Smoked Success

27.

"I'd be actually upset if you mind." He says, smirking, and then hands me the cupcake. "That'd mean you think I'm not attractive, which of course is false because I'm too attractive to you."

I stand up, and shove the cupcake in his face, resulting to frosting all over his face. "In your dreams Haddad, in your dreams."

"Okay Styles, I have a question, seriously." Andrew says, wiping his face.

"Go ahead." I roll my eyes.

"Do you do direct oral translations as well, or is it only documents?" He asks, looking at his phone.

"The company hired me to translate documents but I wouldn't mind doing oral ones." I reply, counting the amount of documents I have to hand by next week, five so far.

"I'll pay you whatever you want so you come to this meeting and translate what my Latin American cousin says, please." He weakly smiles.

"Why me?" I raise my eyebrows, my gaze directly at him.

"You're a good teacher, a good person, so I conclude you're a good translator." He states, shrugging. A good person? Really? That's a false compliment, how can he think of me that way? I won't comment.

"One meeting or one hundred meetings?" I ask, glancing at my documents.

"One, I promise one, maybe it's two hours but it's only one." He says, looking straight into my eyes, "it's this meeting the company does once a year, and the only person who can't speak English is the Latin America Haddad."

His father owned a part of the Haddad Chain, each country had their production and the States, it's medical supplies. Weird I know, but it happened.

"One hundred dollars is fine to me, as long as the meeting's not during my work hours." I declare, clenching my jaw.

"Sure, okay, I'll pick you up and all. It's next week." He smiles. "Coffee?"

"No thank you, now we've got a crisis to handle. The dating shit with Jillian." I roll my eyes. "When is it okay for you to do this stupid dinner?" I am so pissed because of this, but at least, I'm not dead.

"Next week, after the meeting?" He suggests.

"Where will Angelina be?" I ask, narrowing my eyes.

"We can keep her with Tyler, no? He won't mind I guess." He glances at his phone and walks away. I have no clue where he's going but whatever, I'm not going to mind his business.

"I'll give him a call." I say, sending a text to Hannah.

"He says that he's not happy with the petrol numbers this year." I translate to Andrew and his crew, lighting a cigarette. It's my second today, it's innocent I swear. I was around the office and I couldn't stand looking at cigarettes without smoking, so the employee offered one and I couldn't say no. Andrew doesn't seem to be so bothered, and I'm pretty sure this is none of his business.

"Tell him to lower the prices a little and we can promise a rise in those numbers next year." The financial manager says, as Andrew takes note.

"El gerente financiero sugiere bajar los precios y prometió un aumento de esos números." I repeat, in Spanish. It's amazing how I can change the words and no one would notice, but because I have conscience, I didn't do that.

"But lowering the prices makes your petrol seem so cheap." The Lebanese spokesman states his opinion. Some people just don't know the rules of economics.

"Mister Deen, this is some sort of a Business trick. You lower the prices, more people buy, you gain more." Andrew says.

"Puede traducir esto, por favor?" Latin America's manager asks he wants this translated.

"Andrew estaba explicando el menor precio truco en Business." I resume this, blowing smoke. Everyone seems to be smoking here, except Andrew and like two other persons.

"I heard my name." Andrew looks at me.

"He wanted translations, I gave him translations." I roll my eyes.

"I think we're over here, any of you has anything to say?" Andrew states. "No? Okay. Jessica, you know what to do."

"Bien, señor Haddad, la reunión ha hecho, gracias por asistir y esperamos volver a verle pronto." I say, smiling at him. I told him the meeting's done and thanked him for attending.

Andrew stands up and offers me a hand. I take his hand and wait for him to say goodbye to everyone, and then he looks at me smoking. "Didn't you say you stopped smoking?"

"Andrew, I just couldn't watch all those Marlboro packs around and resist. I'm at least sober." I reply to his remark. Not giving two shits what he thinks.

"Your brothers will be shocked, seeing you smoke, especially Peter." He declares.

"Oh, I don't care. I do what I want, I'm a free person." I blow out smoke, glance at my phone, and start walking out.

"Should we kiss french or just pecks?" Andrew asks as he parks.

"No kisses." I glare, turning off my cigarette. "Say you're disgusted with the taste of my mouth."

"Jessica, are you stupid? If I'm that boyfriend who loves you, I wouldn't care if you smoke or not." He snaps.

"I'm not going to kiss my student for god's fucking sake." I object, completely thinking this is the right thing. "Let's just tell Jillian the truth."

"Jessica, stop being a coward." Andrew says, getting closer and closer, and let me say this again, closer. He's so close now.