Page 37 of The Three of Us
And then she bursts out laughing, and suddenly the old Carly is back in the room and all he wants to do is kiss the face off her.
Chapter 22
Carly
Ithink I’m going to like working with Jack. He makes terrible coffee and he has no taste at all when it comes to ties, but he knows his job, and he’s clearly passionate about it. The new system sounds exciting, and a huge improvement on the old one we’ve had for years. It will make everything simpler, smoother, easier, and I’m really chuffed that someone somewhere suggested I was the person to help implement it. I wonder if that someone was Jack. If it was, I hope he picked me for the right reasons. All to do with my professional expertise and nothing to do with the fact that, even though I’m sure he would deny it, I know he still fancies me.
Our half-hour meeting actually overruns by a good hour, until my stomach gives an unexpected growl and we decide it must be time to stop for lunch.
‘Fancy a walk down to the pub?’ Jack says, bundling up the papers he has strewn all over the table. ‘Get a pie and a pint? A girl can’t live by biscuits alone, can she? And this is a business meeting after all. Perfectly legit. I might even be able to claim it on expenses.’
‘Oh, no, you don’t. I’m the one who has to approve them, remember, and filling me up with booze is not on the allowable list, I can assure you!’
‘On me then. I think I can probably run to half a pint each and a plate of chips!’
‘Money tight these days, is it?’
‘Always is. Living in London’s not like Norfolk, believe me. Everything costs more here. Beer, food, buses, rent… you name it.’
‘Nappies?’ I can’t resist it. All this time we’ve been sitting here talking and he hasn’t told me. Okay, I know this was a business meeting, but we’re friends, aren’t we? Or I thought we were. Are. He should have told me.
I’ve ruffled him, I can tell. He doesn’t quite know what to say.
‘Yes, Jack, I know. About the baby. Syd told me. I know he probably shouldn’t have, but he did, so there we are.’
‘Sorry. Yes, I could have said something, I guess. I’m still getting used to the idea myself, to be honest with you. Not actually told anyone at work yet.’
‘Well, congratulations.’ I push away all thoughts of his wife and her bulging belly, and what exactly she and Jack had been up to in order to put it there. ‘You’ll make a great dad.’
‘Will I?’
‘I have no idea! But it’s what people say, isn’t it? And what is there to it anyway? It’s mums who do all the real work, we all know that. You just have to bring in the readies, and get home in time for a quick tuck-up in bed and a story. Even you should be able to manage that.’
‘There you go again with the even you stuff. You don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?’
‘I’m sorry.’ And I am. I really am. When I look at Jack, I still see what I have always seen. The man of my dreams. The man I still do dream about, far too often for comfort, to be honest. It’s not his fault I can’t stop thinking about him, and there’s no need for me to keep sniping away at him. ‘Come on. Yes, we will go to the pub, and I’ll buy the drinks, okay? A sort of wet-the-baby’s-head thing.’
‘It’s not born yet, Carly.’
‘Well, no excuse needed then. If I’m going to be on board for this project of yours, we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other, so we might as well get to know each other a bit better over a drink or two. Friends, like we agreed, when we…’
‘Let’s draw a line under that, shall we? Start again?’ He reaches for my hand across the table, and I think for a minute that he’s going to shake it, but he doesn’t. He lifts it slowly and carefully to his lips and kisses it, so gently it sends a delicious tingle right up my arm. It’s probably the most old-fashioned, gallant and truly touching thing a man has ever done to me. Oh, Jack!
‘Deal,’ I say, my voice coming out in a funny little squeak, and we both stand up and walk into the corridor and towards the lift, leaving the empty cups and a plate of biscuit crumbs behind us. I can come back and deal with those later. I am going out to lunch with Jack, and nothing else matters right now. Gorgeous, handsome, totally out of bounds, Jack. I peer around, making sure Suze isn’t lurking anywhere, ready to catch me out, shake her head and give me a good telling-off. But she’s nowhere to be seen.
Jack behaves himself over lunch, and so do I. Now there’s a baby on the way, there’s a sense that the rules have changed somehow. I know that the flirting has to stop, even if the feelings haven’t. We arrange another meeting, to sort through the IT project and my part in it, and then we go back to work, two floors apart.
I’m surprised, later, when I walk out of the building at half past five and find my brother waiting for me on the pavement. He’s leaning up against the wall, head down, fiddling with his phone, when he looks up and realises I’m standing right in front of him.
‘Sam. What are you doing here?’ I have a sudden thought that it might be bad news, too bad for him to tell me over the phone. ‘Nothing’s happened to Mum, has it?’
‘No. Don’t worry, Carls. She’s fine. Just passing, you know? And thought we might have a bit of a chat.’
‘Passing? Sam, there’s no way you ever have any reason to be just passing. Not around here. So, what’s it really all about?’
‘Come on, let’s walk, shall we? Fancy a quick drink or a burger or something?’
It’s too early to eat, so we head for the nearest pub, the same one I was in with Jack only a few hours ago. Sitting in the same seats would just feel too weird, so I aim for a different corner, closer to the TV. There’s usually some sport or other that Sam’s bound to want to watch. I fish my purse out of my bag. Although it was Sam’s idea to come, he’s still my little brother as far as I’m concerned – Mum and Dad’s late-life miracle as they always used to refer to him although they weren’t even forty at the time – and I don’t suppose his plumbing apprenticeship leaves him with a lot of spare cash.