A nice long chapter this week, taking place a little before and during that work Christmas party. This is another one where I had lots of fun being inside Will's head and getting to be totally badass in a way I never would IRL.

Enjoy & happy Friday!

Mel

The pony-tailed wanker, or former wanker, wasn't exactly hard to track down. Will spent a Saturday morning going around Maida Vale's yoga studios, of which they were precisely two. The first catered to elderly women in puffy gym bloomers, which wasn't likely to be dB's scene. The second had a white-minimalist look and a café that didn't sell any coffee, hence Will had to sit down to some herbal nonsense while crossword-puzzling until class was out. The quant would not have approved, and she'd have been right.

Oli eventually emerged out of the changing rooms, looking exactly as he had fifteen years ago, down to the drawcord ethnic trousers and that really piss-poor excuse of a goatee. He was talking to a client, a fairly attractive and clearly very attracted female client.

Wanker.

'Will, oh my! How long has it been?' Oli said when the woman finally tore herself off his lanky but no doubt supple side. He had one of these phoney yoga teacher voices, artificially softened, and an equally phoney yoga teacher smile on his stupid face.

Seriously, dB, Will thought: this guy?

'A very long time,' he said, smiling hard at Oli. As a general rule the more Will hated someone the harder he smiled at them.

'It's really great to see you! What a coincidence, are you local? Are you looking for a class?' the wanker asked.

'No, I was looking for you,' Will said, smiling even harder.

'It's so great to see you!'

'Is it?'

'Of course, remember…'

'No, I probably don't,' Will cut in before it got even more pointless, 'So how many classes do you give a week?' he asked, peering through the café's windows at the now empty studio below.

'I only teach a couple, just to keep with the flow, you know…'

No, Will did not.

'…just to keep sane...'

Yeah, whatever. Keeping sane and teaching two classes a week wasn't going to keep dB in the style to which she'd become accustomed. Fucking vegan loser. Wouldn't shut up either:

'…but I practice every day...'

Like I fucking care, Will thought, and was about to shut him up again when the wanker said:

'…I mean launching these places is insane, really takes it out of you, man. The energy is great, don't get me wrong, once you're up and running and you're down there in headstand with twenty people all totally in the same present together, you know …'

'How many of these places have you launched exactly?' Will cut in before the hippie loser started going on about his wank-chakra or something.

On the plus side, if he'd launched a couple of these places, then it meant Oli had a proper job. In gym management, which was still not going to keep dB in any kind of style. But it was better than teaching two classes a week.

'This is the fourth, we've got one in South Ken, one in Hampstead and one in Chelsea,' the wanker was saying. Definitely posh yoga then: did they charge extra for him to speak in this super annoying phoney half-whisper?

'Great, so what are you launching next?'

'Well, based on the experience with the other three studios we should hit EBITDA positive in about another 3 months. We usually wait until we're cash-flow positive as well before we increase the footprint, but working capital's not really a problem. Once you launch, memberships and subscriptions are all upfront.'

Fuck.

'Right. So you… own these places?' Will asked, unconsciously dialling down his smile.

'Oh no, man, I mean I have a majority founder's share, and dB also invested a few months back...'

Wait what? Since when did dB invest in things other than clothes and accessories?

'…but the rest is VC money. We just closed our second funding round, man, that was just exhausting. Thank God I have my space and my flow here, you know.'

'Right,' Will said again, still working to square the words EBITDA-positive and working capital with Oli's goatee and hippie-clown trousers.

OK, so the guy could do finance, and possibly even finance dB. Will now consciously dialled his smile down another notch.

'OK, Oli, that all sounds great. Now about dB?'

'Sorry, who's Debbie?'

'Anne. What about Anne?'

'Oh.'

'Oh what?'

Oli looked at Will, and Will looked back at him, and took no pleasure in it.

'Can I ask exactly what your game is here, Oli?'

'I think I could ask you the same question.'

Ooh: spine, what a delightful surprise… Had the wanker picked that up at business school, or at the ashram? And he'd dropped the phoney yoga whisper too finally – bonus.

'Oli, you joined our school in 6th form, right?' Will said.

'Aha.'

'So that means that by the time you clapped your sorry eyes on Anne, as you call her, for the first time, I'd already been hanging out with her for sixteen years. My whole entire existence, literally.'

Oli nodded,

'So I have no game here, Oli: none. All I have, is dB's back: do you understand me?'

