Just Friends (The Agency Book 1) Page 3

  “And the AdAg goes to . . . Barrett McAllan Gray for their Quest for Life campaign for Quest plc, art director Ethan Fraser and copywriter Violet Archer!”

  Oh. Shit. And. Hell.

  Ethan is still holding my hand when he takes to his feet, so I have no choice but to follow after him. My pulse is racing, my legs are wobbling, my head is pounding and I have no idea how I climbed the stairs onto the stage, but suddenly I’m here and, surprisingly, I don’t want to crawl into a hole and die. The applause quietens and we’re presented with the award, which looks like a huge pile of glass vomit on a brass stick, and then Ethan turns to me, smiles and mouths, “You’re doing okay.” He walks over to the microphone, delivers a short impromptu speech – with jokes – and the audience erupts into laughter. Sadly, I can’t process his words because my brain has created white noise which has blocked out everything but the fact that he is still – wonderfully yet terrifyingly – holding my hand.

  I mutter a “Thank you” to the room after Ethan finishes speaking, and we walk back to our table.

  And then he lets go of me . . .

  And my body deflates.

  I sit down to cheers and claps from around our table. Malcolm strides over, bypassing Ethan, and congratulates me by planting a kiss on my cheek. Max is on his feet, as are Ridley, Daniel and Stuart. Stella smiles proudly and offers us a strangely elegant “You both fucking nailed it!” And Carly? Well, Carly looks like she’s just chewed on a wasp, which makes the trauma of the evening totally worthwhile.

  As the awards finish and we move on to the aftershow party, I realise the AdAg Awards have given me something I’ll never forget – and I don’t mean the lump of engraved glass.

  I mean the realisation that something has shifted in my relationship with Ethan and I don’t have a clue what or why that is.

  3

  AS WE WALK INTO THE converted warehouse venue that the agency has hired for the aftershow party, I feel like I’m walking onto the stage of Cirque de Soleil. No expense has been spared: there are acrobats swinging from trapezes hanging from the ceiling, glamorous stilt-balancing servers dressed as clowns, and an enormous ice sculpture of a circus elephant. The entire left side of the venue has been transformed into a casino while opposite, an actual fairground carousel is lit up with dozens of strings of fairy lights. The casino zone has been claimed as the guy hangout, and as for the carousel – what do you get if you mix intense spinning with a free bar? Not rocket science, is it? Whoever thought that was a good idea should be given the job of scrubbing the puke off it at 3 a.m.

  As we pass the dance floor, I notice that a couple of my more adventurous colleagues appear to be devouring each other whilst having sex with all their clothes on. A girl I don’t recognise has her leg wrapped around the waist of Jack from IT. She’s so far gone I wonder if she realises his hands are up her skirt. I watch as she drags him into a corner and leaps into his arms, gyrating against his crotch like a monkey scratching its bottom on a baobab tree. I figure she knew.

  “Ha, looks like the kids are having a good time,” says Ethan.

  Max looks around the venue and his face contorts with disgust. “It’s like an advertisement for syphilis in here.”

  I laugh. “An ad for syphilis? Wonder if we could win an AdAg award next year for knocking out one of those.”

  “Well, get your mobile out and start filming because – holy fucking shit – take a look at where Jack Shipley’s hands are now.” He links his arm in mine and covers his eyes with his hand.

  I don’t want to look, but I can’t help myself. I momentarily worry about Gyrating Girl’s safety, but she’s vanished and Jack has turned his attentions elsewhere. Yep, there he is with his hands down his own pants. The rest of the IT department seem to be amused at whatever the hell he’s doing, and iPhones are engaged. It’s a dead cert that Jack’s antics are being uploaded directly to Instagram. Could he be any more disgusting? He helped me recover a corrupted file on my external hard drive yesterday, but now I know where his hands like to visit, I’ll be asking for a new keyboard on Monday.

  “Ah, here she is, the star of the show.” I feel Malcolm Barrett’s hand on my elbow as he guides me to a group that includes Quest’s representatives and the management team. Carly Hayes is the only person in the group who seems to be wearing a slapped arse for a face. “Quentin Hibbard, may I introduce you to our most talented creative, Miss Violet Archer?”

