The Spring of Second Chances - Tilly Tennant Page 0,2
breath, cracked it open and peered inside.
‘A key?’ She held it up, relief flooding through her. ‘What’s this for?’
‘For this place,’ Jack smiled. ‘I know you think it’s too soon to move in and I respect your decision, but I want you to feel as if you belong and that you can come and go as you please.’
‘Wouldn’t that be a bit weird and awkward?’
‘I don’t walk around the house in a gimp suit, you know. You won’t find me doing anything kinky if you call around unannounced.’
Phoebe giggled. ‘Now, there’s an idea…’
‘So, you’ll take it in the spirit in which it was intended?’
She reached to kiss him, that warm glow spreading through her again. ‘Thank you.’ As she pulled away and nuzzled into his embrace, a slow smile spread across her face. ‘I’ll call around tomorrow with the whips and chains,’ she whispered.
Midnight revved up the tiny car and watched it flirt across the shop floor as she let go. She turned to Phoebe with a grin.
‘You really couldn’t work anywhere else, could you?’ Phoebe asked with a wry smile.
‘Where else would I get paid for playing with toys all day long?’
‘You’re not actually supposed to play with them. Your job is to sell them so that other people – mainly the small people they were intended for – can play with them.’
‘Those funny little people who aren’t quite the right size and are always covered in sticky substances?’ Midnight asked.
‘Yes… commonly referred to as children.’ Phoebe made little speech marks in the air.
‘I’m testing. To make sure everything is play-worthy.’
‘Hmmm, I wonder if Steve would buy that.’
Midnight waved a dismissive hand. ‘What Steve doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’
Phoebe glanced up as a figure approached. ‘You’d better look sharp; otherwise he will know in the next few seconds!’
Midnight leapt to her feet. ‘That brain donor will have to get up early in the morning to catch me. In fact, he’d have to get up the night before and camp out.’
Phoebe stifled a giggle as he made his way over.
‘What are you two looking so cheerful about?’ Steve’s nostrils were flared in a way that suggested a permanent state of near-fatal high blood pressure. At first, Phoebe had been alarmed by this sight whenever she had the misfortune to witness it. But as the months progressed, she realised that this was actually her boss in a good mood. Steve in a bad mood looked like an atomic bomb ready to go off.
‘We love being here,’ Midnight replied with a cheeriness that Phoebe knew would set the Steve-bomb ticking. ‘We’re delirious as soon as we set foot in the door. In fact, when I say my prayers at night, I ask for an extra special favour from God. I ask him to please make sure nobody shoves a box of lit fireworks through the letterbox of Hendry’s toy store so that I can just have one more glorious day of working there.’
Steve’s jaw tightened. He seemed to be labouring for an appropriate reply but then abandoned the cause. ‘Is that doll display finished, as I asked you half an hour ago?’
‘Yup. I left Barbie and Ken doing a sixty-nine over the bonnet of a beach buggy.’
Steve snorted, his face transforming from crimson to a dangerous shade of puce. ‘You’d better not –’
‘The display looks great,’ Phoebe cut in, trying not to laugh. ‘Midnight has a real creative flair. You should give her the window dresser’s job.’
‘Her!’ Steve jabbed a finger in Midnight’s direction. ‘God only knows what gothic monstrosities we’d have in there. She’d have Frankenstein complete with bolts scaring the children half to death.’
‘The monster didn’t have bolts and he wasn’t called Frankenstein,’ Midnight fired back. ‘And I’m not a goth…’ she glared at him. ‘Ignoramus,’ she added under her breath.
‘What do you call that then?’ He flapped a dismissive hand at her purple hair. ‘Left to me we’d have a policy against that sort of weirdness in my shop.’
‘You’d be the first one to get sacked then,’ Midnight pouted. ‘And it’s not actually your shop. It’s owned by people who aren’t narrow-minded bigots with no concept of creativity or artistic expression.’
Steve opened his mouth to argue, hesitated for a moment, gaping like a basking shark waiting for a fishy feast, and then shut it, clearly deciding that, once again, he had no reply for Midnight’s assertions. Phoebe wondered whether he had even understood most of it. ‘Just get the place ready before the doors open.’