Hidden Kiss (Love Is The Law 2) (6 page)

"Let's leave it all behind," she told him.
"Let's not stop. Not now, not ever."

His pelvis was like a rock against her belly and he kissed
her again, and again, until she was almost panting with need.

"The problem is this. It's been a while, Emily. It's
going to be over very quickly…"

"The first time, yes," she agreed. "But then
you can take me through to the bedroom and we'll do it all again, only
slower." She pushed her hips up against him and he groaned.

"Oh my word," he whispered, beginning to gyrate.
"Who cares that you can't cook?"

They kissed again and the candles had hardly burned down
much further before he was carrying her, naked, through to the bedroom, and
they began to get to know each other again. And very thoroughly.

The staffroom smelled horribly of damp. It had hit Emily as
soon as she'd walked in on her first Monday morning, but as she was being shown
around the premises, she politely didn't mention it. As the list of her duties
was unfurled throughout her induction day, she quickly realised that she'd be
unlikely to have any spare time to use the facilities anyway. She'd be lucky to
get a break for a cup of tea.

Happily for her health and sanity, the other staff had more
balanced views. On the second day, as she drowned in new tasks and unfamiliar
work procedures, Polly, a student social worker, perched her expansive bottom
on the edge of Emily's desk and said, "You've not moved for three
hours."

Emily sighed and stretched. "There's so much to do! My
head is bulging."

"You only started yesterday, pet. You'll not achieve
owt by burning out in your first week. Fancy a brew?"

"I'd love one. But…"

Polly stood up and crossed her arms, standing like a bouncer
as she stared at Emily expectantly.

"What?"

"I'm waiting for you, pet. Come on. Put the bloody
answerphone on and let's go have us a cuppa and a natter, eh?"

"But I…."

"Are you a smoker?"

"No."

"You oughtta be," Polly said, taking a step closer
as if she were about to pick Emily up, and carry her away from her desk.
"Then you'd get more breaks and you'd not be afraid of taking them. Look
at it this way. Do you want to get deep vein thrombosis and have a blood clot
travel around your body and lodge in your head and cause a stroke?"

"Er… no."

"Then get up and walk with me, pet."

This time, Emily didn't hide her distaste at the musty smell
in the poky office, and Polly laughed as she rinsed some mugs under the tap.
"You get used to it. You'll get used to all of this. How are you finding
things, so far?"

"I like it." Emily was surprised to hear herself
admit it, but it was true. All her previous office temping jobs had been
monotonous trudges through the hell of meaningless paperwork, but at the
charity, she felt as if her work had a purpose.

"Good. It's pretty manic here but that's all right,
really. Milk, sugar?"

"Uh, just milk please. Thanks." Emily stayed
standing up and leaned back by the window, her eyes flicking over the curling
posters and notices on the walls. She tried to ignore the smell. "Been
here long?"

"Three months." Polly's eyes danced. She spoke
with a smile always threatening to break through. "I thought I wanted to
specialise in children's stuff but I did a placement with kids and it broke my
heart, it really did. Then I came here and I thought I was better suited to
working with adults, you know? Though some of 'em are just like kids. So
young."

"Yeah."

"Plus, I think my partner woulda thrown me out if I'd
carried on with the children's work. It got to me so that I was going home in
tears and just ripping her head off, taking it all out on her, you know? It was
kinda hard to admit that something I'd dreamed about was not quite right for
me, but that's life. So, what about you?"

"I'm sorry?" Emily had been thinking about Joel
and his youth. She'd lost track of the conversation and wasn't sure what Polly
was asking her.

"Partner, home life? Someone to take all the aggro out
on? Pardon me if I'm prying, tell me to go stick it. I do get carried
away." She smiled wide and winningly, with the confidence that her
questions never got refused if she asked jauntily enough.

Emily grinned back, spontaneously. When she thought of
Turner and the weekend they'd just spent together, a warm rush made her belly
contract. "Yeah. There is someone."

