“Can I have one of those?”

There was a shift in the sofa as Ev settled into the space next to me. I raised my head from my hands and squinted at her dubiously. Sure enough, she was gesturing to the pack of filth in my hand.

“You don’t smoke,” I said, warily.

“Today I do.” Good grief, she looked like death had warmed up. “Please? I’ll pay you back. What is it, eighteen bucks a pack? So eighteen dollars divided by twenty-five is–”

“Don’t be bloody stupid.” I made an irritated noise and threw the pack at her, which she caught deftly. If anyone could take things from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous, it was Ev, all right. My lord… “Here,” I said, flicking my lighter into flame and holding it towards her. “Breathe in, or it won’t light.”

Her look simply dripped scorn. If I hadn’t been feeling so awful I would have grinned. “I know how to light a frickin’ cigarette, you berk.”

“Thought you didn’t smoke. As in, had never.”

“I didn’t. Well, not really. I don’t frickin’ know.” She took a deep drag and exhaled. “I do today. That’s all.”

“Ah, another enigma in the mysterious past of Miss Evelyn Jessica English,” I said, and regretted it immediately. I hadn’t meant to sound so supercilious. Quite understandably, she scowled at me.

“Will you not give it a frickin’ rest, James? Jesus Christ! What do you want me to do, spill everything down to the very last detail, right here? Just because we’re working with the bitch and I knew her doesn’t mean you get some kind of free pass to information about what happened!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I mumbled, and really, I was. I didn’t mean to…I didn’t want to…”Didn’t want to…I wasn’t thinking…”

“Bullshit, James. You’re always thinking.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes.” The honesty of this statement surprised me. Not that I was accustomed to lying to her, or Arthur — or anyone, really, but…

But what? Everything seemed to be unravelling and then twisting itself into shapes I didn’t recognise, lately.

“Tell me about it,” Evelyn muttered.

“That was as rude as I was just being,” I returned with some bitterness. She turned her huge eyes towards me, blinking as if she had been surprised. Then she smiled, shakily. Tears were gathering on her lashes.

“Yeah…guess it was, huh? I’m sorry, James.”

“Apology accepted,” I murmured.

She took a deep drag on her cigarette and sighed out a soft grey cloud, unhappily.

“I’ve really messed everything up, haven’t I?”

“You?” I raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t say it was you, per se. I think a lot of the blame can be placed squarely on the shoulders of…our current client.”

“No, see, it’s me! Right there, what you just said, that proves it’s me!” A tear raced down her cheek, and I felt an unpleasant wrenching in my gut.

“What? How does that prove it’s you?”

“‘Our current client’. You can’t even say her name in front of me.”

“Ev, I was doing that as a favour–”

“See what I mean!”

“–and, to be perfectly honest, and as an act of passive-aggressive scorn. I don’t like the woman. I don’t think I ever will.”

“That’s only because of me and my history with her.”

“No, it isn’t. Be logical. I have little idea what happened between you and her, except it was a relationship that went sour. That, and she gave you a ill-made pendant, which I think is insulting, really.” Woah. Careful there. Don’t let your mouth race ahead of you, self. “Even if you’d been ‘over’ her — I do hate that phrase — when she walked into the office, I wouldn’t have liked her. Firstly, she simply ignored you to the point where I wondered if perhaps something had snuck through the barrier and made you invisible to over-privileged young white women. That was rude. Secondly, she treated Arthur like he was an afterthought, or a child that was to be humoured. That was also rude. So she was two strikes down. One does not waltz into our office and treat two of my co-workers like that, not on my bloody time.”

“James…” she whispered. She looked as if I’d told her something utterly unbelievable. Did she really have no idea how highly I held both her and Arthur? Christ. But how could that be possible? I suppose…maybe I never made it clear…

“Thirdly,” I continued, after clearing my throat a little, “She flirted outrageously with yours truly, and I’m not saying that just to swell my own ego, I promise.”

“Oh, don’t give me that.” Ev chuckled, even through her sniffles. “You love it when people do that.”

