Two, three minutes passed and I could feel him starting to twitch.
“Is there anything distracting you at work though?’
Finally, there we had it.
“The case with the Hartfords is going to distract me from having a life. But I get the feeling that’s not what you were fishing for.” I drained the rest of my glass.
“Not fishing for anything.”
“Bull shit, Maxwell.”
He laughed. “I saw you staring at Georgia.”
I shrugged. “She’s really attractive. I think most straight males in the building stared at her this week.” No point lying.
Max watched me. “Be careful.”
“Of what? I’m not interested in anything with anyone at the moment, Max. Especially not a colleague who shares my office, because that won’t go horribly wrong, will it?” I thought back to the texts between us this morning.
“I don’t know. She could do worse.” His eyes had softened. “She’s a really good girl, Seph. And I’ve seen you looking at her more than once.”
I stood up, done with this conversation. “I learned the hard way not to shit on your own doorstep.”
There was a better time to be had with my nieces and nephews.
Chapter Eight
Georgia
I’ll have you know my performance is always exceptional.
If there was a secret spy camera in my phone, they’d have been watching me stare at my screen a lot during Sunday, debating a response, typing at least two dozen and then deleting them, then wondering what the hell I’d sent in the first place.
I was distracted enough that I let Rose eat two bags of crisps without even realising it, and I’d completely forgot to pack her swimming kit this morning – Elspeth would’ve been taking her swimming after she’d picked her and Addy up from nursery.
I hadn’t meant what I’d sent to have an innuendo. I was teasing him about his job, because he was a perfectionist, and until his reply came through, I hadn’t thought about how it could sound until he’d texted back.
Was he flirting?
I toyed with the idea of showing it my sister, then decided not to. I’d told her I thought Seph was dating Amelie, so showing her messages from him that sounded flirty would make her instantly hate him.
I walked into our office and hung up my coat, the spread of papers from Friday exactly where I left them. The office was empty of only one thing: Seph.
Leaving my bag next to my desk, I headed back downstairs, hearing loud voices from the photocopying room. I’d only been here a week, but I knew that the relationship between Max and the photocopier was strained, and despite the ban on him using it, it still seemed to have a tantrum and go on strike whenever it had to copy Max’s paperwork.
“I’m not sure how you can blame me for this!” Seph’s voice rose, travelling down the corridor. “You just need to admit that you can’t use the photocopier without breaking it.”
“It’s nothing to do with me! Whenever I use it after you, the fucking thing doesn’t work! You do something to it just to piss me off!” His words ended with what sounded like a roar.
I hurried up into the photocopying room and saw the pair of them a little bit too close together. Max’s hand was clenched and Seph had a finger to Max’s chest.
I could stand back and watch. I doubted this would end up in any more than a couple of blows, and clearly those blows had been coming for some time, given the history Max had with the photocopier and his block on blaming himself, but I needed to go through some stuff with Seph this morning, and wouldn’t really have chance for him to go home and change his shirt, should he need to.
I sighed and stepped in. Weirdly, this wasn’t the first altercation I’d broken up next to a photocopier. Must be the vibrations they gave off.
“You, turn around and walk out.” I put my hand on Max’s chest and used my best angry-mum voice. “And you, wait there and we’re going for a coffee.” Caffeine was always the answer. Every time.
Neither of them shifted. I just left my hand on Max's chest and started to feel him relax.