"Ooh, look at you! Look at that face!" Polly
clapped her hands, making her many silver rings jangle. "You look like a
woman right at the start of a love affair. What are we talking? Days?
Weeks?"

"Ah, it's kind of complicated. I met him eight months
ago. But we're only just getting together now, properly." She suddenly
didn't want to mention his prison sentence. She told herself it was because it
was in the past, and irrelevant to the here and now.

Perhaps she was a little ashamed.

"Aww, how sweet!" Polly didn't probe any further,
and Emily was relieved. "So, you had a weekend of wining and dining and
all that first-date type stuff. Loving it, pet!"

Emily shook her head but she was still smiling. "Close.
On a budget, though. Not so much of the wining and dining."
More like
crappy cooking and limp lasagne.

Polly drank down the dregs of her tea, and moved to the sink
to wash her mug. She looked sideways at Emily, still by the window. "Is it
true you used to be a journalist? That's what Maria said, at any rate."

Used to be?
That stung. "I… I still am,"
Emily said, with a sigh. "But it's a hard life, being freelance, and I
needed to make some extra money that was a bit more reliable."

"Oh, I see."

Emily thought that she probably didn't, but it was time to
get back to work. As she followed Polly in washing up her mug, the staffroom
door opened again.

Emily glanced up to see who was coming in, and the mug
slipped from her hands, clattering into the sink. Had her thoughts conjured him
up?

The young man nodded and smiled, but she couldn't smile
back. She was frozen, staring, as Polly said, "Hey Joel. How you doing,
pet?" She was looking at Joel, not Emily, and didn't see her reaction.

"I'm all right. How are you?" He spoke lightly,
the typical Manc twang thick in his voice. Emily hadn't heard him for years but
he was almost as familiar to her as Turner was.

"I'm doing fine," Polly said. "Hey, have you
met our new office manager and general dogsbody? Emily?"

Emily picked up the mug and half-turned to face him, wanting
more than anything to just run away. She didn't take her eyes away from Joel
and she could see recognition finally spread across his face.

He looked healthier than she'd last seen him. The treatment
for TB must have been working; she knew it took months, even years, to be clear
of one of homelessness's biggest killers. He was dressed in clean, old clothing
and his face showed he was getting regular meals at last. He was still slender,
but he no longer looked ill.

"Emily."

Polly finally picked up on the strange atmosphere between
them. She said, breezily, "So, you guys know each other! How cool is
that?"

Emily forced herself to smile as warmly as she could. She
knew her face would look stiff and unnatural but she tried to make her eyes
crinkle at the corners.
That was the sign of a genuine smile, wasn't it?
"Joel,
how are things? It's good to see you."

He didn't smile back. He was still looking shocked.
"Good to see me? After… well, okay than. Thank you. Things are better than
they were."

"I'm glad to hear it. Really, I am."

"Sure." He shrugged, clearly disbelieving
everything.

"Well, fancy that. How did you two meet?" Polly
blustered on. She must have picked up on the awkwardness now, but it was in her
nature to plough through with humour and chirpiness.

Emily and Joel blinked at each other, waiting for the
explanation to come for the other person. Finally Emily took the lead in the
awkward silence.

"When I was starting out, fresh out of media studies at
college, I… met Joel as part of research for an article I was writing."

Joel raised one eyebrow, waiting for her to elaborate, but
she came to a helpless stop and thrust her hands into her pockets. She twitched
her shoulders upwards, a slight shrug to signal that was all there was to it.

"So, anyway," she continued, swerving and changing
the subject, "Anyway. I had best be getting back to my desk. Uh, you take
care, Joel, see you later. Thanks for the tea, Polly."

She squirmed past Joel who steadfastly did not move out of
the way, and walked as fast as she dared. She didn't want to look as if she was
running, even though she felt like it. It was a relief to throw herself back behind
the desk in the reception area, and bury herself back in work again. Thank
heavens for hundreds of pointlessly urgent emails. Little red flags of
self-importance listed down her screen.
Hooray.

