Heller (41 page)

“I must have
had you on my mind too much lately, Tilly,” Will confessed.
“Because I could have sworn I saw a photo of you in the paper the
other day.”

“Oh. Really?”
I spluttered, not sure what to say. I wasn’t going to own up to
that.

“I know it
wasn’t you though,” he laughed. “Not unless you’re secretly part of
a polygamous family from the US?”

“Not the last
time I checked,” I answered vaguely and hurriedly moved him on to
another topic.

Time flew by
until reluctantly I told him that I had to leave to catch my lift
back home. He seemed gratifyingly disappointed and walked me to the
security team who were giving me the lift.

Two
Heller’s
man-mountains were lounging against the black 4WD
in their uniforms, arms crossed, waiting patiently for me. They
looked on impassively as Will, disconcerted by their size and
indiscreet scrutiny, gave me a rushed but sweet kiss goodbye,
making me promise to ring him again very soon. I had hesitated to
give him my mobile number and he had been slightly hurt, but hadn’t
pressed me. He was understandably curious about the men, but again
was too considerate or polite to question me further. No doubt it
would arise in the future.
The future?
Guess I’d already
decided that I was going to see him again.

“Had a good
time, Miss?” asked one of the men, in what I thought sound a
disapproving tone.
He’s probably one of those who think I’m
Heller’s woman
, I thought sourly.

“Yes, I did,”
I replied sharply, sinking down into the backseat. “He’s a really
lovely person.” The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
Another disapproving look? I checked my phone. Two missed calls
from Heller. I didn’t feel like ringing him back, remembering that
smug smile the previous night.

“Has the Boss
met him yet?” Was that said just a bit too casually?

“No, but he
knows about him.” I didn’t want to risk any misguided vigilante
action against Will by some Heller loyalist on steroids who thought
‘Heller’s woman’ was doing him wrong. Another look in the rearview
mirror from the driver.

Piss off,
neanderthal!
I thought savagely, glancing away. I couldn’t even
have an innocent date with a charming man without Heller’s minions
spying on me. I made sure I thanked them very politely for the lift
though when we arrived back at the Warehouse. No point antagonising
gigantic strong men unnecessarily, especially when I knew that they
would be on the phone to Heller immediately, relaying every detail
of what they had witnessed. I stomped up to my flat and had barely
opened the door when my mobile rang.

“Hello?” I
said grumpily, expecting it to be Heller again.

“Tilly love,
it’s Kristo.”

I almost said
‘Who?’
before I remembered my useless, nicotine-addicted
agent. Scrub that – former agent. I hadn’t thought about him for
months.

“Kristo! What
a surprise. What’s up?”

“I have the
best news you’ve ever heard!
Summer Days
wants to revive
your character! For a year-long contract! Apparently they’ve never
had so much hate mail as when you were on and the forums went crazy
about you. Ratings were up twenty per cent when your character was
in the show. The country loved to hate you. Aren’t you
excited?”

“Wow Kristo, I
don’t know what to say. You’ve really caught me by surprise,” I
said honestly. “But, didn’t you dump me as a client?”

“Tilly, Tilly,
my sweet love Tilly,” he chuckled amiably. “That was just my little
joke. You know that. I’m always joking with my most valued clients.
But seriously, isn’t this wonderful news? I always knew you
deserved this. I worked hard to get you this, Tilly.”

I rolled my
eyes and made a wanking gesture with my spare hand. “I know you
did, Kristo, and I know you’ll understand when I say I need some
time to sleep on it.”

“What the
fuck? Just say yes. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”

“Once upon a
time. But I’ve got a new job since then that I really love and I
need to think things through. It’s a big decision for me.”

“You’ve hardly
been in your new job for a minute. What’s to think about? This is
your big break. Think about the publicity, the magazine features,
TV show guest spots, product endorsements, red carpets, the lot.
Dancing with the Stars!
Maybe even a singing career.” I
snorted quietly. I couldn’t hold a tune to save my life. Not that
that has ever stopped any of the others.

“Thanks
Kristo. I’ll ring you tomorrow, I promise.”

