, our place was everything you would expect of the home of two twenty-something chicks. We had fairy lights almost everywhere, fluffy cushions, lots of weird and wonderful ornaments and pictures on the wall. We had so much pink shit, it would make even Barbie herself dizzy and, my gosh, was it messy! No matter which room you were in, the chance of you being able to see a wine glass (clean, dirty or decorative) was very high. The place was full of smells too: hairspray, coffee, a cocktail of perfumes, the unmistakable whiff of chocolate from that one time we tried to use a chocolate fountain and it malfunctioned epically, spraying chocolate everywhere. I remember that night so well, and yet when I think about it, it feels like it didn’t really happen, like it’s something I saw in a movie once.

It was a particularly cold December, not long after I’d started working at Starr Haul – before I got with Will, in fact. I don’t even think he’d given me a second glance at that stage. Both Amy and I were skint, and we were stuck in a battle with our landlord over who should pay for our broken central heating, because he thought it was our fault it had broken down. I was young, I didn’t have my parents to support me and things were so bad I couldn’t even afford to take the bus to work – I had to walk. It was so cold I resorted to buying cheap cups of takeaway tea, exclusively for keeping my hands warm during the journey. One evening we decided we needed to do something to try and keep us warm and it just so happened that for Amy’s birthday someone had bought her a chocolate fountain and bars of the stuff to use with it. So for dinner that night, melted chocolate was on the menu, but without any wooden skewers to stab our Poundland marshmallows with, we resorted to using forks, and when Amy dropped her fork into the fountain it jammed it and the result was us, our furniture and our living room being lashed with chocolate.

As well as smelling delicious, the place had bags of personality. Amy is very hippy-chic. She’s into all this weird and wonderful stuff that I don’t understand, like crystals and dream catchers, and I’ve no idea what they do, but they definitely made the flat look cool. As she started spending less time here and more time at her fiancé’s place, she started taking all the stuff away. And as it started disappearing I realised that although the flat had bags of personality, none of it was mine.

My friend stares at me, waiting for an explanation.

‘What’s wrong with my dress? It’s not that bad,’ I protest, glancing down at the black pencil dress I wore to work.

‘Yeah, not that bad if you’re going to a funeral,’ my friend (who is wearing a white cheesecloth gypsy top as a dress, might I add) says harshly, ‘or you’re still trying to turn yourself into a weird clone of your boss’s wife.’

I stare at my friend for a moment. She hasn’t been back to the flat for a while, and she’s been so busy with wedding stuff that we haven’t spent much time together – not to have a proper chat – but it’s clear that she still doesn’t approve of my situation with Will. She can’t even say his name.

‘This isn’t for anyone’s benefit, I just like dressing a bit smarter,’ I lie. ‘And maybe I have made this place a bit more neutral, but if Will is going to move in here with me eventually then it needs to be less girly.’

‘Ergh, listen to yourself.’ Amy rolls her eyes theatrically. ‘All you go on about is him. You dress for him. You decorate for him. What does he do for you? He won’t even be with you publicly.’

I feel my face fall, and my friend reacts.

‘Candice, I’m sorry, it just upsets me to see him treat you like this. You deserve better.’

Amy carelessly places the dirty spoon down on the chest of drawers next to her and grabs me for a hug.

‘I know I deserve better,’ I tell her honestly. ‘But that’s what this week away is all about. It’s going to be our first anniversary so we’re just going to concentrate on being normal together, seeing how it goes and then working out what we’re going to do about our future.’

‘Remind me again how we’re spinning this little holiday-slash-business trip?’ Amy asks, pulling a face.

‘As managing director, Will needs to visit all branches of the company. He’ll make sure things are running smoothly and put in a bit of face time with the other employees. It’s good for his image.’

‘It’s good for an excuse to nail you in a hotel bed instead of a supply cupboard,’ she tells me.

‘That was one time.’ I laugh.

‘And this explains why you’re away for the weekend too, because…’

‘There’s always someone working day and night, seven days a week, to keep things moving,’ I tell her. ‘Haulage never sleeps.’

‘That might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.’ Amy laughs.

Before I met Amy, I was so so shy. Somehow, she brought me out of myself and for that brief moment between meeting Aims and meeting Will, I felt like a whole new person, like a normal girl in her early twenties. I will admit that since I started seeing Will, I have gone back into my shell a little. I worry about keeping in shape. I worry about coming across as the scrappy, foul-mouthed, party girl I turned into when it was just Amy and me against the world. I know that Will wouldn’t be into that kind of girl, and I hid her from him well until I got out of those bad habits. Will is a smart, educated, well-respected man. He comes from a good family. He’s so well-spoken his accent is almost neutral, despite being born and raised in Manchester. Guys like that don’t wind up with girls like the one I had become, so I cleaned up my act. I know that Amy holds Will responsible for this regression in personality (that’s what she calls it) but I do feel like a better person for being with him.

‘Right, go get your comfies on,’ Amy insists. ‘Dinner will be ready in ten. I’ve made steaks, chips and my own special secret sauce,’ she sings. ‘I know you’ve been missing it so you better be off your silly diet.’

As I head for the bathroom, a sick feeling washes over me. I don’t know what exactly is in Amy’s special sauce, but I know that it’s full of calories. As are steaks and chips. The thing about being on a diet is that as soon as you have a little slip-up, it undoes your progress for the past few days and it feels like it was all for nothing. And if that bagel yesterday made my tummy blow up like a balloon today, then tomorrow, after Amy’s cooking, I’ll look like I’m expecting one hell of a food baby, and that will have Will worried.

I close the bathroom door behind me, slip off my dress (and my underwear, because an underwired bra will easily add one pound to my weight), pull out the scales from behind the sink as quietly as possible and place them on the bathroom floor. As I am about to step on them, a bang on the bathroom door causes me to jump out of my skin.

‘Bitch, are you weighing yourself?’ my friend yells through the closed door. ‘Seriously, you’ve gotta stop with this shit. You are a perfectly normal and healthy weight. Stop trying to be a stick for a man and come and get some chips into you.’

‘I’m not weighing myself,’ I lie, although it’s pointless. Amy knows I’m on a quest to lose a bit more weight, but I’m just trying to get healthier with Will, that’s all. I don’t have a problem or anything – actually, I do have a problem, it’s that I want to eat brownies near-constantly, but I try my hardest not to. The urge never goes away though. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

I flush the toilet before returning the scales as quietly as possible. I slip on a pair of joggers and a vest top and open the door to find Amy waiting for me.

‘Stop weighing yourself,’ she ticks me off, hitting me on the nose with a CD.

‘Stop leaving the pans unattended,’ I tell her off in return.

‘OK, I was just bringing you this.’

Amy presents me with a CD called ‘Anything you want is yours’.

‘Cool, what genre do they play?’ I ask, knowing full well it isn’t music.

‘Very funny. It’s that cosmic ordering I was telling you about. This one teams it with meditation; it’s bound to sort your life out.’

‘Oh, thanks,’ I reply, unsure what to say to that. ‘I’ll put it in my room.’

As Amy heads back to the kitchen, which hopefully isn’t on fire, I frisbee the CD into my bedroom. I’ll need to be pretty desperate before I resort to asking thin air to fix my problems for me.

Chapter 3

I tap the step counter on my wrist to check my progress for the day. After inputting my calories consumed into my health app, I can see that my usual target of a calorie deficit is unsurprisingly a calorie surplus after my epic dinner (and too much wine) with Amy, but after her catching me out with the scales, I felt like I had to clear my plate to prove a point. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself, because it’s a more flattering excuse than me being a piggy.

With just ten minutes to go until midnight, I walk laps around my bedroom to try and get my steps up for the day, because more steps equals more calories burned. The fact that I am tipsy from all the wine is only making this more difficult, but that’s all the more reason for me to do it. I don’t have much floor space in my room, which makes this even trickier, but Amy had decided to stay the night and she just doesn’t get why I want to lose weight. That’s because she’s so happy in her skin. If she caught me exercising at this time, she’d flip.

I pace back and forth a few more times before stumbling over nothing – possible the thick fumes of alcohol in the air – and hit the deck. Unhurt (or just too tipsy to feel it) I laugh at myself. That’s when I notice the CD Amy gave me and curiosity gets the better of me. I pop it in my CD player before hitting play (making sure the volume is low enough not to be heard) and getting in bed.

As I listen to what the voice on the CD has to say, I frown. This is silly. I’m supposed to just repeat a few chants and tell the universe what I want and it will just hand it over? If only life were that simple.

The voice talks about deciding what you want, and asserting yourself.

‘Repeat after me,’ the voice instructs. ‘I am in charge of my own destiny, and I deserve a better life.’

‘I am in charge of my own destiny, and I deserve a better life,’ I replying, mockingly.

‘It doesn’t work if you take the piss,’ I hear a voice say softly from behind the door. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure,’ I reply, embarrassed, although I’m not sure why – at first because she caught me listening to it, but then because I was taking the piss just a bit. The thing is, after the shitty cards life has dealt me, it annoys me that the voice on the CD is implying that all I had to do was ask it not to.

