ELEVEN
February
There was only so much thermal a man could wear and
still run comfortably. February meant he moved most of his outdoor exploits
indoors. He hit the treadmill instead of the highways, and he did endless laps
of his grand staircase and reacquainted himself with his friendly neighbourhood
indoor-climbing facility in lieu of hiking.
It kept his event fitness up and his time occupied. In body if
not in spirit.
‘Mr Rush,’ the guy belaying his stack said. He’d been coming
here every winter for the last six years but still he was Mr Rush to them all.
He’d never invited them to call him anything else.
It’s Zander
...he imagined
saying.
How hard could that be to say? Just a few short syllables. But
the words were an overture for something else, something he wasn’t in a hurry to
have. Acquaintances. God forbid,
friends
. You told a
guy your Christian name one week and you were helping him move house the
next.
Georgia had accused him of having a hundred ways of keeping her
at an emotional distance. Maybe that kind of thinking was just one of them. Most
people would be too polite to push past that kind of passive resistance. And
only some people had what it took to sneak past it.
Georgia had it. Straight in under his skin. Between his ribs.
Into his thoracic cavity where his heart hung out.
He’d never imagined that having all his time back just for
himself would be such a burden. He’d whinged long and hard to Casey about
Georgia’s endless classes, the impost on his time, and she’d tutted and said all
the things a boss liked to hear—
Yes, Mr Rush. I’ll see to
it, Mr Rush
—yet, somehow they’d snuck up on him and started to feel
normal. So that when they were gone he felt...
Bereft.
As if a part of him were missing. Yet it was much bigger than
the sum total of the hours he’d put in at class.
He smiled at his spotter as he finished fixing his rigging.
‘Thanks, Roger.’
See...Roger. How hard was that? But still he didn’t say it.
Call me Zander.
He forced his mind off his bloody social skills and onto the
stack ahead of him. Newcomers climbed the left—hard but civilised—regulars got
the fierce alignment. A good brutal climb was definitely in order.
It worked for about six minutes. People thought the point of
indoor climbing was to spider monkey up the fastest, like some kind of
country-fair attraction. For a free stuffed elephant. To him, the point of
indoor climbing was stamina and endurance. Taking it slow and making it hard.
Making it hurt.
Pain had a way of putting everything else into perspective.
Except today. Today it wasn’t working.
Isn’t that how you prefer your
life?
she’d said.
As empty as your
house?
No, actually it wasn’t. He liked it quiet. He liked it
predictable and undemanding. But he didn’t actually choose empty. Empty chose
him. When you worked as hard and as long as he did, when you had the kind of
responsibility the network had entrusted him with and the kind of income they
offered, then there really wasn’t a lot of room for anything
but
empty.
Of course Georgia would have called those excuses. She would
have asked him what he really wanted to do with his life and then challenged him
to do it. No matter what.
Which kind of relied on him knowing what he wanted to do. And
he had no idea.
He just knew what he was doing now definitely wasn’t it.
His hand slipped on a misplaced transfer and he slammed hard
against the wall, braced only on one foot peg, two fingers taking his entire
weight.
Now wasn’t it. The network wasn’t it. EROS wasn’t it.
The enormous gulf those missing classes had left started to
make some sense. He’d enjoyed those. A lot. Recording the experiences, capturing
people’s stories. He’d exercised creative muscles that he’d let wither over the
past corporate decade. He’d plucked remembered strands from something he’d been
passionate about before the network. Before Lara.
His roots.
And audio production was a thousand miles from what he was
doing now. What he’d grown rich and famous on.
What he’d grown empty on.
He tried not to imagine his big empty house, because every time
he did the same thing happened. He saw it full of life, and colour.
And Georgia.
She’d planted the seeds of herself as surely in his imagination
as she did plants in her garden. And she’d grown there, like some kind of
invasive creeper vine. Tangling. Binding.
Bonding.
Until he could barely separate the reality of what he was left
with from the fantasy of his imagination.
‘Bloody hell.’
A grunt to his left drew him out of his self-obsessed focus.
