Jessie Slaymaker's Non-Existent Love Life (The Jessie Slaymaker Series) (13 page)

As he drove, Tom kept looking over to Jessie in his passenger seat. She looked nervous and seemed to be continuously playing with her hands in her lap. He wanted to reach over and squeeze her knee, or grab her hands to bring her some peace, but he was afraid to. Instead, he settled for words.

‘Feeling nervous, chick?’ Tom asked her as brightly as he could muster.

‘Just a tad,’ she replied quickly, her hands still fidgeting. Tom eyed her dancing hands, feeling tempted to still them, but then thought better of it and returned his gaze to the road.

‘You’ll be absolutely fine,’ he said reassuringly.

‘Will I? How exactly do you know that?’ she asked snappily, her stress levels getting the better of her. She visibly forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, facing him and grabbing his knee. Tom willed himself to relax under her touch. ‘It’s just, I don’t know what’s going on with me at the moment. All these years I’ve been convinced that I’m destined to be Charlie’s significant other. Then I meet his brother who’s just…well, he’s just lovely. Then I go on a terrible date with Charlie and agree to go to Hong Kong with him. I mean, I’m excited to go to Hong Kong and all, but I’m just so confused. To top it all, I don’t know why we’re going. Charlie is being all cryptic about this trip and it’s just so last-minute, I feel woefully underprepared. What the hell am I doing? I’m safe and dependable Jessie, I shouldn’t be playing two guys and jet-setting about the place on my company’s time and money for no apparent reason.’

‘Hey, stop ranting there for one minute Jess,’ Tom said forcefully.

‘Sorry,’ she automatically responded, retrieving her hand from his leg and studying his face carefully to see how angry he was.

‘Don’t you
ever
think of yourself as merely safe and dependable. You’re loyal and reliable, but there’s a hell of a lot more to you than just being someone’s support mechanism,’ Tom continued. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong. You’ve seen two guys; but are you exclusive with either of them? No, you’re not. Plus they both know about the other one, so what’s the problem?’

Jessie returned her gaze to her hands, allowing Tom to return to his own thoughts. He wondered if she was telling him everything. About Charlie, this business trip, and Jack. He trusted her, of course he did; but at the same time, maybe he wasn’t completely enlightened. After all, if the shoe were on the other foot, he’d spare her some of the details, wouldn’t he?

‘Of course your stupid bank should be sending you off overseas to represent them. You’re good with people, excellent company, and bloody brilliant at your job. Don’t feel bad about going on their buck. I’m sure they can stump up for your economy seat and hotel,’ Tom said, trying to reassure her when she hadn’t said anything for some minutes.

Not that he would have told Jessie, but he thought there was something slightly amiss about her travelling all that way in economy class on a business trip. Even knowing that Charlie was also flying economy, something felt a bit odd about it to Tom, as he certainly didn’t regard it as standard practice for a big bad bank like Jessie’s. Tom pushed this niggle to the back of his mind, explaining it away as budget constraints, and glanced across at Jessie to see how his words had affected her.

She seemed to have stopped wringing the hell out of her hands, which Tom regarded as progress, and she was now staring dead ahead, clearly wearing a pensive expression on her face. Tom didn’t push her for a response. He knew she would come back when she was ready.

‘I’m not fishing for compliments here, but do you really think people can see me as anything more than a safe pair of hands?’ she asked, after a bit more silent pondering.

‘If I may be so bold, Jessie, as to speak plainly, in an attempt to enlighten you,’ Tom said formally, then paused momentarily, deciding whether or not to let her reply. He decided to continue quickly before she could interject. ‘For some godforsaken reason you have no idea—absolutely
no clue
—of your true worth. I am here to tell you that you are valuable, you are incredibly important to the people who love you, and
because
of that it’s okay to do what you want to do from time to time. You spend your entire life trying to please and accommodate everyone else around you, so much so that you forget about the most important person in the room. That’s you, Jessie,’ he added for effect, and just in case she was in need of any further clarification.

‘Thanks, Tom, you always know how to boost my ego,’ she said, trying to lighten the seriousness of Tom’s tone as she always did.

