Max
“There you are,” I huffed as the girls approached. It felt like I’d been waiting out here for ages. Mia’s pale, horrified face had been tormenting me since she’d run out of the conference room. It had been another painful half hour before we could go after her and even then I couldn’t follow Verity into the Ladies, so I’d been pacing the outside for the last ten minutes. What do women do in there anyway?
Verity was a tall woman, so as they approached she blocked my view of Mia, who was lagging behind. It was only when they were a few feet away that I caught my first glimpse of Mia’s face. Something was different. Her eyes were larger (but the whites looked red from crying), her lips more prominent, she had more colour in her cheeks.
I took a step towards her. She shrank back from me and I frowned.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. I had to strain to hear it above the buzz of the other people walking past us.
“Look, its fine,” I told her. “I don’t–”
“You can …” she cleared her throat and then swallowed before she continued, “… I would understand if you wanted to fire me.”
“Fire you?”
She took another step away. Why was she always running away from me? I tried to tamp down my annoyance. She still had that awful look on her face – it was making my chest feel too tight.
“Mia, for Christ’s sake will youº”
“I wouldn’t blame you,” she went on. “I know how long that model took to make. I know how important that presentation was.”
“Mia–”
“I won’t make a fuss. I won’t – ”
“Listen!” I snapped, slicing my hand through the air to make my point.
That’s when it happened.
Mia tracked the movement of my hand and the fear in her expression was so stark it almost took my breath away. Her own hands came up to shield her face and she ducked down, making a terrible, almost animalistic sound. She started to back up from us with short, rapid steps but collided with a man passing behind her, lost her balance, and went down to the floor. Instinctively I approached her to help her up, but she scrambled backwards away from my outstretched hand, despite the fact there were people all around us, some of whom had stopped to stare at the scene we were making. I took a step back and held my hands up in a gesture of surrender.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Mia,” I said, shock at her reaction giving the words a harsh tone and causing Mia to flinch again. Verity advanced towards her whilst I hung back and rubbed my hands over my face.
“Let’s get you up now, darling,” Verity said. She sounded shaken which was almost unheard of when it came to Verity. As she helped Mia to her feet a small crowd formed around the three of us.
“There’s nowt to see here, you nosy bastads,” I raised my voice to be heard over the low murmur of theirs. “Go on. Bugger off.” Mia, who was standing now, ducked her head and tucked her hair behind her ears, her face flooding with colour.
“Let’s get some lunch,” Verity said, putting an arm around Mia and guiding her towards the exit. “There’s a place next door that looks pretty decent.”
It was nearly two o’clock so the lunch rush was thinning but we still had to wait for a few minutes at the bar for a table at the Italian restaurant next to the office building. Verity texted Yaz to let her know where we were, and then there were a couple of minutes of oppressive silence. I broke it by clearing my throat.
“Mia,” I said, making a huge effort to soften my tone. “What happened? Did you think I was going to … to hit you?’
Her eyes flicked to mine and away again at lightening speed. “N-no of course not,” she said, a very slight shake to her voice. I sighed.
“I’m sorry but the way you … I mean, you shielded your face from me. You fell on your arse you were so panicked.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t panicked,” she lied, her eyes staring out of the window now. “I … j-just fell. I lost my balance.”
“You did not lose your balance,” I said, letting frustration seep into my tone. “You were proper scared.”
“No. I told you – I fell.” She met my eyes this time, her mouth setting into a stubborn line.
“I would never hit anyone. Well, okay I did clout Tommy Barnet in Year 11, but the bugger started it and he was twice my size at the time. Listen, I’m not even bothered about the tea spillage. I-”
“What?” She was staring at me now and her mouth had fallen open in shock. “But I–”
“You saved my arse in there, Mia,” I told her. “If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have been able to give the virtual tour.” I started to lean forward in my chair, but paused when she shrank back from me in hers. “Even if I were upset about the tea I wouldn’t have said owt to you. It was a mistake. It’s not like you picked it up and threw it over t’model out of spite. Accidents happen. If those dullards let an accident affect their decision about using us then the buggers can shove their eco village up their arses.”
“You’re not angry?” she asked, pure disbelief threaded through her words.