How long had he been hanging here, not moving? Roger knew him too well to think
he was in difficulty, but while he was off absorbed in fanciful thoughts another
climber had managed to get fully rigged and halfway up the wall. Albeit the
easier configuration.
He turned to look at the new guy and nearly lost his finger
hold again.
Bradford.
No question. He’d been in enough newspaper articles and on
enough gossip sites to be recognisable anywhere. Even sweaty and bulging on a
rockface. However simulated.
An insane rage overcame him.
This man had rejected Georgia. She gifted him her unique
heart—she risked and exposed herself—and this guy thought himself too good for
her. He hadn’t fought for her when she ended it and he’d wasted no time in
picking up with someone new once he was free to.
Bradford glanced at him, frowning, and then very purposefully
climbed ahead.
Every hormone in Zander’s body urged him to speak. To demand
Bradford justify himself. Explain in what universe hurting the most gentle,
courageous woman on the planet was acceptable. Except then he remembered that
he’d done effectively the same thing and much more recently.
Rejected her.
Returned the gift of her love. Unopened.
Let her go without a fight.
And he realised that Bradford was no more suited to for ever
with a woman like Georgia than he was. And no more worthy.
He signalled Roger, below, leaned back, and zipped to the
floor. He fumbled his way out of the climbing gear in his haste and left it
where it lay.
And he got the hell out of there before he asked Bradford the
only thing he really wanted to know.
How did you get over her?
* * *
A
year.
An entire year had gone past since she’d last sat in EROS’
broadcast studios. Actually, it wasn’t the same studio, it was a twin, the
mirror image of the one through the tinted glass that she’d first sprinted from
twelve months ago when Dan turned her proposal down.
Back then she’d thought that nothing could be worse than
standing in the elevator with the aghast curiosity of the station’s entire staff
directed at her, begging the doors to close.
But coming back in here, today, was infinitely worse.
Back into Zander’s territory.
The man she hadn’t seen for over two months. A man she’d longed
for over Christmas and cried for at New Year and absolutely dreaded seeing as
Valentine’s Day approached.
A day of love and celebration.
Ugh.
‘Can I offer you a coffee?’ the segment producer said.
Yes. A warm drink would take the February chill from her
fingers even if it couldn’t do anything for the one in her heart. She knew
because she’d been trying these past months. ‘Tea, please?’
The producer shot a look at the teenaged girl by her side and
she scarpered off to make Georgia’s tea, flushing.
‘Work experience,’ the producer grunted, tossing her hair.
Dogsbody
, Georgia thought and
instantly sided with the kid.
‘Have a seat,’ the woman said, and then, as Georgia sat, she
added, ‘So you were sent the questions?’
‘Yes.’ And she had notes for her answers. ‘What was the best
activity? What will I be keeping up after today? What did I learn from my
year?’
‘If there’s anything off-script you’d like to add, you can go
for it.’
Anything about Dan, she meant. The station was as good as their
word—he’d not been mentioned since she first signed the contract.
‘If it comes up,’ she agreed. But nothing more. She wasn’t
going to be pressured on her last moments under EROS’ power.
‘I’ve heard Zander’s final segment,’ the producer said. ‘It’s
good.’
Georgia tried not to stiffen at the mere mention of his
name.
‘Speak of the devil...’ one of the announcers murmured without
the slightest change in facial expression and she did stiffen, then. Fully. But
turning to look would have been too obvious.
The producer also pretended not to notice his arrival in the
studio next to theirs, but her eyes flicked briefly to the darkened glass behind
Georgia. ‘Great. Nothing like being watched to improve performance,’ she
muttered while slightly diverting her face.
The announcer laughed.
The disrespect at Zander’s expense irked Georgia. She might
have cut all ties with him but this was their boss they were sniggering about. A
decent—if complicated—man, with a tough job to do.
‘Don’t worry,’ the producer said, misreading her face and
leaning in to pretend to adjust Georgia’s headset. ‘He can’t hear us until I
press the button. Soundproof.’