“Admittedly? Yes. It’s ridiculous fun. But not when you’re treating my friends like shit right where I can see you. Then you can go hang, for all I care. So, more or less, I will respect her and her money–” here Evelyn actually started to laugh, which made me grin “–as a client. But as a person, I despise her. I have despised since spending the first five minutes in her presence. This whole…mess…thing…well, it’s just more reason to do so.”

Evelyn shook her head. “You know, it’s weird.”

“Hm? What is?”

“You.” She leaned forward and smashed her cigarette out into the tacky ashtray. “I think I have you figured out, and then you go and…complicate things like you just did. In a good way. But it’s still complicated.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“Maybe should we all just agree that shit is complicated and we’re — all three of us, I mean — we’re all surprising the hell out of each other all the time.” She leaned back in the couch, and brushed the tears from her face. “We don’t operate as a very good company, do we? We’re like…friends who have a business. Or something.”

“As soon as any sort of business has the federal government’s approval and funding, it ceases to operate with any sort of normalcy.” I smiled at her. “It’s seventy-two cents, by the way.”

“Huh? What is?”

“Eighteen dollars divided by twenty-five. Seventy-two cents.”

“…Christ, I hate you!”

“No, you don’t. I’m lovely. You can’t hate me.”

It was as if I didn’t even exist. I found myself moving my fingers beneath the desk, pinching myself sharply on the thigh to make sure I wasn’t having a horrible nightmare. It didn’t really tell me anything; my whole body was in pain, what was a little more of it? Was that supposed to convince me that I was awake?

Or maybe it was that I was hoping that pinching myself wouldn’t hurt, that the pain would somehow stop, and then I could convince myself that I was asleep. Asleep, twisted up in a nightmare, struggling towards wakefulness where every breath I drew in wasn’t terrifying.

There was a taste in my mouth as I watched her flirt with James, something bitter like metal. But that wasn’t unusual; everyone flirted with James. Everyone bats their eyelashes at him or holds his gaze just a little longer than they would with anyone else, and almost everyone realises what they’re doing just a moment too late. Some people run with it, others fumble and blush and then give the majority of their attention to Arthur or me, safer people. And James keeps the tiniest of smirks on his face for the rest of the day.

But she knew what she was doing. Of course she did. She always did. She always liked to play stupid, but…I knew her, I knew her well enough to know when she was doing so. She wasn’t stupid, not really. She wasn’t remotely phased, and that even threw James a little. Arthur just looked extremely uncomfortable, like someone had demoted him to “afterthought”, someone she would smile sweetly at every now and then.

I wasn’t even an afterthought. I wasn’t even there.

I did everything I could. I tried typing loudly. I handed her a cup of coffee, made sure my fingers brushed hers. I asked her direct questions, tried staring at her. She answered the questions, but didn’t answer me: she spoke to either James or Arthur.

I didn’t exist. The same as always. I didn’t exist, she didn’t see me.

I thought maybe she’d come to us — to Red Tower, I mean — to rub it in my face that she was fine, and extremely over me. But that had never been her cup of tea. If something distressed her, she dealt with it by pretending it didn’t exist, and this extended to women she’d loved, once.

I had nothing to do with why she was here. She’d come to us because it was convenient. If I was here or if I wasn’t didn’t work into things, because to her, I didn’t exist anymore. Maybe I never had.

I excused myself halfway through the proceedings on the pretense that my mobile phone was buzzing. In response this, she gave Arthur a somewhat distracted smile, as if there was something on the edge of her hearing that she couldn’t quite catch, and didn’t really care to. I think the noise of my swallowing my own tears might have been audible, because Arthur caught my eye and his look was full of questions and worry. I didn’t dare look at James. I just didn’t have the courage. I just bit my lip and stepped out of the office.

When I got to the foyer, everything in me was screaming to curl up in one of the sofas and try and disappear, but the last things I needed was for her to come down here and see me like this, so I left the building and made for Starbucks. I was fairly certain that overpriced yuppie beverages never patched a broken heart, but I was willing to put it to the test.

She never did like how I drank so much coffee.

Just how long do you intend to keep this going, Evelyn?

By all means, keep acting the way you are. Keeping locking yourself up like this. It’s not as if Arthur and I aren’t worried sick for you. Or over you. It’s a free country. You can do as you please. Of course it is, of course you can.

