Just You

“Hey, I’m talking.”

“I got something to do.”

Well, I knew when I wasn’t wanted. I was getting a lot of messages like that today. Lucky I had thick skin.

A few minutes later he came back with a look of thunder on his face and started shoving stuff in a box.

What was up with this day? “Where you going?”

“I just realized that this job’s not for me. Bye…”

Nice fucking knowing you! I glanced over to see Mr. Rees watching Jason.

Well, what the hell was that about?

The girls were watching too. I could see Portia. She’d turned her chair to face Crystal and, having seen Mr. Rees, they were all pretending they hadn’t been about to start gossiping, but any moment now, there was going to be a gossip fest…

Jason walked out without a “thanks”, or, a “nice knowing you”, or, “see you”, or anything, and he looked pretty crazy with his cardboard box of stuff tucked under his arm, and an angry face.

I watched him go, feeling like my hangover from the other night had come back. Seriously, what the fuck was going on today?

And now it was nearly twelve-thirty.

Mr. Rees shut the door on his office. Normally I’d have gotten up and gone over to the girls––when the ogre had gone back in his cave––and they all began whispering. I didn’t. I figured Portia wouldn’t want me there. ‘Course I could go over anyway, to wind her up, seeing as she was so embarrassed over having had a thing with me. But that was the sort of game my dad used to play; I wasn’t that guy. If she regretted the stuff we’d done, that was fine. Let her regret. I didn’t, and there were dozens more women out there to be fished and hooked.

When the clock in the left-hand corner of my screen rolled over to twelve-thirty, an email message flashed up. I opened it.

‘See you there.’

Showdown time.

She got up, threw a red scarf around her neck and pulled on her coat, then threw her purse over her shoulder and walked out.

Here we go. I gave her a few minutes head-start so no one would think anything of me following, then got up too, and went to get my jacket. The shock of Jason going rattled through my nerves. The guy was there, then gone.

Mr. Rees came out of his office as I walked past, and I heard him speak to Hilary, our sub-editor, asking for Jason’s contact details to forward a letter of notice.

Jason had been sacked.

Shit. The guy had done nothing wrong. I’d better watch my ass. I was nowhere near as focused as Jason had been. Keith was always having a quiet word with me. Usually it was, “Don’t talk so much,” or, “You’re too loud.”

Shoving my hands deeper into the pockets of my jacket, I walked out.

When I reached Starbucks, a block away from the office, Portia was in the line.

I walked up and joined her.

“Hey.”

She looked at me and turned red again. “Hey.” She looked away, like she was looking at something else. Anything else––as long as she didn’t have to look at me.

“You eating?”

She shook her head, her chin and her nose tilting up, like I was a bad smell, or something else disgusting.

The girl was not a great eater. She was always on the latest celeb diet. But she wasn’t overweight.

Whatever, I decided to buy her a ginger muffin. I knew she liked ginger. For the last three weeks, the smell of her seasonal ginger latte had hung around the office when I’d walked into the office in the morning.

The guy looked over to take my order. She must have given hers already. “Black coffee, two ginger muffins, and one of those pepperoni things, heated.”

The guy nodded at me and headed off to put it all on, to cut the line.

We moved along, not speaking.

When we got to the cash register, she reached for her purse …

“I’ll get it.” It was the manly thing to do, but when I took my wallet out, her fingers rested over my hand.

“No, it’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“It’s okay. I want to.” My answer was probably sharper than it should’ve been, but I was starting to get a little pissed. I may have a millionth of the money her family did, but I could afford to buy her a coffee.

I really didn’t think I was so bad. Maybe I was thick skinned––but I did have some pride.

She picked up her drink and left the rest for me to carry on a tray. She moved right to the back, probably to avoid anyone in the office seeing us together through the window.

Such a glowing assessment of my performance New Year’s Eve. She obviously hadn’t had as much fun as I had, although she’d seemed to be enjoying it at the time.

I slipped into the chair opposite her and lifted one of the muffins off the tray. “For you, eat it or don’t eat it, whatever.”

