Fall: a ROCK SOLID romance by Karina Bliss

Author:Karina Bliss [Bliss, Karina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Karina Bliss
Published: 2016-11-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Seth walked back to the car feeling more optimistic than he had in a long time. A weight had lifted off his mind last night. He and Mel had reached an understanding, he and Dimity were working toward one, and even his father’s impatient glance at his watch wasn’t going to dampen his optimism that good things happened in threes.

“Finished making a spectacle of yourselves?” said Frank.

“For the time being,” Seth answered affably. The next move was Dimity’s. Hopefully, he’d piqued her curiosity. The hug had been a strategic error on her part—it told him she was intrigued. They could have a lot of fun if she bent the rules. And fun had been seriously lacking in their lives over the past few months.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you replaced Mel with a trophy girlfriend,” Frank remarked, when Seth didn’t bite.

“Get to know Dimity before you judge her, Dad. There’s a whole lot more to her than looks.” He tried to think of something his father would be impressed by. “I’ve never met anyone who works harder.”

“For God’s sake, don’t you start.”

“Didn’t you just have a love-in over your workloads?”

“Never mind, just drive.”

The atmosphere at the offices where Seth had interned through his engineering degree and worked after he’d graduated was warm and friendly, despite the air-conditioning always dialed a couple of degrees too chilly. His father softened when he walked into the place. Seth had forgotten that.

He noticed immediately that the pot plants were fake. Yvonne the office manager told him she’d threatened to quit if the live ones weren’t given to a good home. “You were the only one who cared about them,” she said, when they were standing in reception. “I felt like they died a little every time I went near them. It got too depressing.”

Through the slimline blinds of his old office he could see Jeff, wearing a suit and tie, on the phone. Looking harassed, he waved hello before returning to his call. There but for the grace of rock ’n’ roll go I.

Seth had enjoyed the job in an I-trained-for-this kind of way, but he’d ripped off his tie every night. It had always got tighter over the course of the day. And overtime had felt like a jail sentence.

When he thought of the hours he put into the band, a forty-five-hour week at Curran Engineering seemed like a walk in the park. He’d caught maybe five hours sleep a night on tour and still bounced out of bed every morning. I made the right choice.

As soon as Yvonne announced he was in the building, Seth found himself besieged. He spent half an hour in the staffroom looking at recent family photos on people’s phones, having selfies taken and signing autographs. Everyone was delighted that “one of our own” had gone on to glory.

His father slipped away after five minutes. Otherwise, nothing had changed. The coffeemaker still made god-awful coffee, the fridge was still full of lunch boxes with name tags, and he could still match every mug to its owner.

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