The Quest for Epic

Chapter nineteen

Sorry for the long wait, guys. It's been a stressful couple of weeks but I got to writing as soon as I was free because of my readers. Dedicated to YessicaAnna, kyavhill, AMurderouslovestory and sham2002 for taking the time to read my story. Seeing comments makes my day.

“Yo Ellie!” yelled Grayson, one of my supervisors at the labs
I looked over at him, my attention taken away from the laboratory study I was carrying out.
Grayson was behind the transparent partition waving the receiver of a telephone at me. “Boss wants to speak with you”
I nodded and gulped inwardly, taking off my gloves and lab coat as I stepped out of the pristine white observation room. I got to Grayson and collected the phone from him, holding it to my ear.
“Y..yes Mr Stinson?” I tried to control my wavering voice, here it was Mr Stinson was fed up with me and was going to lay into me real good.
Maybe, even fire me.
With so much tension in the office (courtesy Noah), I didn’t know if that would necessarily be a bad thing or not, I was so tired of the heart ache. But this job really meant a lot to me, I was gaining so much knowledge and experience and it would really suck if I got fired before my three months of internship were up.
“Ellie, I need you to come up to my office right now”, Mr Stinson informed me in that authoritative tone of his and promptly hung up.
Well, if I wasn’t nervous before, I was shaking in my boots now. I replaced the phone in its cradle and looked over at Grayson, who raised a brow at me.
“I need to go Mr Stinson’s office”, I told him “Sorry I couldn’t finish up”
“Oh, that’s fine Ellie. I’ll just continue with where you left off. Closing hours are soon anyway”, Grayson offered me a kind smile. As my supervisor, Grayson was all serious when it came to work with his buzz cut and no nonsense attitude, but he was also really nice and understanding.
I got my bag and my things and made my way towards the elevator. I got in and took a deep breath, silently murmuring the prayer I always murmured when getting on the elevator, that I wouldn’t bump into Noah.
This past week had to be one of the longest weeks of my life; I found out that I could win an Olympic gold medal in avoidance. First thing was that I had gone up to Mr Stinson and requested to go work in the labs for at least a week. This was because the labs were some of the only places in the Stinson & Co. building that Noah didn’t have access to. Mr Stinson had agreed even though I wasn’t quite scheduled to work in the labs for a while, on the condition that I made regular checks into the office and he wouldn’t have to find me if he ever needed something Elena couldn’t get.
Needless to say, I hadn’t been keeping to that promise for fear of running into Noah, and Mr Stinson now had to call the labs to get me to come into the office. This was why I was now standing in the elevator, heart in my mouth, knees quivering and waiting to hear whatever Mr Stinson had to say to me.
The elevator doors dinged open at the top floor and I made my way past the familiar surroundings towards Mr Stinson’s office. I walked in and Elena was there at her desk, she was smiling whilst on the phone and the sight of me wasn’t enough to deter her from smiling.
This made me even more nervous, was Elena smiling because Mr Stinson was going to fire me?
I poked my head into his office. Mr Stinson was addressing Hans, one of his security personnel and eventually his gaze wandered over to me by the door.
“Ellie, come on in”, Mr Stinson called out to me, dismissing Hans as he did so. Hans gave me a curt nod as we passed each other and I came to stand in front of Mr Stinson’s desk.
“You asked for me, sir?” I prompted after I had watched Mr Stinson look through his desk drawer for some seconds.
“Yes, I wanted to give you something”, Mr Stinson said, still not looking up at me
What in the world did he want to give me? A sack letter? I gulped.
“Here it is”, Mr Stinson finally found whatever it was he was looking for and handed it to me. My fingers shook a little as I accepted it. It was… an airline ticket?
“I’m being honoured by the Bauer Foundation in Aspen, Colorado for my entrepreneurial achievements next weekend. We’ll get there on Friday, there will be a gala on Saturday and a brunch on Sunday with a lot of prestigious guests, leading men and women in the industry. I will still have some meetings and appearances to handle so the flight back will be for Wednesday…” he stopped and looked at me “… Ellie, are you okay?”