Her blue eyes, that were mid-gray in reality but reflected blue, glanced down at the plate and then up at me. She bit her lip then opened her mouth as if she was going to speak, her expression hardening. She shut it again, turning pink, saying nothing, and then gripped her cup with both hands and looked down.

The girl looked meek. When had I ever seen Portia look meek before? Never. Her arrogance was cringing. Her blush no doubt expressed the shame this preppy, society girl felt over slumming it with me.

“Portia, you asked me here to talk?” My pitch rang with sarcasm and impatience.

“Justin…” she said to her coffee, in a voice that told me off for my being cutting. It sounded a little more like the Portia I was used to.

“What?”

She looked up again and stared at me, appearing anxious. That was another new look for Portia, as far as I was concerned.

“I… we… did…?” She bit her lip, and then she came right out with it suddenly, “Did we do it? The other night… I mean… Shit… Did we, you know? I was so drunk I don’t remember.”

So that was what all the blushes were about. I started laughing, I couldn’t help it. Really I should be insulted; she looked so terrified, like it would be a scene from a horror movie if we had done it. “No. We didn’t, Portia.” The air swept out of her lungs and her breath brushed my cheek before she looked down at her coffee again.

I leaned back in the chair, trying hard not to feel insulted… “We kissed, and I made you come, and you never returned the favor.”

That had her eyes and her color back up, along with her chin and her nose tilting. “Justin.” It wasn’t a shout, it was a hard whisper. “That would have been disgusting in a pool anyway.”

“Nice to know you got your priorities right, Portia…”

She screwed her face up at me––she even looked pretty when she screwed her face up.

“I take it you regret it?”

“I don’t remember it. Well, only in the form of a few patchy images. I can’t remember getting dressed, or getting home. How did I get home?”

I hadn’t realized she was that bad. “I helped you get dressed and you were unsteady on your feet but you weren’t out of it. We came back on the subway, and I walked you to your door.”

“You did?” Her gaze was boring into mine, like she was looking for a lie.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Thank you.” Those words were reluctantly said, and she looked away, but as she spoke she reached out and picked a piece off the muffin I’d bought her.

“You’re welcome.”

She glanced up again.

I picked up my muffin and took a bite, watching her as she watched me. So what now? Did I want this to be something, or was it just a hook up.

I didn’t say anything, nor did she.

Then eventually, after she’d nibbled a couple more pieces of her muffin, I said, “Do you regret it?”

One of the staff set down my toasted pastrami thing.

Portia took a breath as they walked away.

She did regret it.

“I––“

“Forget it, Portia. We hooked up at a party, it’s nothing big, it probably happened a ton of times all over New York. Two people had too much to drink, end of, no headline.”

Portia

End of. Justin was right. I was embarrassed, and I felt awkward as hell, ‘cause I couldn’t remember exactly what we’d done, but I believed we hadn’t gone the whole way. I hadn’t had any flashbacks of that, and as soon as he’d said he took me home, I saw an image of him next to me in a subway car.

“Sorry.” Embarrassment led me to say it.

He shrugged. “So anyway; what the frick went down with Jason?” There was a sudden glint in his brown eyes.

Wicked and funny. That was Justin.

He always joined in with the gossip but we never knew if he was making fun of us when he did. Crystal’s theory was that he was a douchebag and he was joining in with the hope of getting lucky. Well if that was true, his moves had worked on me. I was staying sober from now on. Resolution.

“What the hell you gonna do, Portia? You won’t have pretty boy to stare at every day… Shame. You’ve got no chance of pulling him loose from his girl now…”

“I wasn’t trying to.”

He lifted his dark eyebrows. “Yeah, right. Whatever. You aren’t fooling me. If he’d have offered, like I did…”

Crap, he had to go and bring that back up. My skin heated. I was tired of blushing. I’d spent yesterday with my head under the pillow, too embarrassed to even face myself. “Don’t talk about it.”

