Punch-Drunk Love. Pernille Hughes

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СКАЧАТЬ squizz around. It was large – the club had never lacked space – and Blackie had been tidy. One corner homed a stack of exercise mats and the opposite wall was racked-out with shelves, half-filled with yet more files of outdated paperwork.

      Ditching the files would free up more shelf room for… well she wasn’t sure yet, but Storage space is gold-dust, Tiff. Hearing Gavin’s words in her head made her eyes sting. Blinking it away she looked at the mats in the corner. The way they were stacked reminded her of The Princess and the Pea. An idea started to germinate.

      So it was a bit grim, but there was shelving, space to move about and the door locked. That wasn’t much different from a hotel room. In Tiff’s mind it was a battle between a window at the Premier Lodge versus no cost here. Not having to pack up again was the clincher, she was sick of that already. The building was hers, and the store cupboard with it. If she was going to buy a flat when she finally found time to start looking for one – screw you, rental market – then she shouldn’t be spaffing the cash on a crappy hotel room. Seen like that, she could easily cope with temporarily living in a cupboard. A nice lamp and her duvet would make this quite cosy, she convinced herself, conveniently ignoring the strip lighting and the chipped floor tiles. A rug and fairy lights maybe…

      ‘You got a minute?’ Ron’s gruff voice ripped her away from her planning. He didn’t wait for her to respond and she followed him obediently into her office.

      ‘I should take it on,’ he said, rounding on her.

      ‘Take what on?’

      ‘The club. Watching you down in the gym I reckon it’d be best for all concerned, yourself included, if I took over the club.’

      Tiff’s jaw flapped but no words came. Ron went on.

      ‘I can’t see how Blackie didn’t see it; I’m far better qualified to run it.’

      ‘You’re head coach,’ she pointed out, finding her tongue. ‘As far as the clients can see, you are running it.’ Additionally, she doubted he had the money to buy her out. If it was the glory he needed, he already had it. There was no need to tie up his finances.

      ‘Yes, but let’s be honest, it’s only a matter of time before you start making unnecessary changes. You setting foot in the gym was one and look how well that went.’

      ‘I tripped over strewn kit. It was an accident.’

      ‘My point exactly. The gym’s always like that. We’re all used to it. You’re clueless.’

      This was grossly unfair, Tiff thought, taking a breath to say so, but Ron shook his head to stop her.

      ‘I’d been thinking about this before all of that anyway. I’ll rent the place off you. Blackie wanted this place to stay as it is, or he would have changed it himself. It’s what the lads would want too. I’ll run it as normal and pay you rent out of the profits.’

      Tiff hadn’t expected that. Not for a second. She didn’t know what to say. Instinctively she wanted to shout But it’s mine!, but his words had her stumbling. He thought she was clueless.

      ‘Think about it, Tiffanie,’ she noted she wasn’t Tiff anymore, ‘you could expand your bookkeeping business, you could keep the days here obviously – that’s two bites of the cherry given I’d have to pay you for that too – and then you could spend Blackie’s money and the rent on other things; shoes or whatever you women spend money on nowadays.’

      Tiff bit her cheek at the reference to Blackie’s money. She supposed every penny she ever spent hereon, anywhere, would be seen as Blackie’s money.

      ‘And no offence,’ he continued, though from experience Tiff knew any sentence beginning with ‘no offence’ was about to cause exactly that, ‘but you can hardly call yourself a poster girl for fitness.’ Tiff instantly looked down at herself. So fitness wasn’t her thing, but she wasn’t massively out of shape. Okay, maybe she was puffed scaling the stairs, but she could still recognise her sixteen-year-old self in the mirror. They might just not have shared clothes for a while.

      ‘Nobody joins gyms run by chubbies. Just saying.’ He said it with a shrug, and his face wasn’t twisted in the malicious sneer such a sentence should be accompanied by. It was his honest opinion. Embarrassed, she wanted to exit the room immediately.

      ‘You really don’t want me to do this, do you?’ she stammered.

      ‘It’s not a matter of want. I don’t think you can. I don’t want Blackie’s hard work and sacrifice wasted, when I can do the job.’

      His words plunged her right in the chest, but not like a sharp implement, rather something wide, blunt and far more devastating.

      ‘You think about it,’ he said, ‘but for the sake of getting on I’ll expect an answer by Friday.’ Tiff could only stare at him speechless. Ron took this as assent. ‘And Tiff,’ he said, more kindly now, like she was a sad child, ‘in the interests of health, safety and corporate image, best stay out of the gym, eh?’

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