Desk Jockey Jam (8 page)

He typed
bre
and
her email address popped up.  He thought about the subject line and typed
A
moment
.  Then he put his cursor in the message space.  He wanted to keep
the language as businesslike, as impersonal as possible.  Maybe that way she’d
overlook her personal feelings for him and react to the content not the
context. 

He typed: 
My apologies
for disturbing and upsetting you yesterday, it was not my intention. 
Unfortunately I allowed my own feelings to get in the way.  I do however feel
the need to follow through on our discussion but rather than disturb you again
in person, I thought I would ask my question again here so you can respond at
your leisure
.  
Or not, as you see fit
.

It wasn’t Dan’s genuine
and there wasn’t much heart in it, and it read like crap, but it was the best
he could come up with.

I have noticed your bruises
and I am concerned about them, about you.  I’d like to know if there was
anything I can help with in relation to that.

He wanted to ask if she
was all right, if she was trapped in a bad situation and needed help to get
out.  He wanted to ask if she forgave him for being a big, loud fuckwit for the
last twelve months and tell her that yeah, she was right, he was a pompous, walking
bag of pissed off, but he was trying to get over himself.  But mostly he wanted
to ask if there was someone hurting her, and if he could lean on them for her
to make it so she never got hurt again.  But he couldn’t do any of that,
because, well, just because.  She hated him.

He hit send before he
could think any further about it, powered down and tried to coax his scalded
skin to sleep.

7:        Sucker

Anthony Gambese managed to
destroy Bree’s morning without even being in the office early.  She read his
email and felt a chasm open beneath her feet through all forty-two levels of Governor
Macquarie Tower.  Was he deliberately trying to wreck her life or just ineptly
stumbling all over it?  Did he not understand what he’d put in email was
incredibly personal and deeply compromising, no matter how he’d tried to
disguise it in officialise.

And what kind of a bastard
act was it, given Anthony simply had to understand every piece of electronic
communication in the office was stored for audit trails?  It didn’t matter whether
the email was deleted off their computers, it lived on in the firm’s servers,
forever accessible, forever suggesting Bree Robinson was—what?  He hadn’t put
two and two together about roller derby or she’d have heard about it.  He
wouldn’t have been able to help himself.  So, what precisely did he think she
was—clumsy?  And what did he mean by asking if there was anything he
could
do in relation to that
.  Did he mean to walk beside her and stop her
bumping into furniture or...

Oh God
. 
She jumped up from her desk as if it’s been electrified.  Anthony thought she
was being victimised, smacked around. 
Oh dear God
.  In his blundering
way he was genuinely trying to help.

She sat back down; glad to
her
You’re a Piza Work
pink toenail polish no one had witnessed her
panicked state.  She spent the next half hour furtively watching the door from
the lift well for Anthony—
no Ant
, she needed to start thinking of him as
Ant—a dunderhead who was trying to be gallant.  If you considered gallant
boxing her in a small room, ignoring her requests to leave, harassing her for
no good reason, and then revealing that reason on permanently recorded email. 

The minute he cleared the
foyer door, his eyes were on her.  He gave her a tight, toothless grimace and a
quick bob of his head, but that was it.  He went to his desk and two minutes
later his eyes were down on his screen.  Bree spent the next half hour trying
to attract his attention and failing.

She took the long way to
the water cooler to walk behind his workstation—twice.  She engaged his closest
neighbour, Mal, in a discussion about currency adjustments largely to put herself
in Ant’s eye line, and when all her tricks failed, and before Christine smelled
a rat, she reopened his email and typed a response. 

Re:  A moment.  Thank you
for your obvious concern and your offer to assist.  However I believe there’s
been a misunderstanding.  No need for you to worry.  Again thanks.

It was bland, clear and
unambiguous.  It said back off, without spelling it out.  It said thank you,
without welcoming further discussion.  And that would hopefully be the end of
it.  They could go back to comfortably avoiding each other, like normal, even
if that comfort was now a little lumpy.  She read the email back.  It was so to
the point it was verging on rude, but there was no way he could misconstrue it
as anything other than a dead argument.  She shifted her cursor, hit send then
tried to recapture her lost morning.  She didn’t get much done in the half hour
he gave her.  And she knew he was behind her before he spoke.

“Bree, I’m wondering if
you would look over my quarterly predictions report.”

She half turned her chair
so she was side on to him.  “Me?”  Did he smell like sunshine and saltwater or
was she imaging that?

“Yeah, you’re the senior
analyst.”

And he was a passive
aggressive low life.  What was she supposed to say to that?  No, and half the
office would hear her being unhelpful, not Ant being a dickhead.  Yes, and
she’d have to talk to him, and sure as it was around the usual time he nicked
downstairs to buy more of that strong coffee he liked, he’d make a big deal
about buying her one too.

“Before you ask I’ve had
coffee thanks.”

“Ah, good, yeah.  I just
thought you might have a view on the next six months.”

Chris spun around in her
chair and glared at them both, a hand over the receiver of her phone.  “Guys, on
a call.”

Ant mouthed sorry, but put
his hand on the back of Bree’s chair stopping her from turning away from him. 
He said, “Please, Bree,” so softly it was a surprise such a gentle, pleading
sound could come from such a big bloke. 

She was a total sucker.  “All
right buy me a coffee and I’ll look at your report.”

She grabbed her purse and
pushed her chair back.  He stepped away, but his eyes were on her as she stood
and he followed her into the lift foyer, where he made small talk with various
people and she tried to feel okay about being shanghaied by him.

