Next morning, the sound of a car horn made Regan stir. She opened one eye. Jarvis wasn’t in bed. She stretched out and was dropping off again when a stab of conscience made her turn over and check the time. She blinked at the clock. ‘Shittity shittington!’ That couldn’t be right. She was seriously late for work and shitting Jarvis must have known and left her to her fate. Regan scrambled out of bed, keen not to repeat the carpet burn of yesterday. It would be another day without a morning shower, she thought, grabbing up her clothes from their floordrobe and dashing for the bathroom, tripping over Jarvis’s precious rug in the process. Bloody thing.
Despite her lateness, Regan never missed getting a coffee. It was the only breakfast she had, and she justified her coffee purchase because it was also a commitment she had made to Kevin. And, more importantly, she couldn’t face a day of terminal tedium at work without a decent shot of caffeine. She flew into the little coffee shop and found Penny was already on the case. Within minutes Regan had swiped her card, grabbed her tray of coffees and was heading for the sugar sachets.
‘New process,’ said Penny. ‘No more sugar in little packets because some buggers keep nicking them. There’s a sugar dispenser on the side.’
Regan was thrown by the new process. Trust Alex to have sodding sugar in his. She wrenched off the lid of his cup, tipped some in and quickly replaced the lid.
Kevin was outside, his hair and beard wet as they often were in the morning. She puzzled over why that was; she had no idea where he would go for a shower. The irony that he had had a shower and she hadn’t wasn’t lost on her.
‘Morning, Kevin,’ trilled Regan, her pace virtually a jog. ‘Morning, Elvis.’
Elvis barked his reply. The sound was loud enough to loosen her fillings and she very nearly threw the tray of coffees in the air. Kevin grabbed his quickly. ‘Thank you. Carpe diem.’
‘And you, Kevin,’ she called over her shoulder and she speed-walked in the direction of the office.
When she arrived, Alex was hovering by their desks wearing a smart white shirt, dark tie and khaki chinos. Regan smirked at his outfit. He was definitely trying to impress the management. She could see he was looking flustered as she approached. ‘I’m sorry. Jarvis is playing games. The shit let me sleep in.’
‘You could set an alarm clock,’ said Alex, pulling his coffee from the tray.
‘I don’t like—’ but Regan didn’t get to finish her sentence. Alex pulled the coffee from the tray and it got a few centimetres from the desk before the lid parted company with the cup. The cup bounced on the desk and, in spectacular fashion, doused the front of Alex’s trousers with hot coffee. Alex gulped in air, making a noise like a train braking. Regan tried hard to stifle her laughter, but it was too funny.
Alex stared at the stain spreading across his trousers.
‘They’re very absorbent,’ said Regan, grabbing a box of tissues from the desk opposite. ‘At least it missed your keyboard.’
‘You utter cow.’ Alex’s voice was a low grumble.
Regan’s grin slid from her face. ‘What did I do?’
He pointed at his coffee-stained groin. ‘You did this on purpose.’
‘No, you did that all by yourself, pal.’ She shook her head. She understood he was cross, but she wasn’t taking the flack for something that wasn’t her fault.
‘You loosened the bloody lid!’
‘No, I di …’ Regan thought back to the new sugar process. ‘Ah, no. You see the sugar isn’t in the little packets any more—’
But Alex wasn’t listening. ‘Just because I kicked your pen in that meeting. You do this?’
She wished he’d stop pointing at his groin. Regan did feel a sense of responsibility, but she didn’t like his assumption that she was this vindictive.
‘It was an accident, Alex. You need to calm down.’
He opened his mouth to speak, but an office door opened at the other side of the room. Managers and the visiting director spilled out. ‘You’ll need to take my place. But then I’m sure that’s exactly what you planned.’
‘Shit. No. I’m not taking your place. Man up and say you spilled your coffee. I don’t want to go to some dull meeting,’ said Regan, throwing the soggy tissues in the bin.
Alex quickly sat down and wheeled himself under the desk to hide the large coffee stain. It was a smart move. He then leaned on his mouse mat and froze. Regan glanced in his direction. ‘What?’
Alex slowly lifted his arm to show that his once-pristine crisp white shirtsleeve now had a soggy brown coffee patch. ‘Whoops,’ said Regan, cringing. ‘Think I missed a bit.’
‘You are unbelievable,’ said Alex.
The herd of management made their way over. Thankfully, someone more ambitious than Regan led the discussion. Alex was quiet; he kept his lower half under his desk and intermittently scowled at Regan. She shrugged. It was unfortunate, but she couldn’t feel too guilty about it. It was only a meeting – it wasn’t like he’d missed the last lifeboat.
‘And Alex will be joining us to give an overview of the challenges he and his colleagues are facing with invoicing,’ said Nigel, with a confident nod in Alex’s direction. He seemed puzzled as to why Alex was facing the wrong way.
Alex twisted in his seat. ‘I, um …’ He frowned hard. ‘I think Regan should attend instead of me. She knows the department and its challenges as well as I do.’
‘Oh, well. Regan. Um. That’s …’ Nigel appeared to have developed a facial tic. Regan’s mouth lifted at the side. He was clearly dreading the thought of her being let loose in a meeting with the grown-ups.
The director tipped his head. ‘Regan is an unusual name. From Shakespeare, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Regan, surprised that he recognised it. Most people assumed it was her surname. ‘It’s from King Lear.’ Her mother had had ideas well above her station so had saddled her with a name she felt was interesting and unusual. For Regan it was pretentious and annoying, but something she was lumbered with because she was too lazy to change it.
‘Excellent,’ he said. Nigel gave an uncertain smile of agreement. ‘We’ll see you later then, Regan.’
‘Can’t wait,’ she said, holding her smile in place as they filtered away. Once they were safely in the lift, she turned to Alex. ‘Ugh, thanks for that. I don’t …’ she began, but Alex got up and stormed off.
She decided she’d buy him a doughnut at lunchtime. That usually cheered him up. She’d get Kevin one too.
Her phone – which she’d remembered today – buzzed into life. It was Cleo on FaceTime. Without thinking, Regan answered it. ‘Hi.’
Despite hours on a flight, Cleo still looked perfectly coiffured. After a few minutes on the Isle of Wight ferry, Regan usually looked like she’d been mauled by hyenas.
‘This is the hotel,’ said Cleo, scanning the phone around a room about the same size as Jarvis’s entire flat.
‘What country?’
‘Dubai.’
‘Is that