"So...you are not going to believe what I have been up to!" She had breezed back into the office the next morning, coffee in hand, a small smile tugging on her lips.
"Probably not, Camille." The smile disappeared. He was in a worse mood than expected and hadn't even bothered to look at her as she had come in. She almost didn't want to tell him. Almost. She tried again.
"Aren't you even going to ask me?"
"No," he barked at her. "Because Camille, if I asked you, that would insinuate that I might be marginally interested in your private life, and we have work." To his credit he thought that she was about to go off on a tangent involving her love life, and he was pretty sure that while he could tolerate that, he certainly didn't want the details. He never wanted the details. Perhaps if he was more honest with himself he would have realised why.
She slammed down the extra coffee that she had bought for him. Thankfully it had a lid on, but it did have the added bonus of getting his attention. He sat staring wide eyed at her, waiting for her to continue, too surprised by her action to even pick her up for insubordination.
She fixed him with a glare. "You know, it would be nice if once, just once, you gave me a little bit of you precious time considering I gave up my free time last night for you..."
"You did?" He very nearly squeaked. Richard hadn't been this intimidated by her since that time she gave him the dressing down on their first case together. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I mean, you did?" He repeated in a lower register.
"Yes, I did," her bad mood wasn't going to dissipate that easily. "Because I, unlike you, actually have a desire to see the people around me be happy! And that means I, unlike you, will go out of my way to arrange for that to be the case! Which is what I was doing yesterday, when I convinced my mother against her better judgement to have a party at the bar so you can watch your precious boat race!" Okay, so maybe she was exaggerating the difficulty involved, but he didn't need to know that…
"Oh, well that's very...um...kind?" He had no idea why it had come out as a question. He mentally prepared himself for another dressing down.
"Yes it was kind." She was about to leave it, he was her boss after all. She probably shouldn't be as aggressive as she was being. But then she lingered on the word kind. Yes it was kind. She. Was. Kind. To him. And he never noticed, took everything for granted. And that pissed her off.
"You know, I don't know why I bother. You don't even care. Do you know how long you spent yesterday going on about your stupid boat race?" She stopped and he managed a shake of the head. "An hour and a half. You didn't even stop to check if I was interested. And by the way, I think you'll find that had nothing to do with work, but you don't hear me whining at you for it!" She ignored the fact that she had been interested. She was always interested by his stupid lectures. "And so yes, I went to Maman, I asked her if we could use her bar for a party, I've got decorations, I'm trying my hardest to get it on TV, and I've even found people for you to watch it with."
That got his attention.
"People?" He repeated, baffled. Saint Marie was not exactly full to the brim with Cambridge graduates as far as he was aware.
"Yes, there is a reunion of one of the colleges…um…" Her mind went blank. "Pommebrooke?" She tried.
He gave her a blank look, "There is no college called Pommebrooke, Camille."
"Well something ending in brooke!" She snapped.
Richard thought about it for a moment, "Do you mean Pembrooke?"
"Yes!" She cried. "That one. So you'll have a room of Cambridge fans to watch the race with as well."
He was touched. He wasn't usually touched, but she had clearly gone out of her way for him. His heart gave a little erratic jump as to the potential reason she was going out of her way for him, but him dismissed it immediately. He also knew that he was defeated. He sat back in his chair.
"Thank you."
It was sincere, and as close to an apology as she was going to get. She nodded her acceptance and there was a moment of calm between them.
He cleared his throat. "So these people. Where did you find them?"
"In Maman's bar. They're here for some sort of reunion. He said something about blue t shirts? Is that ok?" He nodded. "Actually do you even own a t-shirt?" She queried.
He gave a small frown, "Not here, though I am sure I can find one before Saturday. I hope I can find the right shade."
"Oh clothes shopping!" She cried, delighted. "You know I could help, right? Maybe find you some other more climate sensible clothes for work?"
"Camille..." he didn't have the energy for another fight but didn't want to start this again. He needed a suit for work. He wasn't sure why she couldn't understand that.