“Was I that bad?” He was joking but he wasn’t joking. I’d kicked his ego in the balls.

I gave him a lopsided smile and narrowed my eyes, “Justin, I told you. I don’t even remember!”

His eyebrows lifted higher. “Great. That bad.” His wide lips tilted. He wasn’t unattractive. I’d never really looked at him like that before. But he was okay. I mean his eyes were nice, dark brown and glowing like treacle, with that wicked and humorous glint, and he had a wide smile that came in flashes. His short black hair, that he kept cut close to his head, suited him because he had a nice shaped head… That sounded stupid. But he did. I wanted to reach out and touch him, run my fingers up his cheek and then over his hair. Maybe that was how things had got started in the pool.

He was talking about Jason again. I wasn’t really listening.

“… so you girls are going to miss the eye candy.”

I smiled at him, and just nodded. I wasn’t going to lie. Jason was hot. I could just watch him for hours.

“We oughta get back.” He stood. “Otherwise we’ll be the next to be fired.”

I got up.

When we reached the office, he held the door open for me. Crystal was wrong. He wasn’t a sleaze. He was just a normal guy––girl hunting. He was nice in a way. He’d made this whole thing with me easier. He could have been really horrible.

He whispered in my ear, “We better go back separately, seeing as we’re incognito… You can go up first, I’ll hang back.”

I smiled at him, “Thanks,” then walked on ahead.

I glanced up when he walked into the office five minutes after me, and watched him take his black Parka coat off on the other side of the room. His body wasn’t that bad either, I remembered. He had abs. He’d looked pretty good in the pool.

Another blush raced over my skin and I looked down at my screen before he caught me watching. But ten minutes after he’d sat down I sent him an email, giving him my cell number, with a message saying… “Why don’t we be friends outside of work? If you want? What’s your number?”

A second later an email came back from him. It was just his number and nothing more.

I looked up and leaned ‘round my screen to see him, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at his screen, like he was totally focused on work.

Justin

“Justin!” My kid brother, Dillon, hurtled out the school gate, right into my belly, with his backpack falling off his shoulder and smacking me in the thigh.

“Hey Dillon, woah. What’s up with you, kid?”

Having hugged me, he pulled away, laughing. “Nothin’.” His eyes were shining with a I-love-my-big-brother look of idolization. That look got me in the chest every time, with a sharp bite of affection.

“Did you have a good day?”

“Yeah.” He liked school but he hated the after club he had to go to when Mom was working and I had to pick him up.

“Dillon!” A pretty little girl with braids shouted over, taking her mom’s hand. She did a huge exaggerated wave, the way young kids did.

My already super cool and chilled little brother just lifted his hand. “Bye Miah.”

I laughed. He looked up at me, taking my hand. “Are you working on the ladies already little bro?”

He laughed. Then he said, “She does like me but it’s annoying. She hangs around all the time when I just wanna play.”

I gripped his hot, sticky hand tighter, looking up the street watching the traffic and getting ready to cross. “Well, one day, you are gonna be begging girls to just hang out with you.”

He made a disgusted sound, and I glanced down laughing at him. “Urrgh, no way. I don’t wanna play with girls … ”

For now. The day will come Dillon when you will love playing with girls… I didn’t say that. Just smiled at him, wishing I’d had a childhood like he did.

He may have to go into after-school club but he never had to comfort Mom like I did at his age, after her and Dad had fought, and he’d knocked her about, or after he’d had a run in with the cops and ended up in jail.

When we’d crossed the street, Dillon let go of my hand and started telling me about his day. Telling me all the eight-year-old-kid gossip from his school. I loved it when he did. He made me laugh the way he talked with a blazing fire of excitement, at a hundred miles an hour, and the flames of the excitment in his belly flickered over his facial expressions and in his eyes too.

Along the street I saw Jake, waiting on the corner of the sidewalk, where he always met us. He turned the corner and walked on as soon as he knew I’d seen him.

