Three Words: A Novella Collection (25 page)

“
I’m due at work on Monday.”

“
Oh.”

“
I was thinking something more colourful but ‘oh’ will do, I
s’pose.”

Lily unclipped
the lock on her purse and began to rummage for her keys. “Well, I
guess this is it, then. It’s been nice to meet you, Damon. Spending
the last couple of days with you has been a real eye-opener,
especially the last five minutes.”

“
Don’t be like that.”

Suddenly, Lily
felt angry. Deceived. He could have told her. Damn him, he must
have known she’d fall for him. He could have told her. “What else
do you expect me to say? I lost one boyfriend because he went to
live in Sydney. I was hurt and lonely. Were you brain-dead when I
told you that?”

“
I didn’t want to get involved with you either, you
know.”

Well, at least
they knew where they stood. Lily glared at him.

“
Then why did you?”

“
Fuck.”

Damon pushed
his hands through his hair. He flopped down onto the staircase. “I
didn’t mean it like that. I meant I wasn’t prepared for this. I
thought you were a pretty girl and we’d go out and have a couple of
drinks. I wasn’t looking to fall in love. Not that I mind.”

Love? Had he
actually had the gall to say the ‘L’ word at a time like this?

Sitting down
beside him, Lily put her hands between her knees. She was cold. And
drained. Her perfect day was in tatters. She wanted to go to bed
and forget all about Valentine’s Day and that she’d ever met Damon.
She wanted to get out before she was hurt again.

Damon reached
over and put his hand on her knee. The tell-tale flicker of
attraction sparked and she cursed him. God, she wanted to smack
him, right about now.

“
Lily?”

“
Yes?”

“
I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She could see
it in his eyes. “I know.”

She stood up,
keys in hand and went inside.

Chapter 9

Two weeks
later, Lily was standing in the middle of the office with Rebecca
and Jordy. It was twenty-four hours before the descent of the
Sci-Fi nerds on Perth and the colleagues were knee deep in gift
bags for the ‘Out of this World’ dinner guests. The office was
barely visible under the stack of purple sparkled tablecloths and
star shaped bunting. A pile of nametags the size of the Tardis had
been knocked inadvertently to the floor by Marisa and she was
scrambling to pick them up ~ knickers so close to being seen it
wasn’t funny ~ before Magnus came out of his office. Jordy had just
finished swearing his head off at the quality of the model UFO’s
that Rebecca had ordered when Lily declared she’d had enough of
anything Sci-Fi, the rest could wait, it was time for lunch.

“
No, no,” Jordy cried, a little too emphatically. “We can’t
stop now. We’ve only got the autographed photos and the DVD’s to
put in. Let’s get this done. You don’t want Magnus on our backs, do
you?”

Lily heaved a
deep sigh. “Do we have to? If I don’t get some food into me I’m
going to fall into one of those bags and you’ll hand me out as a
freebie.”

Jordy glanced
at his watch and gave her a stern look. “Five more minutes.”

“
God. Al-right,” Lily muttered, wishing she’d called in sick
that day. Filling gift bags was not her domain. She was not an
intern. And she was not in the mood.

Picking up a
pile of autographed William Shatner photos ~ done on the laser
printer, no doubt, and airbrushed to make William look like he had
in 1973 ~ Lily began to toss them into the bags at the side of
Jordy’s desk. She’d been like a pizza without cheese since the
incident with Damon outside her flat. Flat and empty. She’d hoped
he might at least phone when he got back to Melbourne, but it
seemed her dismissal of him had been final. She was never going to
see him again. Which was for the best. Long distance romances never
worked.

“
What the hell are you doing?” Jordy screamed, calling her
attention to the fact that she had shoved three of the same photo
into the same bag. “Get a grip Lily. I don’t have time to redo your
incompetence.”

He snatched
the photos from her and handed her the curling ribbon. “Go and tie
that lot of bags off so nothing falls out. You’re making a complete
balls-up of this.”

