Flirting With Magick (18 page)

“Oh, he was alright, too, but I liked the bass player.”

The horrified silence around the table was deafening as I gaped at her. “Sorry. He’s mine,” I finally spat. She already wanted Josh. I’d be fucked if she was to get her hands on Scott as well.

“So I guess there won’t be a next time, hey Jemma?” Troy declared
,
rather gleefully, “Obviously you wouldn't have a chance. Anyway,
weren’t you interested in Josh? Or do you want
all
of Abby's leftovers?”

Dianne took that moment to rescue the conversation as death stares
were exchanged. “So how’s that all going?”

“
Great!” I gushed to her, purposefully ignoring Jemma, and partly
to stick it to her. “We’re just taking it slow for now.”

When it was time to head back to work, I decided to do the adult
thing and part with Jemma on a good note despite our heated conversation
. “Luke’s really nice. I really do think you’d be good together.” It was the truth, but I had admittedly also grown more uncomfortable with her interest in Josh, as well as the fact that she fancied Scott.

***

“Oh, you’re back.” Sean found me in the kitchen the following
afternoon. “Feeling better?”

“I’ve been back all week. You’re the one that’s been away. Do you
want a cuppa?”

“Sure, thanks." He placed his cup on the counter. "Miss me, did you?”

“Of course,” I said sarcastically. “You’re the only reason why I come
to work, Sean.”

“I saw your cousin play at PeaSeas on Saturday.”

“What did you think?” I handed him his tea.

“They're really good. I’m sure they’ll do well. ” He suddenly looke
d
serious. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, and I’m sorry if this is none of
my business, but is there something going on with you and um, what’s
his name? The one with the piercing and the dark hair.”

“Scott? The other one you met at the pub?”

He nodded.

“We’re friends,” I answered warily, not sure where this was going.
I didn’t add ‘with benefits.’

He looked slightly relieved.

Oh my God! He’s going to ask me out. Rachel was right.
I waited for him
to continue, not quite sure if I actually wanted him to. I was enjoying our easy friendship.

“Oh, that’s okay then. It’s just that I saw him messing about with a
girl, kissing and stuff, and I was worried that if he and you...” The walls
closed in around me, and I didn’t hear the rest. Tanya wasn’t lying
after all. I wasn’t the only one.

"I WISH I WAS UNAWARE.
If it's not true, please don't be there," I
muttered a made up spell to myself. "Dammit!" I had hoped his van
wouldn't be parked outside his flat when I pulled up. After Sean left
the kitchen, I made a decision, there and then, that I couldn’t go on lik
e
this with Scott and would call the whole thing off straight after wor
k.
If I left it any later, I knew I wouldn’t go through with it. I think a part
of me didn’t want to.

I’d been on the verge of tears ever since Sean told me about Scott,
and I knew it was a matter of saving both my feelings and our friendship
. I
only hoped we actually had a friendship to save, and that this wasn’t
just a physical attraction with no substance.

I knocked tentatively on the door and was disappointed when he opened it. Seemed I sucked at made-up spells, too.

“Hey, isn’t it my turn to go to your place? Sorry, I’m running late. I got held up at the studio.” He smiled innocently, which only made it
harder. I did my best to ignore his lopsided grin as I stepped into the warmth of the flat and swallowed away the lump in my throat.

I didn’t want to start the conversation with the horrible “we need
to talk” line, so I thought the best option was to just… “I can’t keep
doing this!”

“Doing what?” His dark brows furrowed in confusion.

“This," I waved my arm, "With you," emphatically, "What we do,”
with each sentence.

“I see,” he said as if I'd just told him I'd been taken by aliens and they very nicely dropped me off at his house. “You wanna sit down? I’ll get us a coffee.” He led me to the couch and disappeared into the kitchen. I sat uncomfortably, almost regretting what I had said when he reappeared a few minutes later.

“I’ve been doing a bit of soul searching... and I think I want a bit
more than what we have.” I looked up at him, “I don’t mean with you,”
I added quickly, noticing the growing look of surprise on his face an
d not wanting him to make the mistake of thinking I was in any way pressuring him to make our relationship more than it was, although really, that would have been the preferred outcome. But knowing his stance on relationships, I couldn’t handle yet another heartbreak if I told him.

“So I guess we’ll just be friends then,” he said, sitting down on the
other chair. “Hey, it was fun though, wasn’t it?” I was saddened to notice
that he didn’t appear to be particularly disappointed. It was almost
as if he'd be glad to see the back of me. He probably already had a
replacement lined up. It took every ounce of self-control to not let my
emotions bubble to the surface, although what I really wanted to do was just burst into tears. If anything, it was obvious I wasn’t cut out
for this type of relationship, despite my best intentions. I should hav
e
let it go after we had made up again, just walked away when my feelings
were more intact. Now I’d paid the ultimate price by letting my emoti
ons into it, and when my heart got crushed into a million pieces, I didn’t even have the right to confront him or be angry about it. It’s not like we had some sort of exclusivity clause worked out.

“It was great.” I smiled, faking my own lack of remorse.

“So what brought this on? This soul-searching," he asked. "Is this because of your ex? That phone call?”

“
No. I haven’t spoken to him.” Josh had tried to ring me a numbe
r
of times since that day when Scott was at my house. I had spent the last
few weeks screening all my calls. “I guess I’m just after something a
bit more stable than what we have,” I elaborated, looking deep into the
coffee in my hand. “I’m honestly not the kind of girl for this casual
thing." I bit thoughtfully on my bottom lip. “But I really like you and I hope we can stay in touch.” I meant every word I said, particularly
the bit about really liking him. I was surprised that I felt bold enough to
look him straight in the eye when I said that, but it was more to stop
myself crying, and unfortunately, his face didn’t give anything away
.