Amy turns off the CD player before climbing in my bed next to me.

‘So, what are you asking for?’ Amy enquires.

‘Hmm, let’s see… How about that I fall in love with Mr Right, ASAP?’

‘Beats the Mr Wrong you’re with now,’ she teases, before changing her tone to a more serious, concerned one. ‘You’re not yourself, babe.’

‘I’m fine, just a bad day,’ I tell her and leave it at that. I won’t tell her about Will pushing me underneath a desk because she’d hit the ceiling.

‘Not just today – generally. You’re like a different person. He quashes your spirit.’

I laugh it off. ‘Just a bad day,’ I tell her again, but I feel my eyes filling up. Stupid alcohol, letting my emotions get the better of me. Suddenly, it’s all flowing out.

‘My life is passing me by,’ I admit. ‘With each second that ticks by, my death gets that little bit closer. I watch the seconds turn into minutes, then hours, days, weeks, months and eventually years. I see the so-called “best years of my life” vanishing before my eyes. And I hate my job so frigging much.’

‘So quit,’ Amy suggests.

‘I can’t, because I need the money, and it’s the only time I get to see Will. But it’s just so boring, and all the women in the office hate me – I don’t know if it’s because they have suspicions about Will and me, but it only pushes me closer to him, because he’s the only person there who cares about me, which only fuels their suspicions,’ I babble. ‘Argh, I am miserable.’

And drunk, apparently.

‘So do something about it,’ Amy insists, wrapping her arm around me.

‘I am,’ I sob. ‘That’s why Will is taking me away, so we can sort out what we’re going to do. I don’t want to lose him, but I told him that I can’t go on like this. He says we’ll figure it out.’

‘Well, there you go,’ Amy replies, although she sounds unconvinced.

Despite telling Will that I cannot go on like this, the truth is that I would rather go on like this than call it a day. Sometimes I worry that he’s only organised this trip to appease me, and then when we return things will just go back to normal, except it will be worse because I will have had a taste of what life would be like as a proper couple. It has appeased me, whether it was intended to or not. The mere suggestion of us spending a few days alone together was enough to drag my mood from my impending death to filling me with hope that one day we will be a proper couple, when he can finally go public about the fact he’s separated from his wife. But with enough alcohol in my bloodstream to kill an elephant, all my worries are at the forefront of my mind. If all goes well I’ll feel on top of the world, but if not then it’s back to reality, back to our hopeless situation.

‘Look, you know that I think you can do much better, but if you want him to get serious then you need to show him that you’re not just this thing that will wait around until he’s ready to love you.’

‘Tried that before – remember?’ I remind her.

‘I’m not saying you should get with someone else, but show him that other people do want you. Is that Geordie guy at work still bugging you for a date?’

‘He asked me out during his first day on the job last week. That was when Will saw and told him off. Since then he hasn’t asked again. He does sit on my desk every day and chat to me though.’

‘Good. Let your boss see.’

I nod thoughtfully, but the truth is I couldn’t do that to Will. In fact, despite the new guy being nothing but friendly with me (and ridiculously gorgeous – probably way out of my league), I am borderline rude to him. The thing is, I don’t want Will to be upset by seeing the two of us together, and the new guy just won’t take the hint and leave me alone.

‘Try and get some sleep,’ Amy insists, climbing out of my bed. ‘Things won’t seem so bad in the morning.’

‘Thanks for everything. Dinner was great,’ I call after her.

‘You’re welcome,’ she calls back. ‘I’ll be listening out for you throwing it back up.’

Chapter 4

Megan McLaughlin isn’t just my childhood best friend. Despite us not really keeping in touch, she means so much more to me now. Megan is an idea, a gauge that shows me just how far off track my life is, a living example of what my life should probably be like right now, as I approach the big 3-0 (just six short years away).

Thanks to Megan, I am fast realising that my life isn’t taking the same route as the chicks I grew up with. School is like a massive competition where everyone – your friends especially – are your competitors, your life rivals. Who got the best Christmas present this year? Who has the best trainers? Who can get the hottest boyfriend? Who is doing the best in English? And you think that you’ll turn sixteen, grab your GCSE certificates and leg it into adulthood, and that all of that crap will be behind you. While that might have been true once upon a time, we millennials have things so much tougher now that social networks are a thing. Everyone from your school days is going to want to keep in touch with you on Facebook – even the bullies, bizarrely – and we all know that Facebook is nothing but a platform for boasting. So now these childhood rivals follow you into your grown-up years, and serve as a reminder of how badly you’re doing at life compared to them.

Take my secondary school bestie, Megan, for example. Megan and I met in nursery and our lives pretty much mirrored one another until one day, suddenly, they didn’t. We both lived on pretty little cul-de-sacs with our happily married parents, we were both into the same hobbies and the same music, and we were even both on the chubby side all the way through school.

Both tomboys through middle school before going all-out punk in secondary school. Both ash blondes. We were one and the same until sometime during sixth form when Megan got her first boyfriend. She’d had boyfriends throughout her teens but this was different because Megan’s new boyfriend was older – much older – we were seventeen and he was about to turn thirty. He had a job, his own house and the social life of a grown-up. When Megan started going out with him, not only did she abandon being my fun friend, but it aged her like a fifty-a-day smoking habit too – which is incidentally a habit she took up because he did. Over the past ten years I have watched my friend fly through the motions of growing up, not unlike the way I do when I get bored playing The Sims while I’m trying to kill time on the computer at work. Megan left school, moved in with him, got engaged, got married and had a couple of kids.

So Megan isn’t just my former bestie, she is symbolic of the life goals someone at some point decided that we, as women, are supposed to be achieving as adults. Find a man, settle down, put whatever kind of career you have on hold and pop out some babies. I am doing terribly on all counts, and there Megan is, every time I log on to Facebook, posting photos of her newest smiling baby or the latest addition to the work she’s having done to her kitchen that never seems to be finished. She’s like an alternative reality version of myself, if I’d made different (better?) life choices. I don’t own my own home; I am in the weird position of both having never been in a traditional serious relationship while at the same time not being truly single. And as for kids, well, in the presence of the truly annoying ones you often find splashing in puddles next to you while you’re wearing a white dress or yelling in your ear on a train, if you listen carefully, you can sometimes hear my tubes attempting to tie themselves.

My work day today has so far consisted of aimlessly scrolling through Facebook – breaking only to answer the occasional phone call while Caroline is away from her desk – looking at everyone post all their stupid shit. Photos from nights out, their kids doing cute stuff, discussing their wedding plans and even taking those stupid quizzes – you know the ones: Which Friends character would you be? What’s your spirit animal? Are you probably going to die single and alone? I don’t need to take a silly quiz to answer those questions for me. I’d be perennially single, early series Chandler, with nothing but my sense of humour to keep me warm at night. My spirit animal would be a mouse, a timid, lonely, little mouse. And the mood I’m in today, I can confidently predict that I will in fact die alone. Still, without all the fun life events to populate my profile, a few annoying quiz result posts would at least remind people that I’m alive. My online presence is fading, fast.

‘Do you need a licence to ride a forklift, Candy?’

I am snapped from my increasingly depressive thoughts by a Geordie accent.

‘Do you need a licence to drive a forklift?’ I correct him as I repeat his question in an attempt to remind him that a forklift isn’t in fact a ride he can put 20p in to ‘have a go’ on. ‘I’d imagine you need some kind of certificate of competency before they’ll let you zip around the warehouse on one.’

‘Crap. That’s what Rick said,’ he replies with a disappointed sigh.

Rick is the warehouse manager. The new guy is here working in the IT department; there’s no need for him to even be in the warehouse, let alone ‘riding’ one of the forklifts.

I avert my eyes, look back at my screen and begin typing an email that I won’t in fact send to anyone, but I want Geordie Shore here to think that I am hard at work and leave me alone. He’s only been here a little over a week, and on his very first day he actually asked me out on a date. He’s that sure of himself, because he’s gorgeous and he knows it. So far he’s managed to make time to sit on my desk and annoy me every single day. I try to ignore him, the way the school swot blocks out the annoying antics of the class clown, and I’m not doing too badly. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you his name – in my head, I’ve been calling him Geordie Shore. Everyone gets an unflattering nickname in my head. I do try to keep all of this stuff locked away in my head, though, never to be uttered out loud.

When I met Will’s wife, Stephanie, for the first time, I was blown away by how perfect she was. She was effortlessly classy, ladylike, and she always looked flawless. I decided then that I needed to be more like her so I made a real effort to be as close to perfection as possible. This only fuels the need for my eternal diet, my religious exercise routine and the real effort I make to be this wonderfully behaved, reserved little lady – because clearly that’s Will’s type – and I’ve even managed to master keeping a lid on the casual swearing habit that I’d picked up from Amy. Even when no one is watching, I strive to be as ladylike as possible, in the hope that one day it will truly be second nature. I do still feel like I’m forcing it – just a little. Inside my head is a different story, however. Even my thoughts are peppered with expletives, and some of the terrible things I think about people are far from ladylike.

