my desk, I sighed and flicked on the kettle; may as well make a start with work. I hadn’t drunk like that in a long time. Why the hell had I opened that bottle of rum? Why had I been guzzling it down like a fish? What had we even been chatting about till four a.m. this morning? Where had the kebabs appeared from? My tired brain refused to wake up and give me the answers I needed. Bastard.
‘Kelli, you do know we have chairs?’ Ben tilted his head and comically raised his eyebrow at our office junior who was sat cross-legged on the floor surrounded by plastic wallets, sticky labels and, worryingly, a glue gun. He’d been out at a meeting for most of the morning so thankfully the smell of kebab meat and stale alcohol had faded by the time he returned.
‘Nah, I like it better down here.’ She flicked her multi-coloured hair back and carried on.
‘You know you really did miss out on a good night last night, Georgia,’ Ben said, sitting at his desk and turning his laptop on. ‘Who knew our Kel had so many hidden talents.’ Kelli beamed back at him and avoided my gaze like she had done all morning. She’d barely acknowledged me since she’d arrived. I’d tried to apologise for missing her gig and asked her how her night went but had so far been met with polite but short answers.
‘I promise I’ll be there for the next one; I just got caught up with things here.’ I apologised again. ‘Right, it’s my turn to do the coffee run. The usual, everyone?’ Ben nodded gratefully whilst Kelli just shrugged. ‘OK, I’ll be back in a tick.’ I pulled my jacket on and walked out into the chill of the street. The icy spring wind was just what I needed to help blow away this raging hangover that I was trying to keep hidden from the two of them.
As I came back from Starbucks wobbling a latte, a hot chocolate and a cappuccino in a flimsy cardboard holder I felt the atmosphere in the small room buzz with electric tension. Kelli was sat on the comfy, thankfully stain-free sofa nervously twiddling her thumbs as I breezed in.
‘OK, here’s yours.’ I passed her an extra-large hot chocolate with all the trimmings. She took the cup and gave me a tight smile by way of thanks; I noticed she looked even paler than usual. Maybe I wasn’t the only one suffering in silence.
‘I got the one with the extra small marshmallows you like and, Ben, they asked if you wanted syrup but I took it without as I said you were sweet enough,’ I said cheesily and walked over to Ben who was sat rigidly in his seat glaring at me. ‘Everything OK, guys?’ I tried to keep my tone light whilst placing his steaming cup of coffee on his desk.
‘Kelli, will you give us a moment, please?’ Ben muttered to Kelli, ignoring my question; this seemed to be what she was waiting for as she jumped up like a rat out of a trap, grabbed her creased leather jacket and sprinted out of the shop, leaving her hot chocolate untouched.
‘Ben? Is everything OK?’ I asked, sinking into my seat. A strange prickly sensation rose up my neck.
‘Georgia.’ Ben sighed. ‘You promised me there wouldn’t be any more secrets between us.’
I shook my head, my eyes wide open and hands outstretched. ‘I know. There aren’t.’
He rolled his eyes skywards. His jaw was clenched as he spoke. ‘So now you’re lying to my face?’
‘I’m not lying. What’s going on, Ben?’
He stood up and placed his arms behind his head, closing his eyes and trying to calm down. ‘Whilst you were out getting coffee, Kelli took a phone call from Indian Airways asking if you and Shelley would like an upgrade on your upcoming trip.’
My mind was as blank as my face must have been. ‘What trip?’
‘The trip in two weeks to New Delhi,’ he said sharply, unable to keep his cool any longer.
I sat back, stunned. ‘India? There must be some mistake; I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Well that’s what we thought, so Kelli asked them to email me your itinerary and, bingo, you and Shelley are booked on a flight to New Delhi. Apparently the booking was made at one a.m. this morning.’
Oh my holy everything. It was starting to filter back now. Me telling her about the awful reviews of the India tour and Nihal going AWOL and then us … us deciding to go undercover and find him in India. Shit. ‘Oh.’
‘Yep. Do you know how stupid I look as a business partner? Finding out that you’re jetting off when Kelli brings it up? Let alone that you were too busy to go to her gig as you had far more important things to do, like book a girly holiday with Shelley.’
‘I don’t remember doing this! It happened late last night; we’d had a few drinks.’ I paused to try and assemble my thoughts. ‘You know the India tour isn’t doing very well –’
Ben cut me off. ‘Yes and we spoke about this. You can’t control everything, Georgia.’
‘I know that. But then I found this blog that had posted the worst review about the trip, like really bad, and I just got caught up in the moment. You know what Shelley’s like …’ I paused. ‘I wanted to do something spontaneous.’
Ben took a deep breath. ‘Georgia, I don’t mind you going on holiday; that isn’t the point. The point is you didn’t think to tell me this before Kelli found out and you didn’t even check that it might be convenient at such short notice. Why didn’t you tell me about this review?’
‘I didn’t want to worry you about it,’ I said quietly.
‘But that’s the thing – I’m your partner; if you worry, I worry.’ Ben’s expression softened slightly.
‘I swear I don’t remember booking this trip. It was a silly spur-of-the-moment idea, but I’ll call up and cancel straight away,’ I said picking up my phone.
He sighed loudly. ‘No.’
‘What?’ I stopped dialling and stared at him.
‘No, don’t cancel it. You deserve a holiday to let your hair down and not get so stressed about the business. You’ve always wanted to go to India plus it will cost nearly as much to cancel. Maybe this is what you need, what we need. To have a little break from the office and each other.’
‘A break f-from us?’ I stuttered. I felt as though someone had pressed an icy palm to the back of my neck.
‘No, you know what I mean. Just a break from here.’ He waved his arms around the room. ‘Go, Georgia. I think actually this might be a good thing, a bloody shock, but a good thing.’ He gave me a weak smile and picked up the phone that had started to ring next to him.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. So much for Shelley’s bright idea at making Ben more interested in me. I had imagined him giving me a look of admiration for being so ballsy and taking control, not being unable to look at me at all as I’d let him down – again.
I opened my emails and typed furiously to check with Shelley that she knew we were actually going to India. We had to make this work.
Tremulous (adj.) Exceedingly sensitive; easily shaken or disordered
I hadn’t really had time to let the rash decision that I was going to India on one of my own tours sink in. I was too busy making sure that my handover would be as simple as possible for Ben and Kelli. I’d cleared my diary, rearranged meetings that I was meant to have and politely declined networking events, asking to be emailed the presentation notes instead.
The most urgent thing of all was to get our visas sorted, as without those the whole trip wouldn’t take place. I’d put a call in to Sanjay, who worked for Visa Express, to see if he could take care of it like he did for our customers. However, word had got round that I was planning on breaking ties with his company as I wanted to bring it all in-house so he politely but firmly told me to bugger off.