  I smile warmly, but inside I’m cringing because yet again Malcolm has completely ignored Ethan. I shake Quentin’s hand as a stilt-wearing clown bends down and offers all of us flutes of champagne, as well as an eyeful of her cleavage. I’m impressed by her balancing.

  Quentin Hibbard is the chairman and founder of Quest plc, and a well-spoken, silver-haired man whose face is etched with the lines of age and importance. “Lovely to meet you, Miss Archer. I must say we have been delighted with the work you’ve done for us, and we’ll definitely be sending more work your way. You’ve got such a great feel for my company’s vision. If you don’t mind, I want to publicise your win across all of our social media platforms, and I think both PR teams should join forces to get this headlining in the press first thing on Monday. Do you agree, Malcolm?”

  Malcolm nods and a wide smile beams from under his bushy grey moustache.

  Quentin puts his hand on my shoulder and gives it a friendly pat. “Very well done, young lady, very well done.”

  He’s old school, so I brush off the “young lady” as sweet rather than patronising. Ditto the literal pat on the back. “Thank you, and please, call me Violet,” I say before tugging at Ethan’s jacket and shoving him in front of Quentin’s nose. “This is Ethan Fraser. He’s the art director on your account. Every single one of your ads originated from inside his head. All I do is find the words to bring his ideas to life.”

  Quentin politely shakes Ethan’s hand, but his expression is stiff. What on earth has Malcolm said to him? Ethan’s face is flushed pink and he’s clenching his jaw tight, so I know he’s wondering too.

  Stella Judd steps forward, her close-fitting silver sequinned dress perfectly reflecting the shiny platinum of her hair. “I know I speak for everyone at Barrett McAllan Gray when I say that Ethan is the most talented art director in the city. He’s responsible for creating all of Quest’s print and TV ads, and we’re very lucky to have both him and Violet.” Stella scowls at Malcolm as if he were a tomcat who’s been caught pissing on her flowerbeds, and she’s not finished yet. “Did you not mention Ethan to Quentin, Malcolm?”

  Malcolm’s smile remains fixed to his face, but his eyes are telling a different story. “Yes, of course, but we both agree the Quest for Life campaign really took off after Violet’s hashtag went viral.”

  Stella takes a sip of champagne as she shoots him an ice-cold glare. “I’m pleased to hear you haven’t deliberately overlooked the contribution of one of our most gifted employees, Malcolm. Because if you had, that would make you a bit of a prick, wouldn’t it?” Her voice is even, balanced and commanding, and I make a mental note that Stella is who I’d like to be when I grow up. I don’t know anybody else who could pull off roasting their boss so spectacularly.

  Malcolm clears his throat and downs his drink, shooting Stella a death stare as he walks away, his loyal viper Ridley Gates slithering behind him. Stella is now centre stage. She takes another flute of champagne from the nine-foot-tall clown and spins around to face us all. “Well, that was fun,” she declares before tucking her arm into Daniel Noble’s and giving him a wink. “Ah, look, my friend has made it over from New York. Daniel, I want you to meet him. Hope to catch up with you all later. Gentlemen, ladies.” She leads Daniel away to another group surrounding a tall, good-looking black man with a neat beard and a sparkling smile.

  The group breaks down into a myriad of different conversations. Ethan slowly drifts off into the crowd, leaving me and Max alone, so we do what we always do at parties – plant ourselves close to an anonymous wall and
take root.

  “You know what I think?” asks Max, moving in close and lowering his voice to a whisper. “Stella’s going to do a bunker.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Bunker?”

  “Yes, a moonlight bunker.”

  “Again, not a clue.”

  “What’s the matter with you? You’re not usually this stupid. She’s leaving BMG.”

  “You think so?” English is Max’s second language, but I’m only reminded of that fact when he delivers some of his lost-in-translation gems. “It’s ‘bunk’ and ‘moonlight flit’, by the way.”

  He dismisses my corrections with a wave of his hand. “You know who that guy is, don’t you?”

