Work for it, p.10
Work for It, page 10
Pause. Blessed silence. Then Rebecca follows, because of course she does. “What the bloody hell is death-talk?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re proper weird sometimes, Griff, you know that?” But she sounds so honestly fond of me that I can’t take offence. And even though I want to strangle someone—anyone, but preferably myself—the truth is, I like the sound of Rebecca’s voice.
“Clearly, you’ve done something,” she’s saying, all studious like a woman on a TV documentary. Like she’s got a degree in Griffin Everett’s Bullshit. “You’ve done something, you’re feeling guilty about it, and it’s making you all awkward and angry the way it does.”
Obviously, she’s right—but what she doesn’t realise is I’ve done something twice over. To Keynes, yeah, because I was so awful when I chucked him out the other night, I really was. But I also feel like I’ve done something to my mum, I suppose. When I realised I’d mentioned her, it felt like something bad, and that gutted me. My mum’s not something bad. She was all the good in the world.
So, there’s my mess. I can’t exactly apologise to Mum for treating her memory like some terrible secret, since she’s, you know, dead. And I don’t know what to say to Keynes.
My mum took her own life and it’s kind of a touchy subject ? I’m so used to everyone pissing all over her memory, I never bring her up ?
I sigh and tell Rebecca, “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Shocking!” she gasps.
Once she gets arsey, I know it’s time to change the subject. “Whatever. Tonight, yeah? You and me again.”
“Ooh, yes please.” She wrinkles her nose. “But yours instead of mine, I think. Lewis is being a dick. Or maybe it’s me. I’m not sure.”
“We’ll talk about it.”
“Hm,” she says. “So we can talk about my issues, but yours are a no-go?”
I pretend to think for a second. “Yeah. Spot on.”
She elbows me in the ribs, then turns the elbow into a one-armed hug. We’re in front of my office building, also known as Henry’s office building, and I’m not sweating but it feels like I should be. That’s how nervous I am.
“Are you going to tell me what this mysterious meeting is about?” Bex asks.
“No.” That way, if I fail, it won’t be too terrible.
“Well, whatever it is,” she says, “you’ve got this.”
I hug her back, careful not to whack her over the head with the folder I’m carrying. Yes, I have a folder. I’ve been busy, these last two days. After I got rid of Keynes in the early hours of Thursday morning, then hyperventilated a bit, I decided I needed something else to think about. So I thought about…
Well, I thought about what he’d said before. “Your mind, your work, your skill—don’t matter?”
He sounded so incredulous. Of course he did. Because, I tell myself firmly, my skill and work do matter. They do. Which is the argument I’m about to put to Henry.
I tell Rebecca goodbye and make my way to his office. I’m hovering awkwardly outside, checking my watch and wondering if I should knock, when the closed door opens. Sound stumbles out, loud and a bit too enthusiastic—like laughing along at an old man’s jokes even though you don’t understand them. Then the door opens wider and I see Henry. And Keynes.
I haven’t been this close to him since the fox and the ginger and the panicked mistake I made. Now his laughter quiets and his smile fades when he sets eyes on me, and something in my chest twists. Painfully. Can he read my mind if I stare at him hard enough? Can he see the knot inside my head and understand? Is there a way to show him I’m, you know, sorry?
Yeah, there’s a way, genius. Talk.
“Griffin!” Henry says, spreading his hands wide, and my nerves swallow me up again. I’ll find Keynes later, fix things later; the next thirty minutes of my life will be difficult enough without splitting my mind in half.
“Hi,” I nod.
“Come in, come in!”
I try to smile at Keynes as we pass each other, but I’m pretty sure it looks more like a grimace. His gaze is cool, wintry, shark-like. Or maybe that’s just paranoia on my part. Before Henry shuts the door again, Keynes says to him, all warm and close, “I’ll see you at dinner, then, old friend.”
