Tell Me Ariel, Are You Mine?

Chapter 26 - Dante's Girl

It's not like I could really get away with going this early but it wasn't like I was thinking straight. For all the leniency Jacey Longsworth had shown me in the recent weeks since I'd been associated with Dante, I knew I couldn't abuse it any more than I had already. But I was still in a mood over him, and storming off, I went straight for her office, pausing with a collected breath wondering if she'd have a go at me for being so lax since I got back. I straightened up before knocking on her name-plated door, quickly dropping my jacket on the chair outside first before I entered at her say-so.

"Ariel," she acknowledged with a quick shot up at me as I closed the door behind me. I nervously smiled at her before she scanned back over her documents. "Hang on a sec," she said, quickly running her hands over the keyboard with impressive speed and sending off what looked like an email. She soon scrunched her face up over a torn page from the free daily paper, "I swear you're supposed to get better at these things, not worse." She said slapping her palm over the page of crosswords. "Barely managed to get through five words today."

"There's a lot going on around here right now." I shrugged, mind elsewhere.

"Well, I mean..." she stopped as she noticed my face. "Something shitty happen?" she took a moment to look at me.

Jacey was incredibly perceptive. And as a boss she strangely had no problem swearing around us all. I would never do the same though. I knew my working boundaries and she obviously had license to say whatever the hell she wanted, however professional or unprofessional she sounded. I liked it though. 'Shitty'. "You could say that." I answered.

She nodded with pursed lips. "You know, something's obviously been happening these past few weeks. I've noticed. Even Sebastien took an unusually long break. I mean, he never takes more than a week off at a time. Two, he took. Two! I'm not entirely sure what's going on to be honest."

I wish I could have told her. But I couldn't even look at her. No actually, to be honest, maybe I was glad she didn't know. This world would always feel that little bit more innocent if it basked in the ignorance of people like...Dante. There was enough going on in the world as it was. If everyone knew what really existed here, parts of my life wouldn't feel like the normal days before I found out myself. I realized I'd still like to keep that part of my life normal, as if to preserve that piece of time when I was none-the-wiser despite every other aspect of my life now being strewn across a once very settled and routine existence.

Part of me was still letting a Dante I didn't quite recognize get to me. I was starting to think I wouldn't get much work done today. In fact, I knew I wouldn't. My head was already skies away and I'd barely been here three hours already.

"But I can't do business like this." Jacey was stern now, which took me right out of my head. I couldn't even remember what she was saying before? Damn, what was she saying? She carried on, "You do know that, don't you? All my best people being a million miles away."

Oh! Oh yeah, course. The whole taking time away from work...Damn Ariel, get your head together. Don't bring outside thoughts into work. Very unprofessional. I nodded. "You're right. I can't speak for Seb but I'm just a little...off myself."

"I can't afford for you to be a little 'off'."

"I know."

"But as my employee I'm inclined to ask you what's wrong. Everyone needs to be working at their best, these are critical times here, and they can't if they're 'off'. And you know, I'm getting enough stress as it is without having to take on a load you guys should be more than capable of handling."

"I'm sorry, Jacey." Man, I was feeling really bad now.

But strangely she looked slightly concerned now. "What's wrong though?"