No. No, you can’t.

You can’t stand there and tell me that all of this means nothing. You absolutely cannot. There’s more at stake here than you know. The Red Tower Agency, without you, it would…

I wonder, though. Do you have any idea what I went through, to protect you? To keep you alive? I’ve said it to Arthur more times than I can count: there’s more out there than you know, on this side of the barrier and on any other side of it. There is more in his heart and my heart than you could ever count on.

Let that stupid bitch go. If it’s true, if she has spun a happy little spider’s web around us just for her own entertainment…then let her. A single hand can tear apart a gossamer thread. The truth will come out and be on show, she’ll have to answer for it. It doesn’t matter what hoops she makes us jump through in the meantime. She will come apart.

When she does, will you be honest with us? Or will it still be Ev And Her Secrets against the big bad world?

Oh, if only you knew how bad.

I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong. If what I saw in you wasn’t actually there, and it was just a physical attraction gone terribly wrong. If I should have shrugged my shoulders and not even cared. Crawled back to law school with my tail between my legs? Why not. Maybe I’ve got it all back-to-front, maybe enrolling in law school was actually the only sensible decision I’ve actually made in my life.

We raised a tower to protect you, princess. Do you give a damn? Do you really give a damn? Maybe you really do hate me.

Evelyn, don’t leave us. Don’t leave.

It’s getting harder to hold my tongue.

Evie and James are snapping at each other yet again, on the surface over something completely inconsequential, like who has to fetch the snail mail or how much the office budget stretches to cover caffeine and nicotine habits, but deep down where it counts, I can almost taste Genevieve Hedrington poisoning every word that comes out of their mouths. Especially Evie. She won’t talk to either of us about what happened with her, but I’m not as stupid as I look (and thank God for that). She loved her. She must have loved her. The dissolution of a friendship leaves long wounds, the dissolution of love leaves deep ones. And I can see gouges all over Evie.

(I think Zerin can see them, as well. Of course, he’s telepathic…but I don’t think he goes rooting around in people’s heads willy-nilly. As terrified as he and his kind still make me, at times, I’ve noticed how terribly sad his eyes seemed to be when he last looked at Evelyn, and then he turned that forever, blue-shining gaze on me. We understood each other, in that moment. As sad as it was, it took some of my fear away.)

But I can see wounds appearing on James’ pale skin now, as well. Evie hurts. He hurts. And they both claw and scratch and hiss and do their best to hurt each other. Oh, sure, Evelyn used to tell him she hated him at least twice a day, and James went out of his way to annoy her. But there was no malice underneath all of that. Now, they’re just hurting whoever gets in their way, and sometimes, that means me, as well.

It’s not as if I can’t take a tongue-lashing now and then, even if it’s undeserved. But it’s the Hedrington woman whose hand is curled around the flail. I can see it so clearly.

I want to throw things, hit things. So much useless pain and nowhere to put it. Maybe I should start smoking, it seems to do wonders for James. I used to actually like coming to work in the morning, even if the paperwork was up to my ears or we had to deal with arrogant aliens. James and Evie, they’re my life. Them, and the Red Tower Agency. Now it’s all falling down around my ears, and I’m not sure how to build it up again.

The week passed with little else happening. Barrier activity seemed normal, almost boringly so. Bills were paid, computers were sworn at, coffee was consumed, television was watched (somewhat).

Of course, it wasn’t aliens or barrier-jumpers or even the government that threw everything to chaos on Friday morning, it was a phone call.

“Red Tower Agency.” Arthur managed to get to the cordless phone just before the answering machine switched on. “How can I…er, yes, that’s what — I mean, yes, you have. Is there something I can help with? …Arthur. Arthur September. I’m not…that’s my surname! Look, I didn’t choose — no, you can make an appointment via me…er, well, I can see if he’s around, but to be honest, I’m not sure he’s in at the moment. Can you hold just a moment? …no, just a moment. Okay.” He slid his hand over the mouthpiece and leaned over towards Evelyn. “Where’s James?”

“Smoking downstairs by the coffee machine, where else is he at eight-thirty on a Friday morning?” Evelyn blinked at him in bemusement. “Who on earth are you talking to?”

