Erotic Refugees (37 page)

“
And what about my desk
then?” she said, looking around with a frown. “Where am I supposed
to sit?”

“
Jaysus Karen, what do ye
want a seat for, ye'll never be here!”

“
Well I don't know about
that. I mean, if it goes well, I might have to move to Stockholm.
And I'll have to bring Preben with me of course, and he's not
small. Unless you'd prefer I dump him, so you can save
space?”

Rob scowled. “Be nice to our
salesman. Keep him happy and satisfied.”

“
Oh so you're my pimp
now, is it? Telling me to be nice to boys for profit? The mother
will be thrilled to hear that.” Her gaze settled on Eoin. “So how
often do you plan to be here? Maybe we can share your
desk?”

“
I'll be going down in
hours at my job pretty soon,” Eoin said. “And that means I'll be
here one full day a week. Maybe two if I beg nicely. I'll be broke,
but it'll be worth it.”

They heard a scraping and
bumping from the lobby. Moments later Milly appeared, dragging some
large rolled-up thing behind her. She shook her head with a brrr
sound.

“
I hope you all realise
it's snowing out there.”

Eoin and Rob shared a look
before dashing to the window.

“
Brilliant,” Eoin said,
as he pressed his face to the cold glass.

“
You can always tell the
new ones fresh off the boat,” Milly said. “Amazed by a bit of snow.
Here Karen, give me a hand with this.”

They unfolded and stretched out
the banner to its full width. Rob walked around to the front to
have a look at it.

“
Isn't that the same one
from the launch party? With the 'dating' part of 'dating dirt'
removed?”

“
Sure is! Thrift is my
middle name, don’t you know. And here we'll write 'design' in
equally gaudy letters and voila, our company logo!”

“
Dirt Design?” Eoin said,
turning away from the fluffy snow. “That's not terrible I suppose.
And we can even keep the shovel. Nice.”

“
Thanks.” Milly blew a
strand of hair from where it had stuck to her nose. “Well I don't
plan to take this jacket off so I'm going. Anybody interested in a
celebration dinner? I'm sure the company budget could stretch to
the Indian on the corner.”

“
Now wait a second,” Eoin
protested. “Our funds are limited, and we can't go spending it all
on food and drink before we've even bought anything useful. I mean,
chairs and shelves aren't free—”

“
Well now,” Rob said.
“Who died and made you chief accountant?”

“
You're very welcome to do it if
you want,” Eoin said as he sat back down at his computer. “We'll
have tax papers to fill in too. I'll show you where they are. You
have a pen with a lot of ink handy?”

“
Oh come on now, Lord of
the Wallet,” Milly pleaded. “I would add a 'please' if I thought it
would help.”

Eoin sighed. “Alright then, but
just a hundred and fifty crowns per person.”

“
Great!” Karen said.
“I'll just powder my nose and we'll go.”

“
Which will give me time
to say hello to the neighbours,” Milly said. “I'm assuming you
haven't done that, being men and all. Well go on, get your coats
on!”

Rob, as he passed Eoin’s
screen, caught a glimpse of multiple browser tabs being quickly
closed. He stopped, and leaned closer.

“
Well now then, what ye
up to?”

“
Oh nothing,” Eoin said,
in the voice he used when he most definitely was up to something.
“Just, you know, some basic stalking.”

“
Stalking?” Rob said, his
interest tweaked.

“
It’s nothing, just a
girl on Diamond Date. I have her name and her age and her star
sign, so I’m just tracking her down. See what she really looks
like.”

“
Ah right,” Rob said.
“Cool. Um, how?”

Eoin looked around to see who
was listening. “Okay, look. I just check her on the birthday site,
since I have her name and age and the star sign gives me the month,
right? That usually gives me a few hits, depending on how unusual
the name is. Then I check each one of these on Facebook and if I’m
lucky she’ll have used the same photo. Or I google her Diamond Date
username as a last resort. That works sometimes, since people often
use the same name all over the net.”

“
Huh,” Rob said. “Seems a
bit of a pain in the arse, having to go through that whole thing
every time you want to stalk a bird. I mean, if there was one place
you could go to and do it all, that'd be much better. Just fill in
her info and it would automatically go out to all those sites and
scan them…”

Rob’s eyes glazed over and his
mouth hovered in the open position. Eoin glanced at him, and Rob
glanced back, his eyes full of mischief.

“
You thinking what I’m
thinking?”