She didn't even know why Joel was here. Working? Volunteering?
She should have asked. She should have said more. A thousand perfect-hindsight
recriminations nibbled at the edges of her consciousness but she gritted her
teeth, ignored the emails, and instead she masochistically ploughed through a
stack of ancient invoices.

It worked. Unintelligible notes from the previous office
manager soon pushed the frets and worries of Joel out of her mind, and she was
absorbed into her work until it was time to go home.

* * * *

"My round, lads." Turner rose to his feet and
pointed his finger in turn at each of the men sitting around the pitted pub
table. "Lager, lager, cider, lemonade?"

"We ought to get you this," one of the lanky young
ones protested, but he was quickly shushed by his friends. Turner laughed at
them all, and went to the bar to order five more drinks. The barmaid was
reluctant to be dragged away from whatever she was doing on her smartphone but
he told her to get herself a drink too, and suddenly she was all pouty smiles
and fluttery fake eyelashes.

The pub was a city-centre one, and had a smattering of
drinkers intent on ignoring the real world of work and life. It didn't do food,
so it didn't attract the lunchtime crowd. The weak sunlight caught motes of
ancient dust dancing between gloom and mirrors. It was exactly the kind of run
down and ignored place that was ideal for casual business meetings for people
like Turner.

He had left his laptop open and was pleased to see that they
all gathered round to have another look at his proposed website design. It was
a win-win situation, really. He needed a way of showcasing what he was capable
of, and they needed a slick new site for their indie band, while on a budget.
They'd all negotiated a fair fee together and things were going well.

Turner carried the tray of drinks carefully through the
quiet pub and slid it onto an adjoining table, out of the way.

One of the lads, a bassist, said, "Oh man. It looks so
much better than my efforts."

The others laughed and started to rib him. "Don't be
too hard on yourself, Jerry. I mean, your site was fine. For, like, a teenage
girl's fan site thing or something. In the nineties."

"Give over."

Turner settled on the frayed red bench and relaxed. He'd had
a great weekend with Emily and now his career was starting to move in the right
direction, too. All he needed was a few starter commissions like this, then he
could bump up his prices a bit, and start to make a decent living. And keep on
learning, too. He'd already looked up the local colleges' night classes on
advanced coding and programming.

One of the band members considered himself pretty hot on
technological matters. "What about SEO?" he asked, a serious look on
his face.

The others hooted with laughter and the bassist shoved his
elbow in the questioner's ribs, but Turner waved their derision down.
"It's a fair question," he said. "And there are things that I'll
do to improve your chances of rising in the search engines but it's not instant
and it's not a magic bullet. You guys need to concentrate on your music and
producing regular, quality content." To be fair to the guy asking the
question, Turner leaned forward and toggled some buttons on his laptop.
"Look here," he said, and began to explain the code and the theory.
The others tuned out, but the man who'd asked tried to follow the explanation
with nods and grunts.

The afternoon passed well, and by the time four o'clock
rolled around, they'd come to a full agreement about the job.

"I'm looking forward to getting cracking on this,"
Turner said as they finished off their third round of drinks. He'd gone for a
coke rather than another pint of lager, as he was planning on getting started
as soon as he got home. The laptop was already snugly back in its bag by his
feet.

"Anything rather than letting Jerry loose on it
again."

"You can't be good at everything. Just stick with the
music."

"Aye, we will. Is that you?"

A mobile phone was going off, and everyone started patting
their pockets - even people on the next table. Turner dragged his out.
"Me. Sorry…"

He stood up and moved a discreet distance away to take the
call.

"Elaine. Hey ther,e sis. You all right?"

She sounded defensive. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Steady on. Only asking." Turner rolled his eyes.

"What are you up to, tonight, then?"

"Not a lot. Whassup?"

"Not seeing Emily?"

"Nope, not tonight. I've got a commission for a
website, so I was planning on a bit of work, if you must know."

"Hey, well done you! You can bring it over."

"Wait, what?"

"Sorry," Elaine said with no apology in the tone
of her voice whatsoever. "I meant to say, can you come and babysit the
boys tonight? I've got a night class to learn about ear candling, and Andy is
working."