Moving On

He sat up. “Of course. For the record, Lynda, you don’t ever have to ask.”

“I thought…”

“What?”

“Never mind.” The call terminated.

Spike Thomson sighed as he returned the receiver to its cradle. He fancied he knew what she was about to say. I thought it was different now. He frowned. They had had another fight, but that was nothing unusual for them. As Julie had said earlier, it was the fourth time that week that Lynda had said it was over. So why should this time be different? He had not thought so, when he walked out of the newsroom. He knew that once Lynda got like that there was no use arguing with her; better to leave it and talk her round later. It was their usual routine, Lynda actually seemed to enjoy it—why was this time different?

Spike thought back to the phone call he got earlier in the evening, the one from Sarah. She had called to read him a letter—he had assumed that it was hers telling Lynda she was leaving; but it turned out to be from Lynda, firing her, making the decision that Sarah had bottled out of making. Why had she called him to read a letter from Lynda? What would be the point? Unless it was not for his benefit; she had said she was at the newsroom, she was probably on speaker… but who else would be listing in? Lynda? It was possible, Spike remembered Sarah’s response to his query ‘why?’ “For a very good reason. Perhaps you’ll hear about it sometime.”

He was startled from his musing by a knock at the door. Glancing at his watch as he got up to answer it, he wondered who it could be—Lynda would not have got there that quickly. Unless she was already on her way when she called.

It was Lynda. “Are you going to slam the door in my face?”

Spike stepped aside to let her in. “Welcome to my humble home.”

She did not comment on his brevity. She walked straight into his lounge room and sat on his couch. “I owe you an apology.”

He stopped short, having been about to go into the kitchen to make some tea. But hearing those uncharacteristic words from Lynda utterly floored him—she could never be seen to be weak or wrong. His jaw dropped, he had no idea what to say.

Lynda was grateful for his silence; apologising when you were not used to it was hard enough without adding the wisecracks of a loud-mouthed American into it. “When you walked out of the newsroom earlier, Sarah followed you out, and I thought…”

“So that’s it!” Spike interrupted; suddenly things were a lot clearer to him. He remembered Lynda’s accusation earlier “I want to know what you’ve done and her name”; he’d been hinting on Sarah’s behalf that someone wanted to tell her something, and Lynda had thought it was him needing to confess.

Then the full meaning of the apology dawned on him. Lynda had thought he was carrying on with Sarah behind his back. Somehow Sarah knew; that was why she read the letter to him, to show Lynda that there was nothing going on, that there was nothing between them. Spike briefly though about cracking one of his usual jokes, but he sensed that it was not the time for it. Instead he knelt in front of Lynda. “Why did you think I could ever carry on like that with Sarah?”

“You two have been rather secretive lately,” she shot back defensively.

“Only because she needed someone to talk to about leaving.”

“I know that now. But you did kiss her once.”

Spike frowned. “When did I kiss Sarah… oh.” He suddenly remembered back to the last, heady days of school, when the future of the Junior Gazette (as it was) was up in the air, and he and Lynda had broken up.

“Yeah, ‘oh’. Got anything else to say about it?”

“I was just trying to get your attention…”

“I figured that,” she cut in.

He ignored the interruption. “… and Sarah was in on it.”

That got her attention. “She was what?”

“The kiss was planned. It was her idea actually; she came up with it when Tids and I were planning the fire alarm thing. She thought we were acting stupid.”

“Wow, I never thought she had it in her.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about people, Boss.” Spike kissed her protest away, not wanting to get into another fight.

“Spike…”

“I have something for you,” he abruptly stood.

She instantly turned suspicious. “What?”

“This.” It was a key to his flat. “I had it cut a few days ago.”

“Why?” she held it gingerly, as if it were about to bite her.

“I meant what I said earlier, Lynda. You don’t ever have to ask if you can come over.” Spike knew that giving her a key to his flat was a big step, but he knew that it was the right thing to do. A lot of the fights they had were sparked by the paranoia that he was cheating on her. If his reassurances were not enough to convince her, maybe having a key would. Maybe his reasoning was not sound, maybe their relationship was not all that healthy, but if it made Lynda feel better…

Indeed, Lynda was intrigued about having this key—it wasn’t like she didn’t have her ways of getting into his flat anyway; but she was touched by the trust that came with the key. She eyed Spike suddenly. “I hope you don’t expect me to give you a key to my place.”

“Perish the thought, Boss.” Spike joined her on the couch. “I take it you were hiding in the newsroom when Sarah was reading the letter to me.

She nodded. “She had the phone on speaker, so I could hear what you were saying. Parting gift, making sure I knew you were a ‘good guy’, to use her words.”

“She’s a good friend,” he agreed. “The newsroom’s gonna be a different place without her.”

Lynda was not sure she liked Spike’s tone. “Not to worry. Sarah’s probably going to hate university and be back by the end of the year.”

“None of that,” Spike slid his arm across her shoulders. “Sarah needs to do this. She needs to move on.”

“I know,” she conceded grudgingly. “Sarah’s moving on to university, Kenny’s moved on to Australia; it seems like everyone’s moving on instead of me.”

“Not everyone,” Spike kissed her. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve tried moving on; I keep ending up back here. I think fate’s trying to tell me something.”

“Are you going to listen?”