‘Then you’d better hope he can’t lip-read,’ she murmured.
Defending him was strangely pleasurable. Was she that desperate
for a connection between them? Walking in here today was fifty per cent pain and
fifty per cent anticipation that she might find him standing in the hallway.
Where she’d first seen him.
But no, he’d been predictably absent.
Until now.
‘Guess he’s more interested than usual because they’re his
segments.’ The producer tried to cover her gaffe.
Or he just wanted to see her without being seen.
Hopeless optimist.
‘Have I got time to go to the Ladies’?’ Georgia asked, out of
nowhere, then tried to add veracity to her lie. ‘Nervous pee.’
The producer huffed. They’d just got her settled and all wired
up. ‘If you’re quick.’
She scooted up out of her seat and crossed to the door without
paying the tinted glass the slightest attention. Outside she turned right and
walked in the opposite direction to the staff toilets.
She opened the next door without knocking.
‘Zander...’
He spun by the tinted glass in the half shadows. The studio on
the other side was fully lit and much easier to see than he had been in reverse.
She did her best to stay back in the shadows, out of view of gossipy eyes.
‘Georgia.’ He swallowed. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m good. And you?’
‘Good.’
Excellent. That meant they were both crap. ‘I wanted to ask you
about the cheque.’
‘That money is yours. You shouldn’t be penalised for your
thrift.’
Thrift. That made her sound about as exciting as a dusty old
book. ‘Twenty thousand pounds, though?’
He shrugged. ‘You earned it. What will you do with it?’
She hadn’t let herself think. ‘Maybe back to Turkey?’
‘You should. See it properly.’
‘There’s so many options once you have actual money in your
hands,’ she breathed.
‘You can do whatever you want. I hope you enjoy it.’
His sincerity struck her. And why not? She wouldn’t have fallen
in love with a man who wasn’t genuinely lovely.
‘Why are you hiding in here?’ she asked.
‘I’m not hiding, I’m monitoring.’
‘That seems to have upset your staff.’
He smiled, not the slightest bit sorry. ‘I’m sure. Some of them
are big on fame and short on accountability.’
Silence fell. Next door the work-experience girl reappeared
with her cuppa and glanced around anxiously.
Georgia pushed away from the wall. ‘Well, I should go.’
‘Are you nervous?’ he asked.
Yes, and not just because she was going on air. ‘A bit. This is
going to be hard for me.’
‘I’ve been very clear on the limitations. Anyone who mentions
Bradford will be collecting unemployment next week.’
The kindness touched her. And his total obliviousness hurt her
lungs. ‘Thank you.’
‘I heard about his new girlfriend,’ Zander risked. ‘How do you
feel about that?’
Feel? ‘I’m happy for him.’
‘I worried for you. That you might—’
‘Take it personally?’
He dropped his eyes.
‘I’m not going to say I loved the implication of him finding
someone so soon. That it must have been me that made the two of us a bad
fit.’
‘That’s not how it works.’
‘Yeah, it does. Finding someone you can spend your life with is
rare enough so the chances of both people finding that someone in each other...’
She left the rest unsaid. ‘Truly,’ she reassured. ‘He seems really content. It’s
been a tough year for him but he’s found his reward.’
Zander stared. Breathed out slowly. ‘You’re a good person,
Georgia Stone.’
She lifted her chin. ‘I know. I’d be my friend if I wasn’t
already me.’
His lips parted in a classic Zander chuckle.
‘I’d better go. Your producer’s taking my absence out on your
work-experience girl.’
He looked into the bright booth and she turned for the door.
His voice stopped her just as she reached for the handle. ‘Georgia...’
She turned.
‘You’re looking good.’
No, she looked pretty much the same as she always did. With the
exception of the grey smudges under her eyes that she’d worked hard to disguise.
‘Thank you.’
‘And you’re sounding good.’
She could easily have said something flippant, but these might
be the last words they ever exchanged. She wanted them to count. ‘I am good. I’m
finally doing what makes me happy. Regardless of what everyone else expects.
It’s very...healthy.’