“Lady Muck, apparently.” He rolled his eyes and took his hand off the phone. “I’m sorry, he’s not in the office at the moment, but like I said, you can make an appointment through me, and he definitely will be here to…yes…yes…all right. Yes. Does midday…okay, that’s great, that’s…yes…we’ll all be here. James isn’t the only person who makes up Red Tower– okay. Okay, great, see you then. Thank you. Great. ‘Bye.”

“Who the living hell…?” Evelyn dissolved into giggles as Arthur dropped the phone back into its cradle with a sour look.

“The princess of a hitherto undiscovered monarchy, I’m sure, or she bloody thought she was! I thought working this kind of job meant not having to deal with people like her. Jesus Christ…”

“Just goes to show you, doesn’t it? Customers always suck. Whether you’re a checkout chick or a paranormal detective.”

“Who are you calling paranormal?”

“Rimshot.” Evelyn smirked. “So, who should I pencil in for midday? Figuratively speaking, of course. I mean, I’d type in ‘Lady Muck’ but James wouldn’t appreciate that.”

“Hedrington. Genevieve Hedrington, her name was.”

“Genevieve…Hedrington…?” Evelyn’s voice was oddly strangled. Arthur blinked at her. She looked pale and drawn, suddenly.

“Yes, that’s right…are you okay, Evie? Do you know her?”

The silence lasted just that nanosecond too long before Evelyn replied, “No.”

“Oh, god, my head is killing me…”

“Well, that’s fairly understandable. You went down rather hard.”

“Am I dead?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Arthur, of course you’re not dead.”

Arthur opened his eyes and peered blearily at James, who had his — Arthur’s — right arm across his lap, and his hand splayed open, using his own fingers to keep the other man’s from curling up. His head was bent over it, sharp concern causing a line between his eyebrows.

“Why…does my hand hurt?”

“Because you broke your coffee cup when you hit the ground — James, for Christ’s sake get your idiot head out of the way.” Evelyn’s voice. “Stand back and let the dog see the rabbit, already!”

“Is the dog absolutely sure that butterfly stitches are enough?”

Evelyn let out a little hiss of breath in irritation. “Yes, they are. It’s not a deep cut, just a long one. There. All done. James, go get some of that Nurofen garbage that’s in the kitchen. Also, I hate you.”

“Will do, and duly noted.” James slid Arthur’s arm off his lap, and disappeared out of the other man’s line of sight. Arthur rolled his head to the right and watched Evelyn packing up the first-aid kit.

“I passed out,” he stated. She looked over at and gave him a lopsided grin.

“Did you what. One minute you were vertical, then you were horizontal.” Evelyn paused, and tilted her head. “Well, that sounds slightly wrong, doesn’t it…”

“It was that bloody picture,” Arthur mumbled. “I’m never going to live this down. He’ll never let me forget it, will he?”

“If you mean, ‘forget that I’m a bloody idiot who never told James that I have a severe phobia of Greys’, then no, I won’t.” James had reappeared, and his tone wasn’t amused.

“Oh, God — here, can I sit up?”

“Not yet,” Evelyn said, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently. “Just be still for a while. You hit the floor pretty hard.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were that frightened of them, Arthur?” James sat down cross-legged beside Arthur’s prone form, handed a box of Nurofen Forte to Evelyn almost absently, and scowled magnificently. “What would have happened if you’d met an actual Grey, not just a picture?”

“Probably the same thing,” Arthur replied weakly.

“You were pretty damn lucky that we were here, where running for the first-aid kit and shoving you into the recovery position — and cleaning up goddamn blood and coffee and broken crockery — wouldn’t have made a scene!”

“James, lay the hell off already,” Evelyn snapped. “It wasn’t like he meant to hit the decks!”

“No, but I meant to show you the photo!” James growled. “I would never have done so if I knew that the subject of the photo had the remotest chance of containing a phobia that he hadn’t been desensitised to, yet!”

“I didn’t even think they were real,” Arthur mumbled into the carpet. Can something just…leap through the barrier and eat me now, please?

