Free Screwing the System by Josephine Myles

coming up, but that’s not till the beginning of May.” He had to see Alasdair again before then. “If you wanted, I could come around sometime next week. You know, when you’re not so busy.”
    Alasdair nodded once, but his face had shuttered down again. “I need some time to think things through, but I’ll call you in a few days.”
    “Not gonna give me your mobile number?”
    “I’ll call you,” he repeated, stony-faced.
    Well, it wasn’t like Cosmo had never had the brush-off before, but he hadn’t been expecting it quite so soon. Not after Alasdair had been so impressed with the singing and all. Still, it wouldn’t do any good getting wound up about it. It had only ever been a hookup, right? It wasn’t like he cared about the bossy fucker, and Alasdair was old enough to be his dad, which wasn’t a great basis for a relationship.
    Cosmo’s heart told him he was full of shit.
    “I should be going,” he said. “It’s been fun, but I’ve got stuff to do too.”
    Alasdair gave a twisted smile that looked all wrong on him. “Off screwing the system again?”
    That stung. Bastard, using Cosmo’s own words against him. But he manned up and smiled back, even though his face felt tight. “That’s right. I’ll be sticking it to the man.”
    “I’ll call you a taxi,” Alasdair offered. “My tab.”
    “‘S’all right. I can walk to the bus stop.”
    “It’s tipping it down. Come on, don’t be a stubborn brat.”
    Cosmo was about to listen to his pride and turn Alasdair down but he remembered he hadn’t a clue where to get the bus back to High Wycombe from here, and it would take hours to walk it, and he’d come out without a coat. So he let Alasdair call the taxi, and when it pulled up outside, he pasted a bright smile on his face.
    “Well, might see you around sometime.”
    Alasdair just nodded. That was it, then. Cosmo turned to leave, but Alasdair grabbed hold of his shoulders and spun him around. The kiss that followed was gentler than before, and it felt horribly like a farewell.
    “Look after yourself, Cosmo.”
    Yeah, a farewell. Cosmo wasn’t going to risk making a fool of himself, so he followed Alasdair’s example and gave him a nod before dashing through the pouring rain into the back of the taxi.

Chapter Six
    Five days later, and Alasdair still couldn’t get Cosmo out of his mind. Five days! This was starting to feel like an obsession.
    He listened to his fleet manager’s report on the necessity of kitting out all company vehicles with sat nav and did his best to concentrate on the man’s droning voice. Wednesday afternoons were always a time for Alasdair to catch up with the supervisors for both the cleaning and disposal teams, along with his department managers, and he usually enjoyed the meeting. It was pretty informal, held over tea and biscuits around the coffee table in his office, as he figured this helped people to relax and tell him things they’d otherwise keep quiet about. It was good to know the nitty-gritty of what was going on at ground level, and he took pride in sorting out any reported problems before they became the cause of staff unrest. This week, however, it was proving difficult to summon up the enthusiasm to care.
    Eventually, he cut Sadik off mid-flow.
    “Tell you what, you come up with a full costing and an estimate of how many man hours they’re going to save, considering most staff know their routes like the back of their hands. If the figures don’t add up, I’m not interested.”
    Sadik pursed his lips but agreed to do so, and Alasdair wrapped up the meeting in record time.
    “Any other business? Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
    There were some surprised-looking faces around the table, including Mavis’s, but he held her stare, and she stood to leave.
    “Coffee in ten,” she muttered on her way to the door.
    Alasdair shut the door behind them all and pulled out his phone. There was Cosmo’s name and number staring out from the