Bargain Hunt continues silently in the corner, offering absolutely no useful guidance. I glance at the window. At the notebook on the bedside table, full of things I did not know four shifts ago.
“Me too,” I say.
“And AJ?”
“Yes?”
“There is a time after the feature publishes. Your connection doesn’t have to end after these two weeks.”
I have no come back to that so we say goodbye, and the call ends.
For a while, I sit in the quiet room with the phone still in my hand.
Outside, the rain keeps falling. On the television, the auction has ended and someone is pretending not to be disappointed by a seven-pound loss.
I unmute it, then mute it again almost immediately.
What if he is right and there could be a timeafter?
13
Chapter 12
Pippa
AJ is laughing inthe station kitchen.
That is the first thing I hear when I walk into the station at just before seven on Wednesday evening with my kit bag over one shoulder, my hair still damp from the shower and the faint, irritating sense that four days off have not done what four days off are supposed to do.
They should have reset me.
They have not.
They have mostly given me too much time to think about things I am better off not thinking about.
And now AJ Hodgson is standing by the counter, mug in one hand, sleeves pushed up, laughing with Kev and Mish as if he has not been here for exactly four shifts. As if he has not spent most of that time looking faintly traumatised by basic equipment and stairs. As if he has not arrived in our world by force, apology and editorial punishment.
He is not holding court. That would irritate me.
He is not performing. That would irritateme more.
He is just there.
In the middle of the kitchen, somehow already part of the rhythm.
Kev is leaning against the sink with the smug look of a man who has just delivered what he believes to be a devastating punchline. Mish is at the table with a stack of forms and a pen tucked behind her ear, pretending not to enjoy herself. Dan is making toast with the bleak concentration of someone performing battlefield surgery.
AJ says something too low for me to catch.
Kev snorts.
Mish points her pen at him. “You’re learning. That was nearly station-level sarcasm.”
“Nearly?” AJ says.
“You’re still too polished.”
“I can work on that.”
