Free When She Was Bad by Tammy Cohen

boy who’d once modelled for a high-street chain. Then in her last two years at university she’d gone out with an American exchange student and had even talked about moving out to live with him after they graduated, but somehow that had just fizzled out once he went back to Illinois. Only when she met Ewan Johnson on her first day in the office did she properly fall in love.
    And he’d seemed right up for it.
    That first day he’d made it his personal mission to show her where everything was, how to put paper in the printer without it being chewed up with a horrible grinding noise. He’d taken her out for a sandwich and given her the lowdown on who was who in the office. He’d warned her that Amira had a thing about the smell of Pot Noodle in the microwave and Paula got upset if anyone used her special mug.
    At twenty-eight he was four years older than her, but over the days and weeks following her arrival he’d deliberately allied himself to her as the younger element. They developed a signal that meant ‘meet in the kitchen for coffee’ and went out for a quick drink after work at least once a week. And though he hadn’t made a pass at her – yet – he flirted relentlessly.
    Yes, there were things she wasn’t entirely comfortable with. She’d grown up in a house where it was considered vulgar to talk about money but Ewan openly speculated about how much other people in the office were on, and how much he intended to be making by the time he was thirty. He drank too much and could be patronizing, like when he referred to Paula as an ‘old dear’ although she was younger than Chloe’s mum who would have been furious at that description. He was also cocky, insisting Charlie had the hots for him, although Chloe had never seen any indication of that. And he definitely had a chip on his shoulder about not going to university. ‘Come out owing £50K just so you can move back home with Mummy and Daddy and send CVs to people like me begging for a job? No, thank you.’
    But despite these niggles, she was smitten. When he turned his green eyes on her, she felt as if the rest of the world was just sliding away like one of those special effects where the outside edges blur into soft focus. He was good-looking, he made her laugh uncontrollably, and unlike most of her other friends, he wasn’t living at home with his parents but in a flat share in Clacton, which seemed to her the height of glamour. All of which accounted for why, when Gill – to whom, anyway, she had difficulty saying no – called her into her office after a largely uneventful three-month internship and asked if she’d consider staying on as departmental assistant at a salary she later overheard her father describe as ‘borderline exploitation’, she’d jumped at the chance. And why Rachel Masters’s unaccountable but evident dislike of her was so unsettling.
    ‘She hates me,’ she moaned to Ewan as they followed the others back to the office after that departmental lunch with Rachel, taking their time on account of Ewan’s leg feeling stiff – an old footballing injury, he’d once told her, which only added to his allure.
    ‘No, she doesn’t. She’s just straight-talking, that’s all. I like that approach. Makes a welcome change. Can’t be doing with all this “Let’s not say what we think in case someone’s feelings get hurt” business.’ Ewan put on a high-pitched voice that grated.
    ‘You just fancy her, that’s all.’
    Chloe kept her muscles tensed into a tight smile so he wouldn’t know how much it had cost her to say that. Her face ached from the effort of willing him to deny it.
    ‘Course I do. Every bloke in the building does. Well, apart from Charlie, and he doesn’t exactly count. She’s gorgeous . . .’
    Chloe made a noise she hoped sounded like a giggle, but inside, the arteries and veins that led to her heart were being tightened like guitar strings.
    ‘. . . for an old bird.’
    Ewan grinned, and it was