Will watched Oli nod and worked out yet another annoying thing about him, which was the way he stood, with his chest out like he was about to dance his way into Swan Lake or something. And in those ridiculous trousers too.

'No, Will, I'm sorry I don't understand,' the wanker said, back in his stupid annoying yoga voice, like he was asking Will to breathe and visualise his happy place, which this definitely wasn't.

'Don't play dumb with me.'

'I'm not, Will, I promise.'

Will said nothing but gave him his meanest look, a look the world generally agreed was a very mean one indeed.

'You just said it yourself,' the phoney wanker whisper-sang, 'Anne had a relationship with you long before she had any kind of a relationship with me. She made that very clear from the word go and I've been trying to respect that, that's all.'

'Why?'

'Sorry, what?' the wanker said, forgetting to put his stupid yoga voice on again, and thank God for that, because Will was just about getting ready to sock him one:

'Why, Oli? Why? Why the fuck would you want to show any kind of respect for the relationship dB and I have?'

'Sorry who's Debbie again?'

'Anne! With fucking Anne, Oli! Which is all I've been doing, by the way – we fuck, occasionally, whenever we both feel like it. What the fuck do you have to go and respect that for? Do you love the woman or not?'

'I…'

'Then fucking man up, for fuck's sake!'

'Right…'

Will feared the wanker may be about to put his stupid fucking yoga voice back on and gave him another threatening look.

'If you love the woman then fucking act like it, Oli, don't leave her hanging there wondering what the fuck's going on. She's not done that whole love thing before, OK? And I haven't either, but I'm not about to let her put her guard down to be messed about by some…'

'But I won't,' Oli cut in, in his proper voice, thank goodness. Georgie would have had some technical terms for describing how much deeper and louder it was than the phoney yoga one.

'I swear to you, Will, as soon as you and her break up I'll be more than happy to "man up",' he said, miming some dismissive quotation mark.

What?

'Wow, wow, wow,' Will said, 'Who said anything about breaking up here?'

Oli closed his eyes and probably tried to breathe and think of his happy place, or whatever it was wankers did when they were just too fucking thick to work things out, even things that were perfectly simple.

'So… you two aren't breaking up then?' the yoga wanker asked eventually. He sounded as exasperated as a yoga wanker will let himself sound. Why? What the fuck was he not getting about this?

'Oli, no one's breaking up with anyone, OK? What dB and I have isn't breakable. No one's going anywhere. Personally, I'm going to make sure I'm right here, breathing down your neck, and worse, if you put a foot wrong with… Anne,' he managed to say while jabbing his index down at the floor between him and Oli. 'I'm hoping, for your sake, that some day I'm going to be at your wedding, and it'd better be a bloody good one. You probably want to consider me for godfather duties as well. I don't have to have sex with- Anne, Oli. In fact these days I'd really rather not. But I'm never dumping her, is that clear enough now?'

Oli nodded.

'Good. And give her a seat on your bloody board, if you're going to take her money.'

Oli nodded again.

'Pleasure to see you again. Nice studio, good luck. Hope you don't mind but I'm more of a runner myself.'

'Sure,' Oli said, in his normal voice.

Will nodded and left.

x

This Christmas party was going as well as Will had ever dared to hope. The quant looked predictably and distractingly stunning, in some little black dress except quirky and 70s vintage, just like her. But Will felt he'd done a fair job of distracting her back, what with drinking games and now spoof, which she had just lost with her usual flair – and aplomb.

OK, so the no-touching-your-hair rule was probably a bit unfair on her, but Will refused to beat himself up about it, seeing as this rather precarious state of banter between him and the quant was likely the most fun he'd be having this side of bonus time, in February, when he would hand Raj his resignation, take himself off on a long steep hike, then go look for a job anywhere that didn't involve sitting next to Elisabeth Bennet.

For now the quant really was on exceptional form: hands never still, giving as good as she got, even when what she got was a taunt about Newbie's third gonad. Will had not seen her in this good a mood since she'd rocked up with the invoices for those two tradePad servers. Kudos to her, still, for bagging those in the middle of the great Y2K IT freeze. But then, judging by her interactions with the UNIX guys tonight, clearly the quant wasn't above flirting to get her ends. From where Will sat, the lucky sods still looked busy trying to pick their bottom jaws off the floor.