  “Nope.” The American does look slightly familiar – tall, bald, handsome, neat goatee, passing resemblance to Samuel L. Jackson – but I can’t quite place him.

  “How long did you spend in New York?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “And you don’t recognise the CEO of the agency you worked for? That’s Dylan Best of BEST Inc., you cornflake.”

  “Is it?” I squint in his direction and wonder if I might need glasses. I worked at BEST Inc. after I completed my master’s at Harvard. Maybe I’ve blanked out everything to do with New York, given my time there ended in heartache. “I have a terrible memory for faces, Max.”

  We stand in silence, not really knowing what to do with ourselves. “Erm . . . do you want to dance?” Max says.

  I laugh. “I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.”

  “Good. I can’t dance to crap music. It’s like a school disco in here.”

  I notice that he’s already lost his bow tie and one button off his shirt. I can’t help but smile at his peculiarity – at our peculiarities. We’re the nerds of Barrett McAllan Gray, two square pegs who’ll never fit into a round hole no matter how hard we try.

  “So why were you late tonight?” he asks. I lower my eyes, not wanting to talk about my earlier silliness. “Violet, I know you weren’t held up in traffic – I checked the roads.”

  “You checked the roads?” I’m surprised, but I shouldn’t be. One time I missed a flight to Edinburgh due to traffic on the M25. We were booked in at a conference and Max had to go on ahead without me. He’d managed to call seven hospitals by the time he was called to the boarding gate.

  “Yeah it’s easy. I have this app on my iPhone. It’s called RouteChecker. Do you want to see? You should get it—”

  I grip his arm. “I’m good with the app, Max.” There’s silence as he waits for me to speak. I run my fingers awkwardly around the rim of my champagne glass. “I didn’t want to come,” I say finally. “I hate attention, and . . . well, things didn’t go so well with Stuart last night.”

  Max doesn’t ask for details. He knows who I am, he understands me and he respects my need for privacy. All he does is nod his head and smile kindly.

  “Ethan talked me round. He told me I was spoiling the night for everybody.”

  “That’s not fair. I’ll kick his arse for saying that to you.”

  “Thanks, but he was right.”

  Max places his hand tenderly on my arm. His balding head shines fluorescent pink under the venue’s circus lighting. I wonder when he’ll start shaving what’s left of his hair; he’s starting to bear a passing resemblance to Doc Brown from Back to the Future. “You think about these things too much, you know?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m the world’s worst overthinker of everything. How do I stop doing that?”

  “Don’t fixate, don’t worry, don’t fret. Just switch off and go with the flow – have faith that everything will turn out okay in the end. And tonight turned out better than okay, didn’t it? You won a freaking AdAg award, for Christ’s sake!”

  I laugh as I glance over to the table where I dumped the hideous chunk of glass on a stick. “Yeah, I guess I did okay. I just wish . . . sometimes I wish I was a different person. I’d love to be able to enjoy myself at big events like everybody else, instead of having my head jammed full of thoughts I don’t want to think about.”

  “Hey, stop that. I’d have nobody I’d want to talk to if I didn’t have you. You’ve met my friend Marek who I go clubbing with, haven’t you? He’s not exactly troubling Mensa, is he?” He motions over to the dance floor, where Ethan is delighting the rest of the creative team with his very own version of the Macarena. “It’s great to be a thinker. He isn’t. Just look at him. What does he looks like?”

  I watch him having a blast, surrounded by people cheering him on, and my heart sinks because I want to join in and have a good time too, but I don’t know how. “Don’t you think life is easier his way?”

  Max opens his mouth to speak, but almost chokes when he’s slapped on the back by Will Thornton. “There you two are,” he says. His East-End accent is chirpier than usual. “Have you seen Ethan over there? Talk about a suck-up!”

  I look over to the dance floor and laugh at Ethan teaching his moves to Stella Judd and Dylan Best. I wish I could bottle and sell his confidence, not to mention his people skills. Stella laughs uproariously at Ethan. He’s lucky to have her as our department head, seeing as how Malcolm hates his guts. To Stella, Ethan’s the golden boy – the shining star in her creative empire.

