This is a Love Story (4 page)

the CEO of some multimillion-pound company, with a sexy wife, two children and a car that required that special petrol just because

. . . well, because it’s a flash car, isn’t it?

OK, OK, I know that’s not very realistic. But at least I could be running my own design studio or something. I could have at least

got that sorted.

Now I have just two and a half years to achieve all this and basically it’s not going to happen.

I was considering this very situation on the train this morning, the same anxiety gripping my chest, when something odd

happened. Flicking through my copy of Metro, I stumbled across a picture story about a squirrel on waterskis. Utterly ridiculous.

For some unknown reason, this was a temporary cure for my weary heart and I felt the sudden urge to laugh my backside off.

You know, the kind of laughter that makes you accidentally fart or snort like a greedy pig. The kind of laughter that only comes

when you are so depressed that suddenly the most inane things are funny enough to bring you to tears.

You can’t laugh like that, though, on a stuffy train full of tight-lipped Brits. It wouldn’t be acceptable. So I spent a few minutes

holding in my amusement with great difficulty. The more I held it in, the funnier it became. My eyes were filling with water and my

stomach muscles were jumping up and down furiously. Trying to divert my attention from the rodent I looked up and saw a pair of

the most beautiful denim-blue eyes ever, peeping over the top of the same newspaper.

Wow.

My stomach filled with butterflies and she mouthed a word at me.

Squirrel . . . she said.

She was bloody gorgeous, with a thick, straight fringe just touching her eyelashes and the most healthy-looking, beautiful skin I

have ever seen. Her hair was a chestnut brown and I just wanted to touch it. Not in a horrible, overtly sexual, pervy way, or even in

a gay hairdresser way. In an I’m not sure if you’re real, so I just want to touch you to check kind of way.

Jesus. Be cool, Nick, I told myself.

Just. Be. Cool.

I did the opposite and stuck my right thumb up at her. Why? Why would I do that? She seemed pretty horrified by me after that

and went back to reading. Don’t blame her, really. Thumbs are so eighties.

I sat for a few moments, trying to work out at which point during my life I lost the ability to be good with women. Nope – no

idea.

A few minutes passed and she kept reading, not even a glance my way. I could feel myself burning up.

You may wonder why I was taking a chance meeting on a train so seriously. I wouldn’t normally attach so much hope to it either,

but there was something about her. She was the girl from my dreams. Sweet, understated, devastatingly sexy.

I was already teetering on the edge of feeling really down, so I figured I would quietly get up and go to the toilet. Maybe a quick

self-bollocking in the mirror and a splash of cold water on my idiot face would sort me out, and thankfully it did. A cigarette on the

way to the office and a small, strong coffee, and I was composed again.

I needed to keep busy, and if I’m honest, I had missed the office crowd quite a lot. I was hoping to be at my desk on time, ready to

create a new round of graphics for our weird magazines, but reception soon put an end to that idea.

‘Niiiick!’ came the shrill tones of Maria behind the welcome desk, her hands clapping together and an armful of bangles jingling

around like sleigh bells.

‘Hey, gorgeous,’ I said, leaning over the counter to give her a gentle peck on the cheek. She loves this.

‘Look at you! Look, Sandra, doesn’t he look good all tanned?!’ she cried, sharply elbowing her colleague, who was buried in a

copy of Elle.

The encounter went on for about six and a half minutes. I won’t bore you with the whole conversation because, like me, you will

be angry that you lost this chunk of your life with no way of getting it back.

When I finally peeled myself away from the ‘lovely’ ladies, I figured I would take the stairs to the third floor. It was time to face

the world again.

By the second floor I was exhausted – my chest was thick with cold and the wheezing was getting worse, so I decided to get the

lift for the final flight. I stabbed the control panel impatiently before realising I had pressed the wrong button, then started jabbing

angrily at both buttons in turn.

Come on . . . I even started tapping my right foot impatiently on the floor, a trait I abhor in anyone else.

