What Goes Around...

Part Seven

Chapter Seven

Coop's head was pounding; alcohol was becoming his worst friend. He could barely open his eyes, but the little peep he managed revealed he wasn't at home. The pink paint that seemed to adorn every surface was the only thing he could take in. Then as he gave his whole body a check he could feel a small hand brushed against his upper arm, and was that a smooth thigh touching his. He wanted to groan but that would wake up his bed partner and he had no intention of engaging in conversations now. Cut and run, that was his motto for the day. He was naked...that figured, but he couldn't spot much belonging to him in this pink 'paradise'.
Sliding away from the body beside him he glanced in her direction and realised it was Charmaine? Or Charlotte? He wasn't exactly sure, but her and her three friends and hounded him all evening. He did hate these moments, the guilt, the awkwardness. Spotting his boxer shorts at the foot of the bed, he reached for them and pulled them on, fortunately as he slipped out of the bedroom he found the rest of his clothes in the hallway. Dressing quickly, he was relieved to find he had a little power left on his cell phone, so as he was exiting the house on to the street, he was calling for a taxi. The beauty of GPS identifying his exact position.

As he paid the driver with an exorbitantly high amount compared to the fare, he exited the vehicle and tried to sneak into the warehouse unseen. But it was sound that made him look up. Freya was stood on the driveway, still in her pyjamas, as pale as the whitewashed building behind her. He should ask her why she looked so haunted, why she looked as though she had literally seen a ghost, but he was too tired, his head hurt, and he had to wash the scent of the 'C' woman off him. That was imperative.

So instead he gave an awkward half smile and disappeared inside his home.

Freya could only half see Mitchell Cooper, her mind was so preoccupied with all that had happened the last twelve hours. Was it only that long since the message from Jamie?

She wanted to laugh, but since the message arrived she'd been in some sort of comatose state.

She'd stared at the words, unable to believe it. They had made her heart pound with a myriad of emotions. Simon had ended things the last time she'd seen him, he'd made things perfectly clear...to the point it was almost humiliating. She'd been devastated.

She'd wanted to talk to him, she'd worried that she might beg him to give her another chance which would have seemed pitiful, but she wasn't ready to give anything up. It had taken so long to get the point where they confronted their feelings. Then he ended it...and the project blowing up too meant that she never got a chance to see him again. She'd left him a message, telling him that she wanted to talk, but she'd heard nothing...since.

So why was he now looking for her?

Freya knew she was naive, that was no secret, she'd crawled through life hiding behind the safety of her brainpower, which had been both her saving grace and the bane of her life all in one. Mentally she was at professor level, since completing her PhD and becoming Dr Wicker even more so, but it lots of ways the longer she embraced her brainpower the less her place was in 'normal' society. Dropping her phone onto the table unable to formulate a response to Jamie's text she had collapsed onto the sofa. Sleep would elude her, she knew that, but late on a Friday was not the time to try and fathom what was going on.

Simon Parsons had been her direct boss for the whole time she'd worked on the EcoFuel project. Five years of sitting in a lab working out minor fractions of difference in concentrations and titrations heads together testing every theory, presenting to investors, showcasing their work to the heads of departments had seen them become close. He'd been a mentor and a good friend, and it hadn't been until just after the previous Christmas that things had changed.