  “Do you think Best is trying to poach her?” asks Max, repeating his conspiracy theory.

  “Nah, he was her bloke a few years back. Someone said he featured between marriages three and four.” Will tosses a handful of salty bar snacks into his mouth, then his dark eyes flash with an idea. “Hey, maybe she’s selling him Ethan. He’d go to the States in a flash. He already thinks he’s too good for BMG.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, could you be any more jealous?” I say.

  “Ethan would never leave London,” Max protests.

  “Yeah, but if he does go, I’ll be your partner.” Will winks at me, his lips peppered with salt and grease. “If I have to stare over a desk at someone for ten hours a day, I want somebody better looking than Mohammed next time. So, Violet, it’s either going to be you or Ruby Sloan.”

  “You know I’m spoken for, and you can have Ruby over my dead body.” I like Will – he’s smart and funny, but he’s also a pessimistic pain in the arse. “Oh, and speaking of Ruby, I need a word with both of you about the great knickers robbery and how it could be interpreted as sexual harassment.”

  Will laughs. Max looks worried.

  “All down to Mohammed.” Will tosses another handful of snacks into his mouth and waltzes off.

  Max clears his throat nervously. “And on that note, I need to pee. Jesus, this is a long night. I’ll be right back.” He disappears into a swarm of black suits. Left alone, I’ve got no idea where to put my useless body. I consider staying put and waiting for Max, but judging on past performance it could take anything from three to three hundred minutes for him to actually get back to me, and there are decent odds on him not returning at all. He’s as flaky as a redhead with sunburn.

  I decide that if I’m going to stand around looking useless, I may as well check my phone as I’m doing it, but I left it in my coat pocket. Damn. And I can’t remember where the cloakroom is. Oh well, searching for it will kill some time.

  I head off to an empty corridor, choose a door randomly, and walk inside the room.

  Then I freeze.

  And I don’t mean I just stand still in the room. I mean I stand still, looking stupid, with my mouth wide open as if I’ve just caught Santa coming down the chimney. But this isn’t a jolly-fat-guy-bringing-me-presents kind of surprise. No, this is a shit-there’s-an-elephant-in-my-sitting-room-and-it’s-just-taken-a-crap-on-my-carpet kind of surprise.

  I’m standing in front of Carly Hayes and a rather dishevelled Ridley Gates. They’re both pink and sweaty, and Carly’s gold dress is pulled so high over her hips that I can see her knickers. When she sees me, she adjusts her clothing and her brown eyes burn into my skin. She looks spaced out, and I figure she’s high on somet
hing other than having just had sex in a public place. Ridley’s wedding ring catches the light as he buttons up his shirt, and I have an overwhelming urge to beat the living crap out of him. I’ve met his wife; she’s beautiful and kind and doesn’t deserve to be married to such an unspeakable shit.

  I spin around and walk out of the cloakroom as fast as I can, but as soon as I’m through the door I’m pulled back by my shoulders. I turn to find Carly glowering at me, her gold dress merging seamlessly with the dark peach skin of her overly made-up face.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I ask her, my voice raised in anger.

  “I’m making sure you keep your mouth shut,” she spits back at me, flicking her coarse mane of dark, bristly hair extensions behind her shoulder. I notice how ridiculous her acrylic-lashed eyes look. False eyelashes are supposed to look natural – not like they’ve escaped from the Insect House at London Zoo.

  “I don’t think you’re in any position to issue threats,” I reply calmly.

  “Oh, and what position do you think I’m in exactly?” asks Carly, her tone laced with venom.

  “I think that’s obvious.”

  “Really? God, you’re pathetic. No wonder nobody likes you. You act like you’re so much better than everybody, with your self-professed intelligence and your ridiculous Snow Queen act. Why don’t you ask Stuart Inman’s fiancée how much fucking better than me she thinks you are?”

  I feel as though I’ve been struck by lightning. “What?”

  Carly’s eyes flash with pleasure. “Oh, didn’t you know he was engaged when you fucked him? Stuart and Adele have been together for five years now. They’re due to get married next year.”