Lily stared at
the roll of ribbon in her hand. She could think of better things to
do with it and one of them involved Jordy’s throat. She made a face
at him behind his back and began to cut lengths of ribbon.

“
And re-enter the stratosphere while you’re at it,” he nagged.
“If we don’t get this right, Magnus is going to blow a
gasket.”

At that
moment, a tall man wearing a long earth-coloured cape and a set of
pointy
Hobbit
ears pushed open the glass doors of the
office. His face was nearly as long as his body, which was as thin
as a piece of spaghetti and he bore a remarkable resemblance to her
boss, Magnus, despite the fact that he was clearly lost from the
set of a Peter Jackson movie.

Lily looked
over at him, confused. Surely,
The Hobbit
wasn’t Sci-Fi was
it? Wouldn’t that fall under the fantasy genre? And what the hell
was that weirdo doing in their office dressed like that in the
middle of the day?

She was just
about to put down her curling ribbon and ask him when the man
swivelled in a circle, pulling a guitar from beneath his cape. He
began to walk around the office, strumming softly.

How
bizarre.

Lily tilted
her head to peer beneath the folds of his long beard. It
was
Magnus. Was he totally bonkers? Had he finally taken one too many
herbal supplements and lost the plot?

Then another
crazy thing happened. Jordy pulled a second guitar from under his
desk and joined in. Rebecca and Marisa had whipped tambourines from
beneath the mess to keep the beat as the men began play a vaguely
familiar tune. The receptionist began to sing a harmony.

Lily blinked
and put down the scissors in case she stabbed herself. Why were the
all behaving like such idiots? This had to be a dream. God, had she
had an aneurism and died? Was that it?

As she watched
the scene unfold before her, the office doors swung on their hinges
a second time and in came …. Damon?

What the?

Walking
towards her, he began to sing the lyrics which Lily now recognised
as the
Plain White T’s
song ~ ‘1 2 3 4’.

And the whole
office was joining in the chorus like they were in some
happy-clappy hippy commune and Magnus was the cult leader. They
were singing about three words and only one thing to say and loving
people. They were repeating that cute little chorus line over and
over.

Lily’s mouth
fell open. A goofy smile spread over her face. This was like that
episode of
Modern Family
where the gay couple had done the
flash mob.

Oh. My.
God.

She was in a
musical flash mob. All around her the entire office had burst into
song. Damon was on his knees before her like a fool singing into a
wireless microphone. The sounds of his out-of-tune warbling were
reverberating through the office sound system. This was insane.
Embarrassing. Fabulous. And, oh so sweet.

The
performance ended as abruptly as it had begun. Magnus drifted into
his office, cape flowing behind him, and began to bark orders.
Jordy put the guitar under his desk and began to toss DVD’s into
the gift bags.

Lily looked
over to Rebecca but she and Marisa were both now scrambling on the
floor for the name tags, ignoring her.

It was like it
had never happened. But it had. Damon was standing in front of her
and the goofy smile was on
his
face.

“
Hi.”

“
Hi,” Lily said, unsure where this was going and too
frightened to move in case something else popped out of the
stationery cupboard. “Um, what was that all about?”

“
I missed you and I wanted to show you how much I care. I know
you were hurt by what happened.”

“
Yeeessss
.”

“
I wanted to make it up to you.”

“
So you engaged the services of my entire office to help you?”
Lily still couldn’t believe her boss had been serenading her,
whilst wearing a
Hobbit
outfit.

“
That was my idea,” Jordy chimed in. It’s a wonder his ears
weren’t disfigured from all the eavesdropping he did. “I always
wanted to be in a flash mob and you’ve been so pathetic over the
last few weeks I thought it might cheer you up.”

This was
mental. Jordy hated her. He was always being a knob. Why would he
suddenly want to be nice? And how had he and Damon gotten together
on this?

