It was 8:32pm when she paged Fletch to her office, and it was 8:33pm when he knocked on the door and let himself in.
"And what can I do for you today, Ms Naylor?" Fletch teased as he pushed the door closed and crossed the room to her.
She scoffed, reached down under her desk and produced a small silver gift bag. It dangled from her fingers as she waited impatiently for him to take the hint and accept it.
With a creased brow, he took hold of the bag and set it down on the desk, drawing out the thin, black, vinyl cover inside. His pupils dilated as he slipped it out of the sleeve and saw what it was.
His jaw dropped and he dropped it onto a pile of paperwork before yanking Jac out her chair and forcing her into a tight embrace. He was squealing like an excited child who just got the bike they for from Santa, and she had her hands loosely wrapped around his torso.
"Ow, ow!" She exclaimed sharply as she squeezed her tighter. "Reminder I have a large gaping wound right underneath your left hand. Are you trying to break me in two?"
He released her from his firm hold yet did not step back.
"I can't believe you found it. I've been trying for weeks and nobody on Earth had a copy of this stupid record, then you find it in a matter of hours! Overachiever," he joked.
What she would not tell him, was the truth of how she had come to possess the record. She would not tell him of her confrontation with Frieda for giving him the original copy. She would not tell him that the registrar had handed her the vinyl on their way out of surgery without a word. She would not tell him that the beaming smile on his face right now was not hers to behold.
"Well, I made you a promise, and I am nothing if not a man of my word," he offered as he attacked every inch of her face with kisses, peppering her pale skin with them as he enunciated each peck with a loud, overexaggerated 'mwah' sound.
Eventually, he gave up, just slightly out of breath, and she laughed at him.
A silence fell over the pair. For a moment, Jac met his eyes with hers and wondered if somewhere, behind the hideously checked shirt he was wearing and the messy stubble, was a man she could be attracted to.
Jac became hyperaware of the dark room and the few inches between them. Instinct kicked in. She cleared her throat.
"Well we should listen to it, the final piece of the puzzle, and then this will be finished and we can put our grief to bed," Fletch reasoned, unafraid to confront her feelings as well as his own.
"And how, bright spark, do you suggest we do that? We have no player," she pointed out, and stepping backwards just slightly as she spoke.
"YouTube it! It's not the same, but it's what it means that really matters. Come on, humour me!"
He pouted at her with puppy-dog eyes and while she wouldn't normally give into him, she still had the taste of guilt stuck in her teeth from earlier.
She returned to her desk, sat and opened a YouTube tab on her browser, typed in the song title and clicked on it.
The song started to play and she stood, making a beeline for the door.
"Enjoy your little dance party, and remember to lock the door on your way out. I'll see you tomorrow, Fletch," she finished, pausing at the coat stand.
After that silence, that awkward moment of wondering whether what Becki had suggested, what Frieda had implied earlier was true, she needed to breathe air that wasn't filtered through his heady presence.
"Not a chance, Naylor. This is our little dance party and you are the guest of honour!" He approached her, tapping his feet to the rhythm of the music and outstretched his hands to her. "Come on, you know you wanna."
He danced towards her and she gawped at him, wondering if he was entirely serious in what he was doing. There was no way she was dancing, especially not to some hideous Mod track which was older than her, and especially not with him.
The song was truly pretty awful. Fletch was jiving enthusiastically to it and trying to coax Jac to join him. It was not happening, but he was trying never the less. He truly was the prodigal puppy. You could kick him a dozen times and he would still come crawling back to try again.
Simply to humour him, she started to bounce on her heels slightly. 'Dancing' certainly wasn't the word she would use for it, but it was all he was getting, and he ought to be grateful.
Laughing at her lack of enthusiasm, Fletch grabbed her hand and spun her around. He pulled her towards him and continued to hum along to the music as he dragged her through the 'dance'.
She loosened up, if only marginally, and allowed him to pull her around the office like a ragdoll. The way he moved his hips made her snigger, he truly was the archetypal Dad-dancer. She let him have his fun and as soon as the music stopped, she excused herself and headed for the door.
"Wait, Jac!" Fletch called, stopping her in her tracks as she pulled the door open. "Thank you for this, really, you know what it means."
As she left the ward that day, and headed home to her daughter, she tried to bite back the smile that curled up on her lips like a piece of paper which refused to lay flat. This evening had been nothing, it had been her repaying a friend for a mistake she had made. She repeated that conclusion to herself over and over again...when had he become a friend?
