Famous Last, page 2
Highlander had climbed onto the concrete ledge housing the waist-high railing, stepped across, and now stood facing out to the river—and his doom. An odd sensation overcame Spencer then. A sudden rush of calm and an overwhelming emotion he had never experienced before had him jumping up from the bench. In doing so, he dislodged a glass champagne flute from the ice bucket, which shattered on the balcony floor, causing Highlander to spin around, grabbing the railing for support.
“Please don’t,” called Spencer gently and calmly, puzzled at the strength of his voice and suddenly aware that he had ripped off his mask entirely and stood in full view of the man.
One of Highlander’s feet slipped slightly, probably due to the residual frost. Fortunately, both hands maintained their firm grasp on the railing.
“You’re such an inspiration, Mr Highlander. If you’re about to do what I think you’re doing, it would be wrong in so many ways. Please. People look up to you. I do. And what is it you said on your show? ‘No problems are insurmountable in this world. Dialogue always helps even if only to highlight and appreciate our differences.’ You said those exact words to the Dalai Lama.”
“I say a lot of things—”
“And people listen. I say a lot of things and people don’t take the blindest bit of notice. Even my cat ignores me.”
Despite the potential gravity of the situation, Highlander’s shoulders shook slightly and Spencer heard a gentle chuckle.
“Tell you what, Mr Highlander—”
“Marshall.”
“Tell you what, Marshall, come and share a glass of champagne with me. Talk to me. And if you still feel like doing what I think you’re about to do, I’ll go back inside and pretend I never saw you. Of course, I’ll also never sleep through the night again, but I’m prepared to take that gamble. How does that sound?”
Highlander had gone completely still, staring out across the Thames. Spencer experienced a tremor run down his spine even though he found he had suddenly become immune to the cold.
“I must admit I never anticipated having an audience.”
“You won’t as long as you get down and join me now.”
“And you’re not going to cuff me, are you?”
“If I had handcuffs,” said Spencer, his mouth working independently of his brain, “and I promise you I don’t, I’d be using them to secure you to the bedposts of the metal bedframe in my bedroom, once I’d hauled you back to my flat, to cover your naked body in orange marmalade and whipped cream before having my wicked way with you.”
This time Highlander turned sharply to take in Spencer, a look of disbelief on his face, before letting out loud, steamy laughter into the night. He had a nice laugh, Spencer realised, not something the public got to hear often on his high-minded programme.
“Do you talk to everyone this way?”
“Just drop-dead gorgeous celebrities,” said Spencer, before placing fingers over his mouth, realising his terrible choice of adjectives given the situation.
After a few more moments of silence and after a deep heartfelt sigh, Highlander turned and began to climb back over the balcony. When Spencer moved forward to assist, Highlander held a hand palm up, warning Spencer away. Cooperating reluctantly, Spencer backed up a step.
As soon as Highlander stood on firm ground, Spencer rushed forward and threw his arms around him, held him tightly in a hug and buried his face in his chest. Without warning, sobs began to rise from inside Spencer, his body trembling, and in an odd turn of events, Highlander became the one comforting him.
“Hey, hey,” came the warm voice, a hand rubbing his back. “If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t have done anything. But sometimes I find an inner calm reminding myself of my impermanence. Consider it a momentary lapse in sanity.”
Spencer barely listened, his head buried in the shoulder of Highlander’s jacket, smelling the beautiful combination of spicy aftershave and skin.
“Who are you?” asked Highlander, gently pulling Spencer away from him and holding him at arm’s length while Spencer swiped quickly at his eyes.
“People call me Squirrel.”
“Why? Let me guess. Something to do with you being nuts?”
“Wow, that’s original,” said Spencer, straight-faced. Fortunately, he’d begun to calm down and enjoy Highlander’s—Marshall’s—fond scrutiny. Except now he also began to feel a little self-conscious at his teary display. “Not heard that like a zillion times before.”
“Now I think somewhere in your earlier appeal you promised me a glass of bubbly?”
“Okay, but can we please step away from the railing? Maybe sit down? But mind the broken glass on the floor. I dropped a champagne flute.”
Spencer moved across to the bench hidden behind the large bush. Spencer waited for Marshall to join him. Without being asked, he poured champagne and handed the glass over.
“Did you want something to eat? I could pop in and grab a tray of finger food.”
“I’ll pass, thanks. Champagne is enough. And the food didn’t look terribly appetising.”
“I know, right? Even my mother could do better, and she’s the world’s worst cook.”
“That’s a tad unkind.”
“It’s true, though. I remember coming home from summer camp once and my dad catching me at the door and saying ‘we had a lovely leg of lamb while you were away. Until your mother cooked it.’”
Marshall laughed again, and Spencer felt himself calming a little more.
“How long have you been out here?” asked Marshall, taking a good gulp then handing the champagne back to Spencer.
“About forty frozen minutes. A little before you appeared.”
Spencer took a sip before topping up and raising the glass to Marshall. As he handed the glass over, he pondered the rules on sharing drinks given the pandemic but then shrugged them away. If the man sitting with him had just survived a crisis of self, he could survive a shared glass of bubbly.
