Jane Lark - Just for the Rush

‘Sorry.’

‘Again, not your fault, just me moaning.’

I hadn’t heard Jack moan until today. He was always upbeat. Where had he been this morning? To see his lawyer? He’d been managing his split with Sharon since the summer, but he hadn’t been like this before. ‘Well, I am sorry. I don’t like seeing you down.’

His smile tilted, then his hand gripped the back of my neck and his fingers squeezed. ‘Thanks, and, for what it’s worth, I think Rick is an idiot.’

He didn’t know how Rick and I had split then. ‘You know I dumped him?’

‘So Em said. What I meant was, Rick is just an idiot.’

I laughed. I didn’t know what to say to that. His long fingers slipped away from my neck, but I could still feel them there.

As we waited watching Susie make all ten drinks and load them into a box, the music changed to ‘Happy Xmas (War is over)’.

‘If I hear one more Christmas song…’ Jack whispered under his breath.

I laughed. But I knew what he meant. I was not in the spirit of the season this year. Rick hadn’t only taken custody of the house; he’d got custody of my parents and my friends. Everyone was on the side of team-Rick. But he was so nice, any woman would be stupid to say no to him, and so everyone had seen the complete and utter bitch in me.

I probably was the stupid one.

I glanced sideways at Jack. He was about four inches taller than me and I was five-eight, so he was tall. I caught his gaze as it shone through his dark eyelashes. ‘For what it’s worth,’ I whispered, ‘I think Sharon is a bitch.’

A bark of laughter left his throat.

‘Here you go!’ Our box of coffees was handed over, I moved to pick it up, but he leaned over and took it before I could. Really he could have done this on his own. Except maybe he needed someone to hold the doors. I pushed it open for him as we walked out.

The street was so crowded with shoppers it was like playing dodgems. I opened the disabled access door into the office block so he didn’t have to navigate the rotating doors with the box.

‘Back to the madhouse,’ he said as we stepped into the lift.

I looked at my watch. ‘There’s only an hour left before two…’

‘I can’t see much work being done, but maybe this coffee will charge you all up, so we can get all the account work wrapped up—’

‘Before Christmas.’

It was like he cringed at the word Christmas, as his face screwed up and one shoulder sort of ducked. But after that weird reaction, once his face had straightened up, he said in a flat voice, ‘Yeah.’

‘Weirdo…’ I said as the lift doors opened and I stepped out.

I got the office door and held it open.

‘Heartbreaker…’ he said when he walked past me into the office.

He was such a flirt, but so fit that even though I knew he flirted with absolutely everyone, it still had an effect. It was that pitch in his voice, the look in his blue eyes, and the quirk to his mouth, as much as any of the things he said – oh and how hot his body looked.

‘Coffee!’ he yelled as he set the box down on the desk, then he pulled a cup out. ‘Vanilla latte.’ He held it out to me.

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

My fingers touched his when I took it and my tummy did a backflip, excited by a sexual jolt of attraction.

He turned away and looked into the box again, then pulled out his triple-shot espresso. He drank his coffee like the drug it was, taking shots to charge up his exuberant personality. He walked back into his office and shut the door.

I shouted out the types of coffee and people came over to collect them as I watched him take off his coat. He hung it up on the rack in there, then went over to his desk, picked up his mobile phone and made a call. He walked around as he talked, making large hand gestures. Then his hand gripped in his hair and he looked up, as if he was seeking Divine intervention.

It didn’t look as though he’d received it. He looked like he shouted something into the phone before ending the call. Then he put his mobile on his desk as if it had burned his hand and stood staring at it for a moment. His hands slid into his pockets. A look of exasperation played across his face.

When he sat down at his desk, he picked up his office phone. The phone two desks behind me rang. Tina answered. ‘Hi, Jack.’

‘Your lawyer… Okay, on to it.’

As I walked over to leave the empty box by the recycle bin, about three minutes later, I heard Tina say, ‘He’s on the line. I’ll put him through.’

I felt sorry for Jack. He’d worked hard to build up the business.

But then he had cheated.

I sat down to finish off the project I was working on. I wanted to get it completed before Christmas. I wasn’t allowed near the big accounts, but I’d recently been given one of the smaller ones to manage as a trial. I was trying really hard to come up with a new concept that would blow their minds.

If I was going to make my mark on advertising, this was my moment to start.

After about half an hour I sat back in my chair and sighed. The right idea wasn’t coming. I’d listed, in a mind map, all the things the client wanted, the demographics we knew about their market, the things that were unique about their products, looking for an angle, a hook, a catch… But I couldn’t spot one.

My stupid brain was absorbed with Christmas, and Rick.

He was going to my parents with his parents. The plans hadn’t changed since my birthday – I’d just been dropped from them. ‘Ivy, I think it’s best you stay away from home this year, Rick is very upset.’ Those were Mum’s precise words. Everyone loved Rick and so now everyone hated me. The only person who was sort of with me still, was Milly. But she couldn’t openly be on Team Ivy because Rick was Steve’s best friend – the two of them had paired us up at school. They could not have been more wrong.

Then why had I stayed with Rick for six years? Six years!

Because I’d been lazy. It had just been easy. I’d liked him. I still did. He was nice – why wouldn’t I like him? I even loved him, in a quiet way. But he’d never made my heart pound or my tummy backflip. I didn’t want to settle for ‘like’, or ‘comfortable’, or ‘kind’. I wanted a passionate love. I regretted hurting Rick by letting him think everything was okay. But I didn’t regret leaving. I’d wasted six years of both our lives staying in that relationship when I’d known it was wrong.

When the clock hit two, everyone started packing up. Emma knocked on Jack’s office door. When she opened it, she asked, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come for a drink?’

I didn’t hear what he said, but it was obviously a reiteration of no.

‘Have a good Christmas,’ Emma concluded.

She stopped at my desk then. I hadn’t stopped working; I wasn’t in the mood for a rowdy pub on Christmas Eve. ‘Are you not coming either, Ivy?’

‘No, I don’t feel like it.’ Emma knew all my troubles, she was my direct manager, and she’d been good about everything – she’d given me time off to look for somewhere to live after my life had crash-landed, and the place I’d found had actually been one she’d spotted advertised on Gumtree.