I absolutely love it when the dulcet tones of The Kaiser Chiefs blare out of my phone. Why? The reason would be that the dulcet tones of the Kaiser Chiefs blaring from my phone means that ex boyfriend Steve is calling. A lot of people don't like it when exes call them but I make a habit of staying friendly with mine wherever possible.

"Steve-o!" I say brightly as I flip it open and press it to my ear.

"Alright darlin'?" He's equally chirpy. "How's it going?"

"I never knew that office work was so dull and yet so interesting."

"That doesn't make sense darlin', you know that?"

I love Steve's accent. He and Lily both have a Geordie parent in common, but since Steve's father is from Liverpool he's also got a hint of Scouser in him. Newcastle accents and Liverpool accents are hard enough for the unacquainted to understand on their own, but together they're near incomprehensible unless you're very used to it. Hardly anybody ever understands what Steve is actually saying and some have even said he sounds like the village idiot, but I love his accent because I think it's hilarious. I never say this to him though; it's one of those things that are okay to think but not to say. Some things just never sound as innocent or well meant as they are when spoken out loud.

To be honest, though, I did spend the first couple of weeks of our courtship concentrating extremely hard trying to make out what he was saying; it did leave me with a bit of a headache.

"It does in my office," I explain. "Paper work is boring and having to translate boring admin instructions to people in Spanish is boring, but office politics are fascinating. Oh, and couture clothes are fascinating too."

"Wangled any freebies yet?"

"No, but I do get to borrow an outfit for the party she's hosting next week. Apparently everyone in her inner circle has to wear her couture for these shindigs. Lil's just annoyed that as a lowly intern she doesn't get to."

"Yeah, I bet she was well pissed like, seeing as this was her thing to begin with."

"She was, but then she remembered that she gets paid much better than me."

"Ahh. Well in the case if yous can keep her in designer shoes that'll keep her happy."

I love the way he says 'yous' instead of 'you.' Don't ask me why, he does abuse grammar a lot. "So how's Greece?"

"Yeah, it's alright," he says cheerily. I imagine him giving a shrug as he says it. "I never thought anywhere'd be hotter than Adora but effing hell."

"Aww, you suffering?"

"Bit, yeah. I comfort myself knowing it makes the lasses walk around in less."

I roll my eyes heavenward, laughing. "Oh yeah. It's alright so long as you can see more tanned flesh on display."

"Only from the lasses, mind!" He says with mock indignation like I was suggesting he likes boys. "The lads can put it away."

"But it's good, yeah?"

"Oh yeah. It's easier to give cultural tours in a place like Athens than Adora, because try as I might there's no way to make one church and Bonzo's Wave Park sound cultural, like. Talking about Greek Gods is a bit more convincing. Night life's good though."

"Pulled any one yet?" I ask casually. It's not fake casual either, I really don't mind if Steve is dating anybody else. It may be the easiest and most mature break up I've ever had. Lily looked sceptically at me and said it must mean we never cared that much to begin with, but I told her to shut up. I adore Steve, I just don't adore him enough to spend a year pining over being unable to see him. I don't think I adore anybody that much.

"Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned."

"Tell me you didn't."

"I was really rat arsed."

In translation, this means that Steve copped off one night with one of the tourists. This isn't unusual behaviour for reps - hell, in some resorts it's basically the only reason they took the job, to score with as many holiday goers as possible - but Steve shares my general abhorrence for drunken tourists. He must have been rat arsed to have slipped in such a way.

"How rat arsed?"

"About twelve pints and God knows how many shots later, I'm surprised I could even get it up. Worst of it was I turned over in the morning and the beer goggles must have been on, like, 'cause she was a serious minger."

My friend is telling me that he got drunk and slept with somebody he doesn't even like - thus risking all kinds of diseases - and I really ought to be more concerned than doubled over cackling. I swear, it's the way he tells these things, I have no idea whether he's trying to be funny or not but it's just the way he says it. Even as he protests down the phone about how it's not funny and she really was that ugly, I just keep howling with laughter.

"And then to add insult to injury I went down the clinic to get tested and it was a bloody woman who didn't speak a lot of English, so I got no warning before she'd just picked it up and shoved a swab in it. And she was way better looking than the bird who started it in the first place."

"Stop it, stop it," I tell him gasping for air. After a while laughing starts to get painful, I now have a stitch. "This is what you get for shagging tourists you know."

"I know, I know, I'll never drink again. How about you, love?"

"Not yet."

"Not yet she says, already got an eye out?"