I wouldn’t say that Stephanie had let herself go – Will would, though. After having a couple of kids, Stephanie has put a little bit of weight on. She’s still classy and beautiful, but when I hear Will talking about her like she’s a mess, it makes me even more careful to keep in good shape.

The new guy is still standing in front of me, his hands in his pockets, squirming and twisting his ankles like a fidgety child who has been called to see the headmaster.

‘Did you want something?’ I ask in an attempt to make him go away quicker.

‘I had a message to pop up, something about some changes to the…’ he begins to explain before stopping abruptly. Perhaps the look on my face is representative of how boring that sounded.

‘That wasn’t me, it’ll have been Sweet Caroline,’ I tell him. ‘She’s just gone for her lunch.’

‘Why do you call her Sweet Caroline?’ He laughs.

Oh shit, did I say that out loud? That’s never happened to me before.

‘Erm, because she isn’t,’ I admit truthfully, my mind blank of any other logical explanation.

New guy cracks up laughing.

‘I thought it might because she puts those doughnuts out in the staffroom every morning,’ he replies.

‘Yes, that would have been a better explanation, wouldn’t it?’ I reply, almost for my own benefit.

‘Do you mind if I wait around for her?’

‘Knock yourself out,’ I reply.

He takes a seat at her desk and twirls in her chair.

I continue to type nothing in particular so he doesn’t speak to me, and so that I can get on with all my non-existent work.

I try not to give it too much thought, because I don’t want to admit it, not even to myself, but it sometimes feels like the only reason Will didn’t fire me was because he wanted to keep me around. On paper I am his assistant. The thing is, he already has Caroline working as his secretary, and she seems to tick all the boxes an assistant would too. I think Caroline thinks I am useless to the company and massively overpaid for the work I do. Caroline is probably right in thinking this. Still, that’s no reason for her to be as rude to me as she is. Sometimes I think it’s because she knows about Will and me. I suppose that, if she is wrongly under the impression that he and his wife are still together – like everyone else is – then it’s no wonder she dislikes me.

‘So, Candy – ’ new guy starts, but I cut him off.

‘Candice,’ I correct him. ‘I hate being called Candy.’

I instantly feel bad for correcting him. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve been very nice to him since the day he started. On his very first day he just breezed in here, all fun and freelance and I couldn’t believe it when he asked me out, in front of Will, before we’d even exchanged pleasantries, before Will had even shown him to his office. His confidence left me dumbstruck, but before I had a chance to say anything I clocked the unimpressed look on Will’s face. He couldn’t hide his jealousy, and gave Geordie Shore a telling-off for flirting with me.

I would have been mortified but the new guy just laughed it off, like it was no big deal. I’d have been in tears in the toilets, just like I am every time Sweet Caroline gives me a dressing-down, but not new guy; he still comes and sits on my desk, chatting to me like we’re old friends, even though I give nothing back. Well, I don’t want to upset Will, do I? So I figure if I’m not too pally with the new guy then maybe he’ll stop trying to be my friend. The thing is, it’s like the more I try to ignore him, the harder he tries with me. This really winds me up.

‘You need to lighten up,’ he tells me. ‘All the cool kids shorten their names.’

I shrug my shoulders.

‘Candice just takes so much longer to say,’ he persists, and I’m not sure if he’s kidding or not.

‘Well you could take it up with my parents, but they’re dead,’ I tell him harshly, in an attempt to shut the conversation down.

‘Rough,’ he replies, and I don’t know if he’s referring to my orphan status or my manner.

Before I got involved with Will – when I was young, sweet and approachable – I didn’t attract much attention from guys. As a shy and unremarkable teen with only female friends, I had no confidence to talk to boys and in turn they had no desire to talk to me. Back then I would have given anything to be catcalled, even if it was just a tramp drunkenly yelling at me to show him my tits, that would’ve been enough. I mean, I wouldn’t have shown him, but it would’ve been nice to be asked. I think that’s why I was so blown away when a handsome, grown man like Will wanted anything to do with me. Now that I’m happy (ish) with Will, the last thing I want is men coming on to me, but now that I’m not interested in anyone else, I seem to have my pick of the fine, eligible bachelors of Manchester. Why yes, I am being sarcastic. Catcallers in the street, drunks in bars, well-travelled IT freelancers – the harder I try to seem uninterested, the more people seem to try. It’s weird.

When Geordie Shore first asked me out, I didn’t get a chance to reject him before Will intervened, but after that I made sure he knew I wasn’t interested. Could I have been interested were it not for my relationship with Will? I’m not certain, but what I am certain of now is that he has become this huge pain in my arse. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered when he showed interest in me, because he’s undeniably gorgeous, but he upsets Will when he hits on me, he stops me getting my (admittedly near non-existent) work done, but worst of all he just irks me in a way that I can’t even explain.

There’s something about the way he looks at me that I just don’t like. I’m a very closed book; I keep myself to myself, but with the new guy it’s like that doesn’t matter. I feel like he looks through me, like he can see all my secrets and there’s nothing I can do about it.

‘I might go grab a doughnut,’ the new guys announces to fill the silence. ‘Can I get you one?’

‘No, thank you,’ I reply, my eyes fixed firmly on my screen.

‘Don’t tell me you don’t like doughnuts?’ he gasps, faux dramatically for effect.

‘I don’t really eat junk,’ I tell him. It is technically true that I am trying not to eat junk. It’s not fun at all and sometimes, when I’m having a rough day, I’d love nothing more than to work my way through a baker’s dozen, but I don’t. OK, I maybe sneak one now and then, but after last night, I need to behave today.

‘Healthy eater?’ he asks, nodding towards my body. ‘Well, you look good for it.’

‘Thank you.’ I look up at him, and smile briefly.

He smiles back before dashing out of the room. The staff room isn’t far and soon enough he’s back with four doughnuts on a plate, each a different flavour, but all absolutely delicious-looking. At least two of them clearly involve chocolate and I feel my breathing quicken as I eyeball them longingly. I try not to make eye contact with delicious food, lest I fall off the wagon and eat everything that crosses my path on my way to the ground. I know that as soon as I hit the floor – like when Will makes any kind of remark about my weight – it will hurt so much, and no food is worth that, right? What is it they say? Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Whoever came up with that phrase has obviously never tasted a chocolate and peanut butter doughnut.

‘Right, two each and you can have first pick,’ new guy says as he pulls up Caroline’s chair, placing the plate on my desk and pushing it towards me. Oh God, what the hell is wrong with me? Why am I so weak for food? My mind is telling me no, but my stomach is telling me hell yes.

‘Just one,’ I say, convincing neither myself nor the new guy that I’ll stop after just one. I mean, look at them! I grab the chocolate and peanut butter one and start delicately nibbling away at it, instead of trying to stuff it in my mouth whole like my instincts are telling me to.

‘I’ll take the raspberry ripple one,’ he says, stabbing it with his finger before eating it off like a lollipop. ‘Your move,’ he says, his mouth full of food.

I make sure to empty my mouth before I speak.

‘It’s going to have to be the pink, glittery glazed one,’ I sigh.

‘I knew it,’ he says, clapping victoriously, absentmindedly forgetting the doughnut in this hand. He laughs and licks jam from his hands like a messy little boy. ‘I knew you’d go chocolate and then sparkly – proper girly girl, aren’t you?’

I shrug my shoulders.

‘Have you ever been to Thailand?’ he asks.

‘No,’ I reply, my instincts telling me not to get into conversation with him, to just eat my doughnut, feel ashamed of my lack of willpower and get on with pretending to work.

‘I went last year, amazing place,’ he tells me. ‘There’s this thing they eat, it’s high-protein and low-fat – you might like it. They’re pregnant crickets.’

I snap my head upright, taking my eyes off my blank screen to look at him in disbelief. I swallow hard to empty my mouth.

‘Excuse me, they’re what?’

‘Yeah, they’re crickets that are full of eggs. Apparently they raise them on a farm, feed them well so it makes for a yummier cricket.’

‘That’s disgusting,’ I squeak. It annoys me that I find him so interesting when I try so hard to ignore him. ‘Did you eat one?’

‘Of course,’ he tells me as he spins around in Sweet Caroline’s desk chair. ‘YOLO – that’s what the kids say, right? Also, when in Thailand… It was just one of many culinary delights they have over there.’

Unfazed by his disgusting story, I grab my second doughnut and start munching away.

‘Do I want to know?’ I ask, unsure if I do or I don’t.

‘Oh, you’d be amazed what they’ll put in their mouths over there,’ he replies with a cheeky wink, and I no sooner crack up laughing when we are interrupted by someone joining us. It’s Will.

He stands in the doorway, looking at me, then Geordie Shore, then me again.

‘Well, it looks like you two are having fun,’ Will says. ‘Remind me, do I pay you two to work or to sit around eating and laughing together?’

‘It’s my fault,’ the new guy says, still twirling in his chair like he couldn’t give a fuck, whereas my body has gone rigid with fear. Not for my job, but because I’m terrified of upsetting Will. ‘Caroline called for me. I’m just waiting for her to get back.’

‘Tell you what, you get back to work and I’ll have Candice call you when Caroline gets back. And you,’ he points at me, ‘my office, now.’

