Free The Home for Broken Hearts by Rowan Coleman Page B

Matt, and just between you and me, you should ask Carla out for a drink—she’s been eyeing you since you got here.”
    Matt watched as Lindsey strode back to the set, slipped a tie over her head, then handled her fellow model like she was assessing the ripeness of a pair of melons.
    “So are you cured?” Pete asked.
    “Cured of what?” Matt said.
    “Glamourous models.” Pete nodded at the girls, who frolicked with each other with a most professional élan. “Today was your treat—your story to tell your mates back home—but your job is to be an average bloke and write about things average blokes want to know about, cars, footy, bands, gadgets, and how to get girls, and on a weekly like
Bang It!
that means you’ve got to get cracking today. We’ve got to get to a features meeting now; don’t go in without any idea or your new god and our editor Dan’ll rip you to shreds. You’ll need to have uploaded all your copy, which means your column and two features to the features folder by Wednesday. We put that magazine to bed on a Thursday, we get bladdered on a Thursday night, and on a Friday we start all over again. So remember, even though your job is to be the average bloke, you’re not. Average blokes don’t spend all day around naked women, they spend all day thinking about them—which is why our magazine is the field leader in the weeklies and the boss liked your column so much. So you know where you stand right until your probation is up? Work like a bastard or get dropped, there is no in between.”
    “Yeah—of course, I’m up to it,” Matt said with a bravado that he didn’t quite feel. “I’m stoked that I’ve got a chanceto write for a national magazine. I’m going to give it my all, Pete—I swear.”
    “Good. Let’s get back to the office then and get you doing some real work.”
    While he waited, Matt noticed Carla leaning against a windowsill, powder brush in hand, the midday light igniting a fiery halo around her hair. She was about his age, maybe a couple of years younger, slender, with a nice figure under her shirtdress. Okay, it was only his first day here and he had to move into his digs later, but apart from the other articles he had to write, he needed to have his first installment of his column ready in two days—he needed some material. He could recycle something old, or make something up, but Pete had just made it perfectly clear that he needed to impress from the start, and what could be more impressive than bagging his first London date on the day he arrived. Perhaps hitting on a girl through work was a bit of a cheat—a bit lazy—but Matt’s motto was always to strike while the iron was hot. Never pass up an opportunity, he lectured his regular readers.
    “Hiya.” He approached her, his smile warm and friendly—open and casual.
    “Oh, hi.” Carla looked him briefly in the eye before studying her chipped fingernails.
    “This is all a bit mad, isn’t it?” Matt nodded at the models. “You’d think it’d be a turn-on, but to be honest, I’m more interested in a bit of mystery, someone who’s a bit less obvious.” Matt noticed a smattering of freckles scattered across the bridge of Carla’s nose. She had painted her fair lashes black but he could just see their natural pale gold right at the very roots, just where they met the near-translucent skin of her eyelids. It was these small vulnerabilities that really drew him to a woman, not how she was built or how she looked. It wasn’t the tricks a girl used to make herself look better that Matt went for, it was the frailties that she failed to hide that really touched him. They all had them, even Lindsey from Doncaster, for as much as she’d caught him offguard with her easy bravado, it had been the white patches behind her ears where she failed to fake-tan that Matt had especially liked about her.
    “You don’t really think that.” Carla looked skeptical, her light gray eyes narrowing. Matt tried to imagine