‘I mean it, Jessie. You’ve got to stop selling yourself short. You deserve good things to happen to you and you shouldn’t feel guilty about letting them happen to you. Go on your trip, be open-minded, and have a wonderful time,’ he concluded as he pulled into the drop-off zone at the airport.

‘My God, we’re here already,’ Jessie exclaimed in an alarmed, panicky voice. She took a couple of deep breaths to regain her composure and turned to face Tom.

‘Thanks for everything, Tom. You are truly the best friend a girl could wish for,’ she said earnestly, leaning over to peck him on the cheek. Tom froze in his seat for a moment, paralysed by her touch. He willed himself to relax. With a significant effort he forced himself to get out of the car and retrieve her suitcase from the boot. He carried the case slowly over to the pavement, trying to phrase in his head some semblance of what he wanted to convey to her.

‘Got your passport and your credit cards?’ Tom asked, buying himself more time before the inevitable goodbye.

‘Check and check,’ she replied, trying to force a smile. He could see the nerves she was barely able to disguise.

‘Jessie, I just have to say something,’ Tom began, looking her directly in the eye. ‘I sometimes think you spend so little time even thinking about what it is you really want in life that you don’t even know what you want to do, or where you want to go, or even
who
you really want to be with.’ He tried to emphasise the
who
bit, but he wasn’t entirely sure if she’d gotten the message or not. Her slightly puzzled look didn’t suggest that she had. Bugger, Tom thought to himself.

‘Okay,’ she said while she thought of a better response. ‘I’ll use this trip to try and figure out what it is that I really want. I promise,’ she said, looking up at him smiling. She wrapped her arms around him, in that totally natural way she always did with him, and gave him one of her best, comforting hugs. Tom breathed in her scent and noticed the arch of her back as his hands came to rest in the small of her back.

‘Have fun,’ he whispered into her hair, suddenly feeling himself getting choked up.

Jessie pulled away, grabbed her suitcase, and walked into the terminal.

‘Wish me luck,’ she called over her shoulder to Tom, with a forced smile plastered on her face.

‘Good luck,’ he called back as she turned again and disappeared through the automatic doors.

Tom stood rooted to the spot, silently hoping she would come running back and throw her arms around him and… what? What did he want? He felt more confused than ever as he was brought back to reality by a car’s horn going berserk. Something she had said really rankled him. Saying he was ‘the best friend a girl could have.’ It was true, they were best friends. She must have said it a hundred times before, so why did he not like her saying it now? Tom drove home in a haze of denial and contradictions, feeling, for the first time in his life, thoroughly lost and at a loss for what to do next. One thing he did realise was that he needed to take some of his own advice and figure out what it was
he
wanted—and, more importantly,
who
it was he wanted to be with.

Chapter 38

Jessie was bloody exhausted. Nearly twelve hours flying economy had near enough killed her
and
her enthusiasm for this trip. She ached all over. Owing to the lateness of their booking there hadn’t been a vast array of seats to choose from, and they hadn’t even managed to get two seats next to each other. Jessie had selflessly offered Charlie the only bulkhead seat available at the check-in desk. This was all well and good, aside from the fact that her noble deed had left her stuck in a middle seat of a cramped row, sandwiched between a slightly rotund man and a friendly middle-aged woman. All had been perfectly amiable while they were awake. However, it had gone drastically downhill when the blinds had gone down and the lights had gone out. The rotund man was a serial armrest hogger who had been intent on having the volume up at full blast on his headphones for the whole duration of the three action films he watched. The friendly woman on Jessie’s other side had looked inoffensive upon first appearance, but once she’d finished her glass of wine she’d fallen asleep and snored for England at rousing-the-dead decibels.

Upon arrival in Hong Kong, waiting at the carousel for their luggage to appear, Jessie was feeling somewhat less than peachy. Charlie wasn’t exactly fresh, but he looked a damn sight less crumpled and haggard than Jessie did. The bulkhead had obviously been a great gift, Jessie found herself thinking bitterly.

