Max
“I just want t’know vaguely what it were about,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time. “She’s my employee – if there’s owt to know you should tell me.”
“Being your employee doesn’t mean you own her,” Heath told me as he rounded the car and waved to a couple of the guys already on the beach. “Employee is not indentured servant.”
This was our weekly beach touch rugby session organised by Heath, the sociable bastard. We even had kit and a name for the team now – although both were quite frankly ridiculous: Sandbaggers was more than a little weird as a rugby team title, and frankly this kit was an embarrassment. Not to mention the fact it was too cold at this time of year for its lack of material. I jogged round to keep up with him and then ‘accidentally’ stuck my foot out, tripping him up and causing him to stubble to the side.
He flung his arms out angrily. “What are you? Ten?”
“Tell me.”
“I’m not telling you shit. Leave it alone.”
“How do you even know her?”
Heath drew to a sudden halt and stared at me.
“What?” I asked in frustration, my arms coming out to the side and slapping back down. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“How do you think I know her, you colossal dickhead,” Heath said slowly. “If I’m telling you I can’t break her confidentiality then how do you think I’ve met her before?”
I blinked before my eyebrows shot up. “A patient?”
“All I’m going to say is stop pushing this, okay? And I know it’s frightfully hard for you without a full personality transplant, but could you try to be marginally less of a prick to her at work.”
“I’m not being that much of a prick.” I frowned down at my trainers and scuffed the sand. “It’s just–”
“She doesn’t need it, Max.” Heath lowered his voice and rubbed the back of his neck. “Believe me she does not need to be bullied by you on top of … Look, I know things are difficult right now. I know you’ve got your own problems. But just reel in the dickhead tendencies when it comes to her, alright?’
“I’m not bullying her!”
Heath’s eyebrows shot up and I tried to shove my hands in my pockets only to realise that these stupid shorts didn’t have any bloody pockets. “Ugh! This new kit is total crap. We look like complete numpties. Did Mike have to go for neon pink?”
Heath let out a bark of laughter. “He says it’s orange.”
“Orange my arse,” I muttered darkly. “And I’m not a bully. She just … she scares easy.”
A strange look passed across Heath’s face before he cleared his expression.
“Can’t you tell me something, Heath? She’s working for me. Surely I should know if owt is going on.”
Heath shook his head slowly. “Believe me, old chap Even if I could tell you, you would not want to know. I promise you that.”
“You ladies going to stop gossiping and play to rugby or what?” Yaz shouted as she came bounding up to us, her mass of blonde hair piled high on the top of her head. She bounced twice on the balls of her feet before she punched me then Heath in the arm, hard. Her fists might be small but they packed a huge impact. When we were growing up, Mam would never believe my tiny sister could manage to bruise her much larger, much older brother. My arms would have been black and blue if I hadn’t been able to keep her at arms length easily with a hand to her head – something I still had to employ on occasion, and something she still found intensely annoying.
“Bloody hell, Yaz,” I grumbled, rubbing my arm. “I should have chucked you out the window when I had the chance twenty-four years ago.” Yaz was eleven years younger than me having been born after Mam had remarried and we’d moved down south (mostly to get away from my father). So my sister didn’t even have a Yorkshire accent like me. She was a proper soft southerner – all about yoga and New Age medicine, and in love with windsurfing and the sea.
“Hey, weirdo,” Heath said, grabbing hold of her ridiculous bun and using it to move her head from side to side. “Still being a pain in the arse at our siblings’ place of work?”
She slapped his hands away and gave him another punch, this time in the centre of his stomach, which caught him off guard. He let out a an “oof” and had to take a step back.
“I thought you were a non-violent plant-muncher,” he wheezed.
“Well, just goes to show how strong us vegans can be. You might take the piss, but not everyone has to choke back a steak a day, roid themselves up and fanny about at the gym for hours to pack a decent punch.”
Heath’s face flooded with colour. “I do not fanny about at the gym. I train. And I certainly do not take steroids. Not everyone can afford to be a surf bum half the time and then bugger around doing weird contortionist-slash-soft-porn poses in a poorly disguised attempt at showing off to the other half.”
