"Jaded" | a short story by rareraconteur

"Jaded"

Author's Note

Before we begin, I created a playlist to go along with this story. I highly recommend listening to it while you read to get a better feel for this story and the music I drew inspiration from while writing. My Spotify name is rareraconteur, the playlist is public and it's called "Jaded". Thank you and enjoy.

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"Jaded"

 It was always dim in Rose Tate's warehouse. Not the kind of dark that makes you scared or nervous or anxious. It was the kind of darkness that made one feel cozy and like they could take a nap anytime, yet it was also the kind of darkness that kept one fully awake. That was the way Rose Tate liked it in her warehouse, but the others were fully lit. Rose's warehouse was paneled on the walls with dark wood, and her several desks and drafting tables stood on a sort of stage on one side of the room. On the other side was a meager door with a vast fireplace just to its right. The windows looked onto the courtyard, and were tall like the ceilings, never covered and always frosted by the Los Angeles winter.

It was a paperwork day. The fire in its hearth gently illuminated Rose's caramel skin, and her dark curls seemed to flicker like the flames as she glanced back and forth across the files covering her workspace. Rose tapped the blue pen in her hand against the desk as she shifted the tax pages and configured the numbers on them into something manageable. Her company stretched as an empire, and the Tate woman was the sole owner. The business, Magnus, was a conglomeration of things from science to media to space travel to journalism. Had Magnus not been the primary sustainer of Los Angeles, it would have been able to function as its very own city.

"Ms. Tate?" Rose looked up, eyes wide for a moment before her face settled into a soft smile. There were no lines in her skin, no, the woman was too young for that.

"Yes?" she asked sweetly, her voice bouncing around the building until it reached the young assistant in the doorway.

"Your brother is here to see you." Rose stood quickly, knocking some of her papers to the ground in her haste. Her smile had grown, and the woman nodded eagerly.

"Send him in!" she cried, gesturing for the man to be allowed entrance. The assistant nodded, doing her best to hide the tiny grin rising on her lips as she backed out of the room.

Rose moved to straighten her workspace, hands hovering over the papers before she shook her hands and head and stepped around her desk. No sooner had the tips of the Tate's oxford-clad toes reached the edge of her platform than her door was bursting open. It slammed back against the wall, and on the threshold stood a man hardly a few years Rose's senior. He had a brilliant smile, and dark eyes just like his sister's. Jedediah Tate was darker in skin-tone than his sister, and he had begun to grow a beard on his square face.

"Jed!" Rose shouted, jumping the platform despite the stairs hardly five feet to her left. She shot across the room, and barreled directly into her older brother's open arms. He laughed, it was the kind that rumbled deep in his chest and Rose could feel it in her own body as she held him tight. Her face smushed into his shoulder, her strong arms embracing him as though she would never let go. And Rose could feel Jed's arms returning the favour as he wrapped her up and lifted the woman clear off the floor. She laughed, and it was loud like her brother's.

"I missed you so much!" The mogul was back on solid ground, and she pulled back to look at her brother. "It's been months, Jed, look at your beard!" She reached up, partially patting and partially slapping his face.

"Sorry, Rosie," Jedediah replied, shrugging. "You know the papes and all that keeps me busy... And it appears you've been as well...!" The Tate brother looked around the hall in its entirety now, eyes widening at the extremity of it all. He grinned, that boyish kind that only meant mischief. "So does this mean I can retire early?" Rose scoffed, punching her brother's chest.