Thankfully the lift soon turned up, but when I stepped onto the office floor, it was all a bit overwhelming – like the floodgates had

been opened.

Tom came over first, his gangly limbs moving as if in a fight with each other. I have never known a bloke so clumsy.

‘Nick, you’re back!’ he exclaimed, nervously slapping my back, and nearly tripping over his own shoelace.

‘All right,’ I said meekly.

Then almost everyone else came over at once, offering me tea, biscuits and all sorts of ‘feel better soon, please’ comments.

‘So, go on then, how many girls did you sleep with?’ asked Tom above the hubbub, rubbing his hands together excitedly. But I

couldn’t concentrate, because I saw someone in the distance.

It was just the side of her face, but she had the sexiest smile. She was worryingly familiar. Could it be?

No . . . surely not, I thought, trying to look away.

But then she turned around in her chair and I realised that it was indeed the beautiful girl from the train this morning.

I wanted to laugh.

I don’t even really know what was so funny. I hadn’t felt happiness like this in a long time, the kind of delirious joy that makes

you want to dance with strangers on the street and throw handfuls of sweets to children. A far cry from the wallowing mess I had

been this morning.

My mind was full of questions. Who was she? Why was she here? Why wouldn’t my bloody stomach stop feeling like it was full

of jelly? Did I have a good enough shower this morning? God, I hoped I’d had a good enough shower this morning . . .

I looked her up and down, half concentrating on Tom. Our eyes met and it was like an electric shock running right through my

body.

‘So, go on then, tell me!’ Tom insisted, a look of glee on his face, oblivious to the vision I had spotted in the near distance.

‘Er, none, mate,’ I said quietly, turning to my left in a bid to escape to my office. Tom walked away with obvious disappointment,

as if I had forgotten to bring him back chocolate-based treats from the airport. I had forgotten those too, actually . . .

Suddenly Lydia was in my path, smelling like a bunch of freshly picked flowers.

‘Hello, sweets,’ she said, a look of pity on her face.

There it goes again. The look. People have been giving me that look ever since Amelia shacked up with Toby. I just wish I could

turn back time and never get involved with anyone at work.

‘Hi,’ I replied, glancing towards the floor and feeling ever so aware of squirrel girl, who was now standing next to her, also

looking shy and – if I was reading it right – slightly pissed off.

‘There’s someone I need you to meet,’ Lydia announced, beaming and stepping aside with pride, as if unveiling a new museum

exhibit. She gave the beautiful girl a hard shove and she stumbled towards me reluctantly.

‘Hi, I’m Nick,’ I said, extending my hand to shake hers, but afraid that I might fall in love if she touched me.

‘Sienna,’ she replied in a well-spoken voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

The skin of our palms met. Hers was soft. Neither of us mentioned the train thing.

‘I work here, I’m a writer – just started a couple of weeks ago,’ she said, looking deeply embarrassed.

That was when my short-lived dream was shattered.

She works here? This is not good news.

This means I will probably spend a lot of time wanting something I simply cannot have. Office romance is not an option after

Amelia and Toby’s stunt. Toby was a colleague. I’ve learned that for some people there are no boundaries. All the time I was

working with him, he was lusting after my girl. Planning his attack. Dreaming of taking her away . . .

So I made a promise to myself. I would never get myself into a similar situation again. People at work already knew far too much

about my life and now I wanted to keep work separate. Plus I’ve had too many friends leave the careers they’ve worked hard for

because the person who tore their heart out and stamped on it was sitting at the desk opposite them, stalking around the photocopier

and taking minutes at every damn meeting. In a way, I was lucky that they both left. The office is hard enough without affairs of the

heart.

A cold chill descended on me. It was over before it had even begun. What had I been thinking? I don’t even know Sienna. She

could have a boyfriend, she could be married or something. Christ . . .

‘Well, have a good day, Sienna,’ I said as I stepped into my office, red-faced.

But hold on a minute, maybe I was being too hasty. If Romeo and Juliet could fight for forbidden love, then surely I could ask her

on a date?