Dinner. I’ve never had dinner with Henry, haven’t even set foot on his land. When Bex and I were kids, there was this rumour that it was legal for his dad to shoot trespassers, or that it wasn’t but no-one would care because they were cousins of the queen. Something like that. I don’t want to have dinner with Henry, of course—something about him makes me uncomfortable—but it’s a reminder of how different Keynes and I are. How low-down I am in the social order of things. Which is not something I usually care about—but it’s also not a reminder I need moments before asking my boss to pay me more.
I take a breath and try to push everything out of my mind except what I came here to do. But the thought of Keynes sticks like a burr anyway.
“So!” Henry slaps his thighs before he sits down. “What can I do for you, Griffin?”
I sit too, wincing when my chair creaks, and pull myself together. This is work, after all, just work, and I’m good at that. Calm finally floods me like cool water. I open my folder, take out the pages, and begin. “Thanks for meeting with me.”
“Of course, of course,” he says, all generous, like it wasn’t sheer luck I pinned him down so soon. Henry only takes meetings when he’s already planning to be at work. He’s given me a half hour slot because he likes to go home early.
It strikes me suddenly that I do most of his job for him. Me and Holly and Bex, we run this place between us, one way or another.
“I’m here to discuss my recipes.” I planned that sentence in bed last night. I planned a few sentences, actually, and they haven’t all fallen out of my head, so this is going well. “I’ve noticed that my… my intellectual property has had a positive effect on the business.” I show him a graph—don’t ask me how I made it because I don’t fucking know, luck and fairy dust—displaying the increase in profits since I took over Fernley Cordial’s flavours. The profit streams directly connected to my recipes are bright green, so he can’t miss my point.
Carefully, I continue. “I’ve been thinking that perhaps, from now on, I could be compensated for—”
“Compensated?” The word huffs out of Henry with breathless amusement. I’ve been staring somewhere behind his left ear for most of this discussion, but now I look sharply at his face. He’s pinker than usual, his cheeks creased, his eyes bright like he’s trying not to laugh at me. His lips roll in and he tries to look solemn, like he’s humouring a kid too stupid to notice the cracks in his serious mask. “Ah, Griffin.”
I scowl. “What?”
He sighs, shakes his head kindly, and taps my graph. “I think you’ve made some mistakes with your data. There are countless other factors involved—but then, you must know that. Surely—” His words bubble with laughter, and he has to start again. “Surely you don’t believe that our recent upward trajectory has anything to do with a few flavour ideas you’ve dreamt up in your kitchen?” He’s laughing properly by the end of the sentence, as loud and obnoxious as everything else he does.
I stare stonily at him while panic eats away at my determination. Of course I don’t think I’m responsible for everything—we’ve had great yields and it’s Rebecca’s marketing that’s really done the trick, I know that. I do. But… I studied the data, didn’t I? Yes, I did. Of course, data isn’t my strong-suit… I rifle through the papers for a few more details, but my hands feel slow and clumsy.
“Griffin,” Henry sighs, with a hint of well-hidden pity. But not quite hidden enough, I guess, because it creeps over my skin. His blue eyes flash sympathy at me as he says, “I’m afraid— It’s just that—”
I’m not going to make him say it. “Yeah, no, right.” I gather all my papers, trying to slide them back into the folder, but they won’t fit. Patience fading, I shove them in, creasing and bending the edges, snapping the folder shut. “Sorry. I’ll—”
“Don’t rush off. Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”
“No,” I say shortly, and leave. Now feels like the perfect time to disappear into one of the orchards, climb a tree, and never come down again—or maybe to set my stupid fucking folder on fire. Only I can’t storm off to do either of those things, because after shutting Henry’s door I find Keynes leaning against the opposite wall.
I can’t help it. Humiliation burning through my brain, I snap, “What?” What is he doing here, what did he hear—Christ, I hope he didn’t hear—and what the fuck was he playing at, telling me I should ask for… for anything? What, what, what?
He arches one tawny eyebrow. The way I run hot for him, the way my body reacts to that tiny fucking movement, pisses me off even more. “Big meeting?” he asks calmly, his gaze flicking down to my folder.