Will storms into his office and slams the door behind him.

‘Ah shit, I’m sorry,’ new guy says to me softly. ‘Didn’t mean to land you in it. You’re going to get a ticking off now, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘But I’m used to it.’

Chapter 5

I sit down in the chair opposite Will’s desk and anxiously nibble a fingernail, terrified of his reaction. With each second that ticks away, the anticipation of what he might say fills me with more and more fear, and I can feel my doughnuts doing somersaults in my stomach – minus the half of the pink one that is still in my hand, because I panicked and brought it with me. At least I think that’s what happened, unless I subconsciously just really, really want it.

Will glances towards it, a disapproving look on his face.

‘I only had the one,’ I say defensively.

‘Candice, you have chocolate on your face, and that is not a chocolate doughnut in your hand,’ he says with a sigh. ‘Why are you lying to me?’

‘OK, so I had two, but I’m going to the gym later and – ’

‘What else are you lying to me about?’ he asks, interrupting me.

‘What? Nothing!’ I insist, almost offended. I try so hard to be the perfect girlfriend for him, no matter how tough things get. I can’t believe he’s so upset about a few hundred calories. OK, I mean, it’s probably like seven hundred for both but…shit, seven hundred. When you stop and think about it, it’s bad, isn’t it?

‘It’s not the doughnut,’ he insists. ‘The new kid’s not going to be a problem for us, is he?’ Will asks.

‘The new guy?’

‘Yes. I see the two of you talking a lot, laughing and joking together…’

Will struggles to hide his jealously, but like a good girlfriend, I do my best to put his mind at rest. He really doesn’t have anything to worry about, and I’m not about to pretend he does to try and force his hand into going public before he’s ready.

‘Of course not. It’s always him talking to me – usually talking at me. I hardly give him the time of day.’

Will narrows his brown eyes at me thoughtfully.

‘I could get rid of him.’

I can’t help but giggle, because that almost sounded sinister. Of course, this is Will we’re talking about, and in his voice it couldn’t be clearer that he’s talking about sacking him, and not having him bumped off.

‘Don’t be silly, it’s not worth the trouble,’ I tell him, grabbing his hand.

Will squeezes my hand and gives me a smile.

‘Well he’s only working for us on an ad hoc basis, on the new network and website. We spoke about more work after that, but he didn’t seem keen. From the look of his CV, he doesn’t stay anywhere long but he’s good at what he does. Great, in fact. He’s quite the colourful character.’

I’ve picked up on as much from the stories he’s told me, and the things I’ve heard him telling others. He’s certainly an interesting one.

Safely in the privacy of his office – except I don’t feel that safe in here, nor does it feel that private any more – Will walks around the desk and massages my shoulders. But not before taking the remainder of my doughnut and throwing it in the bin. I watch solemnly as it lands with a thud, and as I momentarily consider if it might still be edible, I realise that I need to up my diet game, because that is a disgusting thing to think.

‘Look, I understand that you’re upset because I made you hide under the desk and I’m sorry,’ my lover finally apologises to me for the events of the previous day, like it’s some silly man crime he’s committed. Not noticing a new haircut, keeping his socks on during sex, leaving the toilet seat up, oh, and having you hide under the desk while his secretary is in the room. Standard stuff.

Despite Will’s instructions, the new guy didn’t seem anxious to get back to his department in a hurry, as Caroline was expecting him. He explained this again to a furious Will when he came back out to summon me into his office. I suspected that Will was only so angry with the new guy because he was flirting with me again, and not because IT productivity would be down. I worry that he might be able to hear our conversation if he’s still outside and lower my voice.

‘It’s fine,’ I tell him, finally taking my eyes off the bin.

‘Not long until our holiday from the world,’ Will says brightly. ‘I’ll just pop my head around the door at each office, and then the days and nights are ours. I’ve got us booked into some beautiful hotels, and I’ve got some romantic surprises set up. It’s going to be great.’

‘It is.’ I sigh.

‘I love you, Candice Hart,’ Will tells me, before he kisses me. And just like that, I am his again. Any little doubts in my mind or worries that he might not be worth it are wiped out as soon as he shows me any affection. With one kiss, he is out of my bad books.

‘You too,’ I tell him when our lips finally part.

Will pinches my cheek like he always does. I’ve never understood why people do that as a sign of affection because, if anything, it’s kind of uncomfortable – borderline painful – but I’ve come to associate the feeling with Will and what he means when he does it and it makes me feel great.

Our moment only lasts a few seconds.

‘Oh, before I forget, I’ve got Charlie’s leaving card here. I need you to sign it, and get the few remaining people who haven’t done so to do the same. It’s just Rick and the IT team, so if you could get that done ASAP.’

He walks over to his tidy desk and locates the card without much searching, then he hands it to me, before adjusting my outfit a little for me, making sure I’m tidy too. Will kisses me on the forehead before the ringing of his phone drags him back to his desk.

‘Hello, Caroline,’ he answers, so she must be back at her desk, which means hopefully the new guy will have cleared off. ‘OK, send her in.’

‘I’ve called for a meeting with Julie, you know the girl who cleans the offices?’

I nod, uninterested. I don’t know much about Julie, other than the fact that she’s my age, Sweet Caroline’s right-hand woman, and a total bitch. She once would have certainly lost me my job, were it not for my relationship with Will. She was tidying my desk as I was working, and I was panicking to get an email sent before the end of the day. I had two piles of invoices on my desk, one of which needed shredding. She was going on at me to clear them, so I told her which pile needed destroying. Anyway, she shredded the wrong one, and Will hit the roof. I was so certain I carefully told her which pile was for the shredder, but she wouldn’t have it. She started crying and Will fell soft, because he’s useless around emotional women, and the whole situation was just quietly forgotten about. But I know that somewhere there’s a HR record of the events, probably saying it’s all my fault.

‘Well, she’s doing an awful job. Look at this.’

Will runs a finger across a framed photo that sits on his desk. I glance at his finger, which looks absolutely fine to me, but he does have a reputation for being a perfectionist.

‘I’m going to have to have a word,’ he insists.

As I head for the door, Julie walks inside, squeezing past me.

‘Candice,’ she says, acknowledging my existence without a hint of pleasantness.

‘Julie,’ I reply as I go to pass her in the doorway.

‘Breathe in,’ she says with a sweet little giggle as I squeeze past her. Well if she’d just move, I wouldn’t need to.

I close Will’s office door behind me, pissed off at Julie but satisfied with another successful interaction with Will. It’s hard spending so much time around him at work, always so close, but never being able to touch – only when we can squeeze in these brief moments together. That’s all they are though: moments. Now it’s back to work.

Chapter 6

‘Honey, I’m home,’ I call out, as I do every night, and my dutiful little cat runs up to me and shows me affection, like she always does when I get home. It was Will’s idea that I get a pet, so that I had some company when Amy finally moved out. I would’ve preferred a puppy, but a kitten was less work. Cats are much more independent, and don’t take much looking after. They’re capable of showing affection, but they don’t need to. They’re happy on their own, doing their own thing – the perfect pet for me then.

As much as I love Honey, sometimes I look at her, and feel like she’s the first step to my never-ending spinsterhood, a reminder that I’m going to be forever alone. Deep down, at the back of my mind, I do worry that I’m going to live here at the top of my tower until someone comes to rescue me from a life where I have more cats then I do husbands. Even if I don’t get more cats like the crazy cat lady I imagine I’ll turn into, one cat still makes that a fact. Unless, of course, we’re counting other people’s husbands, but that’s merely a technicality, isn’t it?

The first thing I do is head for my wardrobe, where I hang up my clothes, before taking a seat at my dressing table. I let my hair down – immediately scraping it into a bun and removing my make-up. Despite it being June there’s a chilly breeze tonight, so I put on a pair of pink flannel pyjamas, which, despite being purchased from Victoria’s Secret, are sexy by no stretch of the imagination. Then I head for the kitchen, throw some diced chicken into a pan and cook it, before throwing in a packet of stir-fry sauce. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with having this for dinner, it’s just that it’s this kind of healthy, low-fat, low-calorie, low-fun stuff that I live on to make sure my new dresses keep fitting me. I am bored of it, but I toss it around in the pan with the wrist action of a professional chef, breaking only to pop out onto the balcony to water my plants.

I never really thought I had a problem with my weight, until that first time Will pointed out that I was making unhealthy lifestyle choices. I wouldn’t say he was keeping tabs on my weight, but he started making helpful suggestions about how I could drop those extra few pounds I’ve been carrying around. At first, I was good at it. It was simple maths, just eat less and move more and those few pounds melt right off. But then, when I wanted to go back to eating ‘normally’ Will explained to me that I would pile it all back on – and more. The diet was OK for a few months, but I miss food so much. Eating steak just reminded me how much I love it, and I miss chocolate more than anything, which is probably why I’m powerless to resist when someone literally offers it to me on a plate. I’m healthier though, right? I’ll live a longer life, even if it will be a joyless one without big bars of Cadbury’s chocolate to keep me happy.