They took a taxi from the airport to their hotel in the city. Jessie sat silently taking in the magnitude of her surroundings—and for the first time in her life, she was quite happy to not have to talk to Charlie. What had happened to her? Well, she could explain it, in part, on account of the amazing scenery that was flashing past her. There were mile upon mile of shipping containers all neatly stacked, interspersed with massive cranes. And just when she thought there couldn’t possibly be any more of the port there would be more colourful containers around the next bend. It reminded her of when she used to take the train to Wales when she was a child. All along the north coast were caravan parks housing rows and rows of seemingly never-ending caravans. Only this was much more exciting and spectacular. And not North Wales.

Behind what seemed like the never-ending containers was the Hong Kong island skyline in the distance, drawing ever closer. Jessie was breathless. It was awesome. Such tall buildings, much taller than anything in England, all seemed to be crammed together on a small thin stretch of land overlooked by the infamous Peak. The sun was starting to go down, and the light twinkling against all the glass and metal of ultra-modern skyscrapers just added to the magic of the experience. Even Charlie seemed slightly awed by the sight before him, if his silence was anything to go by, and Charlie was not a man to be easily impressed.

The views weren’t enough to exactly revitalise Jessie after her hellish flight, but some of her initial enthusiasm and sheer girlish excitement had been reignited. It would have been impossible for it not to be. She felt a strong desire to go out and explore—a marked contrast with the overwhelming desire to collapse into bed which she’d felt a mere twenty minutes earlier at the airport.

Charlie looked across at her and noted her happier expression.

‘The hotel is just outside of Central. It isn’t far to the office though and there’s a free shuttle bus we can take which runs every fifteen minutes. I checked online; the place looks nice, a bit like a Travelodge,’ Charlie explained, clearly expecting Jessie to be impressed that he’d done his research.

Jessie couldn’t help but feel a tinge of disappointment. She knew it was wrong, and she should consider herself remarkably lucky to be in Hong Kong, with Charlie, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help how she felt and that was that. On the plane she’d read the in-flight magazine from cover to cover numerous times, and she couldn’t help but buy into the super luxury and promise of Hong Kong. She’d seen exquisite pictures of the Mandarin Oriental and The Peninsula Hotel. And whilst she hadn’t been expecting these as her business accommodation, she’d still been expecting a bit more than a bog-standard Travelodge. It was a
business
trip
after all. How cheap was her bank? As far as she was aware, her bank had always sent its staff on business travel to some really nice places. Maybe it had all been office gossip. She’d read that taxis were cheap in Hong Kong compared to England and she’d envisaged hailing one easily at any time of day, wearing her high heels and snappy suits. A shuttle bus, however convenient and more environmentally sensible it was, hadn’t figured in her considerable imaginings on the plane.

Jessie was starting to feel like this trip was being done on a shoestring. The flight, the hotel. Maybe she was overreacting. After all, it had been Charlie who’d suggested taking a cab from the airport. That wasn’t so cheap. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt as they entered the city, but there was a nagging voice in the back of her head which was starting to ask questions. Questions like: Who had sanctioned this trip? Why hadn’t she known anything about it until a few days ago? Why had several of the files she’d tried to pull in preparation for the trip disappeared into thin air? Benefit of the doubt, Jessie forced herself to tell herself.

The taxi sped along the highway, skirting the rush hour traffic, and eventually pulled up at a newish tower block which Jessie presumed was their hotel. Upon first appearances it looked nice. It was clean and modern, and in all honesty, comparing it to a Travelodge would be doing the Bel Air Hotel a disservice. It still wasn’t the Mandarin Oriental though, Jessie thought to herself, struggling to quash the annoying little voice inside her.

Charlie wriggled in his seat to retrieve his wallet and began sifting through the wad of notes in there.

‘Hey, don’t suppose you could get this, could you? I’ve only got large bills, which the taxi drivers are not too fond of here, I’m told. I’ll see you right later,’ he added for good measure.

‘Oh, sure,’ responded Jessie, digging around in her bag for her purse. ‘I’ll just get a receipt and claim it back from work.’

Something in the silence of the cab made her look up and see Charlie flash her a peculiar look. There was something in his eyes which suggested she’d said something wrong and claiming back a receipt was not the right thing to do. Intimidated, she paid the fare and didn’t ask for a receipt.