My fist tightens around the plastic. “No.”
He doesn’t push, which isn’t like him. Or maybe it is—I don’t fucking know him, and he doesn’t know me, and I need to stop thinking like we’re anything other than weird acquaintances who can’t escape each other. At least he’ll be leaving soon.
I hope he’s leaving soon.
He folds his arms across his broad chest, his forearms all lean muscle and raised veins and fine, golden hair. I think I want to punch him. “You,” he drawls, “have been avoiding me.”
I definitely want to punch him. Even though he’s absolutely right, and before this meeting, I was hoping to apologise. “Nope,” I say flatly.
“Yep.” He pops the P, and now I’m staring at his mouth. All I want is to go and lick my wounds alone, and forget this entire day ever happened—but here I am instead, staring at his mouth. Fuck, I wish he’d go away.
Which is why I turn on my heel and stalk off, muttering, “Take the hint, then.”
He follows anyway, with long, unconcerned strides that really get on my fucking nerves. “Why don’t you spell it out for me? I wouldn’t want to misunderstand.”
I think the last fifteen minutes have proven I’m shit at spelling things out, even to myself. I ignore him, shoving into my office, leaving the lights off and opening the blinds. I want washed-out half-light right now, not fluorescent brightness.
He leans in the doorway while I throw myself into my desk chair. “I hope you’re not planning on working like this,” he says.
“What?”
“In the dark. You’ll strain your eyes.”
For some reason, that’s the comment that makes me snap. Or maybe it’s the look on his face: careful warmth, tentative humour, like he’s testing to see if we can slide back into the way we were. Well, we fucking can’t, because he and I are so different that he demands shit in return for his intellectual property and goes to dinners and laughs with whoever the hell he wants, while I get laughed at. And deserve it.
I surge to my feet, my pulse a war drum in my ears. “Just fuck off, okay? Fuck. Off. I’m avoiding you because I don’t want to fucking see you, do you get that?” My chest’s heaving and I feel slightly sick. I’m lying to him. I’m lying to him, and I’m making everything worse, and suddenly the acidic adrenaline in my blood is draining away until I feel half-empty.
Oh—and Keynes isn’t leaning against my doorframe anymore. He’s arrowing toward me, every line of his body hard, his gaze cold as if we’re strangers again. When there’s nothing between us but my desk, he tilts his head and looks at me like a wolf eyeing its prey.
“Do you know what I think about you?” he asks. His voice is soft, quiet, vicious. It tugs at the tangle in my mind. My thoughts unravel rapidly, until I’m almost dizzy from seeing clearly all at once. I’m being a shit. If my mum were here, she’d give me one of her disappointed looks and say something like, Lashing out only spreads poison, Griffin, and then she’d make me go and sit with the earth or something.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the words almost instinctive. As soon as they’re out, they feel right. They feel true. I am sorry, and the last of my resentment leaks away.
But Keynes is still cold, cold, cold in front of me, like an iron blade dipped in frost. He narrows his eyes and murmurs, “I don’t give a shit about sorry, Griff. Do you know. What I think. About you?”
The way he pronounces each word like a weapon is the final clue: I just hurt Keynes. And now he’s going to rip me to shreds.
“Don’t,” I say, not because I don’t deserve it, but because we’ll be enemies again. I know we will. I can see it in his face.
His lips curve in the coldest smile I’ve ever seen. “I think you’re an overemotional child who’s far more effort than he’s worth.”
When I say, “I think you’re right,” his expression falters for a minute, and I see his hurt. Then it flickers away like a hologram.
“Of course I’m right,” he snaps, as if he’s not sure what I’m up to but he knows he doesn’t like it. Thing is, he hasn’t walked away yet, has he? He hasn’t stormed off and left me to stew in my own awfulness, so maybe I still have a chance to fix this. The hope wraps itself around me like armour, making me brave.