Yaz took a step back like she herself had been punched and her smile died. “Whatever,” she muttered as she spun on her heel and jogged away.
I sighed. “Jesus, mate. I know she can be annoying but what was that about?”
He shrugged and avoided my eyes. “There’s no reason she has to strip half naked in your office and add to every arsehole’s wank bank right in the middle of the day.”
“Okay, Dad.” I rolled my eyes. He kicked the sand.
“I bet the whole office would be more productive without her bullshit. That’s all I’m saying.” He jogged off towards the beach/pitch and I frowned after him. When had our office productivity become Heath’s concern? He managed to distract most of my staff on a regular basis with his charm offensive. Hypocritical bastard.
“Hey.”
I swung around and came face to face with a pair of brown eyes almost level with mine. The boy was growing like a weed. I smiled and brought a hand up to his shoulder but he moved away.
“You good?” I asked Teddy. “Didn’t think you’d make it down. I thought you had some chemistry revis–”
“Alright, Max,” he huffed, his face adopting that, unfortunately now-familiar, sullen expression – one that forcibly reminded me of his mother. “I’ll just fuck off then, shall I?” The Max cut through me like a knife. Where had my doting, sunny little boy who loved to call me dad gone? Who was this aggravating bugger who’d taken his place?
“Hey, language, you cheeky little shit.” I reached up to ruffle his hair but Teddy ducked his head down, avoiding my hand. I took that small rejection on the chin, but it still hurt. It always hurt.
“You can’t tell me to stop swearing by swearing yourself, you hypocritical son of a–”
“Short stuff! You came!” Like a small, blonde missile, Yaz launched herself at Teddy and hugged him tight. The sullen expression lightened slightly as he rolled his eyes and, after only a brief hesitation, wrapped his arms around her briefly before pushing her away.
“Auntie Yaz!” he protested.
That hurt as well – why could Teddy manage to still call my sister Auntie, but I was reduced to Max?
“You do know you’re about a foot shorter than me now, don’t you?” he said. “You might have to consider switching up the nicknames.”
“Hadn’t noticed,” she said, smiling up at him. I tried to shove my hands into my non-existent pockets again then crossed my arms over my chest. Yaz looked from my defensive posture to Teddy’s face, which had set back to sullen, and she sighed.
“Come on you two.” She wore a forced smile as she stepped in between Teddy and me, looped her arms through mine and then Teddy’s and started tugging us towards the sand.
And, just like that, my focus was back on my newly-turned-into-an-arsehole teenage dependant and off a certain dark-haired, secretive, emo girl.
Well, at least that’s what I told myself.
*****
Mia
I was so cold.
It was just my luck that last night, a night I had not been early enough to get a space in the shelter, was the coldest there’d been since I’d become homeless. A freak, cold snap in April – just my luck.
Homeless.
There was no denying it to myself now – that’s what I was. Twenty-eight years old and homeless. Yes, I was getting paid in just over a week’s time (I’d asked Verity when payday was. Twice.). But that didn’t change anything now. And last night had been the worst by far. I’d slept in the alley outside the office, with the rest of the rubbish. After hauling the large bins to shield me from the road I had been sweating, but within half an hour of being huddled in my sleeping bag the shivering had started.
Now it was seven in the morning and, thank God, I’d heard somebody open the door to the office. When I was sure the coast was clear I forced myself out of my sleeping bag, which I managed to wrestle into its sack before shoving it into my backpack. After that I could no longer feel my hands, so pulling across one of the bins to get out was a significant struggle. I thought back to the day of my escape and wished for the thousandth time that during my frantic packing I’d had the foresight to take some bloody gloves. But, then again, I’d only had one functioning arm and had been punch drunk from being knocked out cold – so maybe I didn’t do too badly.
