Your Lying Eyes

Your Lying Eyes Chapter 17

As soon as the door slammed shut, Howard picked up his phone and rang Anna.  He was desperate to explain to her what had happened.  It went straight through to voice mail.  He left a message asking her to ring him as soon as she could.

He sat down heavily on the bed, his head in his hands.  The others looked at him sympathetically, knowing that things looked bad for him.

"Why is she doing this to us?" he asked them, "Why can't she just leave us both alone?"

"Simple answer to that mate," said Gary sitting down next to him.  "She just can't.  She wants to cause as much trouble for you two now as she can.  You told her you didn't want anything to do with her and Anna warned her off.  That meant that you both had to be punished.  She's doing that now."

"But for once, I've done nothing wrong," he muttered to himself, getting up and getting drinks for them all from the drinks cabinet.  "How the hell am I going to explain things to Anna?  We'd just started to make some progress again.  I can't believe that this is happening."

"Yeah seems tough doesn't it?" remarked Jason.  "With your track record, it's not going to be easy to convince her that you're innocent this time."

"Oh thanks mate!" Howard muttered.  "Cheer me up why don't you?"

"We can all back you up.  We know that Sophie was downstairs with us having something to eat.  We more or less followed her up here," Mark said trying to be more encouraging.  "Surely she'll believe you if we tell her what we know.  At least it should make her think."

"She's got to believe me though.  I have to convince her myself.  If I can't, it'll be all over for us. Fuck!" he cried slamming his fists into the top of the drinks cabinet.  "If I ever lay eyes on that girl again, I'll.....,"

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you shagged her," muttered Jason as he took a drink from his glass.  "None of this would be happening if you hadn't."

"Thanks for pointing that out," Howard answered, "You think I don't already know that?"

"It's true.  Anna doesn't deserve all this.  Maybe if you'd treated her properly in the first place...," Jason continued then stopped as Howard glared at him.

"Ok, Jay, I think he knows it without us telling him again," Gary interrupted him, aware that Howard was becoming more upset by the moment.  "It isn't helping matters mate."

Mark took hold of Jason by the arm and started to draw him to the door, nodding to Gary as he did so.  They could see that both of them were becoming increasingly angry with each other and needed to give one another space.

"Come on Jay, lets go and see if we can book a flight for her to get back home.  The sooner she goes the better," he told him leading the way out on to the corridor.

Howard poured himself another drink, glaring at Jason as he left.

"I tell you Gaz, he's really winding me up.  I know I screwed up with Anna.  I don't need him telling me every chance he gets.  It's almost like he wants us to split permanently," he laughed hollowly, "almost like he wants her for himself after all."  He looked over at Gary as if seeking reassurance from him.

"Don't be daft Dougie.  She wouldn't have him after you," Gary told him.  "You'd put any normal woman off men for life!" he tried to joke with him.

"Thanks for that!  Do I have any friends at all round here?" Howard grinned at him.

"That's better!  Come on, I know that it looks bad at the moment, but we'll do what we can to help you.  Anna loves you to bits.  She'll know that nothing happened between you.  Just be ready for her not to believe you at first.  You'll just have to keep telling her."

"Yeah, you're right.  I will."

Mark and Jason had been successful in their search for a flight back to Manchester.  There were seats on a plane the following morning at ten o'clock.

"Great, she'll soon be out of the way and back home," sighed Mark in relief.  "Good riddance eh?"

"Yeah," Jason agreed.  "I'll go and tell her.  Make sure she knows we expect her out of here before breakfast tomorrow morning," he said as he stood up from the computer.

"Good idea, don't want her running into Dougie in the morning," said Mark, yawning and stretching.  "Well if you're going to do that, I'll head on off to bed.  I'm knackered! See you in the morning Jay!"

"Ok mate," said Jason, writing down the details of the flight on a piece of paper to give to Sophie.  

He followed Mark out of the room, and headed off down the corridor to Sophie's room.

He gave her the information on the paper and told her that he'd arrange for a taxi to be ordered for the ride to the airport.

"So that's it then?" she asked him as she read the notes he'd made on the paper for her.

"Yeah, that's it.  I'll make sure you'll get the bonus I promised you.  But you did push it a bit tonight.  I was hoping that you'd last a bit longer with us," he told her leaning against the door way to her room.  "But you've got everyone's back up now.  There was no way you could carry on working with us.  Still you never know, it might be enough to put a stop to the pair of them now.  Don't know how he's going to work his way out of this."

"I couldn't believe my luck the way things went tonight," she smiled at him.  "I couldn't resist it when the phone rang in his room.  I mean we couldn't have planned it better could we?  But like you say it could be enough to finish them for good."  She shook her head.  "I don't know what the attraction is myself.  The two of you so crazy about her.  I just hope that it doesn't cause more trouble than it's worth."

"She just doesn't deserve to be treated the way he does.  I'll make her much happier than he ever will.  She'll come to realise that in time. I'll just have to have a bit of patience that's all."

He turned to go, then paused and looked back at her.

"Not a word about this to anyone right?" he stared pointedly at her.  "Right?" he repeated.

"Yeah right," she agreed.  "And I'll get references like you said?"

He nodded, then continued down the corridor to his room.

"Be ready for the taxi in the morning," he called over his shoulder as he went.  "Don't be late."