Cleo tapped her thumb and her forefinger together, giving the fetching impression that she was doing an impersonation of a crab. She winced at the flare of pain, immediate and sharp along the underside of her arm.
‘I think its Repetitive Strain Injury,’ she moaned at her colleague, Gray, who grinned into his mug of coffee.
‘Wait, isn’t that what teenaged boys get once they discover internet porn?’ he smirked. ‘Busy weekend, love?’
‘You’re not far off the mark, with “teenaged”,’ Cleo admitted, smiling as Gray spluttered on his drink. ‘I’ve been helping to hole-punch heart shapes out of old Smash Hits! magazines from the nineties.’
‘Right. Okay… Well, everyone’s gotta have a hobby I suppose!’
‘It’s for the wedding,’ Cleo clarified, laughing. ‘It’s quite sweet really. It’s going to be used as the confetti.’
‘Because it’s not matrimony unless you have little heart shaped pictures of East 17 and Billie Piper thrown over the bride and groom?’
‘Exactly.’ Cleo helped herself to a second chocolate chip cookie from the packet that Gray had produced when they first sat down. (She’d be good closer to the big day…)
‘Okay, you know you really do need to explain…’ Gray prompted.
Cleo swallowed her mouthful of cookie. ‘Well, you see, when she was a kid, Nora LOVED Smash Hits! magazine…’
‘Who didn’t?’ Gray allowed.
‘But her mum was quite strict and didn’t like her being in to all that.’
‘All that?’ Gray echoed, amused. ‘What, pop music?’
‘Apparently. So, anyway, Nora used to scrimp and save up her lunch money so she could buy it every fortnight. But she couldn’t bring it home, or her mum would find it, so she gave it to her friend and he kept all of her issues for her. For years. That friend being Harry.’
‘Ah.’ Understanding dawned on Gray’s face.
‘And, years later – when they fell in love and moved in together and blah, blah, happy ever after – he turns up with three huge cardboard boxes stuffed full of old issues of Smash Hits!And they’ve been a right ballache to store, but they didn’t just want to throw them away… so this seemed like a really good idea.’
‘I’m not sure your wrist agrees.’ Gray said, taking that wrist in his hand, almost like a doctor checking for a pulse, the broad pad of his thumb pressing gently against those fragile, birdlike bones, against the swell of her blood. Cleo scrambled back aboard her train of thought, plucking her hand back from his and using it to pick up her mug of cooling coffee.
‘Well, you know how it is,’ she shrugged. ‘Bridesmaids are the dogsbodies of every big wedding!’
‘Well, to be honest, I’ve never really been to a big wedding,’ Gray shrugged, moving his own hands back to his drink, an easy mirroring of Cleo’s own movements. ‘Maybe a few family ones, but all my mates who’ve gotten hitched have done it pretty small-scale, registry offices and pubs, you know? Certainly no custom confetti hole-punched by the fair hands of beautiful maidens.’ Cleo ignored the easy flirt, ignored the traitorous heartbeat shouting in her chest, pinched it down, right down. (She did not, could not and would not fancy this man, period. It was just a question of discipline.)
‘What time are you getting there on Saturday?’ she asked lightly, focusing on how Gray’s fingertips were paler where he held his mug.
‘I… I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to make it, actually,’ Gray answered after a moment’s pause. ‘I was going to see if I could, er, move some things around, because it was really nice of your friend Claire to invite me, but, yeah.’
‘Oh,’ Cleo replied, tonelessly, her mind slow to decide how she wanted to react to this news. She’d been part mortified, part thrilled when Claire had informed them all that she’d invited Gray along to her 30th birthday dinner.
‘Well, why not?’ Claire had demanded, when the news had been met with an awkward silence. ‘He got along really well with people at the engagement party, and at your birthday Cleo.’
‘He got on really well with you, you mean,’ Nora had teased gamely, but she’d still shot a worried glance over at Cleo. Nora was still utterly persuaded that Cleo and Gray were meant to be. (She’d even developed a celebrity-style nickname for their rhetorical relationship, which – unfortunately – was the rather unromantic ‘Clay’.) The more Cleo railed against it, the more adamant Nora became.
‘Well, if you’ve got something else on, I’m sure Claire will understand.’ It felt like Gray was waiting for her to ask what his other plans were, but Cleo refused. (Because she didn’t care. Honest.) ‘But, you know, maybe you can just come for the dinner part, or meet us for drinks later in the night?’ Cleo found herself saying. Gray regarded her, his expression smudgy, unreadable.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ he allowed, finally, with a half-smile. ‘I’ll drop you a text, yeah?’
‘Yeah, sure. Or, you know, Claire.’
‘Sure.’ Gray unfolded slowly to his feet, gathering up the packet of cookies and folding over the packaging to keep them fresh for the next break. ‘Guess I’m on washing up duty. Considering your wrist injury and all.’ And with that he collected up their mugs and headed to the grotty old staff room sink, leaving Cleo with a full five minutes left of their morning break and her discipline bruised, but mercifully intact.