“No, I’m not angry,” I said. “I promise, Mia. And I would never hurt you.’
“I didn’t–”
“I’d like to know why you thought I was going to though.”
She looked away from me again and her mouth clamped shut again.
“Okay, darling,” Verity put in, laying her hand over Mia’s on the bar and shooting me a warning look. “You don’t have to tell us anything now. Let’s all have a nice lunch and we can discuss it later, right?”
Mia shifted on her feet and blinked at the menu board in front of her. Even more colour left her face. “Why don’t I just go back and wait in conference building. Or … or I can just wait right outside, on the pavement. I can-”
“Wait on the pavement?” I asked in confusion. “Are you serious?”
“Er …” she trailed off as she looked back out of the window.
“We’re all eating lunch together,” I told her. “I’ll not be left with just V and my mad sister.” Is this why she was so thin? Did she not eat? The waitress came then to show us to the table. I reached to usher Mia forwards but her flinch had me backing away again.
In general women did not make a habit of flinching away from me. However much of a grumpy sod I could be, I had the opposite problem with them. They were the ones trying to convince me to eat with them. They were the ones I had to push away. Even down the pub with Heath they targeted me. Heath’s a handsome bastard but it’s always the broody ones they seem to want to sort out. Who knew being an awkward fucker could be so attractive to the opposite sex? It had been even worse since Rebecca left me. As my grumpy bastard level ramped up, so too did their persistence.
At the corporate events and dinners I had to go to for work it was almost painful. Cocktail-dress-wearing, champagne-emboldened women seemed to cut me off at every turn. One waited outside the gents for me the other month and tried to snog me, right there in the corridor.
“This is not a choice,” I told Mia, hardening my tone. When I thought back over the last four weeks I couldn’t recall a single time I’d seen Mia eat anything substantial other than that Chinese in my office. Yesterday she just had a slice of plain bread with a cup of tea for lunch. I had just assumed she was fussy. “You’re eating lunch here and that’s it.’
“I can’t,” she told me.
“Why not?”
“I, er … listen this is embarrassing but I forgot my wallet, so …”
“You don’t need your wallet,” Verity put in. “This’ll be on us. It’s business. Right, Max?”
“Yes of course,” I said, frowning down at Mia in confusion. “You don’t have to worry about your wallet or anything else, okay?”
Mia’s shoulders drooped and relief flooded her features. My eyes dropped to her waist. I knew she wore a money belt under her clothes. I’d seen her tucking change into it and caught flashes of it over the last three weeks. She didn’t go anywhere without it and I very much doubted she would have come all the way to London without it either. I was surprised she hadn’t dragged her backpack along as well.
We were shown through to a four-seater table and I watched Mia manoeuvre herself so that she wasn’t sitting next to me. This suited me fine as it meant I was opposite her instead and could study her across the table. Yaz, never one to turn down a free meal, made it in time to order, looking between us all as she sat down and being her normal unhelpful self.
“Woah, tense atmos in here, peeps. Do we all need to do some emergency yoga? I’m sure they won’t mind clearing a space for us in the back.”
After reassuring the waitress that we would not all be lying on the floor of her busy restaurant doing some spontaneous breathing exercises, we were finally able to order. It was no surprise to me that Mia went for the cheapest option on the menu, but at least it was pasta and not a side salad.
“Steak dinners aren’t really the vibe your environmentally conscious architecture firm is going for,” Yaz informed me after I ordered a fillet.
By the time she started asking the waitress if the halloumi salad was ethically sourced I was on the verge of chucking her out of the window.
“Well, I think we all did jolly well in there,” Verity said after the wine had arrived. “Everyone looked frightfully impressed with the whole damn thing, I must say. Good show, Max – and well saved, Mia.” V raised her glass up to toast and everyone else followed suit apart from Mia.
“Mia, do you want something else to drink?” I asked, ignoring V.
“What?”
“You don’t have a drink. Do you not like wine?”
“I … no.”
“You can have whatever you want.”
“What about a gin and tonic?” V asked her. “They’ve got that fancy smancy flavoured stuff. Go on, we’ll both get one.”
Mia smiled for the first time that day. It was closed-mouthed and edged with anxiety, but it was a smile. And for some reason I was furious it wasn’t directed at me.