“There are many things that will come through the barrier that you didn’t think were real, before working here,” James seethed, “That we have dealt with many times. Things that are far more unbelievable than Greys, for crying out loud. You should have–”

“James, stop being such a raving dick!”

The man in question turned to Evelyn and stared at her in offended disbelief. “A wh…I’m being a what?!”

“You. Are being. A raving. Dick.” Evelyn scowled at him, crossing her arms. “Knock it the hell off and shut up.”

“But he–”

“‘But he’? You sound like a five year old! Look, just because you feel guilty about more or less making Arthur pass out doesn’t mean you can be a raving dick. So bloody stop it before I smack you or something. Gods, but you can be…be a raving dick, sometimes!”

James’ mouth opened, then closed, and then he scowled at Evelyn before rising — rather gracefully, for all his irritation — to his feet.

“I am getting a coffee from the machine downstairs, and I shall see you shortly.”

Arthur heard the door open and close, and Evelyn sigh. She rolled her eyes skyward.

“He is such a frickin’ child sometimes. Why do we even let him work here?”

Arthur had to grin at that, despite the dull sting in his right palm and the vague embarrassment over the whole situation that was creeping over him. “Er, well…he hired us.”

“Yeah, he did. I suppose that means we can’t fire him.”

“Unfortunately, no. You…you said he was feeling guilty?”

“Are you kidding?” Evelyn snorted. “He felt awful about it! That’s why he was going off like a frog in a sock!”

“…like a frog in a sock?!” He burst out laughing, which hurt his head. Evelyn grinned sheepishly.

“I…guess that analogy needs a little work?”

“No, no. It’s absolutely perfect, actually.”

There was a soft whirring noise as the computer flickered to life, and three pairs of eyes gave their full attention to the screen — the ‘communal’ screen, as Evelyn had christened it, a nifty LCD number with an almost massive resolution, much clearer than James’ unfortunate blur-in-a-box, and the cracked screen of Arthur’s beleaguered netbook. The program that started up displayed a window that looked slightly like a heart monitor’s, although it was moving far, far too slowly for any heart.

“No barrier activi — ah! Tell a lie, there.” James pointed to a slight jump in the purple line crawling across a white background with the tip of his Biro. “There we have it.”

“Something came through the barrier?” Arthur asked, sipping his coffee. “But it’s tiny, really. Quite ordered, too.”

“Greys,” James pronounced. “Has to be them. They’re always methodical, orderly, and generally pleasant to deal with, really.”

“…Greys? As in…Grey aliens?” Evelyn’s eyes were wide and curious.

“I didn’t believe they existed,” Arthur said, uneasily.

“They certainly do,” James said, highlighting the elevated section of the graph and enlarging it, mouse clicking tangling itself with the soft noise of the clock above the window. “Of course, they live in this universe, unlike, say, the Good Folk — but they’ve managed somehow to utilise the barrier when they want to visit Earth. Utterly brilliant minds, really. I suppose my brain would start leaking out my ears if they tried to explain the mechanics of that to me. Any human’s brain. Well, maybe not every human. I would put my money on Stephen Hawking understanding it. And,” James looked up from the screen at some point out the window, with a curious look on his face and a strange glint in his grey eyes, “Probably a fair amount of three-year-olds, too…”

“What?” Evelyn asked, tilting her head.

“Nothing, just talking rubbish as usual.” James returned his attention to the screen. “Still funny, though. I didn’t think they were due to turn up here for at least another two of our months, anyway…I wonder what they’re up to? Or what’s happened, either way.”

“Wait, wait,” Evelyn said, putting down her Starbucks cup and looking at James, excitement written all over her face. “You’ve talked to Greys? Actual Grey aliens?”

“‘Talked’ isn’t the right word,” James answered. “They speak telepathically, and can pick up thoughts when one’s taught how to aim, for lack of a better word. But yes, I’ve spoken to them. To their leader, in fact — how science-fiction of me!” He paused to giggle for a few moments. “Yes, I’ve spoken to their head honcho. Delightful chap, really. Very co-operative, and very curious about music, as it was. Human music, I mean. Had a taste for the Manic Street Preachers, if I remember rightly.”

