Winona: Come for a drink. Nico promised he won’t punch anyone this time.
Jonah read the message and deleted it, still fixated on the storyboards he’d created for Blutecc’s fragile fitness app. They were wholly unnecessary if Helga’s budget prophecies proved accurate, but for some unknown and likely ludicrous reason, he couldn’t leave them alone.
“Mr. Gray?”
Jonah glanced up. Curtis was in the doorway, clutching the coffee jug. Jonah nodded. “Help yourself, Curtis. It’s fine. I’m not sure how old it is, though.”
“It’s not old. Mr. Ivanov made it before he left a few minutes ago. I thought he’d made it for you.”
“Oh. Well. Okay, I suppose we’d better drink it then.” Dazed, Jonah held out his mug.
Curtis filled it and disappeared, only to return with a slice of the Russian fruit bread Sacha had brought in for breakfast a few weeks back. “Where did you get that from? I didn’t think anyone brought anything today.”
“It was in the break room, Mr. Gray. By the coffee machine.”
“Did Sacha—did Mr. Ivanov come back?”
“I don’t know. I’ve had the hoover on. Do you want me to check?”
“No, no. It’s fine.”
Jonah waved Curtis away and took a slow sip of coffee. It was rocket fuel, he’d have known Sacha had brewed it even if Curtis hadn’t told him. What he didn’t know was why.
We aren’t friends, remember?
Jonah remembered. As if he could forget. And he wasn’t above admitting to himself that he didn’t like it. Not one bit. Since the very first night they’d met, Sacha had become a bewitching constant in his life and their lack of communication now stung.
More than that. It hurt.
I miss him.
Jonah didn’t like that either.
He drank his coffee, still poking at the designs for the fitness app, between scowling at the sweet-smelling pastry he couldn’t bring himself to eat. It made no sense that Sacha had returned to the office to bring it to him, but at the same time, there was no other explanation. There was no one else here.
Maybe it’s not for you. Maybe he brought it for Samson and Curtis. But if that was the case, surely he’d have left it downstairs with Samson, with clear indicator of who he wanted to eat it.
You’re overthinking it. It’s literally a piece of cake.
But it wasn’t. It was Sacha. And nothing about him was ever simple. It was heavy stares and silence. Half smiles and shifting sands. Flinty eyes lit up by the smallest things, only to harden again moments later.
Sighing, Jonah pushed back from his desk, reaching for his phone as it vibrated for the dozenth time since his team had left for the night.
It was Winona again, reminding him they’d decamped to the nearest pub to the office, one Jonah would walk past if the car he was about to call waited in its usual spot across the road.
And wasn’t that a scene he wanted to avoid? The last time he’d tried it on a Friday evening, his entire team had flooded out of the bar and corralled him as he’d opened the car door, alarming the driver enough for Jonah to pay him an enormous tip despite the fact he never made the journey home. Stuff that.
Resigned, Jonah found Curtis and told him to eat whatever Russian cakes he found lying around, then left the office.
The lift ride reminded him of Sacha, like every lift ride had since they’d met, but over the last few days, the memories had stopped making him smile. Now they irritated him as much as Sacha did, and Jonah gave up at the third floor and took the stairs the rest of the way down.
He emerged out of the building into howling rain. Somehow he’d missed it setting in, despite spending much of his day gazing out of the window. Dodging puddles, he crossed the street, and ducked into the nearest pub, an ale establishment with rough wooden floors and old school fixtures and fittings. Even with the gaudy Christmas decorations, it was a stark contrast to the wine bars it was sandwiched between, and Jonah had always liked it.
His team were in their usual place, taking up a long table at the back of the bar by the kitchen, shouting to each other, and singing along to Slade. They called out to him, hooting their appreciation that he’d finally shown his face.
Jonah rolled his eyes and went to the bar, knowing full well they enjoyed his wallet as much as his general presence. He ordered enough alcohol to keep them quiet for a while, then handed his credit card to the barman. “Keep it,” he said. “I’ll be back, I’m sure.”
“I need a boss like you,” the barman said. “Or one that buys up all the vodka like that one.”
He jerked his head somewhere behind Jonah, then wandered off, taking Jonah’s Amex with him.
Curious, Jonah turned and glanced over his shoulder. It shouldn’t have surprised him to see the Blutecc team huddled around a couple of tables on the other side of the pub, but somehow it did. He noted the vodka bottles and shot glasses spread out around them. Helga’s platinum hair, and the slumped shoulders of the executive who’d commandeered FG’s services earlier in the week as she gave him a stern talking to. And then the amused attention of another man as he watched them, sipping from a vodka glass he held in his elegant hand, his golden gaze deep and addictive.
Sacha.
As if he’d heard his name light up Jonah’s mind, he looked up, catching Jonah’s stare before Jonah found the wherewithal to be elsewhere.
The world seemed to shift, and yet stop stock still, freezing Jonah in place. A body jostled him, sloshing beer on his arm, but Jonah barely felt it, caught in the snare of Sacha’s endless gaze.
Sacha’s lips twitched, as though fighting a smile. Jonah hated him for that, both because he yearned to see that smile, and for the notion that Sacha was laughing at him.
Fuck you.
Jonah’s eyes burned, and the sudden fury in his gut shocked him. He dropped his gaze and spun around, facing the bar again. The barman was on his way past with the weighted tray of drinks for his team. Jonah stopped him and helped himself to the whisky he’d ordered for himself. “Bring me another when you have a moment?”
The barman nodded, giving Jonah a fleeting once over that, in another life—one before moody, contradictory Russian computer nerds—might’ve excited him. That Jonah might’ve hung around the bar, scored the bloke’s number, and perhaps taken him home for a friendly encounter without complication and heartache. But that version of Jonah was elsewhere, leaving him drinking whisky alone in a crowded pub.
He drained his glass and dropped it onto the bar, then he followed the raucous sounds coming from the FG table and found himself a seat among them. His back tingled, the nape of his neck alive with the knowledge that Sacha was somewhere behind him, but he forced himself to focus on the people around him. People who wanted him to be there. Nico was on one side of him, Winona the other. Carl was opposite, the only sign of his adventures a week ago a tiny wound dressing still glued to his temple.
His gaze was fixed on Winona. She smiled back at him, shyer than Jonah had ever seen her, and the proverbial penny dropped.
Beside him, Nico snorted into his pint. “No offence, boss, but you’re staring at them like you just discovered sliced bread. Stop being weird.”
“I’m not being weird,” Jonah protested, but he snapped his stare from Carl all the same and helped himself to the nearest drink the hot barman had dumped on the table. It was vodka, of course. He’d ordered it for the accounts manager, but she was nowhere in sight. Perhaps she’d left. Jonah didn’t much care. He drank her drink, and someone else’s, and then the fresh whisky that appeared in front of him a few minutes later.