Page 39 of While I’m Still Here

APPARENTLY JOBS DON’T STOP WHEN YOU HAVE CANCER

Beatrice ‘Bea’ James

Imake it exactly four steps into the office before Danny Clarke looks at the clock.

He doesn’t just simply glance at it, because that would be far too subtle for a man who once spent an entire afternoon emailing me increasingly elaborate demands after stealing my stapler for ransom. I ended up trading him my doughnut just to get it back.

Instead, he leans back in his chair, pushes his shirt sleeve away from his wrist and raises his watch to eye level with the solemn concentration of a bomb squad. He checks the time, looks at me, checks it again, then raises his eyebrows.

“Don’t, Clarke. I’m in no mood for you today,” I snip at him.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You don’t have to. Your face is being a cunt, like always.”

Danny places a hand over his chest. “And good morning to you too, James.”

I dump my handbag beside my desk and refuse to acknowledge the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Unfortunately, ignoring Danny Clarke has never been easy, mostly because he's spent the better part of three years making himself impossible to ignore. He's thirty-three, offensively attractive and in possession of the kind of confidence that would be unbearable on a less charming man. Dark hair that always looks as though he's run his fingers through it despite the fact I know for a certainty he owns hair products, brown eyes that get this dangerous, sexy glint whenever he's about to say something inappropriate, and shirtsleeves permanently rolled to his elbows because apparently workplace dress codes were invented specifically to showcase Danny Clarke's forearms.

I have worked opposite him for two years and ten months. I have wanted to shag him for approximately two years and nine months.

Nothing has ever happened.

We've flirted. Constantly. Aggressively, at times. There was an incident involving mistletoe at the Christmas party last year that brought my mouth within about three centimetres of his before someone dropped an entire tray of prosecco behind us. There have been drunken messages that became considerably less brave by morning, lunches that would probably have been dates if either of us had possessed the courage to call them that, and enough sexual innuendo to make several workplace training videos.

But we've never crossed the line.

Yesterday, that would have felt perfectly reasonable. Today, it feels slightly fucking stupid.

“You're fourteen minutes late,” Danny says as I drop into my chair.

“I had a busy morning.”

His eyes flick over me. “Doing?”

“Things.”

“What kind of things?”

“None-of-your-fucking-business things.”

“My favourite kind.”

I press the on button for my computer, but nothing happens. I press the button again, and still nothing. Despite everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours, despite hospitals and biopsies and Colin and Mum and the Pink Folder of Doom currently sitting on my bed, the sight of that blank monitor fills me with such immediate, disproportionate irritation that I could cry with relief.

This.

This is printer Bea. Normal, no having cancer, Bea.

“My computer’s fucked.”

Danny swivels towards me. “Have you tried foreplay? Get her a little warmed up and then she’ll turn on.”

I close my eyes. There he fucking is. “It’s not even ten in the morning.”

“I don’t see why the time is relevant, James. There are twenty-four hours in the day, all of which are perfect for foreplay.”

“I’m going to throw my stapler at you.”