“When…” Arthur’s voice was rather faint, and he swallowed before continuing. “When was this? Recently?”

“Oh, no. Six months before I started the agency. I was working with the federal government at the time.”

“So things like the Majestic-12 and all that are real?” Evelyn’s eyes were wide.

“Not in this country, no, they’re not.” James stretched his long legs out beneath the desk and frowned at the screen. “I don’t know what they call the people who are supposed to deal with extra-terrestrial affairs — probably ‘the Bureau for Extra-Terrestrial Affairs’, knowing how creative those sods are. There are no coverups, either. The Greys are careful, and the government is even more careful. It’s quite ridiculously easy to manage, really. I don’t know why the Yanks make such a damn fuss, if MJ-12 does even exist. Men in Black. Give me a break.”

“You worked for the Bureau of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs, then?” Evelyn asked.

“No, actually.” James smiled. “I was just pottering about photocopying and filing random garbage. This was shortly after I got kicked out of law school, you see. A regular Boy Friday. Or is it Man Friday? Or can you even twist the Girl Friday epithet around for male secretaries? I’ll have to find out…”

“Then how did you…?”

“Well, their leader — Ceirn, he decided to call himself, I’m not sure why — picked me to talk to everyone. That is to say, I had the most susceptible mind for telepathic communication. I was quite chuffed. Walked around with a swollen head for a good month.”

“Only a month?” Evelyn snorted into her coffee.

“What was that, Ev dear?”

“Nothing.” Evelyn took a sip, and gave James as angelic a look as she could muster over the rim of the paper cup.

“Yes, rather.” James smirked back at her.

“So the…the Greys. They’re…” Again, Arthur cleared his throat before continuing. His knuckles were white around the handle of his mug. “Like on the telly. Classic Greys. I suppose. I mean, how they look and all. Ugly and such.”

“Well, as ‘classic’ as Greys can be, I suppose,” James replied, looking thoughtful. “They are indeed grey. Their skin is very smooth and soft — rather like a dolphin’s. Quite pleasant to the touch, actually. They’re rather slender, and very tall, anywhere from seven to nine foot, I’d wager. They have the big, dark almond-shaped eyes, all pupil, no whites or iris. Tiny mouth that only moves rarely. Long-limbed, long graceful fingers. I wouldn’t call them ugly, myself. Odd to human eyes, yes, but not ugly. Here, I’ll dig up a picture or two I have on file.”

Arthur swallowed hard. “Uh, no, I think, it’s all right, I can imagine–”

“Show us, go on!” Evelyn bounced on the tips of her toes, watching as James clicked through folders and files and entered another password. “They sound rather…elegant, actually. Do they wear clothes?”

“Yes. Sort of a skintight jumpsuit. Or a wetsuit. Here we go!” With a double-click on the mouse, a face — huge dark eyed, grey-skinned, and curiously emotionless and yet emotional at the same time, flooded the screen.

“Oh…that’s the leader, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed. Ceirn.”

Evelyn stared in wonderment, and sighed a little. “I was right, he is elegant! And those eyes…forever eyes. How strange! How really strange! And they use our–”

Her words were cut off by the muffled noises of a body slumping to the floor and a coffee mug hitting the carpet and spilling its contents, the handle breaking off as it impacted and leaving a nasty gash across Arthur’s palm which began to bleed fiercely. His lips were dry and his face was moon white.

Evelyn and James just stared down at their co-worker’s prone form for a few moments, out of shock or confusion, neither knew. Evelyn was the first to find her voice.

“D’you think…d’you think he might be a bit scared of Greys, maybe?”

“See? See there?” Evelyn leaned over and pointed with a glittery green fingernail to the blemish on the pendant. “Right on the edge, sort of.”

“I can see a lot of emerald glitter, but not much else. Ev, take your finger out of the way, I know where it is.”

Evelyn huffed, but stopped pointing. James squinted through the eyepiece, and then nodded.

“It’s an illusion setting. That’s where–”

“I know what an illusion setting is. Do you really have to go all encyclopaedia about everything?”

