I did.
My entire profile is bullshit piled on top of pipe dreams, but I had to load half that stuff in to get around the mods and admins. Priti got kicked out of the same chat forum app that’s taken over the school just for loading in her made-up birthday wrong, only once, and now she’s practically a social pariah.
But Mr Braxen doesn’t need to pretend to be four years older to avoid ageist censorship. He doesn’t need to do anything he doesn’t want to.
One day, I want to grow up and be just like him. Or marry someone just like him—with the added requirement if I do that my future husband also can’t know the meaning of a prenup.
My hands tremble as I raise the cup again, this time managing a gulp. Mr Braxen won’t be here for another seven minutes according to the wall clock. No, six.
You can’t call him Mr Braxen. His name’s Wilbur.
True enough. I practise saying it under my breath, smiling at how grownup it sounds. Calling a forty-year-old man by his first name.
I mean, I call my mum’s friends by their names all the time, but they’re just nicknames. Calling a man Ratty because meth only left him with two front teeth doesn’t have the same ring to it. Nor does addressing his mate as Maz because he likes to jerk off in public.
They’re imbeciles. I don’t know how Mum can stand to be around them. The moment I earn enough to leave, I’m doing it. Even if I have to quarter-share a room to make the rent, I don’t care. I’d live in a rusted bathtub in a garden shed if it got me out of there.
Five minutes now.
My fingers pluck the fabric of my miniskirt and I force them to stop, otherwise they’ll be sure to find a loose thread somewhere and start tugging. They have that skill and I have that kind of luck.
To give my hands something else to do, I primp my hair in the reflection on the window. I’d love to duck into the ladies’ room and double check my makeup. It took an age to apply in front of the bathroom mirror, a YouTube tutorial open as I tried to recreate the exact effects.
My stomach rumbles and I put my hand on it to stifle the sound. Breakfast was skipped as usual, and the coffee will have to do for my lunch. Last week of the month, the order is always to scrounge as much food as possible outside the house because the situation at home becomes more dire.
A wire strings its way around my chest and pulls tighter the more I think about it. How much I need this opportunity. How far I’m willing to go.
One minute.
I sip from my coffee, barely tasting a thing. The foam sticks to my upper lip and I lick it off before thinking about my makeup. Now it’s top of mind again, but I definitely can’t check in the bathroom mirror because he’ll be here any minute… Any minute now…
The bell over the door jangles as a man walks inside. His hair is grey, erring on the side of salt rather than pepper, as it had been the last time I saw him in person. Given how much attention he must spend on keeping his body as fit as it looks right now, it’s strange he doesn’t choose to dye it the right shade.
Then he turns to look at me and I understand exactly why he keeps it that way. I mightn’t have seen it back when I was a kid, trying to sit quietly while Mum finished her work, but it’s fully evident now. The silver wings of his combed back hair take my stomach and twist it into an elaborate knot. Darker and he’d appear too menacing. Lighter and he’d turn into a granddad. But like this…?
It doesn’t matter what he looks like. You’re here for a job.
One hundred percent true. And none of it is enough to stop me from noticing that he looksfine.
“Emily,” he says, walking over and extending his hand as he approaches the table. “You look so grown up from the last time I saw you.”
I scramble to my feet. His fingers are smooth and dry when he slides them into mine. He flips my hand over and presses a kiss to the back, his lips making contact at the same time our gaze meets, left eyebrow raised, blue eyes twinkling like the sunlight reflecting off snow.
“You’re even more beautiful than your mother.”
I blush so furiously that it makes it hard to think. My cheeks are so warm they could heat our small flat in the middle of winter. “T-thank you,” I stammer, sitting back down so quickly that I forget to smooth my skirt as I do so and it rides up, nearly exposing my underwear. “You look… wonderful, too.”
“Thank goodness.” He releases my hand to slide into the booth next to me rather than sitting opposite, something I wasn’t expecting. As his eyes hit the exposed length of my thighs, my stomach does a slow forward roll, then his gaze jumps back up to my face. “I thought you were going to say something about me growing so much older, too.”
“You look the perfect age to me,” I blurt, then have to stare at my coffee cup before my face spontaneously combusts, trying to pretend I didn’t just say that. My head is crouching back in horror, memorising each line so it can feed it back to me with excruciating clarity when I’m trying to get to sleep tonight.
No. Skip that. For every night for the rest of my life.
If embarrassing words like those are going to spurt out every time I open my mouth, insomnia is going to feature large in my future.
I shift on the seat, now knowing what to do or say. Looking at me now, nobody would guess that I spent hours preparing for this encounter. Spent time and effort running through various lines in my head, playing them out, even speaking them aloud so I’d know how they sounded.
All of it gone in an instant because I opened my big mouth and said something spontaneous.
