Chapter Six
Bright and early the following morning, Ellie poked her head into her bosses office.
"Good morning, sir," she began. "Im going to pop down for some coffees. Do you want anything?"
Glasses on and brows furrowed in concentration at his computer screen, Alec muttered a "No," without even looking Ellie's way.
Ellie hesitated for a moment. She was dying to ask him how last night had gone with Anna.
"What?" he asked, finally looking over, aware that Ellie was hovering around.
"Well, it's just…" Ellie trailed off. They didn't talk about their love lives but she was dying to know. "How did last night go?"
"What you on about, Miller?" he asked gruffly as he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his fingers.
"With the teacher, sir. Anna. We saw you leaving with her at the pub." Ellie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and smiled slyly.
God, he despised small town gossip and he dreaded the thought of being at the centre of it for something like this.
"She's my neighbour. We walked home together. That's all. Aren't you going somewhere?" He replied dismissively.
"Quite right, sir." Ellie nodded and left. He didn't want to talk about it, message received loud and clear. Pushing her luck, she popped her head back around the door and offered him some advice: "It's just that, she seems really lovely and you know she'll be on the receiving end of a lot of offers around here, so you'd best be quick…"
"Right. Got it. Out." interjected Alec, shooing her away with his hand.
He sunk wearily into his chair.
Visions of last night in the street came back to him.
I should have asked her out to dinner, he thought to himself.
He'd been on a couple of dates in the past couple of months or so that had ultimately amounted to nothing. Truthfully the thought of another rejection had just seemed too much to bear. People were complicated creatures, women especially so. Maybe Miller was right when she said about him repelling others, although it was never on purpose.
Alec sighed and got back to work.