“Did you catch any of my conversations?” came the famous voice.
“I did,” said Spencer, feeling his face burning but keeping his eyes on the man. “Not much. I mean, don’t worry. I wouldn’t dare breathe a word.”
“Shit,” said Highlander, turning away and sighing out a cloud of steamy breath.
“No, really, Mr High—Marshall.”
Marshall’s attention returned, his eyes looking deep into Spencer’s. After a few moments, his gaze softened and he relaxed.
“No, you wouldn’t, would you? You’re one of those kind souls that people in my profession rarely get to meet. So what do you do, Squirrel? Shit, I can’t call you Squirrel. It doesn’t feel right. What’s your real name?”
“Spencer. Spencer Kenneth Wyrrell. S. K. Wyrrell. Hence, Squirrel. School was brutal. I’m not sure my parents even realised when they named me.”
Once again his words made Marshall chuckle, and he felt sure, or at least hoped, his dark moment had finally passed.
“What do you do for a living, Spencer?”
“I’m a junior copy and online editor. For Muriel Moresby’s magazine outfit, the Blackmore Magazine Group.”
“Poor you.”
“I know, right? I’m also the office gopher. But it’s full-time work and pays the rent. And I’m still employed despite what’s happening in the world. So I have to thank my lucky stars. Not exactly highbrow, like you, but it’s a stepping stone. Even if at twenty-nine I’m still on the first step.”
“To what?”
“At college I studied journalism. Once I’ve got enough editing experience under my belt, I’d really like to try out for one of the online dailies. Even though the competition’s vicious.”
“You write?”
“Not professionally. But I hope to, one day. In university I edited the student magazine and wrote articles. I even had a couple published by a local newspaper. And I did pretty well, too. Every person in this world, no matter how inconsequential they feel they are, should dream big. Isn’t that right?”
“Are you quoting me again?” asked Marshall, tilting his head to grin at Spencer.
“What can I say? You’re very quotable.”
And very shaggable, thought Spencer but kept that to himself. As he went to top up Marshall’s glass again, a mobile began to ring faintly. Marshall reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his phone. He let out a soft sigh after a glance at the display and handed the champagne flute back to Spencer.
“Looks like my ride’s here,” he said, standing.
Spencer put the bottle back in the bucket and stood as well. “I hope everything works out okay for you, Marshall. And promise me you’re going to use the lift to get to the ground floor.”
Marshall appeared confused for a moment but then stared at his shoes and chuckled while shaking his head.
“You’re a funny man,” he said before looking up. “And, yes, I promise to use the elevator. Sorry I worried you earlier. Goodbye then, Spencer. It was an unexpected pleasure meeting you tonight.”
Marshall held out his hand, and Spencer fit his own inside. Marshall’s strong, warm grip closed around Squirrel’s ice-cold fingers. The simple gesture of bare skin on bare skin had his heart beating faster, his cheeks heating, and even the beast in his underpants stirring. Marshall held his gaze for a moment before leaning forward and kissing a shocked Spencer firmly on the lips. When he released his grip and stood back smiling, Spencer simply stood there, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. An amused Marshall winked once before putting on his black surgical mask and disappearing into the penthouse apartment through the patio door.
Spencer stood staring at the dark glass, wondering what had just happened. His senses returning, he knelt to the ground and had begun clearing up the broken glass when the door slid open again. A figure stepped out carrying a flute of champagne and a large plate of canapés.
Finally. Bev, his colleague.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, Squirrel, honey,” she said, flustered then freezing when she saw him on his hands and knees, picking up shards of glass.
“Oh poop. You started without me. Did I miss anything?”
Chapter Two
Five minutes late for work, Spencer marched along the office corridor, using a cardboard tray holder to balance twelve various-sized, various-coloured metal containers filled with all kinds of exotic coffee or tea permutations from Muriel’s independent coffee shop of choice. Over one shoulder he had a bag containing her laptop computer and cables for hooking up her presentation. Monday morning meetings happened in the main conference room, a large boardroom space with a glitzy plaque bearing the word Magic on the door. Muriel started the first get-together of every week promptly at nine whether people were there or not, and very loudly named and shamed anyone who dared arrive late.
Feeling in an upbeat mood that morning, he had picked out a black shirt, black trousers and a shocking pink bow tie, with a matching pink belt and face mask—his friend who custom-made the bow ties and belts had also started a range of matching reusable masks. Together with Spencer’s thick-black-framed glasses, he considered his range of colourful bow ties and shirts his personal brand. Many of his colleagues had made their approval plain.
Not Muriel, though. Except when he made the very rare mistake, he might otherwise have been invisible. She referred to their first meeting of the week as her War Council, and every Monday morning the thirty-seater conference room became known as the War Room. Not difficult to guess that her retired husband, Lord Atherton Moresby, had once been in the armed services.
Worst of all, Bev had texted him that morning while he’d grabbed Muriel’s laptop, saying she was running late again and could he cover for her until she arrived.
With the tray balanced at chest height, he placed his back against the door to the conference room, took a deep breath and pushed.
