Page 41 of Exchange of Heart

‘Oh, Freddie. How nice to see you. I was just telling, umm…’ My pointing finger jabbed towards the man next to me.

‘Chris?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I was telling Chris what a perfect tie you’ve picked today. It matches your, um – your eyes.’

They were simply a dull brown. No interesting hints of yellow, green, or anything. Straight-up brown. There might have been a few different shades of it, but you couldn’t see where one ended and the other began. A bit like diarrhoea.

‘Thank you. My mum gave it to me for my birthday last week.’ He ran his hand down his yellow tie, straightened his posture, and grinned.

‘What great taste she has,’ I lied.

‘Look, I came over to see if you could maybe help me out with a report due tomorrow. Terry said you did such a great job last week with the data for that new clothing store, I thought you could have a go with this one, too.’

I’d given Freddie the benefit of the doubt, but just as I’d thought I could get used to this bastard, he tried to charm Nora into being his little data bitch. Again. Each time he’d crammed into my space on Tuesday, he’d tried to worm a little bit of information out of me to do with a formula, report, or whatever he was working on.

‘I’ve got so much of my own work to get done, I don’t think I could manage your workload, too.’ I used Nora’s pleasant tone.

‘I thought you might like the opportunity to show the big guys what you can really do, you know?’

This guy was a born leader. The manipulative, bullshitter kind. The ones who lay a trail of breadcrumbs in the form of free labour, promising the path will take you to bigger and better things. Hansel and Gretel fucked around and found out, but I wasn’t sending Nora into the witch’s house of candy.

‘Sorry, Freddie. If they can’t see what I’m capable of, that’s their loss.’

I spun my chair back to my desk and flicked Nora’s screen on. The unmistakable scent of embarrassment faded as Freddie dragged his feet back to his office.

‘Damn, Nora. That was bad-ass.’ Izzy poked her head over our diving wall.

‘Oh, thanks.’ I massaged my temples and wished she was Paddy.

‘Do you need painkillers?’ she chirped.

‘Please,’ I groaned.

She threw me a packet as Chris poked his head over the other side.

‘We really thought we were going to lose you as our desk neighbour before they announced Freddie would take Terry’s job,’ he added.

‘So, I really wasn’t the only one surprised?’ I scrunched my face in confusion.

It still surprised me that Nora wasn’t being a dramatic, sore loser over missing out on that promotion, though I’ll admit, Freddie did seem to be floundering.

‘Gosh, no. Freddie doesn’t understand what we do. No wonder he’s out here asking for help every ten minutes.’

I became less certain that Nora had been a sore loser about this promotion the more we spoke. Maybe being a chick was getting to me, but my intuition flared like a firework. I owed Nora an apology now that both Izzy and Chris had admitted everything that she’d been sure of. It sounded like Nora simply needed to wait out Freddie’s demise. He can’t hide from the truth if he doesn’t even know what it is he’s really hiding from.

And who would be ready to pick up the slack and finally claim that position?

Nora, of course.

Two hours later, I’d gone over five years’ worth of income statements for a retail store and located the downfall in budget cuts. I hadn’t searched businesses records for hidden details in years. The satisfying moment of finding the treasure after a hunt was invigorating. Much more satisfying than checking over the work someone else had already done. More so, because I didn’t have my father’s bald head looming in another room. According to previous emails, Nora had been working on this for three days. I took a smug sip of coffee, which I immediately spat back into the mug after realising it had gone cold. Perhaps I hadn’t been as quick at it as I’d thought.

‘Nora?’ A petite brunette stood next to me.

Management hadn’t hassled me by trying to offload their crap for at least an hour, but if they were back to try again, I didn’t care if she lost her job. I would raise hell.

‘Can you please come with me?’ she asked.

I tried for one of Nora’s pleasant smiles, the kind she gave when she didn’t know what was happening, but was already trying to get on their good side.