Chapter Text
Fancy a drink after work? M x
Sophie tossed the phone back down on her desk and sighed. Did she want to go for a drink with Margo? Yes. Should she, for the sake of her sanity, say no? Yes. Sophie ran her hand through her blonde shoulder length hair and sighed again. God, this was getting ridiculous. I’m a bloody grown woman, she thought, I can deal with a crush. Ok, so I’ve never had a girl crush before, but so what?
Realising Margo was waiting for an answer, Sophie groaned and picked the phone back up swiftly typing a reply.
Sure, why not? Usual place? Fiveish?
She pressed send before she could change her mind. Coffee, she thought, I need coffee. Hopefully she could sneak past the ever helpful Rebecca and make the drink herself. She needed to get out of the office for five minutes, anything to take her mind off the tall, beautiful woman she had, for the last three years, only referred to as a friend. If she were honest with herself, her feelings for Margo had changed quite some time ago, but Sophie was nothing if not good at denial.
It had been raining when they met, but that wasn’t anything unusual. It was always raining in Boston. Sophie was the type of person that always wanted to be prepared, strived for it even. Unfortunately, no matter how hard she tried, it wasn’t always the case. The day Margo Banks walked into her life to stay, Sophie was late – again. She also didn’t have an umbrella, so her arrival at Natasha Murphy’s charity board meeting was going to be less glamorous than she would have hoped.
Sophie had been working with Natasha as a PR consultant for her women's charity since it launched three months earlier. Natasha had asked Sophie to help promote a new initiative the charity was introducing, providing practical support, mentoring and employment opportunities for women looking to rebuild their lives after experiencing hardship. Her suggestion of involving local businesses had catapulted Margo into Sophie’s world. She’d been on hand that day with an umbrella, which actually proved fruitless as they were twenty feet from the building and Sophie was already soaked to the bone. Nevertheless, Margo’s wide smile and bright, blue eyes had cooked Sophie from the inside out – she should’ve known then that this woman was never going to stay in the friend column. Sophie sat at her desk, empty coffee cup in hand, lost in the memory of that meeting outside Spencer House.
“Sophie, Hi! Are you heading for Natasha’s?”
She turned and saw a tall, smartly dressed woman stepping out of a taxi, and releasing the catch on her somewhat exuberant umbrella. Sophie smiled slightly, despite her sopping wet feet, as a fluster of recognisable cartoon characters shot out toward her. She remembered her vaguely from Natasha’s birthday party, the night being somewhat of a blur.
“I am.” She nodded. “It’s Margo, isn’t it?”
Margo nodded whilst shutting the door of the taxi and crossing to Sophie in three strides of her long legs.
“You look like you could’ve used one of these a while ago,” she said. At Sophie’s questioning look, she gestured to the umbrella with a slight incline of her head. “But better late than never, right?” And there it was, that smile.
Sophie knew now that the feelings she experienced that day were not what one experiences when making a new acquaintance, but that of attraction.
“Yeah, although even if it is rather late, I can say you’ve definitely brightened my day.”
Margo’s eyes flickered briefly with interest and her charming smile changed to a flirtatious smirk. Sophie realised at once how her remark must’ve sounded and quickly stammered, “umm the umbrella, I meant the umbrella.”
The woman’s laughter surprised Sophie. It was full and honest, not the usual polite chuckle, but from her belly. She recovered after a moment, that hundred-watt killer smile back in place as she offered a hand.
“It’s nice to see you again, Sophie. And the umbrella isn’t mine, well not really. It’s Noah’s, my nephew.”
Sophie returned the gesture by taking Margo’s hand in hers. Her skin was warm, smooth. Sophie offered her own smile at Margo’s explanation and introduced herself, her voice soft.
“Likewise. Noah is Kyle’s son. Have I got that right?” Sophie was thinking on her feet, hoping she was correct. It would appear rude for her not to know who she was referring to, when the woman seemed to remember her immediately.
Nodding again, Margo gestured toward the building. “Now, what say we get inside before we both get a telling off for being late?”
Sophie nodded in agreement, slipping her hand from Margo’s and immediately feeling cold again. She shivered slightly before following Margo up the concrete steps and to the door. At the time she told herself it was the weather, now she knew differently.
And that was it. Margo Banks had become a friend and permanent fixture in her life after offering her the use of a wacky umbrella.
Back in the present, Sophie shook herself from the memory and stood, making her way to her office door. Passing Rebecca’s empty desk Sophie tried to pin point the exact time she realised that pressing her body against Margo’s was her number one priority. She couldn’t. One day she was a friend, a good friend admittedly, but a friend like any other. Then the next, it was more than that. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about her, what she was doing, who she was with, was she smiling, sad, angry… Sophie closed her eyes and took what seemed to be her thousandth deep breath of the day.
Get a grip.
There was that voice again. Shaking her head, Sophie spooned the coffee into the cup, adding an extra sugar for good measure. Small pleasures; that’s what her life amounted to recently, she certainly wasn’t getting any other kind. Maybe that was it, maybe she just needed to go to a bar and pull the first half decent guy she saw. Yes, that’s got to be it, she convinced herself, I just need to get laid.
Sophie smiled as she made her way back to her office, happy that she’d managed to work it all out on the three minute walk to and from the small kitchen. Her smile soon faded however when she caught sight of one of the managers, Ray Adams. He was sporting that ever present lecherous smirk as he made his way towards her office.
“Ahh, there you are Sophie. Taking a break?”
Patronising bastard, Sophie thought. She had neither the time, nor the inclination to pander to Ray Adams today.
“Just taking a leaf out of you book, Ray. Was there something you wanted?”
Ray glared at Sophie. He could never quite work the woman out. She was a looker, he’d give her that, but he always got the feeling she was laughing at him. Stupid man-hating bitch, he thought, they all had the same problem. He couldn’t stand that she got the promotion over him.
“Jill asked me to go over the reports with you before I submitted them, if that’s not too much trouble?”
Sophie detected the sarcasm with which the question was posed, but couldn’t summon the energy to conjure up an appropriate retort.
“Just leave them on my desk Ray. I’ll get to them next week before Jill gets back from her holiday.”
Ray frowned and was about to object when Sophie held up a hand to stop him.
“I have to leave shortly to prepare for a meeting on Monday,” she lied smoothly, “so no, I don’t have the time right now, sorry.” It was obvious to them both, and the arriving Rebecca, that Sophie wasn’t sorry in the slightest.
Ray tutted as he turned on his heel into Sophie’s office. He allowed himself a grin of victory as he placed the files on Sophie’s desk and watched them slip to the floor.
“Sorry,” he said, adopting Sophie’s tone as he passed her, too closely she thought, on his way out. She glowered at his retreating form, and then grinned at Rebecca’s expression of disgust. They shared a collective ‘what a prick’ eye roll before Sophie returned to her office. If she wanted to meet Margo for that drink, she’d have to actually do some work, god forbid the she be labelled a slacker.
Margo. Sophie glanced at her watch. Two minutes since she last thought about her. She was beginning to think she was a lost cause.