Maybe the universe will be kind to me today.
“Spencer,” came the condescending schoolmarm tone of Muriel, the one person in the room who chose not to wear any kind of face covering. “Nice of you to finally deign to join us. Everyone’s gasping. Why is the simplest of tasks always a challenge for you?”
Or maybe not.
“Sorry, Muriel. Long queue outside the coffee shop this morning. Seems to be getting more and more popular.”
A close friend of hers ran the place, and he hoped the positive comment might negate his tardiness. He placed the tall spangly black canister down in front of her first before walking around the huge conference table placing drinks in front of each of those gathered.
“Really? I find that hard to believe. At eight o’clock this morning, when my driver took me past on my way into the office, the place looked entirely empty.”
Purposely not meeting her gaze, he began setting up the laptop. With the minimum of fuss, he laid the LED TV remote control and the stylish gold laser pointer next to her computer touchpad and stepped away. After tossing his switched-off smartphone into the small mesh cage in the middle of the table—one of Muriel’s house rules—he made his way down to his seat and sat among his all-female colleagues. Only Beverley’s seat next to his remained vacant.
“All done, Muriel. And your presentation’s loaded.”
Some of his colleagues questioned why Muriel had hired him. Perhaps, he told them, the head of Human Resources had suggested she redress the workforce diversity balance, although Spencer could not imagine anyone brave enough to tell Muriel what to do. Hiring someone like him, an openly gay male, would normally have ticked a few boxes. Except her son and prodigy, Blake Ulysses Moresby, had already bagged that title, even if he had never done so publicly. He had also bagged Spencer. After showing him the ropes during Spencer’s first week in the company, Blake had definitely gone the extra mile to make him feel welcome. Blake, the one who got away. Or rather, the one he’d never really had in the first place, who had charmed the pants off him—literally—before shunning and finally dumping him. Working in the same office had only ever been bearable because Blake spent so much time away on assignment.
“Finally.”
In his messed-up way, Spencer still fantasised about Blake and tended to hide whenever the boss’s charismatic son entered the premises. Blake had almost quoted him the Official Secrets Act when he cooled off their short-lived liaison. Spencer had been happy to oblige. Who wanted people knowing you had been dumped? Only Bev knew some of the story, the parts he felt less uneasy about. Muriel’s dislike of Spencer had been a slow progression long after they had cooled off. Even now he had no idea why. Her disdain had become the norm, something he expected and had learnt to shrug off.
“Do you need me to—?”
“Sit. Down. Spencer.”
Setting up presentations wasn’t really a part of his job. Prince had asked him to fill in on Monday mornings because Prince suffered from weekend-itus, an innate aversion to Monday mornings. The third of three males in the office, Prince provided all information technology support. If Spencer had ever wondered whether Muriel was a misandrist, her open and very vocal admiration of Prince had nipped that theory in the bud. Confident bordering brash, flawless looks and built better than most of the male models who adorned the pages of their magazines—move over Tyson Beckford—and completely straight, he had a captive audience in the office. For all their tough talk, many of the women went to pieces whenever he breezed up to their desks. Spencer had watched him being ogled by the staff as he knelt to the floor to plug in cables or leant across their workspaces in his tight designer T-shirt, his firm biceps, pecs and deltoids on display, to set up additional monitors or swap out a docking station, work he really ought to be doing after office hours. With the family name of Henry, Prince Henry was fittingly treated like royalty. Spencer often overheard the girls in the staffroom talking about having had a ‘royal visit’ that day which had naturally resulted in them having had a ‘royal flush’. From what Spencer could tell, although Prince flirted playfully with the female staff, he appeared to draw the line at dating any of them, a clear distinction between work and play. If only Spencer had consulted Prince before allowing Blake to jump his bones.
“Why is this stupid thing not working? What have you done to it?” asked Muriel, expelling a sigh after signing on and glaring at her laptop screen for a few moments while messing with the laser pointer.
Fortunately, Prince, whose older brother had married his male partner, had genuinely warmed to Spencer. As the only other male employee permanently in the office, they shared an unlikely affinity. Just as well, because Blake acted as though Spencer no longer existed.
“Point the TV remote at the screen and push the green button. If you want, I can come over—”
Somewhat clumsily, she prodded one of the buttons, and her presentation popped up on the giant flatscreen.
“Sometimes I wonder if he should be paying me to work here,” she muttered, providing a scowl for the benefit of the rest of her staff.
With any other person he might have countered with something like, ‘I couldn’t afford you’, but he knew how much she disliked backtalk, and she would only find a way to make his life that bit more difficult. Most of the women gathered grinned at the table at her remark, while a few sent sympathetic glances his way. Woe betide anyone who tried to defend him.
“And where, may I ask, is Ms Salvatore?” asked Muriel, staring pointedly at Spencer.
“Beverley will join us shortly.” When Muriel said nothing, waiting for a more comprehensive explanation, he floundered while ad-libbing an excuse. “She’s—uh—taking an urgent call from—uh—LMVP about their double-page advertising spread in the Christmas edition of Collective. Sounds like they still need reassurance.”
