first base. Idiot.’
Sam giggles and backs off to her own desk so there’s a safe arm’s-length distance between us. ‘Very funny, but you know I didn’t mean that!’
Even though she’s known me a few years now, Sam, my best friend and lovely workmate, takes me far too seriously. She’s gullible. Or wise. It could be that she’s actually very, very wise and knows that my twitchy fingertips are actually dying to hit ‘send’ on this email, even though it might look like I’m just messing around.
What she doesn’t know is why he’s upset me so much. I’m trying to be cool about this, to laugh it off, but inside it hurts. Inside it feels like a little bit of me is being destroyed, and last night in bed I decided I wasn’t going to let him, a complete stranger, do this to me. To us.
Sam pushes a packet of Hobnobs in my direction. ‘He’s probably scared of you.’
I realise I’m clenching my teeth. It’s what I do when I’m upset. My shrink said it’s important not to do that when I talk, or it will make me sound angry. She also said it’s better to express how I feel. So how does that work? I feel angry, I’m expressing it through clenched teeth. I’m beginning to think most of what she said was bollocks.
I take a deep breath and unclench everything, then take my frustration out on a crunchy biscuit. ‘I am not scary. Real men appreciate the direct approach.’ I try and blow the crumbs out of the keyboard. The letter ‘T’ is already a bit dodgy; if this ruins W and A I’ll have lost one of my favourite words.
‘He might actually be quite nice. I’m going to look on their website. What’s he called again?’ Sam pokes me in the ribs when I don’t immediately answer.
‘Armstrong.’
‘Armstrong, what?’
‘William.’ I sigh, I can’t help myself.
Sam swings round on her chair so she’s facing her own computer again and does some rapid key-tapping.
It stops, and I’m pretty sure I know what’s coming next.
‘Oh wow. He’s . . .’ She pauses, her head tilted as she stares at the screen. Then rests her chin on her hand. There’s a long silence.
‘I can tell you’re struggling.’
‘No, I’m not.’ She flashes me her best headmistressy stare. ‘Have you seen him? I mean look! If I didn’t already have Jake I would be straight over there myself, to hell with crap reviews about his place. Look!’
‘I’ve seen.’ I try and act bored, but the truth is I’ve looked at William Armstrong’s photograph more than once. The man confuses me, because when I first rang him (after seeing that photo on the resort website) I thought he’d be nice, charming. But he wasn’t. He was curt, rude, and muttered something that sounded like ‘I’m going to string him up by his baubles for this’ before putting the phone down on me.
‘But he does look quite sexy, admit it.’
‘Are you for real?’ I’m not going to admit it, even though he does have a certain something about him. ‘Not my type I’m afraid.’
‘Aw, come on, he’s not that different to that guy you went out with before Callum.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Exactly. He looks a lightweight.’ I stare at the image. ‘And smug, like he thinks a lot of himself.’ That guy before Callum spent a hell of a lot of time staring at himself in the mirror and it’s kind of put me off the well-groomed look. I mean, have you ever known a man to be checking himself out while you’re having sex?
I thought he was reciting the alphabet backwards in his head or something, to try and delay the inevitable; turned out he was checking out if his hair gel was holding up. That was it for me. End of.
‘He’s good-looking, so cute!’
‘And he knows it.’
‘Rubbish, how can you tell that from a photo? He reminds me of that guy in The Mentalist.’ She’s staring at her screen and has moved in closer, as though she’s going to start licking it any moment.
‘Mental’s the right word. Who are you talking about now?’
‘You know, I know you do. What’s he called?’ She does some more googling. ‘There you go, Simon Baker. All twinkly-eyed and cute, but a bit naughty.’ We both stare at the images.
‘Pfft.’
‘He’s cute.’ I think she’s back to our Mr Armstrong now, but who knows? ‘Look at those dimples. I bet he’s fun.’ I don’t know which set of dimples she’s going on about, but it doesn’t matter.
‘I am not interested in his dimples, or his cuteness. He is duplicitous.’
‘That’s a very long word.’ I can tell by Sam’s twitching fingers that the online dictionary is about to get interrogated, so I pull her and her wheelie chair away from the desk. Very handy these chairs, a good investment.
‘Well, he is.’ I can’t believe that somebody could portray themselves as so – well, fun and carefree, when in fact they’re rude and curt. ‘His face contravenes the Trade Descriptions Act.’
‘His face?’
‘His face. He is definitely not nice, however cute he looks in that picture. In fact, I bet that’s not even him, or it was taken years ago, and he’s gone all mean and bitter in his old age.’
‘Maybe he’s having a mid-life crisis and realises that his life is meaningless.’ Sam sighs, rests her chin on one hand again and reaches for another biscuit with the other. I roll my eyes. Not at the biscuit, but her fantasy.
‘Running a business is not meaningless.’
‘It is if you always wanted to swim with dolphins, or ride a camel, or drive to Monte Carlo in a Ferrari.’
‘Sam, that’s your bucket list, not his. Do you honestly think he looks like he wants to swim with dolphins?’
‘Maybe not, but you don’t know, do you?’
‘And I don’t care, to be honest. Look, he is taking our clients’ money, giving them a shit Christmas in return, and refuses to talk to me about it properly.’ I don’t know what annoys me most, the fact that he’s totally, single-handedly, ruined what used to be our most popular festive location, or the fact that he is refusing to take my calls, to discuss it. ‘Whatever happened to the customer is always right? He’s just plain rude.’
We’re on the build-up to the festive season, and it’s not just the nasty email that came yesterday: bookings at the Shooting Star Mountain Resort are spinning into reverse. Which is so not how it should be. I mean, it should be the perfect place to spend Christmas. Crackling log fires, massive mug of hot chocolate, sled rides with a pack of huskies and some ho ho ho from Santa as you shove carrots at his real-life reindeer. Not to mention all that après-ski to warm you up after a day rolling about in the snow (I can’t ski, all I can do is roll and face-plant).
‘It should be fan-bloody-tastic.