No, I told myself. Just no.

As I closed the door behind me, I wondered how I was going to cope with this situation.

This was me, Nick Redland. Nick who has never felt anything stronger than shallow, trouser-tightening lust for a woman I have

just met.

Even my own girlfriends have failed to provoke this much enthusiasm in me. Even Amelia.

I must be having some kind of breakdown, I decided. The post-holiday blues were doing something odd to me.

This was straitjacket stuff. I was being a loon. What was I thinking?

She was clearly much younger, and gorgeous, and probably wouldn’t be remotely interested in me anyway, I thought as I looked

in a small mirror hanging on the wall.

Small lines were starting to gather round my eyes, and I noticed how I was beginning to look more and more like my father every

day. I sighed a deep cavernous sigh which emptied my lungs entirely.

I sat at my desk for a while, wondering if I should talk to a close friend about the strange thoughts I’d been having lately. This

break-up with Amelia was really getting to me.

Ten minutes or so passed. I collected myself. Pulled myself together. I was being rude locking myself away like this. I stepped out

of my office and stood there for a moment with my hands in my pockets, looking out of the window to my left with a view of the

flats above the shops across the road.

‘Incoming!’ shrieked Tom. I turned round and was hit square in the face with a Hacky Sack. Ha ha bloody ha.

‘Right, that’s it,’ I yelled back, breaking into a run. I charged towards Tom, who despite being in his early twenties has the waif-

like appearance of a ten-year-old, all skin and bones and silly hair.

He tried to run but it was useless. I backed him into a corner, leaned down, picked him up and proceeded to parade him round the

office like a baby, his legs dangling uselessly from my arms.

‘Oi! Oi! Put me down, you twat!’ he shouted, his voice becoming shriller and more baby-like by the second. Everyone in the

office was laughing. A lot.

‘Put . . . me . . . down!’ he insisted, fighting his own laughter.

‘Say you’re sorry! Come on, Thommo, say, “Sorry Mr Nick, I will never throw a beanbag in your face again,” I taunted, looking

down at him with a huge grin on my face.

He wasn’t able to apologise as he was laughing too much, his cheeks a deep shade of crimson and tears of mirth forming in the

corners of his eyes.

I eventually put him out of his misery and into a large recycling bin for old envelopes and junk mail. I left him there for about five

minutes, his body folded like a paper aeroplane. He was giggling too much to be able to lift himself up and out.

You can do pretty much anything in our office and get away with it, which made it a pretty comfortable place to be, and was

probably why I hadn’t done much to try and leave.

My boss leaned back in his seat, poked his head round the door of his office and welcomed me back. I was pleased he was

greeting my return so warmly, considering I had managed to screw up a whole load of illustrations just before I left.

Once Tom’s humiliation had reached fever pitch I walked over to the bin, pulled him out and put him back on his feet again,

ruffling his hair to assure him that I was only kidding. He looked sheepish.

Sienna was not paying us the slightest bit of attention. She was clearly above pratting about at work.

I laughed. Maybe being back wasn’t that bad after all; and no one else knew that maybe, just maybe, I had fallen in love today.

Two

‘I believe in love, you know . . .’

Sienna

It’s been five weeks and two days since I met Nick Redland, and things have not settled down as much as I’d hoped.

I quietly wished, after the disappointment of the train incident, that I would calm down. So I saw this guy on a train who seemed

to be perfect, but then I discovered he was a heartbroken prankster who works at the same place as me. Never judge a book by its

cover. That’s what they say, isn’t it?

He’s more than a bit irritating, with all his fooling around in the office. Ping-pong balls thrown back and forth across the room,

salt in cups of coffee and joke-shop severed limbs in the paper tray of the printer. It’s almost as if his main purpose in life is to make

Tom laugh. He seems so immature for his age, plus he’s damaged goods.

Heartbroken men are like wild animals, running around with hysteria in their eyes, desperately trying to knock the dents out of