Daydreamer

Felix

“I’m trying, Mum. Really I am.” Lucy’s voice stopped me in my tracks on my way out of the office. What was she doing here this late? It was after seven. The rest of the desks were long deserted. I’d had to stay to try and sort a planning application that was up the spout. But there was no reason for her to be here. “But you don’t understand how very crap I am at this job. I got a whole spreadsheet of stuff wrong today so now I have to stay to sort it out, except I don’t bloody understand Excel at all. So I’m about as likely to sort it as the Buckingham Rovers are of winning the league.”

I smiled at the mention of the most crap football team of all time. Mike, Ollie and I had spent many summers playing for their youth squad. After terms of amazing sporting equipment and top-class sports teachers at school, coming home and playing for the Buckingham Rovers, where the footballs were barely kept inflated and Barry the coach with his twenty-a-day habit wheezed his way through the most bizarre football advice ever given, was quite the contrast. I had the piss taken out of me for being a posh wanker, the tackles were rarely legal… but it was bloody good fun.

I kept walking towards the sound of Lucy’s voice but paused just around the corner from her desk when she sighed, and I heard a small hitch in her breath as she did it. She sounded a little hoarse when she spoke again, and for some reason, that made my chest tighten.

“My boss is really mean,” she said, just above a whisper. “And I don’t blame him because honestly, I’m so crap, but… Mum, nobody likes me here. I haven’t made a single friend. And I’m cold.” Another pause. “No, no, I have to wear this fancy stuff now. No jumpers. It’s like a bloody fridge in here.”

My eyebrows went up at that. A fridge? I kept the office at a comfortable temperature. It wasn’t exactly Baltic.

“I know, I’m wearing it now, Mum. But I can’t very well trot around the office in a puffa jacket that goes to my ankles and essentially looks like I’m wearing a sleeping bag all day. That’s not professional… Mum, I don’t think you understand what kind of business Felix’s running here. It’s not a jolly, cosy little office. And he’s not the same. I’m never going to fit into this world. Coming here was a mistake. I think I need to come back home.”

Bloody hell. I was failing Hetty. I’d never been very good at accepting failure. I’d just have to turn this around. I owed it to Hetty to sort Lucy out. When I strode around the corner, Lucy jumped in her chair, and her eyes went wide. She looked utterly ridiculous in a huge puffa coat that was zipped up to her chin, a pair of fingerless gloves that had seen better days on her hands, and a fluffy wool hat pulled down over her ears.

“Er… Mum, I—” Before she could make up any excuses for her mother, I snatched the phone out of her hand.

“Hetty?”

“Oh! Felix, dear. Lucy didn’t say you were there.”

“I think I surprised her. I was just leaving and heard her on the phone to you.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Enough.”

“She’s unhappy.”

“I know.”

Hetty sighed, and I felt the weight of her disappointment all the way from Little Buckingham. “Maybe it was too much to ask of you. I think that⁠—”

“Lucy’s coming to a party with me tonight,” I declared, watching Lucy as her eyes went even wider than before.

“Oh!” Hetty sounded delighted. “A party. That sounds wonderful. Just what Lucy needs. A nice party.”

“She’ll meet people there. Network. It’ll do her the power of good.”

“Er… Felix, love,” Hetty’s tone was slightly more hesitant now. “I’m not sure you really understand. Networking is not… well, I don’t think…”

“It’s exactly what she needs,” I said. “Getting out there and amongst it. She’ll have a great time.”

“Right, okay,” Hetty sounded a little happier now. “A great time is good. She needs that. I knew you’d be able to sort things out for her. You always were such a good boy.”

I felt Hetty’s praise wash over me just like I was ten years old again. It reinforced my determination to see this plan through.

“You can rely on me,” I said.

“Wonderful, dear. Off you kids go then. Have a lovely time! And Felix, don’t forget your mum’s birthday next month. You know she’ll be disappointed if you’re not there again.”

“Hmm,” I muttered, non-committedly. My mother’s birthday dinners were tortuous and there was no way in hell I would ever be in the same room as my father. The last five years I’d convinced Mum to come and visit me in London for a fancy meal out. That way, I didn’t have to see him. Hetty sighed.

