Helping Sarah

Chapter 9

Michael

The surface of my desk was so close to my eyes that the wooden grain blurred before me and I could smell the detergent the cleaners used to wipe my desk down with. It smelled of chemically manufactured lemons.

I much preferred the floral perfume that had teased me while I'd been sitting so close to Sarah I could count the freckles on her cheeks. There were seventeen, if you're wondering, and the skin beneath had looked so fine I would bet my right leg it would feel as soft as–

Bollocks.

My groan was muffled by the desk beneath my forehead. I was not going to go there. I did not need to think about Sarah's perfume. Or Sarah's freckles or how soft her skin was. Or the sensation of sitting so close beside her, feeling the warmth of her body against mine and the softness beneath my hand on her hip with only a single layer of fabric between.

How much of a headache would I get if I banged my head against the hard surface a few times? And would it turn back time enough that I could undo my utter and complete stupidity of lying to her?

A bad one, and probably not.

Perhaps I should focus my attention and resources on the study of time machines. That would give me something to do other than think about coffee or apps or my health. And it couldn't be a worse waste of time than the boring, aimless ambling I'd been doing for months now while struggling not to fall headfirst back into work.

Right now I wouldn't mind something – anything! – even a completely futile field of study, to consume my attention. Then at least I wouldn't be thinking about Sarah.

"What have you done this time?"

Turning my head just enough on the desk to peek to the side, I found Alistair in the doorway to my office, looking at me with an expression I knew so well; a mix of amusement and ennui. The ennui was his guard against a fawning world and the amusement something only a few were allowed to see.

He and I had met the first day of university where we'd been placed beside each other during the intro. A lanky computer nerd and the heir to a duchy probably wasn't an obvious pairing, but an over-eager girl had tried to get close enough to Alistair that he couldn't pretend he hadn't seen her and in her haste had knocked his laptop from his hold. Onto the flagged stones at his feet.

The girl had slunk off never to try again, and I had picked up the cracked laptop. It hadn't been difficult to rescue the data stored on it, and thus a friendship had been born.

Turning my head back, I spoke – groaned – into the desk. "Something stupid."

"Silly question, really," Alistair said to himself. "Of course, it's something stupid. You're you."

I lifted my head and glared at him as he sat in the leather chair on the other side of my desk. "No, you don't understand. Her–" I glanced at the open door to the office outside mine, then leaned across the desk and whispered, "Her name is Graves."

"Who?"

"Sarah," I said, hearing the slightly frantic tinge in my voice. But I was slightly frantic. "Her name is Sarah Connor Graves."

Alistair stared at me as if I had declared the earth was round. "Yes?"

I flapped a hand in the direction of the office on the other side of my door, the office from where my PA managed me, my calendar, my health, and my life. "As in Lisa Graves."

His eyes widened, and I was rather gratified to see his mouth fall open. Less so when my friend started laughing. "They're related?"

My forehead fell onto the desk again with a thump. "Sarah's late husband was Lisa's brother. They've been best friends forever."