After sitting at the dining table to eat, all alone, I make myself a cup of tea, grab a SkinnyKwik chocolate cereal bar (a poor excuse for the real thing) and get comfortable on the sofa, ready for another night in, all alone.

Netflix has become my best friend. I recently started binge-watching Breaking Bad of a night and, I have to say, I am hooked. It’s a huge shift in genre from the last thing I watched, which was Gossip Girl, but as much as I loved that, Breaking Bad is just something else. Watching the journey Walter embarks on is eye-opening to say the least, and as much as it is reminding me that life can be short, it is also showing me just how much you can change your life. In a way, I relate. No, I’m not embarking on a career cooking meth – even stir-fry is a stretch for my culinary skills. Walter is trying to be this Heisenberg persona to fit in with his new world, just like I am trying so hard to fit into Will’s world. I’ll be interested to see how it plays out for him – and me. It’s hard to imagine anyone can keep up the act of pretending to be something they’re not, not without someone figuring out that they’re a fraud, or them turning into the person they’re pretending to be and losing their identity for ever.

As I sit here on the sofa, alone, cuddled up in the dark, with my new favourite show on the TV, I realise something: my relationship with TV is a lot like my relationship with Will. It takes me on an emotional roller coaster. It can make me so happy and then leave me so crushed in so much as a scene. A happy ending can lift my mood, just like a plot twist can distract me from my thoughts all day, or a sad scene can leave me feeling devastated. A character death leaves me feeling like I’ve actually lost someone. I mourn them. I think about them, about what the show would be like if they were still in it, just like I wonder what my life would be like if I’d made different choices. TV never lets me down, though. It keeps me entertained on these lonely nights. It excites me… I’ve just realised I’m living vicariously through Walter White.

It’s a particularly tense moment of the show, and as I await the fate of a main character, I feel my fists clench and my nails dig into the palms of my hands. The TV is silent, I am silent and just as tension is building my phone comes to life on the table in front of me, lighting up and vibrating with a message, causing me to jump out of my skin. As my heart finally stops pounding, I narrow my eyes, giving my phone a suspicious glance. Who is texting me? People hardly ever text me. Not since I got involved with an unavailable man and alienated all my friends.

I pause my show and grab my phone. It’s Will! That’s so weird; he very rarely texts me. I don’t give myself a chance to worry. I grab my phone and open it.

Will: Hi.

Me: Hey, you OK? xx

Will: I’m good. Steph out. I’m babysitting. What are you up to?

Oh, so that’s why he can text me, because he’s alone tonight. Not that I’m complaining – it’s nice to hear from him.

I’m not quite sure where to place it, but there seems to be a line – a generational gap – where people above a certain age seem to be bad at texting. Perhaps it’s because they were just that little bit too old to get caught up in MySpace and, for some reason, they just never signed up to Facebook like everyone else did. At the moment it’s around the forty mark. Messages are blunt, to the point and without kisses or emoji. Occasionally you’ll see a ‘LOL’ but it’s ten years too late. That’s when I notice the age gap, when he LOLs, when I realise that he’s never going to find a message containing nothing but a banana emoji funny. I remind myself that I shouldn’t find that funny either, because I’m a grown-ass lady.

Me: Just reading a book in bed. You?

Liar. But I’m not about to tell him I’m over-emotionally investing in a TV drama about the drug trade. It hardly screams ‘wife material’ does it?

Will: Just in bed. Thinking of you. What are you wearing?

Oh no he didn’t. In all our time together, sexting has never been a part of our thing – hell, regular texting is hardly a part of our thing. Will always said it was too risky. It’s when he says stuff like that, that this feels wrong, like I’m a dirty little secret. I remind myself that I know the score, but there’s always this little niggling feeling somewhere at the back of my mind that this is wrong.

I glance down at my pink flannel PJs.

Me: Pink lace bra and pink French knickers.

Another lie, and one that no female would ever believe because we all know how uncomfortable going to bed in a bra is, especially an underwired one.

Will: Send me a photo.

As I read this, I feel my eyebrows jump up and my eyes widen. He’s never said anything like that to me before. I think for a moment. It’s weird and I know it, but one thing that has always served me well is to wonder: ‘What would Stephanie do?’ when it comes to Will. So not to make any mistakes, I always consider my actions and whether they make me worthy of Will, and I am fairly certain that swapping sexy photos is not something Stephanie would do – and that’s Will’s type – but he’s asking for it. It’s not like I’m sending him one out of the blue. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing the type of lady Will goes for – the type I have painstakingly forged myself into – would do, and there’s a voice in my head telling me that it’s not the kind of thing I would do anyway, so…

Me: Nice try ;)

Will: Come on. I’m alone and I’m fantasising about you. Need a visual and I miss you.

Me: You’ll be seeing me tomorrow. Surely you can wait until then? Hehe.

When Will talks to me and interacts with me like I am a human being, it’s the greatest feeling in the world. Not the business-related stuff he says at work or the blunt texts he sends me to try and keep me sweet, but when he says things in a way that makes me feel like he’d probably be a bit bothered if I died. Those are the moments I live for.

On the flip side, when he doesn’t text me back, it hurts like hell. Being able to see that he’s read my message, but hasn’t replied; it doesn’t feel good and it makes me do stupid things. I try and think of reasons to talk to him, to coerce him into replying to me, just to get a message from him, just to have a moment where I know he remembers that I’m alive. On the occasions I don’t hear back from him, I’ll double-text him. I know it’s a needy thing to do, but I can’t help it. Our conversations that end with a goodbye and a kiss leave me feeling on top of the world – another successful interaction – but when he doesn’t reply, I can drive myself crazy wondering why not. Is he with his wife? Playing with his kids? Does he really think that much about me when he isn’t with me? Because I think about him a lot. I often wonder how his day is going: if he’s feeling OK, if he’s happy or sad, if he’s having fun. I see things in shops and think that he’d love them, or it will occur to me to forward silly internet memes to him, because he might find them funny (even though I usually decide that he won’t find them funny and don’t bother), but does he feel that way about me?

Even if it is because he’s fantasising about me, the fact he says he misses me means the world to me. What’s interesting is that, although I often fantasise about Will, it’s rarely sexual. I imagine what it would be like to cuddle up on the sofa and watch TV with him, to walk down the street holding his hand and to be able to take him along to parties with me as my plus one.

Amy’s wedding is coming up and I’m dreading it. I hardly ever get invited to these things, but it would be nice to have someone to go with. Someone to support me, someone to complain about the food with and dance with until the small hours. Someone to get drunk with, go home with and have them take care of me and make me breakfast the next morning. That’s the kind of thing I fantasise about.

Will: OK. Will see you tomorrow bright and early.

Me: Sweet dreams. Love you xxx

Will: You too.

I place my phone back down on the table, ecstatic about hearing from Will outside of work hours. In a way, I’m lucky that Will has such a busy job. It means he spends more time at work than he does at home, but it’s always nice to hear from him during time that is not ours.

I grab the remote and hit play. Now, where was I…

Chapter 7

As if it wasn’t bad enough that I’m a little bit late for work today, I have just sat down at my desk and there is Charlie’s leaving card staring me in the face, the one I was supposed to have everyone sign yesterday – the one that is for her leaving party at lunchtime today, which, thanks to my lateness, is not that far off.

I sit down at my desk, without so much as a ‘good morning’ from Sweet Caroline, and stare at the card thoughtfully, wracking my brains for who Will said was left to sign it. Rick in the warehouse and the IT department – I’m pretty sure that was it.

As I sip the cup of tea that I picked up on my way into work, I catch Caroline’s attention. She spies the drink that obviously made me that bit more late than I already was, and narrows her eyes over the tops of her tiny spectacles at me. Caroline is in her late sixties, and is pretty much a permanent fixture here at the firm. She’s known Will since he was young, and as such they have a mutual level of respect. When she was his dad’s secretary, Will told me she would always be nice to him when he would visit the office, so as soon as he started working here and moved up in the company, he never stopped respecting her as one of his elders, like the well-mannered man he is. This means that he finds it very difficult to boss her around, and when he wants to shout at her (in that way bosses with stressful jobs do when things aren’t going right) you can see him suppress it, almost to the point of discomfort – a skill he seems to lack when it comes to me, his girlfriend. I guess he just doesn’t have the sweet spot for me that he does for Sweet Caroline.

Caroline’s look is interesting. Her short, auburn hair is always flicked out at the sides, with the tips highlighted bright red, which I don’t like. I’ve never been a fan of unnatural hair colours. It’s not that I’m against having hair coloured as a thing, but if you can tell that it’s not natural then it’s not for me. Caroline always dresses like a Loose Women panellist, that is until there is work do, then she really goes to town and goes all Truly Scrumptious on us.

As Caroline stands up and walks around her desk, I see this as my opportunity to shift a little of my already light workload onto her.

‘You on the move, Caroline?’ I ask.

‘Yes, why?’ she replies curtly.

‘Oh, it’s just Wi- Mr Starr,’ I stop myself from calling Will by his first name, because this ‘display of disrespect’ always seems to irk her, ‘asked that Rick and the IT boys sign Charlie’s card.’