“I can’t
believe you’re not saying yes right now, Tilly. I’ve never
understood you. Never mind. Ring me tomorrow. But remember, these
people won’t wait forever.” And with that vague threat and the
dream of dollar signs fading from his eyes, he hung up.

There was a
soft knock on my door. I opened it and Niq stood there, looking up
forlornly through his eyeliner.

“What’s up,
sweetie?” I asked, concerned.

“I looked for
you before but you weren’t here. I wanted to make you a cake to
welcome you home again, but it’s gone all wrong. Daniel and I have
tried to fix it but it got worse. Can you help?”

I laughed out
loud and ruffled his hair, spoiling his hairstyle. I went into
Daniel’s flat and there was smoke pouring out of his oven.

“Shit!” I
shouted. “You’re going to burn the place down!” I grabbed the oven
mitts and rescued the cake from the oven, smoke billowing from it.
I threw it in the sink and poured tap water over it, turning it
into a sludgy, blackened mess, then switched the oven off. I
ignored the boys’ groaning about me ruining their cake and ordered
them to open all the windows immediately before the smoke alarms
went off.

The smoke
eventually cleared and we stood mournfully examining the remains of
the cake.

I grinned at
them. “You were preparing burnt offerings for your goddess?”

“It was a
banana cake,” Daniel said sadly, viewing the mess in the sink.

“What
temperature did you have it on?” I asked, dreading the answer.

Niq sighed.
“Well, the recipe said 180 degrees for forty-five minutes, but we
didn’t have forty-five minutes, we only had fifteen minutes so we
thought we should turn the oven up to 500 degrees instead. Then we
started watching a movie and kind of forgot about it.”

My lips
started trembling and I looked away, but it was no use. The
laughter burst out of me and I stood before them both, hands on my
hips, laughing hard enough to make myself cry. And I’m ashamed to
say that the distressed looks on their faces only made me laugh
even harder. They weren’t impressed with my levity.

“Where were
you anyway? If you had been here none of this would have happened!”
Niq shouted tremulously. My humour dried up immediately. Teenage
hormones were on the rampage again. He sounded very upset, on the
edge of tears.

“Niq honey, I
was on a date. With a really nice man named Will. He’s a science
teacher.”

“I don’t care!
I hate him!”

“You don’t
know him. If you met him, you would like him. He is very kind and
very nice.”

“You’re going
to leave us, aren’t you? You’re going to go away with this man and
forget about us.”

“Niq, no! I’m
not going anywhere. Just because I had one date with a man doesn’t
mean I’m going away with him. I’m not going anywhere.” I wrapped my
arms around him and did just what Heller had done with me that
night on the roof-top. I held him tightly until he stopped
struggling and relaxed against me, sniffing his misery. I stroked
his back gently until he seemed very calm and his sniffles
subsided. I kissed him on the forehead and let him go, lifting up
his chin.

“Now you’re
looking scary with your makeup running everywhere,” I teased with
gentle affection. “Let’s go to the bathroom and clean it off.” He
agreed and flinging a look of despair at Daniel, I followed Niq
into the bathroom. He perched on the edge of the bath and I wiped
away his smeared eyeliner.

“Did you mean
it when you said you’re not going to leave? Even though you’ve met
this really nice guy?” I nodded, but with a heavy heart, feeling
the weight of his expectations. “Is he nicer than Heller?”

I laughed
faintly. “Nice isn’t really a word I’d use to describe Heller, Niq.
And I’m sure that he’d agree with that. But I do like Will, and
maybe you could meet him one day and make up your own mind about
him?”

He nodded in
appreciation for the adult way I was treating him. “I guess that
would be fair,” he agreed. We went back to the kitchen where Daniel
had cleaned up very neatly, removing all traces of the offending
cake. I smiled my gratitude.

“What will we
do for the rest of the evening?” I asked, determinedly bright. We
let Niq choose what he wanted, and for whatever reason he wanted to
chat in the hot tub, so after dinner, we changed, grabbed some
music and wine and headed up to the roof-top. The warm water felt
divine and I sank down until only my head was above the waterline.
The jets worked their magic and I felt my muscles relaxing. We had
let Niq choose the music and although Joy Division didn’t really
match my mood, I wasn’t going to tangle with teenage hormones again
tonight.

