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Laura was relatively used to dealing with the various crises that cropped up at the leisure centre. In fact, she seldom had any leisure time herself, given how often she had to clean up after yet another disaster. This time was no exception – she wasn’t going to get home until after dark at this rate, and she heaved a sigh at the thought of the weeds slowly but inexorably taking over her garden.
There – that was the last of the mud cleared out of the doorway. Laura propped the straw broom up against the wall, turned, and nearly tripped over a metal object that rolled away into a corner. She bent to pick it up. It was a helmet that had clearly been welded together in someone’s back shed out of who knew what scrap bits of metal.
‘Mr Brittas, one of those medieval recreationists has left part of their armour behind.’ She held it out to him.
Gordon waved it away. ‘I think, Laura, that under the circumstances it’s their problem, and they can come and collect it themselves at a later date, don’t you? Go and put it in Lost Property. Is everything tidy now?’
‘Yes, Mr Brittas; that was the last thing.’
‘Excellent. I’ll just pop up to my office and call Helen; she’ll want to know that I’m going to be home soon, and then we can get out of here.’ He trotted off up the stairs. Laura headed down the corridor towards the Lost Property cupboard. She had just managed to wedge the helmet in beside a boxful of bikini bottoms when everything went dark. She heard a crash from upstairs and hurried back the way she had come as quickly as possible, groping along the walls with one hand, praying that no wannabe knights had left any more lumps of metal around the place.
She made it up to Gordon’s office without falling over anything. There was minimal light coming through the curtains, enough to see him hang up the phone.
‘Any luck?’
‘The phones are out as well as the power. I suppose this means the front door is locked again. I know for a fact that one of those mad Vikings has left his car parked in the way of the fire door. I told Colin to move it, but he left without doing it.’ Gordon sat down.
‘At least he got the dead elk out of the swimming pool,’ Laura said. She dug into her pocket. ‘Try my mobile,’ she suggested, handing it over.
‘I hardly think elks are very authentic anyway,’ Gordon grumbled, dialling a number. ‘Not around these parts, anyway. Couldn’t they have found something more appropriate to Whitby? For example, not stampeding through the centre? It is intended as a leisure facility, but not that sort of leisure!’ He listened to the silence of the nonexistent ringtone for a moment and then handed the phone back to Laura. ‘I don’t think there’s any reception.’
Laura tucked the phone back into her pocket. ‘We could go out of a window,’ she suggested.
‘And leave it open? Any mad thief might get in.’
‘Carole did the banking today; the only thing they’d get is that helmet I found and a box of assorted underwear.’
Gordon made a noise that sounded like he was trying to be outraged and trying not to laugh at the same time. ‘Why can’t people be more responsible?’
‘I don’t know. If I knew the answer to that, we wouldn’t be trapped in here. We may as well go and see if we can override the front door lock.’
They couldn’t. For all that Gordon enjoyed messing around with machinery and such, he simply couldn’t work out how to get the door to unlock, and even Laura’s ability to actually read the manual didn’t get them anywhere, as it was in English that had apparently been translated from the Japanese by someone who only spoke Spanish, and also didn’t know what doors were.
Gordon sighed resignedly. ‘I think we’re stuck here for the night, then,’ he said.
Laura had worked that one out for herself, but she didn’t say anything. She just picked up the torch that she’d found in one of Carole’s desk drawers (for a moment she’d mistaken it for a baby bottle) and gestured with the beam down the corridor. ‘The first aid room might be more comfortable than anywhere else.’ It at least had a single low bed one of them could sleep on. She’d already prepared herself for some sort of excuse from him as to why it should be him.
To her surprise, once they reached the small room, he waved for her to lie down. ‘Go on. If I could just have a blanket?’
There were two blankets, grey and scratchy but clean and warm; she passed him one and wrapped the other around herself, lying down on the lumpy mattress. ‘We should budget for another bed,’ she joked as he sat down on the floor beside her. ‘In case this happens again.’
‘If this particular combination of stupid situations happens again, Laura, I will be moving to somewhere that there aren’t any elks or mad medieval reactionists.’ He leaned back against the bed and looked at her; the torchlight was dim, but she could still see his smile. She settled on her side, curled around a little, her head on the edge of the flat pillow.
‘A laudable life goal.’
He half-laughed, but it turned into a sigh. ‘I wanted here to be free of that sort of stupidity. God, all the time and effort I’ve put into this place, and one merry band of idiots is all it takes to have the pool declared a biohazard and... well, here we are.’ He nodded upwards at the darkness above their heads. ‘I love the leisure centre, but I do prefer sleeping at home.’
She reached out absently to pat his shoulder. ‘It’s only one night. You can go home in the morning; it’s not like we’re going to have customers until we can take the warning tape down anyway.’
He turned his head towards her; she felt his warm breath on her fingers on his shoulder and shivered a little.
‘You’re not cold, are you?’ Oddly enough his tone was of genuine concern, rather than just the fear that he’d have to give up his blanket.
She was, actually. ‘A little. But it’s all right.’
And then to her surprise he was up and moving, spreading his blanket over her as well. ‘Here. I’ll be all right.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mr Brittas—’
‘I insist all my employees refer to me as “Gordon” when we get trapped together overnight.’ He was kneeling beside the bed now, gazing down at her; he was blocking the light now and she couldn’t really see his expression.
‘I can’t imagine it happens that often.’ Laura managed a short laugh.
‘Not often enough.’
His mouth was on hers all of a sudden, his lips soft, and Laura gasped with surprise. The kiss only lasted a second; he pulled away hastily.
‘I’m sorry – I’m so sorry, I have no idea where that came from.’
‘M- Mr Brittas- Gordon—’ She was about to tell him something meaningless like that it was all right (when it really, really wasn’t), and he made a funny pleading noise and then he was kissing her again and this time didn’t pull away, this time his tongue flicked over her lips and she opened her mouth to him, drowned in the taste and feel of him.
The lights hummed back into life.
He pulled away from her, the look in his eyes one of mingled arousal and annoyance. ‘The power lines must be back up. That means the front door will be working.’
If he wanted her to ignore what he’d just said and pull him back down into another kiss, she wasn’t going to. Two was quite enough for her to try to not remember, much as she wanted to; two kisses, one so brief, the other so deep.
‘I expect Helen will be pleased that you’re no longer incommunicado,’ she said, scooting past him to get off the bed without touching him again. ‘We should be going home.’
‘Laura...’
‘Goodnight, Mr Brittas.’ She walked out without looking back. Her secret self wanted to hold onto the memory of him in the darkness, not to see him in the light. She’d have to do enough of that in the morning – straight-faced normalcy, or what passed for it around here – and in the days that followed, but for now she was going to hold those two kisses in her heart and go to sleep with them there.