As I say the words I remember the other person who I was supposed to have sign the card: me. I grab a pen and quickly scribble something inside.

‘Did he ask you to do it, Candice?’

‘He just said it needed doing. He didn’t say that he needed me specifically to do it.’

Caroline carries on walking.

‘You know what they say,’ she lectures me. ‘If you want something done right, do it yourself.’

‘I don’t care if it’s done wrong,’ I call after her hopefully, but she’s gone. Crap. I’ll just have to do it myself.

I drain the last of my tea before exhaling deeply. It’s not that I don’t want to do any work, it’s just that I can’t face the ‘banter’ of the warehouse, nor the weirdness of the IT department.

I stand up and smooth out my dress before grabbing the card and a pen, and making my way along the corridor towards the warehouse. The nauseating yellow corridor walls seem especially harsh on the eyes today. Yellow is very much the colour of the company, and it’s clear that a variety of marketing experts over the years have really abused the fact the company name is Starr. Queue lots of space puns to do with storage and light speed in relation to deliveries. The logo is a little yellow shooting star, going round in a circle, which is OK, but the idea of having yellow walls to match is just too much. They would’ve been better having dark walls, with little twinkling lights in the ceiling to look like stars in the night sky – but I was removed from the marketing department, so what do I know?

‘…and you know how hard bloodstains are to remove.’

As I walk into the warehouse office, I catch the end of whatever Tommy is telling Rick, and it doesn’t sound great, does it?

As I enter the room, they both pause and stare at me for a second.

I try to be well mannered at work, well, with everyone expect Caroline and now the new guy, I guess, but with everyone else I do quite well. I keep myself to myself, but most of all, I keep my bitchy comments to myself. That said, if someone were to put a gun to my head and force me to break character by asking me what I thought of the warehouse staff, then I’d most likely admit that I thought they were all probably serial killers, with a couple of sex offenders thrown into the mix for diversity. OK, maybe the term sex offender is a little harsh, but only because charges were never filed. Matt, one of the warehouse minions, has been spotted touching himself on several occasions and everyone here at the flagship Manchester branch knows it. I, personally, have never seen him at it, and Will tells me it’s an urban legend, but I’m not so sure. I just passed him on my walk through the warehouse – he always looks so shifty.

If anyone were going to put a gun to my head and force me to do something, it would be Tommy. Tommy is truly terrifying, and I always seem to catch little snippets of his conversations that make him sound like his hobbies involve strangling women before chopping them up and dumping them in the canal. Tommy is Scottish, and a retired semi-pro rugby player. He’s very tall and broad with big arms, perfect for choking the life out of women. Thanks to his bald head, bulging eyes and big ears, he looks like a pale version of Shrek, and thanks to his accent he sounds like him as well. Apart from being bald too, Rick is Tommy’s polar opposite. He’s short with very little muscle, but he doesn’t have to do the heavy lifting Tommy does. Rick is the manager down here so he mostly just tells people what to do and ‘rides’ the forklift. He always has a helmet on, making him look like an old, Mancunian Bob the Builder.

With no one prepared to explain the blood remark to me, I decide it’s best to get the card signed and get out of here before I end up in pieces, in a crate headed for the seabed.

‘Rick, I need you to sign Charlie’s card, please.’

He beckons me over with his hand and takes the card from me. Rick is the very serious, silent type around women. I have witnessed him laughing and joking but it’s very much a with-the-lads kind of thing. Around women, he just clams up. Not Tommy, though. No one is safe from his banter.

‘How’s tricks at the top of the banana with the boss?’ he asks me.

The banana is what we call the yellow spiral staircase and subsequent corridor up to Will’s office. Were it not for the fact everyone calls it that, I might wonder what he meant by it.

‘Fine, thanks,’ I reply. ‘How’s…’ I glance around, taking in my surroundings. Even though we have a lovely canteen and staffroom here, this place doubles up as both Rick’s office and a sort of man cave for the warehouse workers. The walls are covered with posters and pictures, and the only ‘piece of art’ that doesn’t involve a naked lady or a car is a framed photo of the warehouse team doing Movember last year. They’re all standing huddled together, clutching the massive cheque that shows just how much money they made for the cause, and it was a lot, in spite of the fact most of them have moustaches all year round anyway.

Other than Rick’s messy desk, there are two tables. The first is in the centre of the room, surrounded by chairs. This where Tommy and Rick are sitting, with both playing cards and dominos laid out in front of them. There’s a work surface at the side of the room that looks a bit like a pop-up amateur meth lab (or maybe I’ve just been watching too much Breaking Bad) where they have all their protein powders and bars and all the various bottles and mixers and tools they need to remain ‘hench’ and ‘make gains’ and all the other stuff I hear them say before going back to my desk to google what the fuck it all means.

‘How’s…this?’ I ask, unsure what word to use.

‘All good. Just killing time before the meeting with the pricks from HR,’ Tommy tells me. ‘There’s been a few complaints.’

I decide not to ask, nor tell him that he probably shouldn’t refer to the HR team as ‘pricks’.

Rick hands me back the card so I thank him and head for the door. As I close it behind me I hear Tommy resume their conversation.

‘So I’m scrubbing at this bloodstain with that meat tenderiser powder shit that Sharon cooks with, because I read online that it helps…’

I decide not to stick around and listen to the rest of their conversation, lest I become an accessory to something unsavoury – and I’m not talking about whatever it is Sharon cooks with her ‘meat tenderiser’, whatever the fuck that is.

Next up I head for the IT department, which, unlike Rick’s office with its big windows that look out over the warehouse, has no windows at all. I knock on the door before stepping inside. All six of them are gathered together as Garth, who is head of IT, animatedly tells them a story.

‘…and I looked down at my chest, and this sword was sticking through it, bloody everywhere! I look up, and there’s an army of them in front of me as well as behind me, and I desperately need an adrenalin shot to get my health up…’

Garth pauses as I enter the room but, unlike Tommy the serial killer, he feels he should probably explain himself to me.

‘This must sound well weird.’ He laughs. ‘We talking about the Oculus Rift,’ he tells me, like that makes things crystal clear and this not seem weird. I remind myself to google that as soon as I get back to my desk.

‘Cool,’ I reply, only managing to fake enough sincerity to make me sound super sarcastic. ‘I won’t keep you long, I just need you all to sign Charlie’s leaving card before the party this afternoon. You guys are the last ones.’

The new guy is staring at me and smiling. It’s a friendly smile, but I still feel awkward about yesterday, just in case he could hear Will and me.

‘Roger that,’ Garth replies, taking the card from me. ‘I’ll pass this around if you do me a favour – have a play around on this.’ He plonks a silver MacBook on the desk in front of me. ‘We’ve had some complaints that the UI is affecting the UX.’

With that, Garth leaves me to it. I stare at the screen in front of me and scrunch up my face as I try and work out what the fuck that could possibly mean. I look left then right, like the answers might be on the walls amongst all the design plans, code and posters for things I am too ‘cool’ to get. As I look right I see the new guy still smiling at me. He pushes off the desk next to him, which sends him flying across the room to me on his desk chair. That’s the kind of thing that, if I did it, would see me crashing through a third-storey window, but Geordie Shore makes it seem cool and effortless.

‘That’s just his pretentious way of saying that people think how it looks affects how it works,’ he explains to me, and put like that it sounds simple.

‘Oh,’ I reply. ‘Thank you. Well, yeah, the yellow is too much.’

‘Ever since I got here, I have been telling them to go easy on the yellow crap,’ he tells me, relieved at least one other person shares his views. ‘I keep telling them that clean and minimalistic is on-trend right now, but they’re pushing the stars. We get it, the company is called Starr, but enough of the pretty little yellow things with five points – that’s not what a star looks like. A star is a big ball of exploding gas. They’re orange or, if they’re really hot, they’re blue. Although I suppose a big ball of exploding gas might not be the best option for branding considering our guys drive around in trucks all day.’ He laughs.

I chuckle. ‘I guess not.’

There’s silence for a few seconds before Garth hands the card to new guy to sign.

‘What did you think?’ he asks me.

‘Mate, she said same as me – too much yellow,’ new guy answers on my behalf.

‘Candice has been here long enough to know that this company and yellow go together like Jaime and Cersei Lannister.’ Garth laughs, taking his laptop and returning to his desk.

‘Yeah.’ I laugh, before turning to the new guy and staring blankly. He looks up from signing Charlie’s card and sees my puzzled, expectant look.

‘Oh, so I’m your dork translator now, am I?’ He laughs.

‘Something like that,’ I reply sweetly.

‘They’re characters from Game of Thrones,’ he informs me.

‘Oh, I see. I’m guessing they’ve been married a long time then,’ I reason.

‘Not quite,’ he replies. ‘So, will I be seeing you at Charlie’s leaving party?’

‘Maybe,’ I reply. I always seem to clam up a little when we start getting on, an involuntary reaction, I think, probably because I worry what Will would think if he saw us together.

‘Maybe?’ he gasps. ‘Candy, it’s Charlie’s leaving do; you can’t swerve it!’