They rode the express lift
down all forty-two floors of the fifty-two floor building stopping only twice,
but not speaking even when they had the carriage to themselves.  In the
building foyer, Ant suggested a coffee shop across the road.  At least that was
smart, they were less likely to run into anyone from the office there.  Bree
picked a table in the corner and took the seat facing out to the street front,
that way she wouldn’t have to look at him; she could look at the people waiting
at the taxi rank.  Of course once they’d settled she realised he had nowhere
else to look except at her. 

Under his steady scrutiny
she forgot her resolve to be pleasant.  “I don’t know what you want to talk
about, but the email, did you even think about the fact that’s a permanent record?”

“Go on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have it out, Bree. 
Spill.  Go to town.  Say whatever it is you need to say to me.  It won’t be
worse than I’ve said to myself the last twenty-four hours.”

She frowned at him.  “I
said what I needed to say on email.”

He gave a bitter snicker. 
“You said what you thought would get rid of me quickest.”

“So we understand each other
then.”

He unfolded arms that’d
been tight across his chest.  “Not even a little bit.”

“What do you want from
me?”

He sucked in a huge
lungful of air, then rolled his head left to right as if his neck was stiff and
sore.  “I want two things.”

“Great.”  She emphasised
the tee sound for maximum sarcasm, but immediately felt mean for doing it when
he sighed again.  “Sorry.  You and I—it was better when we avoided each other.”

“No it wasn’t.”  He leaned
forward, spreading both palms on the table as though he was opening himself to
her.  “You avoided me because I was a big, loud, self important fuckwit and all
that showed was good sense.  And I avoided you because I thought you were a
snob and a bitch, and a product of equal opportunity lucky enough to be in the
right place at the right time.”

He might as well have
punched her.  “Wow.  Just wow.  You admit you think I got the job because I
wear a skirt.”  She figured he’d thought that, but to hear him say it. 
Wow
.

“Yep.” 

He didn’t dodge.  He took
that right on the chin.  “Wow.”

“I was wrong.  That’s the
first thing I want to say.  I’m sorry.  I was wrong.  I’m a dickhead.  You
worked hard for the promotion and you deserved it.  I’m a fucking sore loser
and that’s all there is to it.”

She couldn’t possibly say
the word wow again, but that’s what was echoing in her head, and then he went and
built that echo into a roar of surprise and a reverberation of emotions she
found hard to name.

“I’m worried you’re
fobbing me off.  The second thing I want is for you to look me in the eyes and
tell me you’re not in some kind of trouble.  I’ve got two sisters.  I’d kill
anyone who hurt them and ask questions later.  I’m overbearing I know, they
tell me all the time.  I can’t help it.  It’s in my DNA.  I don’t even know
you, but if someone is hurting you, I want to help you stop it.”

She gaped at him, her
tongue stuck somewhere in the base of her stomach where it flip-flopped about. 
This was what he’d wanted to say yesterday, what he’d tried to finesse on email,
and what he was utterly one hundred percent genuine about now.

“I don’t care if I’m
embarrassing you, Bree.  I don’t care if you hate me worse for this and never
speak to me again.”  He shrugged one shoulder.  “I need to know and I’m not
taking your polite handball for an answer.”

There was no bluster in
him, no artifice, no being the big swinging dick.  She still couldn’t form a
coherent thought, but her hands shot out and closed over his.  His eyes went
down then back up to hers showing only confusion.  Then he seemed to realise
she was struggling and freed his hands to pour her a glass of water.  She
sipped, watching him, fascinated by him, while she figured out what to say to
give him the truth without giving her game away.

8:        Contact

He’d done it.  He’d said
it.  Got it out.  Got it all out, the falling on his sword thing, the damsel in
distress thing, and she looked like she was going to cry. 
Fuck
.  And on
top of that she wasn’t going to say anything.  Any minute now she’d start
looking out into the street and then she’d get up and leave him here, feeling
like he was stuck on a sandbar. 

That moment where she’d
put her hands on his, tongue-tied and cornered, but finally getting where he
was coming from and not feeling she needed to go ninja on him.  Ah, that moment
alone, was worth the crisis of confidence he’d had over her. 

Now he wanted to take back
twelve months of avoiding, ignoring and secretly ridiculing her.  He didn’t
know her.  He certainly didn’t understand her, but he no longer felt irritated
by her.  She wasn’t a snob, she was focussed and no nonsense, maybe a little
shy.  She wasn’t a bitch, that was just how he’d chosen to think of her to make
it easier to see her as a rival instead of a real person, and then it was a
perfect fit when his own ambitions were stalled.  But now he saw her.  She was
suddenly real to him not a cardboard cut-out villain.  She hated olives and
anchovies.  She had great shoes.  She was funny.  She was gutsy. 

She didn’t hate him.

But he had no idea what
she really thought of him and now for some reason, it mattered.

“I, ah.  I don’t know what
to say, Ant.  I had no idea you were under the impression I was in a bad
situation.”

He frowned.  She was going
to hedge, dodge, tell him bloody nothing.  But she’d called him Ant at least.  She
put her hand over one of his again and it was cool and light and he liked it. 

“I’m not in any trouble.  No
one is hurting me.  I’m not even in a relationship.  I fall over.  It’s my own
fault.”

“What?”  He barked that,
and of course she took her hand away.  The odd thing was he missed it. 

“I’m not making an excuse,
I play a contact sport.”

“You.”  Even to his own
stupid ears that rang with incredulity.

She sighed and pushed back
into her seat.  “Now you’ve gone and spoiled it.” 

And he had.  He’d done
that thing where he led with his bloody ego and didn’t pay proper attention.  Because
she looked too small, too soft, he’d taken that to be her whole story, like
he’d taken history to be Toni’s present and future.  “I’m sorry.  You don’t seem
the type.”