Love to Hate You: Three's a Crowd

Chapter Twenty-Five - Special Delivery

Mattie returned to work whilst Rafe sat in his mother's orangery, nursing a broken heart and a sore groin. His mother had fussed over him relentlessly, making herself quite unavailable to Tobias, who had come home for his usual Sunday roast only to find that she hadn't cooked and that he'd have to make himself a sandwich or go without food entirely. He'd tried to engage his mother in conversation, but she'd been preoccupied with The Favourite One, and his aunt was uninterested in talk of his sort-of-girlfriend (Tobias had been on three further dates with Emily, and felt that four dates was sufficient for him to drop her name into conversation with his family, even if he was not yet ready to update his Facebook status). Alas, Amy had felt pangs earlier that morning, and so all Aunt Vee cared about was the potentially imminent arrival of Xander's triplets.

Thus, Mattie completed administrative tasks in the office, gossiped and ate lunch with her friends, feeling more human – but more heart-broken – than she had since Peter's Putrefaction. Ramona made hovering over her lovelorn son a full-time job, and Tobias felt very bitter about being everyone's last priority. He was trumped by his older brother, his sister-in-law, his cousin, his aunt's godson and said godson's impending triplets, after all. And that's not even to mention Monica and Joan, who had prevented Emily from making their previous date, on account of they "seemed sad" and "needed cuddles". It was only natural, therefore, that he caved and broke office policy, by taking the Tube over to the Paxton and Colville offices as soon as school had finished for the day.

'What are you doing here?' Lydia asked with a weary sigh, upon Tobias's arrival on the executive floor.

'I'm checking on Mattie,' he told her smoothly. 'Seeing how her first day back is going.' Lydia eyed him with suspicion, but didn't call him out on his blatant bullshit.

'Well,' she said, 'she's in Chris's office, so you'll have to wait until she's finished with him.'

'Sure,' he nodded. 'I'll wait in her office. Keep out of your way.' He said it to be polite, but also because he was scared of Lydia. She was slightly older than Rafe, by his reckoning, and she was very serious. Far more so than Mattie and Vicky (which admittedly, wasn't saying much), and far more forbidding than his gentle mother or extravagant, flippant aunt.

'The break room would be more appropriate,' Lydia warned him.

'Okay,' he nodded, not willing to argue with her. And he made to head towards the directed room. Lydia followed. 'I don't need an escort,' he told her. 'I'm not going to take a detour somewhere I shouldn't.'

'I'm making a coffee, and then I'm heading into a meeting, actually, but you can presume everything is about you if you need to.'

'Oh.' She smirked.

'You're scared of me,' she said, with evident amusement.

'I'm not!' he snorted with indignation. Which was impressive, considering she spoke the truth.

'If you say so.' He swallowed thickly as he sunk into a chair, watching as her fingers darted over the buttons on the fancy coffee maker.

'You're an intelligent woman,' he suddenly announced, as though he'd only just realised that fact. She looked at him archly and he winced. 'Obviously,' he said, in an apologetic tone. 'I only meant that you are, and that I might ask your opinion on something.'

'More dating dilemmas?' Lydia mused, without looking up from her task.

'What do you mean, "more"?' he scoffed.

'Only that you come here whenever you're feeling sorry for yourself and that seems to involve you being unhappily single, or suffering bad dates.'

'Well,' he scowled; brow knit, so that vertical lines appeared between his eyebrows. 'It must be nice being perfect, but some of us aren't so fortunate.'