‘First of all, my name is Candice,’ I correct him, as always. ‘Second of all, you’ve been here five minutes; you don’t even know Charlie.’

‘How dare you,’ he gasps dramatically again. ‘Charlie is one of the nicest blokes you could hope to meet. He’s been great with me while I’ve been here – even if it’s only been five minutes.’

I purse my lips and nod my head. It was a nice try, but I’m not buying it. ‘Charlie is one of the ladies who works in the canteen.’ I laugh.

‘Oh,’ he replies. ‘Oh! It might seem weird that I wrote “good luck, pal” in the card.’

‘Yeah, you might want to change that.’

‘Well you said we were the last, so I sealed the card.’ He laughs as he scratches his head. As I watched him sign his name, it had occurred to me to maybe have a peep, to see what his name was. I didn’t really listen when he introduced himself, and no one ever seems to say his name. It seems rude to ask him now and I don’t want to make myself look like a bitch.

I hate to stereotype, but everyone in the IT department looks exactly as you would expect an IT department employee to look – not the new guy, though.

I’m not sure if I have a type, but I don’t think the new guy is it. Well, he’s nothing like Will, that’s for sure. That said, Geordie Shore is a very attractive man. I doubt he has any trouble getting girls, which is what makes me wonder why he tries so hard with me. I’d guess he’s about my age, he’s tall and thin. Not skinny though – he’s very well toned and it shows underneath the fitted V-neck T-shirt he’s wearing. God, I hate that I’m looking. He has tanned skin, big, deep brown eyes and brown hair, making him fit the tall, dark and handsome bill that most go for. He’s got one of those short, neat beards – not the dirty, overgrown hipster type, but the kind that’s almost just like long stubble, and his longish dark hair is twisted up into one of those topknot things that are so popular at the moment. It fascinates me how young men have embraced what is essentially a ballerina bun for boys, giving it its own name in an attempt to make it cool and manly. He wears thick-rimmed, black glasses, which only add to his cool look. He doesn’t look like an IT nerd; he looks like a Topman model.

The most striking thing about him isn’t even the way he looks, but the way he carries himself. He’s that guy all the warm-blooded females in the office have a crush on, the kind who flirts with everyone because he can. He doesn’t come across as smarmy though, not with those baby-faced dimples. He’s got the kind of face that could get away with murder.

‘So, which one is Charlie?’ he asks, snapping me from my thoughts and dragging my gaze from his muscular arms back up to his eyes.

‘Erm…blonde, curly hair. Early forties. Short,’ I babble, struggling to describe her without using her obvious identifier.

‘Oh, I know, the one with the big – ’

‘Heart,’ I interrupt him, to save him from having to state the (awkward) obvious. The thing with Charlie is that she wears these distractingly low V-neck tops that really accentuate her chest. And when I say they’re low, I mean they’re low. Even I can’t help but stare. It’s like her neckline is an arrow pointing down towards her cleavage, sucking you in like the Bermuda triangle.

‘Yes,’ he replies with a thoughtful nod. ‘Heart.’ The new guy thinks for a second before adding: ‘That must by why her tops are so tight, if her heart is so big.’

I laugh, shaking my head. ‘Well, I’d better get back to work,’ I tell him. It’s strange, but I kind of don’t want to go. Perhaps it’s because there’s such a nice atmosphere in here, even if I don’t know what anyone is talking about most of the time.

‘Well, I’ll see you at Charlie’s leaving do then,’ he tells me. ‘I imagine her boobs are already halfway out the door.’

I can’t help but leave the IT department with a big smile on my face, grinning to myself all the way back through the banana. For once, I’m actually looking forward to a work thing.

Chapter 8

‘What kind of party is this?’ the new guy asks as he sidles up to me, disappointment in his voice. ‘There’s no booze.’

New guy. Again. I can’t get rid of him! The truth is, though, that I’m glad he’s here because until he came to stand next to me, I was just hanging around in the canteen on my own and it would have certainly stayed that way. I did catch the attention of my female fan club when I entered the room – minus Caroline who isn’t here – but her minions made me feel suitably unwelcome. You’d think Julie would show me a little solidarity considering we’re the only two young female employees, but I’ve been able to feel her burning a hole in the back of my head with her death stare since I arrived.

‘It’s lunchtime and we’re at work,’ I remind him. ‘Anyway, this lot don’t do well with drink.’

From where we’re standing in the corner of the canteen, we have a clear view of everyone. Well, everyone but Caroline – and Will, who is stuck in a meeting, so I decide it’s safe to tell the new guy a little bit about everyone.

‘That’s Charlie, the guest of honour,’ I say as I point her out.

‘Who are the two bald guys standing next to her?’ he asks seriously.

‘There’s no one next to her,’ I reply, puzzled. Charlie is over by the buffet table, munching away on a sausage roll.

‘Oh, no, wait,’ new guy starts, ‘it’s just her boobs. Carry on.’

I giggle and shake my head. I admire Charlie’s confidence to wear such low tops, especially around all the pervy blokes who work here. I’d love to care less about what people think.

‘You see that guy.’ I subtly point at a young, skinny blonde lad who is entertaining the gaggle of female staff members. ‘That’s Craig. He’s the main reason we have dry office parties now. Last Christmas we had the bash at a hotel in town. The bosses went all-out. It was amazing.’

Well, the party was amazing, but it wasn’t amazing for me. Stephanie was supposed to be away with the kids, staying with family, so Will and I had a room booked at the hotel. I spent so much money on my outfit, I had my hair done and I spent ages getting ready. Then I turned up at the party and there was Stephanie on Will’s arm. She’d spent even more money on her outfit and looked like she’d spent even longer getting ready. She looked perfect. She knew that Will was staying at the hotel so, to keep up appearances as always, she stayed with him. Will and I had a big row that night. It’s the closest we’ve ever come to ending things.

‘So what did Craig do?’ the new guy asks, snapping me from my thoughts.

‘He thought he’d try and steal a bottle of champagne from the bar, reached over and somehow managed to catch his arm on something sharp. I’ve never seen a cut like it – or so much blood! It was all you could smell; it filled the air. He had to be rushed to hospital for an operation!’

The new guy shakes his head with despair, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of Cray-Craig’s (that’s what I call him in my head) behaviour.

‘Man, I love a drop of champers, but that’s insane.’

‘It’s completely insane,’ I agree. ‘Especially considering the fact it was a free bar.’

The new guy laughs. ‘So who else do I have to blame for enduring this sober?’

I glance around the room and spot a red-headed fifty-something lady wearing a navy blue twinset. She’s delicately sipping from her plastic cup, occasionally pinching crisps from the plate of the person next to her as she chats away.

‘That’s Cindy. See how prim and proper she seems? She turned up to a party with her husband – such a nice man! Very small and bald though, makes him look a bit like a turtle because he wears his suits too big for some reason. Anyway, Cindy had a bit too much to drink, made her way to the dance floor and started trying to grind on the men – then the women. Poor hubby just stood at the side of the room, watching, without a hint of any kind of emotion.’

‘That dirty devil.’ New guy laughs. ‘Who’s that twat?’

I look over in the direction he’s pointing and spot Karl. He’s simultaneously picking his nose and drooling over Charlie as she eats her sausage roll.

‘That’s Karl. He’s from Liverpool. He’s one of the drivers, and an office party repeat offender. He’s actually the reason there’s now a “three strikes, you’re out” behavioural policy.’

‘This I need to hear. Shall we sit down?’ new guy asks. ‘I’ll grab us a couple of lemonades.’

I smile and nod.

I take a seat at one of the canteen booths and shortly after the new guy joins me. He doesn’t take a seat opposite me like I expected him to, he sits next to me and scooches up close so we can continue our conversation without anyone hearing.

‘Do you know what this is?’ he asks, flashing me his key ring.

‘Of course,’ I reply, almost offended. ‘Just because I didn’t know what the Ocu- Ocul-’

‘Oculus,’ he interrupts me, putting me out of my misery. ‘It’s virtual reality gaming – even I’m not nerdy enough for that, don’t sweat it.’

‘Oh. Well, I know what that is – it’s a flash drive.’

New guy wiggles his eyebrows before popping the top off it and pouring its crystal-clear contents out into our drinks, half in each lemonade.

‘What is that?’ I squeak.

‘Vodka,’ he says coolly. ‘For emergencies.’

‘What kind of emergency requires vodka?’

‘Dull parties.’ He laughs. ‘Now tell me about Karl and his previous.’

I’m not much of a big drinker these days, but I sip my drink gratefully.

‘His first strike was not long after I started working for the company and the party was at Wi- Mr Starr’s massive house,’ I begin, correcting myself as I go along. ‘It was a Friday night and Karl got so wasted he had to go and throw up in one of the bathrooms. Anyway, he must have passed out. The party ended, everyone went home…’

‘But not Karl?’ new guy guesses.

‘Not Karl. Karl woke up on the floor the next morning and was too scared to leave. As the story goes he had planned to try and sneak out, but the opportunity never arose. He stayed in the bathroom until Saturday evening when the cleaner found him – and the toilet he’d blocked with his vomit.’