Okay? I was more than okay? I was astounded. I was delirious with joy. I had been coming here expecting to hear the worst only to hear that I would be flying out to Aspen! I heard Aspen was absolutely gorgeous in the summer but I wouldn’t have ever imagined actually getting to go there.
My totally shell shocked expression must have been sending across the wrong message to Mr Stinson.
“I know you prefer working in your field of recent and Grayson tells me you’re doing a great job at it, but I thought you would at least be excited at the prospect of first class tickets”, Mr Stinson said, giving me a queer look
What? My jaw dropped open as I inspected the ticket and indeed, it was first class.
“Oh my gosh!!!” I squealed, snapping out of my shock induced haze “Of course I’m excited. Thank you so much for this opportunity, Mr Stinson. I’m sorry if I ever made it seem like I wasn’t grateful”
Mr Stinson gave me a genuine smile. “That’s more like it. Elena almost punctured my ear drums with her screaming”
Wow, wow, wow. I walked out of his office with the first class ticket in my hand and a huge smile on my face.
Once out, I saw Rosie at my desk and she and Elena were deep in conversation.
“Hi Ellie!” Rosie greeted once she saw me “Elena just told me you guys are going to Aspen, that’s like so awesome”
“More than awesome! Wait till Aspen gets a load of this bikini bod”, Elena twirled around on her chair and Rosie rolled her eyes while I burst out laughing. Elena actually cracked up too in spite of herself which was a first.
“Actually I came up here to ask you girls something. My engagement party, which y’all are invited to by the way, is coming up in a few weeks. I hardly have any time on my hands as it is, and I need to go shopping for a dress like today and I need all the advice I can get. So what do you say? Shopping buddies?” she asked us with a hopeful expression on her face.
“Of course, sure”, I immediately agreed
Elena just shook her head. “Well, while I’m glad to be acknowledged on my superior fashion expertise…” it was my turn to roll my eyes “… but I have a lot of work to finish up here”
“Really? I could help or something”, I offered her but she waved me off
“Nahh, I’ve been holding this fort down without your help for a while. You girls go along”,
“You sure, Elena?” Rosie inquired, I’m sure not wanting Elena to feel left out.
“Yup besides you girls don’t want me there ragging on how terrible you will no doubt look when you try on the first few dresses. I’m not a compassionate shopper”, she shrugged like she was sorry but not so sorry
“Well okay then”, I said in an animated voice looking from Elena to Rosie “Let me just let Mr Stinson know I’m leaving, I was done down at the labs anyway”
Rosie nodded and I went to Mr Stinson’s to let him know our plans to leave, soon after we made our way to the elevators going down.
As the doors closed around us, I suddenly came up with an idea.
“Ooh I should totally call my best friend, Maya. She has the best style”, I said to Rosie, wanting her to okay it first
“Sure. That sounds like a great idea”, Rosie said so I got out my phone and dialled Maya’s number.
It rang shortly before she picked up. “Hey boo!”
“Hey Maya!” I was always glad to hear her voice “Are you busy?”
“Well I have yoga class in a few, why?”
“Oh”, I said, a bit disappointed “Well I’m with Rosie from work and she wanted me to come shopping with her for a dress for her engagement party and I was hoping you could come with”
“Did I hear shopping? Of course, I’ll come”, Maya said
“Really? What about yoga?”
“Forget yoga, I’m a ride or die kinda bitch like that. Where do I meet you guys?”
“Oh where does she meet us?” I asked Rosie over the phone
“Well we can start from Bergdorf’s and go anywhere from there”, Rosie said
I relayed the plans to Maya and she said she would meet us at Bergdorf’s and we hung up.
“So?” Rosie asked raising her brows at me
“She said she would meet us at Bergdorf’s in about twenty minutes”, I informed Rosie and the smile that appeared on her face then was contagious. I turned just as the elevator doors opened up at the ground floors and what I saw was enough to make the smile freeze right on my face.
Oh fuck no.
Noah.

A/N: Short chapter because well, it's a filler :-). Don't forget to vote and comment! Xoxo