Page 44 of The Village of Lost and Found

As he turned around and nearly fell over, he caught Lucy looking at him.

He frowned and looked a little disorientated in his drunken state. ‘You?’ he slurred. ‘Why’re you here?’

‘Making sure that you’re not drunk in charge of a keyboard,’ she told him. ‘Trust me. I’ve done the drunken texting and it never works out for the best.’

‘Huh?’ he said, swaying on the spot.

Lucy wasn’t sure that she had ever seen anyone quite this drunk. Despite feeling upset with him, she couldn’t leave him alone in this state.

‘How about I walk you home?’ she said, taking a step forward. ‘You can work tomorrow when your hangover has faded.’

Although she wasn’t sure he’d be in any state to work the following day, by the look of him.

To her surprise, he shook his head. ‘No. No. No,’ he mumbled, looking down at the floor.

‘I’m sure you’ll feel better for it,’ she told him.

But Tom just kept on repeating the word ‘No’ over and over.

‘Well, you can’t sleep here!’ she joked.

He looked up at her with such pain in his eyes that her smile immediately faded. He appeared utterly defeated and distraught.

‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘Hate it over there. Don’t make me.’

‘OK,’ she told him, thinking fast. It was no good. She couldn’t leave him in the office in this state. So she said, ‘How about you come upstairs and have a cup of coffee with me? That’ll make you feel better.’

He made a face. ‘More gin?’ he asked.

‘Yeah!’ she lied. ‘We’ll have a little party, OK?’

He looked a little more cheerful at her words but was still standing, or rather swaying, on the spot.

So Lucy stepped forward and held out her hand. ‘Come on then,’ she said softly.

He stared down at her hand for a while before eventually reaching out and clutching it in his.

As she began to lead him out of the office, she found him glancing at her strawberry-gin-splattered top.

‘Red,’ he said, with a frown.

‘Yeah,’ she replied, switching off the office light. ‘You missed quite an end to the evening at the pub.’

She guided him past the kitchen and through the back door into the small hallway at the bottom of the stairwell.

‘We’re going upstairs,’ she told him, switching on the light so they could see where they were going.

But even that didn’t help Tom’s unsteady progress and in the end she had to take his arm in hers and pull him up the steps so they both didn’t tumble back down them.

As they reached the apartment, Tom looked around with hazy eyes and made a face. ‘Awful,’ he muttered.

‘Isn’t it?’ she said, leading him towards the sofa.

With a gentle push, he fell back onto the soft cushions with a whoomph of air. Lucy made sure that he was settled before going into the kitchen to switch on the kettle.

She glanced over and saw him squinting up at the overhead light.

‘Too bright,’ he moaned.