“My apologies, bad habit. Anyway, there are no diamonds — cheap cubic zirconias, actually, but let’s not quibble — around the rim of the pendant, it’s just part of an illusion setting. One of the “illusions” doesn’t line up with its fellows.” James snorted. “Very cheap, to be totally honest. She must have really loved you a lot.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

With those gunshot words the mood in the room changed with the speed of a slamming door. James stood blinking owlishly, letting the pendant and its chain fall from his fingers and back onto the desk.

Evelyn stood straight up where she was, trembling, staring at the ground.

Arthur stood up hesitantly, and reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder. “Evie…I…I mean, we…”

“Sorry,” Evelyn croaked out, ducking out of the way of his hand and picking the necklace up off the desk. Her hands were visibly shaking. “Sorry, just…a bad day. Going to get some coffee. Back soon.”

Shoving the necklace in the pocket of her coat, she whirled about and was out of the office, the door closing behind her far, far too quietly.

Arthur let out a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding and sunk back into the couch, looking wearily at James, who still seemed rather…not shaken, really, but shocked. Surprised that things had gone down the way they did. Arthur ran his hands over his face and sighed, again.

“You know, she really is going to kill you one of these days, if you keep pulling stunts like that?”

“Stunts like what?”

Arthur snorted. “Come off the grass, James. You’re not an idiot.”

“Thank you, babe.” James seemed to have regained some of his equilibrium, and sat backwards on the computer chair, leaning against the back of it.

“Dear god I wish you’d stop calling me that, it’s making thing extremely bloody awkward when we work outside the office, you know. Even the Greys have started raising their eyebrows, and they don’t have eyebrows to raise!”

James shook his head. “To call it a ‘stunt’ implies that I had it up my sleeve all along.”

“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on. Everything you say has been up your sleeve all along. Your brain works like a fiend.”

“Should I be insulted by that?” The other man quirked a smile.

“People who are insulted usually aren’t grinning like they just won the Premiership League.”

“Mm. Point there. But Ev won’t kill me. Well, let’s say I’m almost completely sure she won’t kill me. Ninety-nine point nine-nine, as they say. Anyway, if she does, I have a plan written up — the yellow papers, right at the back of my top desk drawer.”

Arthur frowned and held up a hand. “Wait, wait, wait — you’re ninety-nine per cent sure she won’t kill you, and yet you have a plan written up in case she does?”

“Oh, it’s not specifically for her killing me,” James replied, the picture of lighthearted conversation, like they were speaking about something like the football or the weather or something else that didn’t require…well…thinking about what you’d do if someone was to murder you, more or less. “It’s for anyone killing me, really. Basically, if you come to work on Monday and find a dead James on the premises, it simply details the next steps you can take to avoid arrest. Even if it was Evelyn who was the culprit.”

Arthur’s jaw dropped. “…you are diabolical.”

“Thank you!” Grey eyes sparkled with genuine pride.

“No, that wasn’t — oh, for God’s sake.” Might as well give up while my sanity’s still intact. “But if I knew for sure that Evelyn killed you, I’d turn her in, James.”

Again, James snorted derisively. “Oh, you bloody would not. What was it about pulling the other one?”

“Of course I would! Do you think I wouldn’t have the balls to?” Arthur frowned. “I mean, yes, I’d be gutted, but it would be easier on her in the long run.”

“Pull. The. Other one. Babe.”

“I thought I–”

“It’s got nothing to do with balls or what’s easiest on Ev, and you know that. Frankly, you’d never let her be indicted or even so much as suspected.” James raised an eyebrow at him, as if this was perfectly obvious. “We both know that.”

“Really? I wouldn’t? Don’t you think after three years of this, I’d just let it happen?”

“Of course not. Not with Ev, anyway. Tends to happen when you’re head over heels in love with someone.” James picked up some of the filing left on the desk and began shuffling through the papers.

All of a sudden, Arthur found it extremely hard to breathe. Or even think.

“I suppose I’d better get the paperwork for the Hedrington-whatserface’s case put away somewhere where we can get to them easily. I think we’ll be referring to them quite a bit.”

When the world righted itself, fell over once more, and then righted itself once again, he croaked out, “Wh…wait, what did you just say?”

“That I’m putting Genevieve Hedrington’s files where we–”

“No, before that. I’m in love with Evelyn?”