“She does care about you, love,” she said softly, and I cleared my throat. “I know your father⁠—”

“Great to speak to you, Hetty. I’ll be in touch.” There was a pause, and when Hetty spoke again her voice was soft.

“Okay, love. You kids have a nice time now.” At thirty-three and CEO of a major financial company, it was a long while since I’d been called a kid.

I held Lucy’s phone out to her, and it took a few seconds before she managed to reach for it with her glove-clad hand. Her face, which had drained of colour when she first caught sight of me, was now glowing red.

“Wow,” she muttered, slipping her phone into her puffa’s pocket. “That was mortifying.”

“Why are you sitting in all those clothes?”

Lucy’s face glowed even brighter, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. “I feel the cold. I told you that.”

I frowned, realising that this wasn’t a new phenomenon. Memories flashed through my mind: Lucy wrapped in various blankets in the warm Mayweather house despite how cosy the cottage was; Lucy permanently plastered against the boiling Aga like a kitten; Lucy wearing the most ridiculous winter coats even on relatively warm days.

“You’re cold here?”

She shrugged. “It was okay when I could wear my jumpers and stuff, but silk shirts, skirts and thin tights are freezing.” I felt an arrow of guilt at that. Lucy had been freezing her arse off in the office for a whole week at my instruction. She still had a slight limp as well, and that was from wearing the heels I had insisted on. I came around the desk to look at her feet now. They were stuffed into her massive fluffy, pink and purple slippers, her heels abandoned on the floor next to her. “Er… thanks for putting Mum off the scent there with the party thing. It’ll get her off my back for a while if she thinks I’m getting out there.”

“I wouldn’t lie to Hetty,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest as I stared down at Lucy. “You are going to come to a party with me.”

Lucy’s eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open. “Tonight?”

“Yes.” I shrugged. “Why not?”

She bit her lip and looked to the side. When she did turn her gaze back to me, it was infuriatingly my tie that she directed it at. “I’m not that great at parties.”

“You’ll be fine,” I said briskly. “And this will help you get into the swing of things in the corporate world. A certain amount of socialising is expected in this business.”

Lucy grimaced. “Oh, is this a businessy party? I defo don’t think that’ll be my bag, Felix. And I’m right in the middle of The Mandalorian.” I gave her a blank look. “You know – Mando, Baby Yoda?”

I tamped down my irritation. Any other woman, especially one working in my industry, would absolutely leap at the chance to accompany me to an industry party. But Lucy was instead talking about random Star Wars spin-offs and preferring to spend her time watching a small green alien puppet.

“You’re coming,” I said in a firm voice. “It’ll do you the power of good, and I promised your mum.”

“You always were bossy,” she muttered, standing up and shuffling across to put on her massive scarf. When she was done, only her eyes and the freckles over the bridge of her nose were visible under all her layers. She looked both totally ridiculous and heart-stoppingly pretty. She started shuffling off towards the lift with her massive fluffy slippers still on her feet. I pinched the bridge of my nose and looked down at the ground.

“Luce, you can’t go out in those.”

She looked back at me, and I pointed to her feet.

“Oh, right,” she said, her voice distracted. “You wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve been to the shops or pub back home in these bad boys. Totally slips my mind.”

I could just see Lucy traipsing around in those ridiculous slippers back in Little Buckingham. Nobody would have batted an eyelid. I wondered for the hundredth time what on earth this girl was doing in London and how the hell I was going to help her even vaguely fit in.

“Don’t suppose it’d be a good look for your posh party, though,” she said. I couldn’t see her mouth, but I could see her eyes crinkling above her scarf as she smiled. Shuffling back to the desk, she toed off her slippers and put on the heels from earlier, wincing as she bore weight on them. I sighed.

“Just put your Uggs on,” I said.

“Oh great,” she replied, pulling off the heels and reaching for the furry Ugg boots I knew she kept under her desk.

Well, at least she most likely didn’t have that god-awful jumper on underneath the puffa. Maybe this wouldn’t be a complete disaster.