The Birds and the Bees by Milly Johnson Page A

the time Matthew landed tomorrow, and also that she might burn off some of the hatred she felt for that red-haired gorilla.
     
    Adam did a sweep of the place an hour and a half later and saw that Stevie was still pounding away on thetreadmill. He almost felt sorry for her, before remembering it was her fault they were all in this position. He noticed that she was glaring in his direction and so he glared back. Then she suddenly buckled, lost her footing, tripped over her own trainer and fell on the treadmill, which transported her backwards, made her do a reverse roly poly then rudely deposited her with a thud on the floor. Buster Keaton couldn’t have choreographed it better. A couple of people started to come over to help, but they were mainly pensioners around at this time, and Adam beat them to it.
    His long legs thundered over to her. She was a customer, after all, and he had a responsibility to her. Even if she was the one who had wrecked his relationship with the most wonderful woman in the world, he still had his professional duty to do.
    ‘Are you awwwrrright?’ he asked, helping her up.
    When she realized who it was helping her up though, she shrugged him right off. People were looking at her and she felt a total idiot and, even though she knew it was a huge cliché, Stevie really did want the ground to open and swallow her up whole and get her out of there via an underground network. It was her own stupid fault, she knew, for not eating enough. In the past five days she had eaten little more than three bites of that ham and Brie panini, and was surviving mainly on the milky coffees she had been drinking on a half-hourly basis. It wasn’t as if the caffeine would interfere with her sleep patterns, because she wasn’t getting any sleep. As a result, she felt totally wired all the time, a condition not helped by the adrenalinesurging through her veins, generated by the anxiety of waiting for this week to be at an end.
    Now the only thing she could feel was embarrassment. People were going to go home tonight and say, ‘Ha ha, this woman fell off the treadmill today big time–it was hilarious,’ and just to add total humiliation to the mix, Bigfoot had tried to lift her up. Her nose felt clogged up and was swelling before everyone else’s eyes, and she wasn’t going to be eight stone and beautiful by tomorrow. She would still be plump, but with blonder, shorter hair and a big, fat, swollen, split-open, red nose. There was no way she was going to cry in front of him , though, however defeated she felt . In fact, thinking about it, this was his fault as well. If she hadn’t looked over and seen him staring at her, she would not have lost her running rhythm. Bloody Scottish jinx. Was he making it his new mission to screw up her life totally?
    ‘Let’s get you tae the First Aid room,’ Adam said.
    ‘I’ll fix it at homeb,’ said Stevie, cringing with embarrassment as a big splodge of nose-blood landed on the floor. She hadn’t a tissue or even a long sleeve, and was forced to accept the soft white hankie he offered her from his pocket. His best one too, he thought. He wouldn’t see that again.
    ‘Dank you,’ she said grudgingly.
    ‘Come and sit down for a minute.’
    ‘Doh. I just wand my bag and do go homeb,’ said Stevie, sniffing and then wincing because it hurt to do so. ‘I’b bring dor hankie back dext timeb.’ That is, if she could bear the indignity of everyone pointing her out as the in-house entertainment.
    She did look hellish pale, thought Adam, and a wee bit woozy. He would be failing in his duty if he didn’t advise her not to get into her car, even if home was just down the road.
    ‘I really don’t think you should drive for a wee while,’ he said, attempting to take her arm again. ‘Trust me, I’m Firrrst-Aid trained.’
    ‘I’mb fine,’ she insisted, pulling back as his hand made contact.
    ‘Well, I cannae force ye, of course,’ he said, holding up his hands in a