So yeah, there you go: it really was just him that she wasn't willing to flirt with.

She'd just pulled the skirt of her dress down and made her way to the bar. Will followed her, like the needy pathetic moron he turned into at the sight of her. Was he starting to turn into Dean? It appeared he was:

'Oh, come on, Lizzie,' he said when he reached her.

'What? No it's OK, I can handle this, really I can. You go and have fun with the guys,' she said, still fiddling with the skirt of her dress. Nice try, but like hell she was going to go down as one of the guys: not tonight.

'I can't let you lose by yourself,' he reminded her, 'We were a team, remember, what would Raj say?'

Had Raj had the misfortune to witness this sorry scene, no doubt he would have called Will a sad pathetic and needy moron, because he was indeed needy, and sad, and pathetic, and a moron.

'Oh you smarmy bastard!' the quant added to the list, and smiled. She smiled! At him! She could call him a smarmy bastard as much as she liked, provided she kept doing that too, 'Oh yes, that's right...'

Will, by calling on years of professional training, only just managed to suppress his urge to grin away as morons do, and put his poker face on instead:

'We can't let beginners lose by themselves, we need you to play again,' he said, which was only the God honest truth. He for one certainly did need her to play again. And again and again. He never wanted this lovely playful quant to go away, ever.

'I see, yes,' she said. She didn't, no way she could, but never mind.

'So we can fleece you again,' he lied.

'Of course. It's not just because you enjoy rubbing it in, then?'

Oh God! What was she trying to do to him? Rub it in? Rub what in exactly? Raaaargh, and with that smile too: could she really have no idea what she was doing?

'Not only but yes, that's a bonus. And it looks like I'll have plenty of time to do that,' Will managed to say, pointing at the solid ranks of black-tied backs between them and the bar.

Deep down of course he knew this couldn't last. How long could he keep a straight face on, for starters, now that she'd gone and seeded this idea of rubbing things into her? How long could the quant keep smiling for that matter, and smiling at him? They must breaking some sort of record here.

Sure enough about a second later Lizzie was shushing and shoving him away: what now?

Wait, you moron: why does it matter?

It didn't. It didn't matter at all, because as Will reminded himself he'd had a very good run tonight, and bonus time was only two and a bit months away.

But then something strange happened. Well, two things, really. The first was that the quant sort of… froze. She literally went rigid, and all the lovely colour that crap champagne had put on her cheeks just drained right out of her. She was left staring in the mid distance looking neither happy nor sad, not mad either, just – blank. Not even her hands were moving, they were bunched into tight little fists by her sides.

The second and even more amazing thing was that after only a couple of seconds of watching her like this Will grabbed one of her arms above the elbow and frogmarched her out of the bar crowd. That meant holding, with his bare hand, one of the same long, strong, bare-skinned arms he'd been fantasising about all evening, whenever he wasn't fantasising about her amazing legs. And yet right now he wasn't having any of his usual caveman thoughts about her. He got on with extracting her from the crowd, then asked her to stay put.

She didn't answer him, but she hardly looked like she was about to do a runner. Only her eyes were still moving, scanning the spot in the crowd they'd come from, but the rest of her had gone rigid and blanched again. Will left her and executed a classic pincer movement on the bar, perhaps elbowing Pointless Poynton out of his way en route a little more vigorously than was strictly necessary.

'A… gin and tonic, a soda water, wedge and lots of ice in both please,'

'Uh, this is a free bar,' a guy in a crappy bow tie said, pushing Will's tenner back at him. This bartender looked about fifteen, and like he'd never seen a tip before in his life. Perhaps he hadn't:

'I know, Merry Christmas?' Will said in his duh-voice.

The guy looked at him like he was mad, then smiled and pocketed the note.

The quant still stood rooted to the spot when Will got back to her with the two drinks.

'You OK? Can you hang on to these? I'll be right back.'

Again there was no answer from the quant, but she hardly looked like she was going anywhere. Plus, Will thought as he hurried back to the bar, should she change her mind, then she would at least take off with a range of drink options to keep her going.

Anyway, Will realised as he elbowed Pointless Poynton out of his way again: in order to transfer the two glasses over to the quant he'd just made skin-of-the-hand contact with her, and again he still hadn't hit caveman mode.

Huh. Progress.

He'd just taken off again, and was heading back to the trading table with that Champagne bottle which had set him and the quant off on this strange and unexpected path in the first place, when he turned around and had to elbow Pointless Poynton out of his way for the third time tonight.