“I was pissed,” I admit, “with myself. And embarrassed. And jealous of you, obviously.”
He’s so surprised at that, he stops leaning over the desk like some kind of mafia enforcer and straightens up.
I keep going. “So I took all my shit out on you, which I shouldn’t have done. I’m supposed to be apologising to you right now. That was the plan.”
His mouth tightens, like he doesn’t believe me, which twists something in my gut. I didn’t realise until this moment how much I really, really, really fucking like Keynes. I’m not sure how it happened, but it feels impossible to undo. My hope is tinged with a bit of desperation now, making me reckless. Walking around the desk, I reach for him slowly and he doesn’t jerk away. Instead, he watches me take his hand with disgusted interest on his face, like I’m some foreign amoeba and he can’t wait to see what I do next. His masks are really good. I wonder how he got like this.
Probably had something to do with people like me, throwing his tentative, bossy attempts at kindness in his face.
His hand is solid and real in mine. I lace our fingers together and the graze of our palms sends a spark of something good through my chest. His winter fir eyes are so cold, it’s like snow lining the trees on Christmas morning—but they warm up for a moment, a second, and I catch it.
“So, if you could accept this apology,” I say, “I would really like to start the next one.”
He huffs out a sudden breath that I think might be an accidental laugh. He doesn’t lean toward me, doesn’t smile, doesn’t stop glaring like he’s plotting my death—but I’m 99% certain he just laughed for me. Progress.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Fuck off,” he tells me.
“I promise not to work in the dark.”
“I don’t give a shit. If I’m being really honest, I hope your eyeballs fall out of your head and roll into a gutter.”
Now I’m trying not to laugh.
“Don’t fucking laugh,” he snaps.
I clear my throat. “Sorry. Listen… You were right, before. I have been avoiding you, but it wasn’t your fault—of course it wasn’t your fault. I was just that I don’t talk about my mum, ever, so when I mentioned her with you, and it wasn’t a big deal—when I barely even noticed—it scared me. You scared me.” I squeeze his hand like I can push the truth into him through the places where we touch. Judging by his face, which is maybe 2 degrees less frozen than it was a minute ago, this is working. So I squeeze harder, talk faster, forget to worry about my words or to feel self-conscious. “I didn’t know how to fix it, or how to explain what needed fixing—what the it was, exactly—so I pretended it wasn’t happening. I pretended you weren’t happening, but you are. You’re happening. To me.”
That doesn’t make any fucking sense, but it’s too late. I said it.
Only, it doesn’t work. Long moments tick by, and then he pulls his hand from mine and I realise I left this conversation too late. He needed an explanation yesterday morning, or even this morning, before I made everything worse. But I left it too late.
“Hm,” he says.
I wet my lips nervously. I’m nothing but nerves today. “That it?”
He shrugs and walks away.
8
Olu
At a little past seven in the evening, I find myself loitering in the Breton-Fowler family manor alongside a handful of people I would rather not be sharing oxygen with. Sometime in between accepting this invitation and actually arriving, I have lost every fuck I ever had to give.
And when I say some time, I mean, immediately after Griffin Everett pushed me away again. If that sounds hideously emotional and a little melodramatic, I don’t give a damn. I have lost all my fucks, if you recall. Which is why I don’t care that he apologised, either. I don’t have the energy for all these feelings he causes. It’s disgusting. So I’ve decided to use my alien nature to my advantage and forget all about him.
There are six of us at the party, including our illustrious hosts, and we all share the same razor-sharp way of speaking, our accents rooted in class rather than home. We laugh the same way too: airy and studied and careful not to flash genuine amusement. Not to flash genuine anything, in fact—intimacy of any sort is gauche at best, dangerous at its very worst. We know this, because we were disciplined by nannies of similar origin, and raised within the same cutthroat shark-tank of a society. What a dinner party we make.
And how strange it is that I can hear the world outside—the world that Griff belongs to, where Sorry is simply a word one says after making a mistake—beating down the door.