Met us––was a loose term. He never actually bothered waiting for us, or spoke to us, but walked two hundred yards ahead of us, pretending he didn’t have to walk back home with his fricking annoying older brother and the baby of the family.

Dillon chatted on. He didn’t care… Jake only stirred me up, no one else… and he knew it.

How the fuck had I ended up being treated like our frickin’ shit Dad? I didn’t know. But Jake treated me like I was his parent and not his big brother. He had an inbuilt button that said––do everything the opposite of what I said.

My cell buzzed, vibrating in my back pocket. I pulled it out. A message from Portia. Dillon kept talking.

It was a stupid picture of some weird dressed-up dog in a park. I laughed. Then another text came in.

‘Thought I would send you that to make you laugh. Did it?’

‘Yeah, it did.’

She could have punched me when she sent me her number. I hadn’t expected that, and I’d played it cool, just sending her my number back. But now she’d sent the first text too. What did that say?

The girl had my attention whether she wanted it or not.

“What did you laugh at?” Dillon’s brain finally caught up and overtook his mouth…

“Here.” I showed him the picture of the Jack Russell dog wearing a red and white wooly hat, sweater and scarf… He laughed too.

I slipped my phone back into my pocket, then rubbed a palm over Dillon’s hair as he started up with his eight-year-old bullshit again.

Jake was at the end of the block and about to turn, heading for home. I wished he’d wait. Our neighborhood was one of the worst in New York; kids ‘round here always claimed they didn’t have a choice about being in a gang. Gangs were what people did. But not me. I’d stayed in school, kept my head down, paid my way through College, working in a Mackie D’s, and now I was doing my best to keep my brothers out of all that shit.

My heart thumped steadily like it did every day when we walked back and Jake disappeared out of sight. Dillon kept talking, and I commented, laughed, and said all the things I was supposed to in reply, but my mind was on Jake.

There were loads of drive-by shootings in our neighborhood. Stabbings. Fights. For no better reason than people just wanted to show they were frickin’ tough. That wasn’t tough, that was cowardice. Tough was fighting against a life, and hood, that tried to hold you back.

My mom was tough. She’d escaped one of those guys. A guy who used to bring all sorts of crap back to our door and beat her up––and he’d slept around.

In a hood like this, she was bringing up four boys alone––working her ass off to do it.

Dad had thought himself tough. He’d grown up in a gang. He’d ended up leading it. But Mom was the tough one.

Maybe sometimes it made her seem like she didn’t care but she cared her heart out about us. Dad had just beaten all the softness out of her. Our mom cared with venom. She fought fiercely to do the best for us.

Respect.

I loved her.

We got as far as the street corner Jake had turned. When we turned it, there were a few kids in a car near him. My heart played an erratic base-beat against my ribs.

I settled a hand on Dillon’s shoulder, and drew him close against my hip as we walked on. He kept talking, oblivious to the tension that rattled about inside me. My eyes were on Jake. He kept moving, but the car slowed down near him. Shit. Come on… I was too far away to do anything. If the barrel of a gun appeared out the car window, Jake was a corpse, there was no way I could cover the two-hundred yards between us and do a single thing to stop him getting wiped out.

The car crawled along beside Jake, and a kid in the back seat wound down the window. I was walking faster without even thinking about it.

Dillon started half-running to keep up. “What is it?”, he said as he looked up at me, sensing my tension and realizing I hadn’t heard a word he’d said for five minutes.

I glanced down at him. “Nothing.” I kept my hand on his shoulder, so he couldn’t run off and get anywhere near the car.

Something was said to Jake, but as far as I could tell, he didn’t answer, just ignored them and kept walking. Good boy.

The car pulled away speeding up, and then the wheels screeched as the back window got wound up, and it accelerated away up the street.

This was our walk to and from school. It was like stepping through a field of landmines. We regularly past burned out cars some kids had crashed joy riding the night before, then torched. As well as kids standing on street corners with their hands inside their jackets or their jeans, like they had a knife to flick at you any moment… They just wanted us to be scared.

