When Monday comes around again, I arrive at work literally stuck to my red plastic raincoat, the front strands of my hair plastered to my soggy face.
How hard can it be to make a hood that actually stops the rain from attacking your hair? If I knew how to invent something like that, I’d appear on Dragons’ Den, and Peter Jones would invest in my business. Women everywhere would thank me, and I’d become rich and famous and spend my weekday mornings on daytime TV chatting with Lorraine Kelly.
“I’ve figured it out,” Scarlett greets me. She’s sitting at her desk, looking immaculate as usual.
“Figured what out?” I unbutton my coat and try to peel it away from my skin.
“I know who your office crush is!”
I frown at the use of the word “crush” outside of an American high-school movie. “That’s funny.” I tug my arms out of the coat’s sleeves like I’m removing a plaster. “I don’t know who it is. Are you going to tell me?”
“It’s Liam, isn’t it? From IT.”
I try to picture anyone from the IT department, but I can’t conjure up a single face. Filling in the gaps, I imagine a few Harry Potter lookalikes concealed behind computer screens, and I pull a face. “Sorry, I don’t know who you mean.”
“I saw you checking him out the other day when we left, but it didn’t occur to me that he’s the guy you want to ask out.”
“Still don’t know who he is.” I shrug and turn on my computer.
This is one of Scarlett’s silly games designed to make me crack and confess feelings for someone embarrassing so that she can use it as social ammunition against me.
And, to be honest, it’s easier to play along and let her believe that I bought new underwear because there’s a guy I like, rather than sharing the truth about the article with her.
“I don’t blame you,” Scarlett says. “He’s a nice guy. I went out for drinks with him once myself.”
This gets my attention. I swivel my chair around to face her. I thought she had plucked a guy’s name from her imagination in the hopes of pressuring me to confess.
But nobody goes “out for drinks” with a made-up man, do they? Scarlett must actually think I’m interested in a real person. A person called Liam.
“You’re going to have to tell me,” I say, having mentally scanned the faces of the colleagues I pass in the corridors, and still not coming up with any Liams.
“What about? The date? It was nothing, really. You don’t have to be jealous or anything.” She giggles.
“Describe to me who he is,” I tell her. “And I might know what you’re talking about.”
“He’s quite tall, dark hair and…Ohmygod he’s right over there.” Scarlett’s looking out the glass door of the office.
Outside, I can see Nora talking to someone, but my angle blocks who that person is.
“I could talk to him for you if you want?” Scarlett suggests.
Nora pushes the door open, and I can see the figure standing behind her. He’s got a shiny suit on, and his hair looks wet from his styling gel—or maybe he got caught in the rain, too?
“That’s Liam?” I whisper.
Scarlett blinks her long lashes. “Oh. You didn’t know his name? That’s so cute!”
What she doesn’t know is that I do have a name for him. I like to think of him as Bublé-Face.
“It’s this way.” Nora leads him to her desk. She eyes the two of us sitting behind our own desks, and clearly not doing any work.
YOU ARE READING
Confident Women (Extract)
ChickLit*SYTYCW winner* Inspired by a list of confidence-boosting tips in a magazine, twenty-four-year-old Megan Riley decides it's about time she became a confident woman. But after stumbling over the easy points such as buying a bra and learning to cook...
