voice softening slightly. ‘If you’d wanted someone to tell you to text him, you’d have called the soft-touch, not me.’
She meant Lucy. Lucy was, in fairness, very persuadable.
‘Enough about that Twat-Faced Wank Chops,’ Sumi said, invoking her favourite nickname for him, before I could add fuel to the Patrick Parker conversation fire. ‘Are you excited for your first day at work?’
‘Nervously optimistic?’ I replied. Patrick’s message had worn the edges off my giddiness but I was still a bundle of happy nerves when I thought about it. ‘I’ve got loads of ideas, I think it’s going to be good.’
‘It’s going to be brilliant,’ she corrected. ‘Have fun, be amazing and do not spend the entire day thinking about Patrick “I’ve got a PhD and not in the dirty way” Parker.’
‘But also in the dirty way,’ I reminded her.
‘Thinking about his knob is not going to improve matters, so stop it,’ Sumi warned. ‘No thinking about him, no looking at photos of him and definitely no texting him. These are my commandments, Ros, I command thee. Thou hast been commanded.’
‘I’m sure I’ll be far too busy for him to even cross my mind,’ I assured her even though we both knew I could be put in charge of air traffic control at Heathrow and I’d still manage somehow. ‘I’ll talk to you later. Love you.’
‘Love you,’ Sumi replied. ‘Don’t text him!’
‘Sorry for all the smoke and mirrors yesterday,’ Ted said, leading me out of the bright and colourful PodPad HR office and down a markedly less bright and colourful staircase I hadn’t seen the day before. ‘But we’ve signed a million NDAs for this show and I couldn’t tell you anything until you’d signed a contract.’
‘No problem,’ I answered without hesitation, jogging closely behind him. Why were we leaving the Cool Office? Why was he leading me into the basement? ‘My curiosity is officially piqued. What’s the show about?’
Ted stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gave me a grin. ‘What was your last show about?’ he asked.
Someone enjoyed exercising power wherever he could find it.
‘The Book Report?’ I replied. ‘It was a culture show, book-based, obviously, clue’s in the name. The host interviewed a different author every week, asked them about their favourite books, you know, from different stages of their life. I developed it from scratch, got to work with the authors, the publishers, everything.’
He fumbled with an enormous ring full of keys and opened a heavy security door. ‘You like books?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘A lot. You?’
‘Eh,’ he grimaced as he pulled open the door in a pantomime of chivalry. ‘Not really a book man.’
Not really a book man.
‘Is the new show book-related?’ I asked as we walked down a dimly lit corridor, a prickle of excitement running up my spine as fluorescent lights clicked into life one by one above us. ‘Because it’s a great format, super easy to put together. If we find the right host, it could be up and running in a few weeks.’
‘Here’s the thing,’ Ted stopped short in front of one of six identical plywood doors. ‘We’ve already got a show for you. PodPad signed an incredibly talented person and they have the potential to be massive but they need the right producer to help them. Someone creative, someone who isn’t afraid to take risks, someone who can get a brilliant show out of a brilliant mind.’
‘And I’m that producer?’ I asked, a little surprised but pleasantly flattered.
He clicked his tongue and shot at me with double-finger guns.
‘So,’ I said, bracing myself against the sudden drop in temperature. Downstairs was much colder than upstairs. ‘Who is the incredibly talented person and why are we in the basement?’
‘This is where the studios are, soundproofing, yeah?’ He opened the door to a tiny, dark, dingy room and suddenly I was very nostalgic for the home comforts of my shed. ‘And you’re not going to believe it when I tell you. It’s insane that we’ve been able to get him, totally mad. Even I can’t believe we got him and I’m the one who signed the massive cheque for the bastard. He’s a genius. And not a book genius, like, a proper genius normal people have heard of.’
My heart began to pound and not just because I was incredibly claustrophobic. Here it was at last, my opportunity to put myself on the map, show everyone what I could do, working with a non-book genius. Who could it be? Lin-Manuel Miranda? The Rock? Anyone but Kanye.
‘OK, the anticipation is killing me,’ I said, watching Ted flick six switches on at the wall only to see half as many bulbs light up. ‘Who is it?’
He sat down in a beaten-up leather office chair that had been patched up with duct tape one too many times and grinned. ‘He’s an athlete.’
‘David Beckham?’ I guessed, heart pounding. I couldn’t do it to Posh and the kids obviously but a feverish flirtation would probably be morally acceptable.
‘Bigger,’ Ted grinned.
‘Roger Federer?’
‘Even bigger,’ he replied, eyes closed and hands up in the air, ready to conduct an invisible orchestra. ‘It’s Snazzlechuff.’
It was at that precise moment I realized I had followed a man I did not know into a soundproofed basement with no idea about his mental state and, to make matters worse, I was wearing shitty kitten heels that would never in a million years be able to penetrate his skull if I needed to use them as a weapon.
‘Excuse me?’ I said, very politely.
‘It’s Snazzlechuff,’ Ted repeated. ‘Snazzle. Chuff.’
‘Are you having a seizure? Should I get help?’ I asked, looking around for signs of human life besides the two of us. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Murdered to Death on the train to work.
‘You’ve never heard of Snazzlechuff?’
I shook my head as I calculated my best possible route of escape. Probably bash him in the head with my backpack, bolt back upstairs, grab one of the free beers and launch myself through the plate-glass window.
‘He’s literally the most famous person in the entire world,’ Ted said, not even trying to hide the disdain on his face. ‘He’s got the most successful gaming channel in history, more than 15 million followers across all platforms and you’ve never even heard of him?’
He shoved his phone in my face, waving it around until I grabbed it out of his hands.
‘This is him?’
Ted nodded.
‘Why’s he got a dog’s head?’
The picture in front of me showed a skinny body, clothed head to toe in a bright red tracksuit, with an enormous Wes-Anderson-looking Dalmatian’s head on its shoulders.
‘He