“
I think I might be,”
Eoin said. “I’m thinking we make a website to do that work for us,
and then we sell it to people. Total stalking for the busy modern
professional!”

“
And an iPhone app too.
Plus Android.”

“
Well, naturally there’ll
be apps.”

Rob’s frowned in concentration.
“What do we call it though? Date-stalk? I-stalk? Stalk-her?”

“
No ‘stalk’, something
friendlier. Ferret, or something like that.”

“
Ferret? That’s your
example of ‘friendlier’?”

Karen emerged from the bathroom
and started pulling on her complicated jacket with all its zips and
buckles. She gave them a shifty look.

“
Planning to take over
the world again, boys? And with badgers, from the sound of
it.”

“
Well somebody has to,”
Rob said. “World won’t take over itself, you know.”

Karen shook her head. “That
doesn’t even mean anything Rob. And I used to think my older
brother was so wise and brilliant. Oh, the misery of age.”

Milly made her re-appearance,
prompting Eoin to lock his computer and pull on his jacket.

“
We’ll get on it later,”
Eoin muttered.

“
Damn right we will,” Rob
said.

Milly gave them a suspicious
look but let it slide.

“
Well, get your jacket
on, Rob, it's Indian!”

“
Um, well,” Rob said.
“I'm not going to eat. I've got a thing, that needs doing. Somebody
should be gettin' an apology. And I shouldn't keep her
waiting.”

Milly winked broadly at him.
“Ah, I see. Best of luck then Rob. See you tomorrow.”

“
Yip,” Rob said, and gave
a salute. “Tomorrow it is.”

Rob waved them out. When the
door closed he turned and surveyed the room, nodding in
satisfaction. He would indeed see them tomorrow, and the day after,
and for very many days more. These were his partners now and this
was his company, built from nothing but bluster and luck, and
hopefully going places.

And that all felt very nice
indeed.

The meeting with Kajsa had been
Rob's idea. He’d wanted to apologise for suspecting her, and also
thank her for showing up at the party to warn him about Linus. He
figured an apology was the least he could do.

But a drink turned into a few
drinks and that turned into a pizza at a tiny place on the corner
overlooking the darkening water. That in turn led to them taking
the same train home, and watching the snow as it drifted onto the
buildings of the old town, covering everything in a soft blur of
glitter.

At that point Rob decided he'd
have to walk her to her door just because it was dark, and it was
close to where he lived, and the city, on occasion, could be
dangerous. Just to be nice, and nothing more than that.

He followed Kajsa inside her
building and stood there in the hall. He watched the snowflakes on
her hood as they melted and turned into sparkling drops of water.
She smiled politely and nodded.

“
Well Rob, thanks for the
pizza. And for walking me home. I'll see you.”

“
Yeah,” Rob said. “See
you.” But he didn't move. He stared in fascination at the melting
snow, watching the drops as they ran from her collar and down the
curve of her jacket. He looked up and watched her cheeks as they
lost their ruddy winter glow and grew soft and pink. But still he
wasn't moving.

Kajsa bit her lip and nodded.
“Well, I'll be off then, up the stairs to my flat.” As she spoke
she extended her arm and opened her hand. “Just let yourself out,
you know how it works.”

Rob swallowed. He stared at the
hand, at the pale fingers that he knew so well, at the rounded
nails with the sloppy purple varnish.

“
Yeah, I guess I'll do
that then. See ya.” He lifted his right hand and slid it into hers.
She closed it and parted her lips in a sly smile, then turned and
made her way up the stairs, pulling Rob after her.

“
But you remember the way
to the tunnelbana,” she said, taking the steps at a lively pace.
“Out the door, walk five minutes, turn right?”

“
No problem. I know this
city like the back of my hand.”

Kajsa paused at her apartment
door. “Okay, that's good. Just be careful on the way home.” She
released his hand for a moment to fumble for her keys. She unlocked
the door in a hurry, tossed the keys into her bag, and shoved the
door open. Rob led them inside and pulled her in after him.

“
So what’s there to watch
out for?” he whispered.

“The weather,” she said. Her breath was
urgent as she took a step closer to him, pressing herself right up
against him, so close that the only scent in the world was her.

“It's terrible weather out there you
know.”

“
Well let me tell ye one
thing I learned in Sweden.”

Rob slipped one hand around her
waist as the other started undoing the buttons on her jacket. The
jacket slipped off and fell to the floor, and Rob pressed his mouth
to her bare neck, drowning in her delicious scent.

“
There isn't any bad
weather, is there? Just bad clothes.”