Chapter 3
The next morning, I was up, dressed, had some toast, a drink and just leaving the house at 7:30am when my phone started vibrating in my pocket. Getting it out I noticed it was a number I didn’t recognise.
[Hey, Lauren, it’s Russell, can we talk.]
I couldn’t believe it; Russell was actually texting me but was it him, why wouldn’t it be. ‘Shut up’ I thought to myself, do I text back. ‘Yes, text him… NOW!’ I ran through in my head what I should text.
[Yeah, when?]
Well, that took ages to come up with, not. Walking further down the street, I could feel butterflies beginning to grow in my stomach. Walking even further down the street I got another text, I grabbed my phone out of my pocket. It was him.
[How about before work at that café across the road from the studios.]
For some reason, I was feeling nervous, why? I quickly text Russell back, agreeing to meet him there about 8:00am. I seemed to pick up my speed a little. Thinking about him and what happened last night made me smile, the butterflies got bigger. ‘Play it cool Chloe, be cool’ I kept repeating those words in my head; I really wanted this to go well.
Walking in through the door at 7:55am, I saw Russell sat at the back of the room, he got up and waved. “Lauren, hi.”
“Hello.” Sitting down at the table we both sat there in silence. After a while Russell broke the silence.
That one word made me feel so sad in side, I just wanted to hug him and he did look sorry.
“What for?” I wanted to do more than bloody hug him now. He was so cute.
“For kissing you and running off like I did, sorry.” He looked up and shook his head. I began to giggle to myself; I don’t think he liked that. “It’s not funny, yesterday was your first day at work and I went and ruined it for you by making things awkward. Like I said, I’m an awkward fucker.” He frowned at me and that just made me laugh even more.
“Sorry, just, you didn’t ruin anything for me, if anything you made things better. Russell, your lovely and funny, things will only be awkward if you let them get awkward.” I put my right hand on top of his and smiled. “So… are we ok now. You’re not going to start crying are you?” I tried to keep a straight face but I couldn’t stop giggling.
“No, I’m not and yeah, hopefully.” We both laughed and decided we should make a move. Walking in through the big glass doors at work, we didn’t notice Karl or Dan; they were stood waiting for Russell. We were too wrapped up in our little world, it was brilliant.
“Morning you two.” Karl looked to tome and winked. “What have you two been doing then?” He looked to Dan again and they both laughed, nudging each other.
“Nothing, just having a coffee, we do work together.” Russell shook his head, squinting his eyes. “You two are idiots, we’re just.., friends.” He looked over to me and smiled. The rest of the day went quite quickly, we had meetings about the upcoming shows, Russell asked me to help them find stories for the shows and I met the rest of the good news team. We also did a bit of flirting and joking around. Around 1:00pm I received a phone call from my mum, giving me a bollocking. I was busy doing something on the computer so I put her on loud speaker.
“Hey mum.”
“Are you ok? You never text me back yesterday. Have you been in an accident? Are you in the hospital?” She was really upset.
“Mum, calm down, I’m fine, I was really busy yesterday and I went out with Russell for a drink and…” Before I could finish she jumped in.
“You went out with Russell, wow, you move quickly.” I turned to my phone and just looked at it as if I was looking at her.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You. Yesterday was your first day and you’re already shagging the boss.” As she said those words the tea I was hoping to drink I spat out all over my computer screen. I could hear laughing from behind me, turning to see who it was; I found it to be Russell, Karl and Dan.
“Mum, please stop talking, I need to go.” I closed my eyes and turned back to my phone but she just carried on.
“If you like him and from the things you’ve told me about him, I think you do, just be careful, don’t be getting preg…” Before she could finish I cut her off.
“OK, got to go, bye…” I hung up the phone and slowly turned to the three laughing chimps behind me. “What?”
“So… you two did shag then.” Dan couldn’t stop laughing.
“No… no we didn’t, she just, that’s what she thinks now after..,” I stopped, I wasn’t about to reveal something that personal, luckily they hadn’t heard that. “What did you three want?” I tried to move things on quickly.
“We were wondering whether you wanted to come to Nandos for lunch.” Russell finally spoke; he was a little flusted, probably because of the whole thing with my mum, who by the way was dead when I next saw here.
“Yeah, sure.”