She held up her hand. "Fine." She had plenty of time to hatch a plan to get him something more comfortable. Those daydreams of him taking off his tie and shirt loomed dangerously over her again. "Just t shirts." And trousers, and shirts and lightweight suits, she mentally added. The list was endless.
"I hardly think I need your help to find a t-shirt." He tried to make it sound like a dismissal, but Camille wasn't having any of it.
"Oh really?" She raised a single eyebrow. "Name one store on Saint Marie that sells men's t-shirts."
Richard's mind went blank. Of course he had visited men's clothing outlets since his arrival, but to buy things like socks and underwear. And he couldn't recall if any of them sold t-shirts, or what any of them were called. Then he hit on an idea, "There are stalls on the market!"
"Oh yes," Camille's tone was casual – which Richard instantly took as a warning. "Would that be Billy's stall that specialises in synthetic knock offs that don't last a week, or Jamal's collection of slogan t-shirts, including some that promote the legalisation of certain illicit drugs?"
"Well if you're not doing anything then I suppose you can come along." He tried to sound as offhand as possible. "But I really don't need your help to buy clothes – I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself!" She quirked an eyebrow that said it all: heatstroke, his weird predilection for ham sandwiches which meant his was perpetually hungry, and lack of sleep due to his strange night attire. He definitely couldn't look after himself.
"Anyway – I had a Frankie says relax t shirt when I was younger." She choked on laughter.
"You didn't know what it meant, did you?" She guessed instantly – and correctly. He didn't answer, which she took as confirmation of her being right and caused another fit of giggles. When she had calmed down, she said, "Are we going then?"
"What, now?" He asked, surprised. "We've only just gotten into work!"
She waved a hand dismissively, "Oh, Dwayne and Fidel will cover – they'll be back from patrol in a minute. We are both owed a day in lieu anyway from working the bank holiday, and they can call if anything urgent comes up."
"But what if the Commissioner sees us?"
"We will tell him we are doing undercover work looking for shoplifters," Camille said smoothly, and Richard suspected it was a lie she may have used before. "Besides, if we wait until the end of the day we won't have much time before the shops close!" Richard personally saw this as an advantage – it would encourage shopping efficiently.
Either way, he didn't see that he had that much choice.
It was worse than he could possibly have imagined. If the first hour had been slow then the second was interminable. And he still hadn't found anything to wear. He had been dragged from every men's store on the island. Or so he thought. And every time he thought they had been close to making a decision she had decided that the fit was wrong or the colour wasn't quite right.
In truth Camille was just enjoying making him take his suit and tie off repeatedly. And seeing him in a t shirt. And the more hot and bothered he got, and he was very hot and bothered, the more he began to think that putting all of his clothes back on might not be the best idea. After all, he was just going to take them off again. She watched as he first lost the jacket, then the tie, and wished that the one top button that was undone would magically turn into two.
"Oh my God!" She cried now, winding her way through Saint Marie's one and only and very tiny department store. "These are perfect!"
Richard felt a sudden surge of hope – it was the most positive thing she had said all day and it must surely mean his ordeal was nearly at an end. But then he saw what she was holding – not a t shirt for him, but a pair of rather high heels. In the Cambridge colours.
"They are the exact right shade," she enthused. "It's destiny!"
"Don't you think that they're a little too small for me Camille?" he asked sardonically.
She ignored him, she wasn't going to let him ruin this moment, this glorious moment of finding the most beautiful pair of shoes. "Perhaps, but don't you think they are perfect for me?"
Checking the bottom of the shoe, she saw that they were the right size and kicked off her own replacing them with the new objects of her affection. Richard couldn't help but notice the dark shade of her nail varnish painted delicately on her toes and the line her arches as he traced his eyes up to her ankles. She paraded up and down in front of him and his eyes travelled still higher tracing the outline of her calves. He'd never really spent much time admiring her legs...
He blinked heavily, effectively clearing his thoughts.
"Aren't they beautiful?"
"I, er, don't really have an opinion on shoes," he said. For him, it was showing remarkable tolerance – if he hadn't been so distracted by her legs moments beforehand he probably would have said something much crosser.