James looked up from the papers with a somewhat anguished look on his face. “Oh, dear. I’ve done it again, haven’t I?”

“Done…done…” Thinking straight. Talking straight. It’s just not happening.

“Blurted out something which I thought was blazingly obviously to all and sundry, but it turns out I’m the only one who’s noticed it. Damn. I really have to stop doing that.” James shook his head, then brightened up. “It does make for great conversation starters at cocktail parties, though.”

“We don’t go to cocktail parties,” Arthur rasped out.

“All more’s the pity, really.”

“Right, so that’s…three letters for me, all from someone with the same shocking handwriting…I think the landlord has tracked me down…bills for you, Evelyn, all overdue, I’m guessing–”

“I absolutely loathe you.”

“–no, you don’t — aaand…a postcard for you, Arthur.”

“Wha…a postcard?”

“From your darling older brother. ‘Sorry, forgot your home address so might as well send it here.’ He’s in Corsica at the moment, or so he says.”

“Corsica?!”

“Are you going to repeat everything I say this morning, or is this some kind of rare tic which has developed overnight that I should be more sympathetic towards?”

Evelyn unceremoniously plunked a mug of hot black coffee in front of James, and shot a laser-beam glare of withering disgust towards him while she did so. He returned fire with a wither-proof, 100 watt smile back towards her, completely insincere.

“Stop talking, drink your coffee. From now on, you can stay here and deal with the system start-up and all this garbage instead of fetching the physical mail if you’re going to be such a pain in the backside.”

“I’m not a pain in the backside. I’m lovely.”

“I really do loathe you, you know!”

“And once again, no, you don’t,” James replied with a smile, sincerely amused this time — at what, God only knew. “Isn’t that right, Arthur?” he called over his shoulder into the depths of the office. There was a muffled thump, a sound rather like a pile of un-filed paperwork falling onto the floor, and a bitten-off curse hissed between teeth.

“Goodness gracious,” James said, mildly. “You all right in there, babe?”

“I’ve got your coffee out here, Arthur…” Evelyn called, setting the mug down at the man in question’s desk. “It’s just Nescafe Instant, hope you don’t mind too much. I know you hate Starbucks and all.”

“Corsica…?!” A melancholy, agonised moan floated back. James raised one dark eyebrow.

“Oh dear. I think it’s going to be one of those mornings. Again.”

“And you’re no help,” Evelyn snapped, sitting down at her own desk, crossing one leg over the other and sipping viciously at her own mug of caffeinated goodness. “Once more. I. Hate. You.”

“And once more, you certainly do not. It’s all in the face.”

“How do you know I don’t hate you?” Evelyn snapped, rolling her chair back from her desk and attempting the laser glare once again. “You cannot bloody know for certain that I don’t hate you simply by looking at my face, you piece of work.”

“I certainly can,” James replied, turning his face and his attention to the illuminating (far too slowly, it was ridiculously old and blurry) computer screen in front of him, and, with an almost casual flair that made Evelyn want to grit her teeth, punched in his personal password.

“You can’t! You absolutely can’t! How could you do that?!”

“Have you ever heard of ‘micro-expressions’, my dear? They are the involuntary facial–”

“If you keep talking,” Evelyn growled, “I will throw something at your face. Preferably something heavy or dangerous. And seeing as I’m currently sitting at a desk with three horrible gift paperweights and a mug of hot overpriced yuppie latte, I would weigh my options carefully, if I were you. You bloody git. Why the hell am I working with you, again?”

“Because I’m simply lovely.”

“ARGH!”

“Aren’t I, babe?”

“I can’t believe that lazy bastard’s in bloody Corsica…!!” Another thump, and a wail of someone who has had enough of Monday mornings to last him a whole lifetime.

“Business as usual,” James smiled, and sipped his coffee.

I have very little idea as to who these three are. I have no idea what they’re doing, or why they’re all working together, or why Arthur’s brother is in Corsica while he has to deal with a Monday morning at the office (poor thing). I…guess I’ll find out the more I write! Welcome to StoryADay May, folks! ¯\(°_o)/¯ (Good grief, I love my job.)