At some point
when I had my eyes closed, enjoying the warm pummelling, Heller
silently arrived on the roof-top. I opened my eyes briefly,
acknowledged him climbing into the hot tub with a glance, and
closed them again. I was a jumble of emotions and hard decisions
and wanted to avoid them all at the moment.

“Did you have
a good time today?” Heller asked me, deceptively genial.

“Yes, thank
you,” I replied politely, opening my eyes. The minions had
obviously reported back to him, as expected.

“She had a
date with a nice man. He’s a science teacher,” offered Niq
helpfully. I smiled at him, inwardly cursing his blunt honesty.

Intense blue
stare. “Was that Will? Did you ring him?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t
tell me.”

“I didn’t
think you needed to know. It was a date. Nothing connected to
work.”

“I need to
know everything about you, Matilda.”

“No, you
don’t.” He was really starting to get on my nerves with that
possessive attitude.

“Yes, I do. I
thought we’d established that.”

“No. You.
Don’t. And no. We. Hadn’t.” I glared at him, enunciating
angrily.

“Niq, time for
bed,” Heller ordered in a strident voice. Niq knew better than to
grumble and scrambled out of the hot tub without a word, turning
off the music on his way to bed, wherever he decided that was
tonight.

Daniel started
making moves as if to leave.

“Stay Daniel,
please!” I begged, desperate.

“Daniel, you
can go if you want to. Matilda and I have things to discuss,”
Heller said gently, and so Daniel also left, throwing me an
apologetic look over his shoulder. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t
want to be around either. In fact, I decided that I
really
didn’t want to be in the hot tub with Heller, so I started to climb
out as well. He grabbed me by the foot. I thrashed around for a
while, trying to kick his hand away. He slowly started pulling me
backwards until the water was swallowing me up.

“Don’t make me
drown you, Matilda,” he threatened in that scary, quiet voice of
his. I stopped thrashing and plonked down ungracefully. I crossed
my arms and refused to make any eye contact with him, like the
mature adult that I am. Then, when he thought I would be compliant,
I suddenly jumped out of the hot tub and ran down to my flat, water
gushing everywhere, slipping on the stairs in my haste. I’d worry
about the mess in the morning.

My heart was
racing, I knew I only had a minute, so I stripped quickly, throwing
my wet clothes into the bathtub, dried myself off and threw on some
comfortable clothes. I was going to do this on my terms for once. I
turned on some soothing music (for the savage beast about to
arrive) and poured myself an enormous glass of wine. I had already
sculled half of it and topped it up when, without even a knock,
Heller flung open my door and barged in, slightly damp but dressed
as well.

He opened his
mouth to continue the Will debate when I spoke up first. “I’ve been
offered another job.”

His mouth
snapped shut. “No. What?”

“
Summer
Days
wants to revive my character for a year-long
contract.”

“The character
that died in a fiery explosion after her car drove off a cliff?” he
asked, sceptical.

I shrugged.
“They’ll make up some reason for her return. Evil twin sister,
plastic surgery, mistaken identity, witness protection.
Whatever.”

He sat down
heavily on the lounge. “You don’t want that job.” It was an
assertion, a question and a hint of a plea all in the same
sentence.

“I might.”

“Matilda.” He
shifted angry and unhappy blue eyes to mine.

“Heller.”

We duelled
with our eyes for a long moment. Unexpectedly, he sprang up,
grasped my hand and dragged me up a floor to his flat. He took me
over to two gift-wrapped packages sitting neatly aligned on a
sideboard in his living room

“Go on,” he
encouraged. “Open them up. They were going to be presents for you
when you got your licence.”

I shot him a
fierce look and unwrapped the first package. I unfolded the tissue
paper to find a
Heller’s
work shirt inside. I frowned at
Heller and pulled it out. I noticed immediately it was cut to a
woman’s style in my size, not one of the usual huge man-sized
shirts. I frantically turned back to the package and dug out the
matching Tilly-sized black cargo pants. I opened the second package
and discovered a pair of chunky black boots also in my size and a
utility belt. I finally had my own
Heller’s
uniform. With no
warning, tears sprang into my eyes. I tried to furtively wipe them
away.