Couples.Lissa experiences a little spasm of panic, the same feeling she always gets when she imagines any sort of long-term relationship. So far, her longest has been three months, but then he wanted to do stupid things like meet the family and she decided enough was enough.
On her lap, her hand throbs, and she looks down at the graze on her palm. She took the grit out of it at the time, and has used a ton of antiseptic on it since, but still …
‘What’s up with your hand?’
She wrinkles her nose at how obvious she’s being. ‘Nothing. Just fell over on the pavement the other day.’ She decides to leave out the exact how, given that causes a flare of embarrassment whenever she thinks about it. ‘But it feels a bit hot and I’m not sure if …’
‘Give it here.’
Lissa holds out her hand to Darcy, who takes it gently, twisting it one way then the other. ‘Looks totally normal.’ She lets go. ‘If it was infected it would be getting more red, not less.’
Lissa allows herself a long exhale. ‘Thanks, Darcy.’ It’s a stupid thing, but it helps, sometimes, having reassurance from someone else, even if they are no more qualified than she is. Maybe all it does is pull her back to the world of the sane, but whatever it is, she’s grateful. Grateful, too, that Darcy never makes a big thing of it, and somehow knows the exact line to walk between not dismissing her entirely and reassuring her that everything is okay.
‘Just call me Dr D,’ Darcy says with a wave of her hand.
‘I definitely won’t.’
‘Sounds like a superhero, doesn’t it?’
‘A supervillain, more like.’
‘Hmm. Maybe villain suits me better. They always seem to get the nicer shoes, don’t you think?’
Lissa laughs, and feels her body settle a little. Laughing releases endorphins, she reminds herself. Endorphins are good for you. She should definitely try to do more laughing.
‘So are you going to go out with Mark again?’
‘Umm …’ She sips her coffee to buy herself time.
‘Maybe you should. It’d be good for you.’
‘Good for me how?’
‘You know, getting out. Dating.’
‘What if it doesn’t work out?’
Darcy shrugs. ‘What if it does?’
At that moment, the lift doors opposite the kitchen open, spitting out one of their colleagues, who heads straight for her desk, zombie-like. Lissa lets out a long exhale, then smiles a little when she meets Darcy’s gaze.
‘You know,’ Darcy says, ‘we really ought to have had this conversation at a café or something, rather than here.’
At the word ‘café’, Lissa experiences a brief tug in a corner of her mind, one that takes her back to her dream the other night, to sitting outside the café in Paris, to the smell of coffee, the colour of the man’s eyes.
‘Lissa?’
She jolts, nearly spilling her coffee over the rim of the mug. Just like he’d spilt his over her at that table. She blinks, looking up at the owner of the voice – not Darcy, but Liam, who is peering down at them. He glances between them, then at their mugs, somehow making the action disapproving.
He strokes a hand down his stupid little beard. ‘Nice to see you’re both on time.’ Thefor onceis left as subtext. He levels a look at Lissa. ‘How are you feeling?’ The question is careful, and she can tell it’s less concern for her and more to do with whether she’s about to have a negative impact on the ‘office flow’, as he likes to call it.
‘Fine, thanks,’ she says brightly, partly because she knows it will annoy him, partly to curtail the embarrassment that is trying really hard to flare up. ‘And you? Good weekend?’
He grunts a non-answer. ‘I’ll see you both in the Monday meeting at half nine, yes?’
Darcy gives a salute – honestly, Lissa doesn’t know how she gets away with it. ‘Absolutely,’ she says. ‘I’ve been thinking about those lookalike audiences for that health water company all weekend.’
Liam gives her a suspicious look, but clearly decides it’s too early to deal with her, and walks away. Darcy and Lissa get to their feet – he’ll only keep shooting them looks if they stay sitting here.
