You Had Me at Halo(24)

Amy was looking at her strangely. “Why are you speaking so weirdly?”

Duh. That would be because Vince had gone AWOL somewhere in his own body and has left a dead girl to do the talking for him. What other reason could there possibly be? “Sorry, I guess the funeral threw me a bit,” she said instead.

A tight expression made its way across Amy’s mouth. “Yeah, well if you ask me it was pathetic, I mean all those people pretending Holly Evans was their best friend, and really they didn’t give a shit.”

“Like who?” Holly demanded before remembering she was meant to be Vince. “Not that I care of course.” But names and phones numbers on a postcard, please.

“Oh, you know.” Amy gave a vague wave of her hand. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about the funeral anymore. I want to get back to the conversation we were having yesterday.”

“You do?” Holly gulped. Okay, Vince, anytime you want to take over, just be my guest. Like really.

“That’s right,” Amy purred as she ran a long finger up Holly’s arm. “It’s not fair to tease a girl.”

“No,” Holly agreed with a croak as she tried to pull her arm away. “That wouldn’t be very nice at all.” And excuse me but did she always carry on like this in the work place? Because even though Holly and Todd had been dating for a year and were almost engaged, they were very careful to keep the flirting out of the office. As Todd had often said, there had been too many promising careers ruined by a bit of hanky-panky and a tape of hidden-camera footage.

“Why don’t you meet me tonight after my evening shift and we can talk about it properly?”

“Shift?”

“God, Vince, you’re so hopeless. Remember I started doing a couple of nights a week at The Fix? Just to pay some extra bills.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right.” Holly nodded her head as she suddenly recalled that Amy occasionally worked in the café down by the river. First time she had seen her there it had totally put Holly off her espresso and biscotti.

“So come in about nine, yeah.”

“Whatever.” Holly gave a Vince-like shrug of her shoulders.

“Cool.” Amy seemed absurdly pleased and started to lean in towards her.

Whoa, if Holly didn’t know better she would say that Amy was heading directly for her lips. Actually they were Vince Murphy’s lips, but the problem being somehow Holly was connected to them and she would rather sit in Level One for the next zillion years than have to kiss Amy Jenkins.

Besides, not that Holly was a big Vince fan, but honestly there was nothing wrong with the guy that a few manners and a dose of Man Tan wouldn’t fix. But Amy was a tart with a rough mouth and split ends. He could do much better than her.

Not Holly had any intention of telling him that, of course. In fact it would serve him right if she did let Amy kiss her. Perhaps he was shy around girls? Well if so, it probably didn’t matter since Amy appeared to have enough forwardness for the pair them. How could he like her?

Now she could feel Amy’s breath hot against her chin and Holly was just trying to decide whether to throw up or faint when the coughing sound came from behind them and Amy jumped away from her like a demagnetized piece of steel.

“Any reason why you’re not down doing the invoices for Mr. Jones?” A woman, who appeared to be Amy Jenkins’ supervisor, was staring down at them through an intimidating pair of bifocals. Thank goodness for that. Holly felt like she should be applauding (or perhaps groveling at the woman’s feet in gratitude) for her timely interruption and her stern discipline. Anyway, it had the desired effect and Amy went scuttling back to wherever Mr. Jones’ invoices were, faster than Holly could say “ten years of therapy.”

Okay, so that was way too close and Holly shuddered as soon as the supervisor had gone. I seriously thought Amy Jenkins was going to kiss me...I mean you...and speaking of you, Vince. What’s going on? Where are you?

There was still no answer and Holly felt a pang of worry worm through her. Why wasn’t he answering? As far as she could tell, answering back seemed to be one of Vince’s specialty subjects. This silence stuff was a bit...well...strange.

Seriously, Vince, could you please say something? Is it because of Amy? Because if it is then don’t worry about it. I completely understand that you didn’t want to talk to her. The girl’s horrible.

Then another thought occurred to her and Holly frowned. You’re not being silent because you did want to talk to her and were too embarrassed to do it in front of me were you? Oh man. This is awkward isn’t it? Just because I don’t like the girl, doesn’t mean you should feel bad about talking to her...though I’ve got to say I’m pleased the kissing never happened...but well...it’s your body. You should’ve just talked to her if you wanted to.

It’s a bit more complicated than that, Vince finally spoke and if it weren’t for the fact they were sharing a body, Holly would’ve almost hugged him.

You’re okay. I was worried about you. And, I guess I should apologize. I didn’t mean to screw things up for you. No wonder you’ve been so weird with me. I’ve been so caught up in my stuff that I didn’t really think it all through. It’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it?

Holly could feel Vince frowning. I know this isn’t your fault. But you’re right...it is a bit of a mess