I wasn’t scared for me. I was beyond the reach of gangs. I had my education. I had my job. And I had a decent life. And, yeah, I stood out in this neighborhood like a beacon, ‘cause going to college had made me speak different and act different, but I kept my head down and my nose out of the gangs business and they left me alone.

But my brothers… It was my brothers I worried over.

Jake’s movement was a little stiffer and his stride a little longer. He was trying not to give away a single sign he had been rattled by whoever had been in that car, but he had been rattled.

I’d tell Robin and get Robin to ask him what was said. If I asked Jake, he wouldn’t answer. But then if I told Robin Jake would know the question had come from me anyway… Maybe I just had to leave it and trust him. He’d probably been just as scared as I was that the barrel of a gun was gonna come out of that rolled down window.

Chapter Three

Portia

When Justin walked into the office my gaze got stuck on him. I had been looking at the door waiting for him to walk through it. I smiled, my cheeks heating as he caught my gaze and smiled too.

When he smiled he was actually pretty good-looking. I liked his smile. I liked his relaxed way of moving too. Justin was the antidote to me. He was soooo laid back he was horizontal, and he had New York swagger. Justin was the polar opposite of my last boyfriend Daniel. Daniel had been rich, upper-class and up-himself.

I realized I hadn’t looked away. I’d been staring at Justin, watching him walk along the office, probably with a dumb besotted look on my face. The more I looked at him, the more I liked the look of him, and of course in my subconscious, memories of a certain New Year’s Eve night in a pool still hovered. My opinions about Justin were shifting at a rapid pace.

When he got nearer, I turned to look at my screen, that was still a spinning wheel, with a message saying ‘Welcome.’

His fingers touched my neck, they skimmed over my skin, a light slide of his fingertips along the inside of the collar of my blouse. I shivered, and the sensation ripped right through my middle to my belly, making me ache between the legs.

Heat burned my cheeks. I picked up my cell, feeling the need to say something to him. Anything…

‘Did you have a good night?’ I sent the text and heard his cell buzzing in his back pocket as he hung up his coat.

He didn’t reply straight off, but he took his cell out just before he sat down, then smiled over at me, nodded a little and winked.

Shit. Even that stupid little gesture flipped my belly.

‘I did. Did you spot any more dumb dressed up dogs in the park? I fancy something to laugh at.’

‘:-) Sorry, no.’

‘:-) No matter then, but if you think of anything to make me laugh…’

‘I’ll text you :D’

‘Yeah.’

Why did it feel so good talking to him? I had this warm sensation in my belly.

Probably because I was sad––in the pathetic sense of the word––and I was heading toward becoming one of those old women with a cluttered house and a hundred cats. I was friendless and lonely. Yeah, I had Becky and Crystal at work, but we didn’t get together much outside work. We were not BFFs, we were just girls who got on okay in the office. I didn’t even know if they really liked me…

Whatever, I’d been on my own for a year, I could cope with being on my own.

‘What are you thinking about?’

I looked up and saw Justin standing, diagonally to me, on the other side of our block of desks. He lifted his phone a little. Probably to tell me to answer.

I smiled, then looked down to text.

‘My boring day in the office.’

‘:-) Cool as long as there is nothing wrong.’

‘There’s nothing wrong.’

The guy had a sweet streak. How come I had never seen that before? I’d watched him befriend the new starter, Jason, back in the summer, and while Becky, Crystal and I were on good terms, he and Jason had been really thick… Like always talking…

He went over to the kitchen, probably to get a coffee. I watched him again. I loved the way he walked. Was that a crazy thing? To like the way a guy walked…

Watching how he walked had the quivering feeling tickling in my belly too.

‘Do you want a coffee?’

He texted me. I couldn’t see him. He was in the kitchen.

‘Yeah, thank you.’

‘It’ll be with you in a moment. Ma’am.’

‘Fool.’

‘:D Just thought it might make you laugh.’

My lips lifted in a closed lip smile and a chuckle of amusement tickled in my throat. I really liked him now. How come that had happened?

Justin