‘Nice.’ New guy nods, almost impressed by Karl’s antics. ‘What was his second strike?’

‘That took place in this very room last Halloween – we had a costume party,’ I explain, widening my eyes, pre-empting his disbelief.

‘This lot in fancy dress?’ He laughs. ‘It’s mostly middle-aged women and old truckers.’

‘Yes, a superhero costume party,’ I continue, and he finds this even funnier.

‘Who were you?’ he asks, quick as a flash.

‘I was – of course – Wonder Woman,’ I tell him, modestly.

‘This I need to see pictures of!’ New guy looks visibly surprised as he says this. ‘I’ve never seen you in anything but your office Stepford get-up. I bet you were a hit with the fellas.’

I flash the new guy an unimpressed side glance.

The truth is that my outfit was actually a big hit with the drivers, who were also only used to seeing me in my office attire – although back then it wasn’t quite as Stepford as it is now. With my big, brunette curled wig, my boobs pushed up underneath my chin and the red thigh-high boots I had to visit a sex shop specifically just to find, I actually felt like I looked pretty cool. Will didn’t agree, and he took me to one side to tell me as much. He thought that it was far too revealing, and not really me. I remember the exact words he used: ‘not right for my body’. I glanced over at Stephanie in her red-belted mac and her red fedora, that he was obviously fine for her to leave the house in. I had accidentally whipped Will with my lasso of truth, and that’s when I realised he didn’t want a thigh-flashing Wonder Woman with her cleavage on show, he wanted Carmen Sandiego, in her figure-hiding clothes and with her educational agenda. That’s when I realised I needed a Wonder Woman makeover circa 1950s, when they took away her whip to get rid of any bondage overtones, and made her more traditional and Christian. I’d already been watching my mouth and behaviour, but that’s when I stated dressing more appropriately.

‘Karl came dressed as Mr Incredible and at some point in the evening, the Flash decided to tell him a superhero-themed joke.’

‘Dare I ask what the joke was?’

‘I believe it was something along the lines of: “What’s the difference between Batman and a Scouser?”’

New guy widens his eyes.

‘I know the one.’

‘Well Karl didn’t, and when he heard the punchline…he got a bit punchy himself. He launched at The Flash, the two of them crashed through the buffet table and they had to be pulled apart. If you look over at the table, you can see where the leg was repaired. The best part of the tale is that no one actually knows who The Flash was. So not only did he not get into trouble, but Karl doesn’t feel like he properly avenged Liverpool. He swears he’ll find out who it was, one day.’

As I realise how quickly I’m getting through my drink, I puff air out of my cheeks and I examine my glass.

‘Gosh, what is this?’ I ask. ‘It’s…powerful.’

‘Just a little something I picked up while travelling Europe. Balkan vodka – there are thirteen health warnings on the bottle,’ he announces proudly. ‘I was in Serbia and there was this rugby team from Yorkshire on a stag party. One of them thought he could knock back neat shots. You should’ve seen the paramedics trying to get him onto the stretcher. You don’t drive, right? Probably don’t drive today.’

‘I don’t drive,’ I assure him. ‘Do you?’

‘Yes, but not today, babe.’ He laughs. ‘Maybe not tomorrow if you come back to mine after work and have a drink with me.’

We are interrupted by a loud, exaggerated cough. For a moment, Will just hovers near our table, staring at us, before walking over to grab a glass of orange juice and taking his position in the centre of the room to make a speech.

‘Think the boss thinks we’re up to no good,’ the new guy whispers to me, giving me a pally nudge that Will definitely notices. As he gives his speech, he can’t take his eyes off us.

‘We’re a family here at Starr Haul, and it’s always sad to say goodbye to a much-loved member of the team. But I, for one, am proud of Charlie for leaving to open her own café,’ Will says, trying to direct his words at Charlie, but his eyes keep darting back to me and the new guy. ‘If Charlie ever needs any support, I’m sure you’ll all join me in extending a hand.’

‘I know what she needs supporting,’ new guy jokes to me, as he raises his hand.

‘Put your hand down,’ I snap.

‘But if you raise your hand for the easy ones, you don’t get asked the hard questions,’ he reasons. He’s clearly underestimated the strength of his vodka. I’m definitely feeling tipsy, and new guy is definitely acting it.

I reach up and take his hand, slowly bringing it back down to the table. Will, who seems to have one eye constantly on us, notices this too.

‘Charlie truly was, er, the bread and butter of the…the canteen,’ Will babbles, the distraction clearly ruining his perfectly planned speech. ‘Basically, we’ll miss you,’ he adds, clumsily, wrapping things up. ‘To Charlie.’

We all raise our glasses.

‘So, drink, after work?’ new guy starts again once we all go back to chatting amongst ourselves.

‘I’m just…I’m not really interested,’ I tell him, unsure how best to get out of this one, but panicking as I spot Will approaching us. If I tell him I have a boyfriend he might start asking me questions – questions that I won’t be able to answer.

‘You’re clearly interested in drinking – you just made short work of eighty-eight per cent vodka.’ He laughs, and I widen my eyes at the alcohol content. No wonder I’m feeling it.

‘I’m not actually much of a drinker,’ I tell him.

‘So we’ll drink tea and play video games. Your nerd knowledge clearly needs a bit of expanding.’

With Will nearly at our table, I need to do something to defuse the situation.

‘Is it so hard to believe not every single girl finds you attractive?’ I ask harshly.

‘Shit, Candy…’ new guy laughs ‘…it’s an invitation to play few games of Battlefield not a blow job.’

And, of course, this is the part of the conversation that Will catches. He stares at us, like maybe he’s expecting an explanation but neither of us offer one up.

‘Well, this is about as awkward as a Tinder date.’ New guy laughs again.

‘Sorry to drag you away from the party, Candice, but I’ve got something urgent I need you to take care of.’

The new guy raises his eyebrows but takes the hint. He scribbles something down on a piece of paper and hands me it.

‘If you change your mind,’ he says before wandering off.

Will stares at me for a second, so I theatrically screw the new guy’s number into a ball, making it clear I have no intention of using it. Will gestures with a nod of his head for me to follow him, before we make our way to his office in silence.

Caroline is sitting by her desk, manning the phone.

‘You get off to the party,’ Will tells her. ‘Candice will answer the phone for a while.’

‘Thank you, Mr Starr,’ she says with a smile, before subtly narrowing her eyes at me.

As soon as she has gone we step inside Will’s office. He closes the door behind him, unbuttons his suit jacket and takes a seat behind his desk. I hover in front of him like a naughty child hauled before the head teacher.

‘You know how difficult it was to organise this trip, don’t you?’ Will asks. ‘Squaring it with all the appropriate people, booking hotels, getting the car ready for the journey, making it seem like it was absolutely vital that someone stop by each branch of the firm to make sure that everyone was happy this week, and that that person be me specifically?’

‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,’ I reply, giving him an answer to each of his questions. I am never usually so cheeky with Will, and my behaviour doesn’t go unnoticed. That’ll be the vodka.

‘So you know that I am doing all of this because I don’t want to lose you.’

I nod my head.

‘So why do I feel like I need to worry about you and the new lad in IT?’ he asks. ‘You’re always together, laughing and joking – having inappropriate conversations.’

‘That’s all him. And no, I don’t want you to fire him,’ I say before Will has a chance to suggest it. ‘He’s just being friendly.’

‘Candice, take it from a man – he is interested in you. All you would need to do is say the word and he’d be all over you. Do you know how that makes me feel?’

‘But I’m only interested in you,’ I tell him as I walk around his desk and take a seat on his lap. ‘We were just having a chat and a drink at the party, that’s all.’

I lean forward and give Will a reassuring kiss while we have a moment alone together. It’s a slow, sexy kiss. The kind that would usually lead to other things, except…

‘You’ve been drinking,’ Will says accusingly. ‘The two of you have been getting drunk at work. I could fire you both for this.’

‘It was one tiny, little drink,’ I tell him, suddenly aware of how tipsy I sound, but equally aware of the fact that, the harder I try to disguise it, the more tipsy I seem. ‘To toast Carly leaving.’

‘You mean Charlie?’ he asks angrily.

Isn’t that what I said?

I place my hands on either side of Will’s face and look him in the eye.

‘Look, it was daft. I’m sorry. But nothing is going on between the new guy and me – I don’t even want to be his friend. You know I’m head-over-heels in love with you.’

Will softens a little. ‘It’s just…I worry. You know why I worry.’

‘I know why you worry,’ I tell him. ‘But it’s fine. This trip means everything to me – to us. This is our chance to see how we function as a proper couple, to figure out our future.’

Will nods thoughtfully. ‘Good.’ He pinches my cheek. ‘OK, we’ll figure all this out while we’re away.’

‘What’s the plan for Friday then?’ I ask.

‘Well, we’ll need to set off nice and early. Caroline has made all the arrangements – apart from the hotels, obviously. I sorted that so she wouldn’t pick up on the fact we’re sharing a room. I’ll swing by your place, pick up your lovely self and your luggage and get straight off for the ferry to The Isle of Man, and a week of bliss.’

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