She did the eyebrow raising thing – Richard began to wonder if he would ever get through a day again without her doing that. "Really?" She said in a teasing tone. "Because it seemed to me that you were paying them an awful lot of attention a moment ago."
Richard felt the colour rising in his cheeks – she had noticed, of course she had, she was a detective – being observant was part of the job description. Knowing denial was useful he cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "They don't, um, look unattractive on you." They don't look unattractive on you? What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he have just said that, yes, they did look rather nice on her and she should buy them and wear them. Preferably with a skirt…ok perhaps adding that last bit could have landed him with a sexual harassment claim.
"Maybe I should buy them then," she teased. "I could wear them on Saturday to show my support for Cambridge...and they're not that expensive." Richard shrugged his indifference, it was of no consequence to him whether she bought the shoes or not, although if she did he sincerely hoped that she did wear them on Saturday. It had nothing to do with the fact that he would be able to surreptitiously check out her legs unobserved in an otherwise packed bar, definitely not. More to do with the fact that if a woman chose to buy shoes for a particular occasion then she should wear them for that occasion. Otherwise it was a waste of money. His eye caught the sticker on the bottom as he turned to survey the shop.
He exploded before he could stop himself. "You can't buy those – they're far too expensive!"
Camille gave him a bemused look, "Richard I have bought shoes far more expensive than these…not to mention the bags." He continued to look shock, and she rolled her eyes. "It's called disposable income, Richard! A girl has to treat herself occasionally. Surely you have something you spend left over wages on?"
"No," he said quite firmly. "I put it in the bank." Then, realising how sad that made him sound, he added, "Though sometimes I might buy some books…" Yeah, that really improved his image.
"Well, shoes are my books," she said.
"But all that money for shoes for one event!" He cried as she began to make her way towards the till, holding the shoes by their straps.
She called over her shoulder, "Well I'll just have to make sure I have other occasions to wear them!"
His heart skipped a beat before he realised that she wasn't necessarily talking about an occasion he would be present at. She probably had hundreds of men lining up to take her out. All of whom spent their money on doing fun things like jet skiing or scuba diving, or other manly things. Not books. Come to think of it, Richard thought, had they been here, they would probably have offered to buy the shoes for Camille.
He wished very hard, and not for the first time, that he could be one of those men. The type of man that women didn't laugh at or worse, pity. Someone confident enough to take a woman like Camille out on a date.
She had stopped by a rack of t shirts and was now holding the shoes up to the rails, checking the colours with a either a furrowed brow or nod of her head, efficiently moving through them.
"You know we might have to buy a white t-shirt and dye it," she was saying now, moving on from that rack to another. "Perhaps we could dye some of your shirts at the same time, so you have something different to wear for once."
"There isn't anything wrong with white shirts," he said grumpily.
"Ah ha!" She cried, pulling not a t-shirt but a polo shirt from the rack. It was a pretty good match, though as she contemplated she said, "Oh I don't know…maybe this one has too much green in it."
Richard grabbed it from her hands, "Or maybe it is just fine!"
He tried to just go pay for it but she cried, "Wait, you have to try it on first!"
"No, no I don't." He knew what size he was and could read the label after all. He ignored her muttering and just paid for the damn thing. The assistant went to put it in the bag, but he had to take it off her and re-fold it. Honestly, the way she had done it originally had been entirely unacceptable.
"Well," she said, when he returned with his polo shirt neatly packaged. "I suppose now we have more time to find a bag."
"A bag?"
"Yes, to go with the shoes."
Richard made a great show of looking at his watch, "Oh, would you look at the time!" He cried, completely failing to fool her – she had heard it all before. "I must dash – I have to feed Harry. He, um, chews on wires if I leave him waiting too long!
Thanks for all your help today though, really, um, helpful." He held up the bag in triumph, "and you know, great to have something new," even if it did take the best part of two hours to achieve he added mentally. She bit back a smile as he hurried out of the shop, weaving out of the way of a frustrated mother with toddler and almost careering into a mannequin. He was too embarrassed to turn around and wave.