"Oh my god Mary, I am so sorry to call you at this time. Did I wake you?" Matthew was almost bent over double with the weight of guilt that he was feeling by calling her at 1.30am. But it was obvious from the noise down the line that she wasn't tucked up in bed at home.
"It's fine Matthew. Is everything alright?" Her voice seemed distant, but also close to the inner workings of his brain.
His hand rubbed his brow as the wrinkles there furrowed. Where do you start when admitting how inapt you really are?
"Well, you see. The key that I have," he paused, the key was useless, he felt useless, it was ridiculous really. "I just cannot seem to get the back door locked. This key of mine just does not want to budge." He would have continued, but Mary cut him off.
"It's fine Matthew, I'll be there in ten." She hung up instantly, and Matthew stared at the phone, amazed she would arrive so quickly. It was a big city after all.
As he waited inside the front glass doors, he watched as people walked in merriment, or slow tired shuffles into and past the night. These people who had social lives after dark, and time to spend with loved ones or family. Brief moments like these often intruded into his psyche showing the sharp contrast to the life which was his reality.
His reality focused clearly not too far beyond him now. Whatever he was expecting, Mary rounding the corner on the arm of another good looking man scratched his insides. He should have anticipated some such possibility. This beautiful woman whom every finite detail he had been making his purpose to etch into his brain, he had not fathomed her life beyond these four walls.
She stopped and turned to her partner, quickly kissing his cheeks thrice before dropping his arms and turning away to walk towards the restaurant.
If his thoughts had been less clouded with a yet unnamed fog, Matthew would have realised that her farewell kiss held no hint of passion or even the lingering promise of a lover. If his wits weren't stretched with fatigue he may have recognised that it was just as the working-Mary greeted and sent off their customers from the restaurant.
But he didn't. And he envied the man who had spent time with her outside of work. Merriment hidden by the dark.
Her stiletto heels ticked on the floor down the long passage, with each step bringing her closer Matthew felt the ripples of electricity sizzle his body. From guilt of his needing to reach out to her and bringing her here and the simple thought of seeing her.
"I can't leave you alone for one night without desperately needing me?" She slowed as she came into the darkened room, her eyes finding him easily, as if she knew instinctually where he would be in the cavernous space.
Matthew shook his head as he replied, his vision filled with her. "I think I much prefer your wrath at my incompetence than ringing Robert at this hour becoming the disappointment I'm sure he already feels that I am."
"Don't worry; I've got that posting covered already. My father thinks that you are his golden boy, so you could do no wrong in his eyes." She smiled at him, seeing his discomfort. "And don't think I'll let you off quite so easily. I'll have to think of how you are going to make this up to me!" Mary's toe and finger on her chin tapped at the same time as she raised her eyes skyward, jovially pondering many ways of recouping.
"You can't imagine how sorry I am to interrupt your…night." Matthew awkwardly shifted, unsure whether to mention that he had seen her date.
"Your timing was impeccable really. Alphonso was just offering to drop me home. I wasn't sure if it scared me more to get a prospective lift with a racing car driver, or someone who normally drives on the opposite side of the car and street, or even in the very middle of the bloody car. And I think he may have been emasculated if I had offered to drop him off."
"Alphonso?"
"Grand Prix driver. An old family friend known through the restaurant." Matthew nodded with the connection.
"Again Mary, I'm incredibly sorry to disrupt your night." But Mary shrugged it off, finally understanding how it must have looked to Matthew. It cost her nothing to share with Matthew that Alphonso was just a friend, she had actually not thought much about her meal with him, albeit a catch up and some great food. He was always entertaining company and provided a connection to long lost distant foreign shores.
"We have a whole week ahead of us filled with men who choose to smell burnt rubber and petrol fumes for a living. Many are regulars so I will endeavour to introduce as many as I can to you," she paused tilting her head to look through her lashes at him, "including Alphonso." Talk of fast cars and smelling fumes always brought out the testosterone in the men of Downton.
They both turned towards the back staff door, unable to prolong the lingering. With his shoulder bag and bike helmet in one hand, he waved her forward with his other, a slight bow invited her to lead.
The hand that lightly caught his took a moment to register, and then lightening shot heat through his veins, as his eyes sought confirmation. Mary pulled him slightly, pivoting his body in a direction other than the hall which they needed to exit.
"I've locked the doors already." Mary said.
If Matthew had been that naïve school boy again, his mind would have reeled at the possibilities of what Mary was actually going to do to him.
If he had been one of those hot-blooded hormonal young men that frequented night clubs to seduce women, he may have made a move.
He was neither however, and as much as his heart skipped a beat with her touch, and not having a clue to what she was doing, he followed her without question.
I realise that this is a very short chapter, but the next is marginally longer and I wanted to give it the space I feel it needs. As always I'd love to hear any feedback you may have, and I hope to continue to offer a taste of my M/M Au.