"I will soon have a hot couture outfit to wear to a posh industry party; some hot men have to be there right?"

"Well I'd offer my presence to guarantee it like but I believe I'm scheduled to do the airport pick up. Or maybe the kids' club, God 'elp me."

Steve hates doing the kids' club. Sugar and sun hyped children are an absolute handful and for some reason he just does not have the organisational knack it takes to keep fifteen children in any kind of order. On days when he ran the club at the Regent on Adora Hell tended to break loose, so after a while they stopped making him. The kids of course loved him, the adults who were having their quiet pool time interrupted by the screaming didn't. I guess the hotel in Athens hasn't worked this out yet, or maybe children are just better behaved in Greece. I doubt it, but it could happen.

"God help you, God help them you mean. I have no idea how you haven't managed to lose or maim one yet."

"Jesus loves me."

"Yeah. Okay then," I snort.

"You know you never believe me and that's very hurtful, Addison."

"It's going to get very hurtful if you ever call me Addison again."

"But it pisses you off so much, it's great!"

I hear the door slam downstairs and Lily yelling "ADDY" up the stairs at me. She sounds somewhat agitated. "Oh, Lil's home babe, I've gotta go."

"Yeah, I should probably get on me way as well. Good to talk to you darlin', and remember if yous want come out just give us a shout, yeah? I know Lil's loaded but my ten percent discount should still not go to waste."

He makes me smile, bless his funny little heart. Steve's just a generous soul by nature, very open and easy going; Mike has been known to suggest that he's me in less PMS-y form. I just smiled and proved him right by giving him a good smack for saying it.

***

"Well?" Lily asks me, biting her nails as she does so. Without even looking up I gently slap her hand away from her mouth.

With all our stuff finally unpacked and the grocery shopping done, our kitchen seems a bit homier now. We still need to wear in the furniture so it looks more lived in than pristine and new, but it's coming along. The worktops are shiny and clean, we have a pretty fruit bowl sitting on the island between us and we're both perched on tall cushioned stools while we chat. Two steaming mugs of tea sit by us - hers half drunk and mine not yet touched because I'm concentrating - and it's quite cosy.

"Lil, I thought I told yous not to go hunting through gossip rags for this shit," I say with mild exasperation. I didn't notice the Steve like slip up until it was already out of my mouth.

"I can't help it," she groans, tapping her neat fingernails against her brightly coloured mug. Little Miss Trouble, it says, they got that right. I'm Little Miss Sunshine, which is right about eighty five percent of the time. "I cannot process the information that you shagged the superstar without having huge curiosity about him for a while. It's a phase, promise. I'll be over it by next week."

"Just in time for the next weekly issues to hit stands and spark it back off," I respond knowingly. To her credit, she doesn't even try to keep the guilty expression off her face.

"But… I mean, wouldn't we have known if he'd come into see Elena? Hell, wouldn't you have been in there?"

"Last time I checked Justin could speak English, a translator probably wouldn't be necessary."

"Oh, yeah. Forgot."

Lily's role is pretty standard for a fashion intern. She makes and cuts patterns, does some odd jobs, colours in the sketches for the designers (I teased her about that, offered to buy her an executive box of Crayola), and she does some of the stitching and beadwork on the handmade stuff. In all reality she's a very well paid dogsbody, but she just loves being in that atmosphere and being around the designers so much that she doesn't care. She just likes knowing how it all works. My role is a little stranger. As a translator I'm at the beck and call of Elena's executive team aka the inner circle (not all of whom are bilingual like she is), but often enough I'm not needed in that capacity and I just revert to being a general admin assistant. I'm part PA, part receptionist, part typist, part every menial office job you can think of.

I told Steve it was boring, but it's actually not that bad. I had no idea what the fashion industry was about (I basically spent the last twelve years in a bikini and some shorts) so there's a lot of new information to take in and learn. Office politics and people watching are more interesting though, and I do get to speak to some interesting people on the Spanish side of things. They like me because unlike most of the non-Hispanic folk around here, I don't just speak the necessary business Spanish. I can chatter away like I was born Spanish myself and they like it because they can have a bit of a laugh and a joke with me.

So really, I had enough entertainment going on without Lily bringing home People magazine and its short blurb claiming that Elena's going to design some things for William Rast, which is apparently Justin's fashion label. Well, he did say he was an entrepreneur as well as a bloody banker, I guess on that front he wasn't lying. That makes a nice change for him.

"Even if it is happening," I tell her after finally closing the rag and tossing it at the surface in front of her, "they're not going to require my services. It'll be a US only thing which won't need the Spanish folk involved for me to have to translate, and it's not like they're going to need me in meetings. I'll never have to set eyes on him."