Like the Christmas gift that kept on giving.

'Sorry, forgot something,' Will said.

'Sure, what?' asked his new best friend behind the bar.

'Cigars, I just need the one, do you…?'

'Sorry, I think we may have some but they're not on the free…'

Will slapped another note on the counter and was soon on his way again.

By the time he made it back to the quant she still hadn't moved, which was good, but she still looked completely frozen, which was not.

'Right, I dunno what's going on here, but you look like you need fresh air. You're not going to start to hyperventilate, are you?'

Georgie had done that a couple of times, early in her concert career when she'd started playing larger venues. She'd got over it in time, but it was a pretty scary sight and Will hadn't thought to ask his new best friend behind the bar for a paper bag.

The quant shook her head no, she wasn't going to hyperventilate, so Will grabbed one of the glasses, and with his free hand he grabbed a hold of her elbow again and this time marched her outside.

'Shit, it's freezing!' she said, finally shocked out of her stupor, and before he knew it his jacket was on her shoulders.

On the plus side, Will realised when it was already too late, he was now alone with the quant outside the venue, having just held her bare elbow with his bare hand again, and put his jacket on her, and still the caveman was staying in his cave.

Which was great, because meanwhile and on the downside, Will had just gone and served up the mother of all cheesy tropes in the playbook, and whenever the caveman reappeared, he was going to have a hell of a field day about that dinner jacket.

'Pardon my French,' the quant said.

What?

'Sure,' Will shrugged. He'd heard worse language than "shit" in his time and right now, to hear any words at all out of the quant's mouth, was music to his ears.

They'd reached a low wall, a few yards past a bunch of Ops guys smoking away together. Will let go of the quant and put the drinks down.

'Might this help?' he asked, handing her the cigar.

He had had to extract it from the pocket of his jacket, which was still on the quant's back, and still the caveman was staying put in his cave.

She looked at him a bit like the baby barman had done a while back. Like she couldn't compute what was happening. Well Will sure couldn't either, but she grabbed the cigar and looked at him as if he'd just produced the world's seventh wonder.

'There's matches in there as well,' Will said. Somehow he didn't trust himself to reach into his jacket again without the caveman popping out of the pocket too.

She found the matches and took her time unwrapping her smoke, lighting it up and staring at the sky over her glasses. He'd seen her do that the night of the marshmallows too, but this close up it was…

Dangerous.

'Thanks, sorry about that. Much appreciated, as you see,' she said, eventually.

'No trouble,' he said, which was true. Getting the cigar had been no trouble at all. Standing here watching her smoke it, on the other hand…

'Can I ask what's up?' he said in a rather desperate bid to keep the caveman in his cave.

'Nothing,' she looked at him, wincing at her smoke and flapping it away from her face. 'I just heard something I probably wasn't meant to out there.'

He nodded. OK, now the shoving and shushing earlier made sense.

'No, take it back, certainly not meant to hear,' she said, 'It's about a friend and it's so bloody unfair it's made me… No sorry, let me just shut up while I can, I'm being indiscreet, I… I think I've already made enough of a spectacle of myself tonight, wouldn't you say?' she finished with a wave of the cigar towards the Ops guys, who were too busy ogling them, to pretend not to.

Bah, who cared? She had recovered the use of speech, and that was good enough for him.

'You haven't made a spectacle of yourself.'

'For once. Perhaps not by my usual high standards,' she said.

The quant was back in town and he smiled at her, all the while still fearing the caveman's return, hence enjoying his continued absence all the more: that, too, of course, couldn't last.

'…the show must go on,' she said, thumbing at the Ops guys again.

'Who cares?'

He certainly didn't.

'Quite. What's in the glasses then?' she asked.

'Ah, knowing you I've hedged my bets. There's a gin and tonic and a sparkling water. Which one would you like?'

'The water, please,' she said to his intense relief. He'd gladly have drunk tar if that had helped cheer her up, but:

'I was hoping you'd say that,' he said, and took a few gulps of the other glass. She drank too, and they were silent, the caveman thankfully and astoundingly still in his godforsaken cave.

Seriously, how long could this last?

'Thanks. I think that's done the trick, thanks,' she lied. He could tell, because her free hand was all over her hair.

'You sure you're OK?'

