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Ben’s sceptically raised brows, added, “My office has closed early for Christmas, actually, so I should make it.”
    “Really?” Ben said, his grin huge. “That’s fantastic! So, we’ll see you in The Dragon at six for drinks first, yeah?”
    “Six?” I frowned, thinking. “Well, I might have to sort a few work things out from home before I come out”—surely I could log on somehow?—“but I’ll try to get there ASAP.”
    Ben’s face fell and for a moment it was just like old times—me saying I’d be somewhere then letting him down. Except that, instead of him going off on one at me, this time he just sighed, then shrugged.
    “If you start working when you get home, I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other tonight—I know you, man.” He gave a little laugh and stepped back from me, grabbing Leon’s hand as he did so. “Listen, you have a good Christmas. Give your family big hugs from me and try not to work too hard? Maybe we can catch up in January, yeah?”
    I could tell he didn’t actually believe that would happen, and for some reason that brought a lump to my throat. Although Ben had left our relationship, it hadn’t felt as though he’d given up on me entirely. Not till right now.
    Back when we were together, Ben used to accuse me of being a workaholic. I always protested that he was wrong, pointing out it wasn’t my choice to work long hours—it was just the job. But he’d been right all along, and in truth, I’d known it, even back then.
    This was who I was. When I committed to something, I did so absolutely.
    I used to think it was a good thing.
    I cleared my throat and made myself speak. “Okay, if I don’t make it tonight, January it is.” I couldn’t believe how normal I sounded.
    “It was good to meet you at last,” Leon said.
    “Likewise,” I lied, forcing another smile. “Hopefully see you both later.”
    We said our goodbyes and turned away from each other, heading off in different directions, two cogs diverging once again.
    On the way back home, I determinedly set aside my miserable thoughts about Ben and decided to focus on something more productive. By the time I reached the—thankfully empty—flat, I’d come up with a plan to get access to my office desktop.
    Grabbing my laptop, I settled myself on the sofa, quickly logged on, and brought up Quicks’ remote working site. Usually I needed my work mobile to log on—it had an app that generated a code to give me access—but I figured the IT department had to have a workaround if I could get hold of someone by phone.
    I groaned aloud, as I recognised my first problem. I needed a phone.
    Thankfully, we had a landline—Freddy’s gran had a thing about being able to call Freddy on a “proper telephone number” and for some reason Freddy’s a major pushover when it comes to her nana—but where the actual handset was I had no idea.
    After searching for twenty minutes, I found it languishing in the middle of a pile of junk mail on top of the microwave, but there was no dial tone to be had. The fucker was dead, and I couldn’t even think how it was charged.
    Wait—landline. Oh yeah. The charging unit had to be plugged in somewhere. I trailed round the skirting boards till I reached the horribly overloaded multiple plug adaptor behind the TV. Sure enough, one of the snarled-up cables led to the handset charger, lying forgotten and dust-covered behind the bean bag in the corner where Freddy often lounged. Jamming the handset in to charge, I sent a prayer of thanks to Freddy’s nana.
    For the next half hour, I paced the room, waiting for the handset to pick up enough charge for me to make a call. When I finally got a dial tone, I immediately called the London office and demanded to be put through to IT.
    The harried-sounding IT Support assistant who finally answered my call—after ten minutes on hold—informed me that half the IT department were off with flu and the other half were run off their feet trying to