They Met Through Work

He never held down jobs for very long. It was because of his ‘quirky’ ways. But this time it was different; he’d been with Scholes & Son’s for over a year.

He met her on his first day. She was in the same room as the coffee machine and he’d spotted her whilst adding milk to his morning Nescafe. He couldn’t stop thinking about her after that and was ecstatic when his boss finally asked him to take some work to her. They hit it off straight away. He’d seen other men come away from her looking pissed off, cursing her name, saying she’d wasted their time, put them behind schedule, that it was about time someone replaced her. But it was never like that with him. Admittedly some days she could be tad temperamental, but he put that down to the stress of her job, the weight of her workload, how many people relied on her. But most of the time she was docile and obliging. His colleagues soon guessed something was going on: “Anyone would think you two were married the amount of time you spend in there.” That particular comment had made him smile. Made him dream.

He’d been on his way for a coffee refill the day he saw his boss hit her. He heard the shouts from halfway down the corridor and had arrived in the room just in time to see his boss’s fist rise into the air. His brain shook as the fist landed. After that it was one big blur. He was straddled over the body when the security guards arrived, his hands still clamped tight around his boss’s throat.

The new boss started the following week. The first thing he did was order a new photocopier. He wasn’t taking any chances.