'Aha,' she lied again, just as badly, 'Do you want to head back in? I'll be fine here.'

'Doesn't seem right.'

'I won't nick your jacket, promise, it's far too big for me anyway,' she tried to joke, but she looked so pained doing it, Will almost winced too. Then he realised that it was for his sake that she was trying to joke, and felt a smile creep over his face anyway, and hoped to God that she'd take it the right way, because come to think of it, he'd not often smiled with rather than at her before either.

'Let's finish this drink,' he said, raising his glass, 'Toast to a better new year and all that. You up for that?'

This was weird. Really weird. But nice weird. He was being nice to someone he… well anyway, he was being nice to the quant and she was being nice back so they weren't fighting. Nor were they really bantering anymore either, and if the caveman could just stay put wherever he'd been hiding for the last however long then yes, Dean was right, perhaps this "being friends" malarkey could be the better way to pass the time until February.

If only they could keep it up, and that? That still felt doubtful, at best.

'Happy New Year, Will,' she said, raising her glass back. They clinked.

'And to you. What are you up to over Christmas?'

'I'll be in France, then back here for that stupid Y2K testing.'

'Ah, that's right. Why didn't you send Paul?'

'Oh no, tradePad's nowhere near "live" as far as IT are concerned, I'm testing stuff I wrote for my old team. You?'

'Yeah, Christmas back home, then off skiing with Dean.'

'Cool, where are you guys going?'

'Vale.'

'Wow, lucky you. I'm officially jealous.'

'Sorry, I was supposed to cheer you up. I don't know… isn't that boyfriend of yours coming back soon?'

She looked away. Why did he have to go and say that? Partly, he thought, because he'd felt that that was what a friend would have said to another friend who was missing her boyfriend. That's what he would have said to dB about Oli, or to Georgie about Sara, before Sara went and two timed her.

However, even though the caveman still wasn't out of his cave he was definitely making his way towards the cave entrance, and the whole thing just hadn't come out right. It stuck in Will's throat, having to say "that boyfriend of yours", and all the time he'd spent watching her email him. Yeah, it hurt, that was it. It bloody hurt just thinking about that guy.

'You're right,' she said, still looking away. She was probably looking all the way to that lucky bastard out in Estonia as she said it: 'He's coming back,' and then almost in a murmur:

'He is,' and the corner of her lips edged up, ever so slightly.

For that other guy.

'There you go, then, it's not all bad,' Will said once he was done choking on his pain, and probably pride too.

'You're right, of course it's not!' she said, looking back up, and almost back like her old self. 'Shall we head back in? You must be freezing.'

He was, but not because of his lack of a jacket. He was freezing inside. Maybe that was the price of keeping the caveman at bay, that same caveman who used to light such fires of magnificent fury inside of him before.

Whereas now: now the quant was far away, with Tom in Estonia, and he was here, with her but alone, and cold.

'Sure, let's go.'

He was almost as stunned by the return to room temperature as she had been by the outside cold. Right, this was it. End of interlude. Two months to bonus-and-resignation time, and counting. Meanwhile the quant, being back to her old self, realised she was wearing her worst enemy's jacket, and then tried to make light of giving it back:

'Nice jacket but it looks better on you! Thanks again.'

'You scrub up well too,' he said as gamely as he could, but her heart was with Tom so his wasn't with bantering anymore either.

'Would you believe it? Elisabeth Bennet's got legs!' someone said as they walked past.

'Why is it, Will, that Neil can wear a skirt and no one bats an eyelid, but when I do somehow that's headline material?' she said, shaking her head.

'Neil's legs are nowhere as good,' Will made himself say. Understatement of the millennium, obviously, but…

'Seriously, this stopped being funny about 20 years ago,' she sighed, and shook her head again.

Too right this isn't funny, Will almost said, but didn't. It really wasn't anymore, but not at all.

'I think I'll go and see the research guys. Thanks again,' she said, and walked away.

Only two months until bonus-and-quitting time.

Will realised that he was still holding his jacket and should probably consider putting it back on, but goddammit if it wasn't smelling of the quant now: French, and delicious, and of cigar smoke too.

On the Market is Copyright Mel Liffragh 2021, all rights reserved

And remember, if you're enjoying this then you'll probably like A Bee in her Bonnet too. It's nice to see that a few of you have tried it (and liked it enough to finish it by the look of it) so if you haven't yet go on, give it a go!