“Sure.” He twisted his mouth into an amused smile. “Can we have one more go? As a goodbye?”

“What?” He was taking this rather flippantly, which only made
me feel worse.

“I’m joking. I’m joking.” He waved his hands in front of him, laughing
before suddenly turning serious. “I guess you’re right, I mean well,
the band and everything. It's getting pretty busy with the recording. We've
still got a video to do, and we'll be touring soon anyway. I wouldn’t
want
to end up messing with you too much. I guess I can't afford any serious
attachments at the moment.”

“So we’ll be friends then?” I guess 'friends' was the most I was
ever going to get.

“Yeah, of course. You're still coming to our gig near your work,
aren't you?” He gave me a sideways glance as he switched on the TV.
“But before you go, can you help me out with this game?”

AS WAS MY OLD HABIT,
I threw myself into work
—
early morning
arrivals and remaining in the office deep into the evenings. Avalon
IT had become my sanctuary. Scott was now all but a sweet memory and a source of countless fantasies. Despite not having seen him in a
few weeks, he was a constant topic of discussion whenever I spoke
to Di or Kate.

“
So how are you going?” Dianne used her sympathetic voice over t
he phone. "The gig was great, and he's lovely."

“I’m fine, really.” This was a lie. “I just don’t want to talk about him right now.” So was this.

“Okay, okay. Sorry... But you miss him though, don’t you?”

“Sometimes, yeah maybe.” I was beginning to wonder if I had
done the right thing. I hadn’t seen him since the day I broke things of
f, and the resulting hole in my life felt like it was growing every day.

"I also met your workmate Rachel," she told me. "She's very nice."

"She's lovely." I agreed. “Did I tell you that Josh came around?” It
was the only way I could get the subject away from the gig. Somehow
my previous sore point wasn’t as hard to talk about anymore, considering
the recent developments.

“He did?”

“I’d been screening my calls, but I was talking to Mum, and she had
to go and said she would call me back in a few minutes. So I answered
,
and it was him.” I heard Di draw in a sharp breath. “So…” I continued
. “I told him I couldn’t talk, and he said he was coming over and just hung up. When he knocked, I just didn’t answer the door.”

“Hmm.” Di put on her thinking voice. “Maybe you should have just spoken to him—gotten it out of the way."

Kate had thoughtfully kept me posted on how he was whenever she
went along to the band’s performances as Nathan’s dutiful girlfriend
.
She missed having me along, though she understood why I didn’t go.
She hadn’t seen him with any other girls at PeaSeas but admitted to
having left earlier than he did, so she couldn't be sure nothing happe
ned
once she and Nathan had gone for the night. She offered to ask him, but
as it wasn't any of my business anyway, I told her not to worry about
it. Sean’s words echoed in my head. It was bad enough hearing about
him ‘messing about with a girl,’ let alone seeing it with my own eyes, and I certainly didn't need any confirmation. Why did he have to say
something? Couldn't he have just kept me in blissful oblivion? Of
course not, Sean was being a nice, caring friend. Damn him!

***

The
Reckless Choice
gig had been all Rachel could talk about that
week. As much as I loved how she liked Kate and Dianne, I was getting
sick to death of hearing how awesome the band was.

“Abby.” I was relieved when Ray called me into his office and waved
a brochure at me as I sat on the other side of his desk. “Bronwyn would
normally be the one to explain this, but it appears it slipped her min
d before she went away.” He took a deep breath and leaned back in his
chair, fixing me with his authoritative gaze. “Laura is going to be taking
some time off for long service leave. Naturally, Pippa will be taking over
her position, but Bronwyn and I were thinking it might be worthwhile
getting you into accounts to help her out.” He pushed the brochure in
front of me and took off his glasses, wiping them on a piece of cloth he retrieved from his drawer. “Pippa could probably train you in the
accounting program we use but, because she’ll be backed up with Laura’s
work as well, we thought it might be better if you take this course. If you could please book yourself in for next week, I’m sure Rachel can
handle the reception and front office on her own. It should be fairly
quiet with both Bronwyn and myself away.”

I felt a trickle of excitement at the change of work scene. “Sure, thanks, Ray,” I said, standing up to leave.

“
Well, that’s that then. Thank you, Abby.” He took his time replacing
the cloth neatly in his drawer and looked through the papers in front of
him, straightening them perfectly with a loud tap on his desk before
handing them to me. “Could you please give these to Rachel to type up
for me? I would like you to spend as much time as you can in accounts
this week, learning the ropes.”

***

Besides seeing her at the weekly jaunt to the local pub, I didn’t reall
y
have a lot to do with Pippa. She was a couple of years older than me an
d lived with Carl, her on again, off again boyfriend of five years, who I understood was often away for work. Rachel had warned me when I
first started at Avalon about how she could be a bitch, but I was yet to
experience it firsthand. At work, her job was to take over the debtors and creditors, leaving Laura with the payroll and bookkeeping.

She greeted me warmly when I knocked on the door of the tiny
office she shared with Laura. “Take a seat.” She gestured towards the
vacant chair. ”Laura’s just out finalising her trip overseas, lucky thing.”

“
Where’s she off to?” I sat down and gazed around me. The female-
only accounts room rarely, if ever, had visitors of the business kind,
as most meetings were carried out in the boardroom. This allowed them to give it the personal touch, which contrasted greatly with the
extreme businesslike and practical look of the rest of the office. Famil
y
photos and children’s drawings dotted the wall above Laura’s desk while
the divider above Pippa’s desk was covered with greeting cards, happy
snap photos of Pippa and her friends, and wedding and party invitations
.