I made it to the side door, only stumbling once on my numb feet, and pushed through. The warmth hit me as I moved into the entryway. I sighed in relief and nearly tripped in my haste to get to one of the radiators. They had the fancy upright kind so I could stand with my whole body against one and my hands behind my back, sucking up at much heat as possible. Even so, the shaking continued. I closed my eyes and visualised myself sinking into a deep bath full of steaming water, every part of me surrounded with warmth. Just as everything started getting a little fuzzy and I thought I might actually fall asleep there on my feet, the air around me changed. Tension crackled through the space, and suddenly I knew who had opened up the office. Why was my luck always so crap? Couldn’t I manage to catch a break? Just once?
“What are you doing here so early?” his deep voice sounded from an uncomfortably close distance. I opened my eyes and he was right there, only about two feet in front of me. Under normal circumstances I would have moved away – he was too close, and he was between me and the nearest exit. I’d long since learnt to never let a man cage me in or block off my available escape routes. But I doubted that even if the devil himself had materialised in front of me I would have been able to move away from that radiator. I felt like I was welded to its warmth for life.
“I-I-I n-n-needed to g-g-get a – ” I broke off and tried to get my shivering under control. The adrenaline of being so close to a big man giving off angry vibes probably wasn’t helping. “G-g-g-get a h-h-head s-s-s-start on …”
“Jesus Christ, you’re freezing!” he snapped, sounding even more angry than before.
“I-I-I-I …”
He stepped forward so that he was now inches away from me. I was looking straight at his broad chest and, to my alarm, his hands reached forward for mine. My chattering mouth slammed shut and my eyes went wide as I froze in fear. I tried to keep my hands rigidly behind me, but he pulled them round with gentle firmness and then cradled them both in his large, warm ones.
“Fuck,” he muttered, staring down my fingers, which were such an alarming shade of blue they didn’t look compatible with life. I gave my hands a tug to pull them back but he just held onto them more firmly, engulfing both of them in the heat of his, which, I had to admit, was about ten times better than the radiator. “You’re chuffing freezing,” he said, sounding even angrier as he scowled down at me. “How have you managed to get so cold on the way here? It can’t be more than a ten-minute walk.”
Ah – the fake address. I had to admit I was surprised he remembered my address at all. I took a deep breath and tried to slow my heart rate, despite the adrenaline pumping through my system. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool, but I needed to do some quick thinking and some fast-talking to get out of this one. I was quite sure that Mr We-Don’t-Need-Any-Tech-Support would not want an actual vagrant as an employee. If he knew I’d slept out by the dumpsters last night I’d lose my job by the end of the day. I was still in my six-week trial period. What kind of employer would want to keep on a homeless woman with a dodgy background in his classy, up-market, eco-architect set-up? But, worse, was if he I told him the whole story and he decided I needed to go the police. I could not speak to the police.
“I-I-I w-w-w-went for a w-w-w-walk.”
He blinked and then narrowed his too-intelligent eyes “You went for a walk?”
I swallowed.
“Y-y-yes.”
“You went for a walk with no gloves on, a damp coat …”
Damn, I had forgotten about my coat – it was soaking. I’d have to dry it somehow today. It might be designer and cashmere, but that was no bloody use to me when what I needed was waterproof and warm.
‘… carrying a heavy backpack until your lips turn so blue they’re nearly purple and your hands look like they’re going to develop frost bite?”
I bit my lip and nodded. At this point words were beyond me. And that foggy feeling was creeping back. After a freezing night, shivering on the damp ground, and having no sleep whatsoever, I found that even my fear of this man wasn’t going to be enough to keep me fully awake. Max’s jaw clenched as he searched my face, but then, without another word, he pulled me away from the radiator. I gave a small squeak of objection at the loss the heat at my back, and for a moment I panicked that he was going to throw me back outside into the cold. Yes, I was terrified of being trapped with him, but at that point I would have done anything not to be in the cold again.
“P-p-please,” I whimpered, hating myself, hating the weakness in my voice. “Please I c-c-can’t go back outside. N-n-not just yet. I’ll only stay a few minutes longer at the radiator. You won’t even know I’m th-th-there.”