"God, you must be the only person I know who wouldn't want to confront him."

I shrug my shoulders and put my palms out in a 'so what' gesture. "He lied, I know he lied. Me badgering him for details or yelling at him isn't going to change that and it's not going to make me feel better. I may as well just let it go."

"If I'd lived on Adora too would I be as laid back as you? Or is it just you?" Lily asks wonderingly.

"Bit of both, probably." Another shrug. "I just really don't see the point, hon. I don't want to know him, I don't want to scour the magazines for what he's doing, I just want to forget about it and leave it last summer where it belongs. I had my 'what the fuck' moment and now I'm over it."

"And like you said, it might not even be true. It does sound kind of like they're basing this on pure proximity."

"Exactly."

Lily sounds more like she's trying to convince herself than me, but I think I'm safe from Tosserlake. I really cannot believe that if there were serious intentions to do something for Justin Timberlake or for Justin Timberlake to ever show up at the building there would be so little gossip about it. I've heard nothing about this from work; Lil's had to read it in a tabloid. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the reliability of the tale. If there is any truth to it then I'd assume it's still in preliminary stages and may not come off, and even if it did then it doesn't mean Justin would come for meetings here. For all I know he's just the celebrity face and the money. Whatever might be going on between Elena Suarez and William Rast, it's early days yet.

It was kind of funny to put a name to Trace's face though, he mentioned him a few times. He's shorter than I imagined him.

Of course, Lily still can't let it go. I can tell by the way she's squirming in her seat and tugging at her ponytail, in under sixty seconds I can expect her to try and continue on this conversation despite my attempt to draw it to a close there. She can be entirely infuriating like that, it must be said. In a way, I think she's so used to people just naturally opening up to her (and they do, it's freaky how she makes people start spilling their guts without even trying) she gets confused when somebody doesn't. Even if she knows that there's nothing else to really say and that there's no problem, you can tell her it's fine until you're blue in the face but she may not necessarily get it until she's forced every minutiae out of you so she can work through it herself.

"But… theoretically…"

"Theoretically what?" I ask dangerously. Silly girl misses the tone.

"If you saw him again, especially in a work setting, how would you react? I mean, for all you know he'd be thrilled to see you."

"I doubt he cares," I reply curtly, "and if he does that's tough shit for him. The guy's a knob."

"You said you adored him though. As far as you can tell he told you one little lie to protect his privacy."

"LITTLE lie?" I'm seething now. She really needs to know when to quit.

"Well, okay, it was…"

"A total misrepresentation of who he is and what he does that renders everything else he said to me untrustworthy."

"But how would you react? It could happen, you know."

She is obsessed with it happening, I don't know what's with her. She apparently wants to dwell over this thing more than I do, I wish I'd just stayed on the phone to Steve now. In the unlikely event that it happens, I'll brush it off just like I'm trying to brush off the whole discovery of it in the first place and like I would have already brushed it off if she had quit harping on about it already. I really don't understand what her deal is, but I'm acutely aware that because I'm reacting she'll take it as evidence that I care more than I'm admitting to. The idea that it's her pissing me off and not so much him won't cross her mind, funnily enough.

I've never lived with any female other than my mother before and I'm starting to see a downside. It never occurred to me before that the qualities about somebody that make you love them can be the qualities that make you pissed at them if you're overexposed to them. Maybe that's my own fault, I should have considered before I moved in with her that this weird ability to make people open up and her own complex about wanting to understand everybody all the time might get annoying when you just want to drop a subject and let it go. That's who I am, I don't dwell on things. I stay laid back and just let them go, and on Adora I was surrounded by people who were the same and who encouraged it. Apparently big city life is a little more neurotic and I'm not sure I like that aspect of it so much.

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," I say crossly as I pick up my now lukewarm tea. "In the mean time, I'm not going to waste all that time and energy obsessing over something that may not even happen and wouldn't matter much if it did. I suggest you do the same."

"But…"

"But nothing, Lily." My tone is now outright hostile and there's a serious warning to it. God, a week or so in LA and I'm already becoming a bitch. Maybe it's the food; I don't care if they call it organic it's still processed and I can feel the crap it's putting in my system. Maybe that's what's making me cranky. I miss Adora and its beautiful fresh food and its less nosy people. "Forget about it."

"Okay, okay." She holds up her hands in surrender and starts flicking through the magazine, doubtless to look at all those articles she passed over in order to search for any mention of Justin.