26

"You remember Angela Webber from school?" Alice asks me as we prepare dinner.

"Of course."

We were never best friends, but we always got on well. She was kind and smart and I had a lot of time for her.

"We're working most of the same shifts. Her husband Ben has put a band together and they're playing in town at the weekend. She was wondering if we wanted to go along."

"Sure, that sounds good. I can't remember the last time I saw a band play."

"Cool. I'll ask her to save us some tickets."

She's humming along to the radio again when I interrupt her.

"You want to hear my Cullen news of the day?" I ask. She sets her knife down and turns to me.

"You took out an injunction?"

I laugh.

"No, but I've only had one text from him today, so that's a definite improvement."

Em hasn't been back to the house, but he's spent the last month texting me. It's getting kind of tiring. "And that wasn't even the news anyway."

"Well I'd call it newsworthy given the amount he's sent every other day. Maybe he's giving up at last."

"Damn, I hope so. He's been driving me crazy; I'm this close to telling my dad." I hold up my hand with the tips of my thumb and index finger just millimeters apart. "Anyway, the real news is that my boss has asked me to cover the re-launch of a tree-surgery business." I take a bottle of wine from the fridge and the opener from the drawer as I talk.

"One of the senior tree-surgeons has taken over the running of it." Alice is listening but I can tell she has no clue where I'm going with this. "The new guy in charge is Edward," I explain.

Alice's mouth drops open.

"You should have refused," she says, when she grasps what I told her.

I shrug and concentrate on pouring the wine.

"It'll be fine," I assure her, "We're both professional people, meeting on a professional basis."

"And you can't freakin' wait," she says. I look up at her and she cocks an eyebrow. She knows me far too well; there's no point denying a thing.

I pick up the two glasses and hand one to her, raising my own to my lips and taking a large drink.

"You're going to get burned, B," she warns.

I try to care, but my stomach is filled with the butterflies that have fluttered there since Mike Newton emailed me the assignment earlier. Try as I might, I can't shake the thrill that washes over me with the anticipation of seeing him again.

"I promise I'm not," I tell her, snaking one hand behind my back and crossing my fingers as I say it. My heart knows that seeing him once and having to walk away again will most definitely singe its edges.

I wonder if some twisted part of my psyche is becoming addicted to the pain of heartache, in the same way some people live for the prick of a tattoo needle on their skin.

Maybe this pain will leave permanent marks on me too.

~RH~