“
Damon rang the office looking for you,” Jordy explained.
“Quite a few times, actually.” He looked pointedly at Damon. “But
you were always out or at lunch. We got to talking and that was
when I came up with the idea. I might have to use it again. Can you
imagine it at a wedding? Or a twenty-first? Awesome.”

“
But you hate me, Jordy.”

Jordy’s face
softened. “No, I don’t.”

“
Then why’re you always on my case?”

Jordy flapped
his hands. “I was just jealous of how good you are at your job. I
thought if I made myself look ultra-efficient, like you, Magnus
would notice me.”

“
So why the change of heart?””

“
I got an attack of the guilts. That mopey face of yours made
me feel so awful and it hit me that maybe if I tried to be nicer to
you, you might reciprocate like you do with everyone else. The
flash mob thing was my way to say sorry. ”

Lily leant
over and kissed his cheek. Wonders would never cease. She’d always
thought herself a good judge of character. She’d definitely read
Jordy wrong.

She turned
back to Damon. “I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

“
I want to go out with you. I want you to be my
girlfriend.”

There was that
tingle. It started in Lily’s toes and worked its way through her
body, like her veins were being infused with sherbet.

“
But you live in Melbourne.”

“
I’ve thought about you every day since I went home. I’ve
dreamt about you every night. I was going to change Digger’s name
to ‘Lily’ but he didn’t like it.”

“
You live in Melbourne.”

Damon smiled.
“Not anymore. I applied for a transfer. As of next week, I’ll be
living in Perth again. I’m just here for a couple of days to sort
out accommodation.”

“
Permanently?” Lily knew she wasn’t contributing a great deal
to this conversation but, hey, she was still absorbing the fact
that Jordy thought she was more Superwoman than ditsy
moron.

“
It’s for six months to begin with. There’s a possibility I
can extend it after that. Look, I know this is sudden and I know
you probably think I’m some psycho you should stay away from,
coming in here like this and saying I’ve quit my job for you but
I’m not, Lily. I love you. I want to be with you. Can we give it a
go? Are you willing to try for six months and see what
happens?”

And that was
the million-dollar question. Could she be with Damon knowing that
in six months, he might be gone again? Could she willingly allow
herself the possibility of getting hurt again?

“
I can’t make any promises about what will happen down the
line,” he said, moving closer to her. “We might even hate each
other in six months. I have some fairly annoying
habits.”

“
Like breaking into song at the oddest moments.”

“
That was for you.” He wound his arms around her.

“
Your singing needs a bit of work, by the way. Especially if
you intend on serenading me again.”

“
Is that a ‘yes’?”

Lily tilted
her face to his. Her lips parted to meet his and she kissed him.
The tingle from her toes rushed into her mouth like an explosion of
champagne bubbles.

“
Yes.”

Damon kissed
her back. This time it was deeper and slightly more pornographic,
until she pushed him away, remembering that they were in the office
and there were thirteen other people present.

“
You might want to start working on next Valentine’s Day now,”
she whispered. “You’ve set the bar so high, I don’t think you’ll be
able to top it.”

Damon laughed.
“Will a King Sized Crunchie do?”

THE END

Mistletoe & Bastards

(Bastard Tales Book 3)

Chapter 1

If there’s one
thing that drives me to drink about Christmas, it’s over the top
friends who believe the entire world should feel the way they do in
regards to the festive season. And right at that moment three of
them were sitting across the table, doing their best to make me gag
into my lunch.

“
Five sleeps till Christmas,” Kirby chirruped, her blonde
waves bouncing with enthusiasm as she addressed us. “Are we, like,
getting together or what?”

I stared at my
ditzy friend, feeling my body sag in despair at the very thought of
having to sit and play nice over a Christmas-themed tablecloth. I
was sure we’d put a veto on mentioning the C word in my presence.
Had she forgotten?

“
Time’s running out,” Kirby continued, “and I
sooo
want
to do that Secret Santa thing. Plus, I have a totally cute
Christmas dress to wear. It has jingle bells sewn around the hem.
It’s, like, red— of course — with fur trim on the
collar.”