Nikki Logan - The Morning After the Night Before

Mitchell’s voice box lurched.

She lifted her index finger to her lips and sucked it gently into her mouth, then dragged it back out down her full, moist bottom lip.

His chest rose and fell. Blue eyes remained riveted on hers. Full of the usual heat. Full of new speculation and anticipation.

And she wrote seven letters backwards in the mist on the glass.

Just two words.

One of them bad. One of them very bad.

Mitchell’s smouldering gaze flickered down to the glass and then flared as he read her backwards statement.

‘I trust that is prosaic enough for you, sir ,’ Izzy said without raising her voice.

His left brow arched high. No question that her latest written submission was unambiguous in its brevity. And no question that she was through at Broadmores regardless of whether she’d just quit.

Which she had.

She erased the misty evidence with her jacket sleeve and turned from all the sex simmering between them, ignoring the open-mouthed stares of her stunned colleagues, and crossed back to her desk on winged feet.

Three bits of scrunched-up paper tumbled out of her upended waste-paper basket and bounced across the floor only to be replaced with her phone, keys, hand lotion, still-nodding hedgehog and a photograph of herself, Tori and Poppy at school.

And then she just … walked out.

There was no ovation from her fellow downtrodden, and if anyone said goodbye she didn’t hear it through the furious rush of blood past her eardrums.

She stepped into the lift and turned to the front, giving her a direct view of Harry Mitchell, still standing, agape, in his glass fishbowl, staring at her with a complicated mix of creases on his face.

Disappointment—the kind she was used to from her parents.

Stunned disbelief—the kind reserved for anyone who stepped off the rooftop of their career as she just had.

Loss—the kind …

She frowned. The kind she felt right now, for something she couldn’t begin to understand, as the lift doors whispered shut on everything she’d thought she’d wanted from life.

‘WHAT AM I?’ Izzy murmured, wedging her shoulder and elbow in closer to the mirror propped up next to the tiny boxroom window to finish applying her mascara. ‘A flipping boy wizard?’

She wouldn’t mind a few magical skills if it meant she could just wave a wand to make herself beautiful in moments. Or her boobs bigger. Or her bank balance bigger. But the only part of the whole wizarding deal she had was the ‘tiny room under the stairs’ thing where, up until three days ago, she and her sibling flatmates had kept their miscellaneous junk.

Never mind that they were quite fancy stairs leading up to a delightful mezzanine floor she’d once adored. Never mind that it had, in fact, been an actual room before it was their boxroom. It was unquestionably tiny.

A poor girl’s room.

Bad enough that she’d had to ship most of her belongings to her parents’ council house back in Chorlton, but her impulsiveness had put everyone out because Poppy and Alex had to relocate their thirds of the overflow, too, and couldn’t move it into Izzy’s old room because that now needed to be let to meet the repayments.

Sigh. Her room … Her beautiful room.

Someone else’s soon.

She swapped the mascara to the other hand and tried for a better result from the left.

‘The price of freedom,’ she reminded herself aloud.

And of self-respect. Everything she’d done in her life was about treating herself with more respect than the world had ever treated her.

‘Izzy …’ Poppy rapped on the door then stuck her head in, skilfully avoiding taking an eye out on the various clothes hangers hooked over the door frame. ‘How much of your own party are you planning on missing?’

Was all of it a wise thing to admit?

She normally loved a party, loved being the centre of attention—she had a lifetime of non-existent parties to make up for—but Congrats, you’re unemployed was not her preferred theme. Even if Poppy had typically gone with the more positive, Congrats, you’re out of the job that was draining your soul. There certainly was something to be said for spin. Izzy pushed back from the ridiculously ornate dresser wedged awkwardly between the wall and the single bed.

Single …

This was what she’d become—a half made-up pauper sleeping on a child’s bed.

The price of freedom.

‘Did I hear Tori’s laugh?’ Izzy quizzed, brightly. And by ‘laugh’ she meant the carillon of flirtatious bells that was their best friend’s weapon of choice. ‘How long has she been here?’

Poppy arched a single, elegant brow. ‘I think the more pertinent question is how long have you been in here? It’s just gone eight.’

‘Oh.’

The boxroom was too crowded for a clock and Izzy never wore a watch. ‘Time to come out, then.’

Why on earth had she thought being unemployed was worth celebrating?

Because that decision had been made two days ago. Today she’d changed her mind. Two days from now she’d probably feel differently again. Par for the course with her wildly swinging thoughts lately.

Wildly swinging, dissatisfied thoughts.

So dissatisfied that she’d even considered ringing her mum to talk things through. Until she remembered that she didn’t do that anymore.

‘Come on, Iz,’ Poppy urged, reading her expression and holding the door wide. ‘You’ll enjoy it once you get out there.’

She certainly wouldn’t without a champers in hand. One look at the thronging mass in their flat reinforced that. All friends, but somehow still overwhelming. Would it be rude to go to a movie instead? To reward the kindness of all their friends who’d rallied for her with her absence?

She paused in the doorway. They wouldn’t be the first kind people she’d abandoned.

But tonight was not the night to be thinking about her parents or her dysfunctional childhood. Tonight was a night for stoic smiles and fellowship.

She followed Poppy into the kitchen, keeping her eyes down until she had the familiar comfort of a glass in her hand. ‘Please tell me there’s Lanson.’

‘Dunno. Brother dearest ordered the booze.’

There was—thank God—and Izzy polished off her first glass while rinsing the used party glasses already accumulating in the kitchen. She took care of a second while chopping up a platter of out-of-season veg.

Their extended circle of friends fell like Brighton seagulls onto her choppings.

‘God, I love this stuff,’ a tall brunette cooed, scooping a big dollop of dip onto some capsicum and then shoving the lot into her mouth and speaking past the crunching mess. ‘Yours?’

‘Speciality of the man of the house,’ Izzy said. And, no, dip wasn’t an odd thing for a military man to be good at. No more odd than Alex’s weirdly nocturnal habits, anyway.

‘Tash, Sally.’ She nodded, extending the platter for their grazing pleasure. ‘Thanks for coming. Hi, Richard.’

‘Love the pauper’s catering, Izzy,’ he gushed, drowning a sprig of broccolini in dip. ‘Very on-theme.’

Huh. If being poor was so entertaining why hadn’t she smiled more as a kid?

She shuffled forwards through the crammed-in guests, keeping herself and the veg creeping steadily towards the far side of the bright, eclectically decorated industrial conversion. Guests greeted and commiserated and dipped the whole way.

‘So what’s next?’ one of her downstairs neighbours shouted over the music and chatter.

‘Not sure,’ Izzy hedged. ‘Consolidation period?’

The pretty face folded. ‘Oh, I assumed you had something already lined up.’