Miranda sat on her desk chair, looking, once again, and uncharacteristically, through the window, lost in thought.
The memory from last night was still fresh in her memory, and she just had not been able to wrap her mind around what happened.
Josh, as promised, got to the company at nine a.m. sharp, and had presented himself before her.
But, not a single word about last night came from him, naturally, Miranda didn't say anything either.
She just gave him his assignment.
"mail room" he whispered.
"you have a problem with that?" she inquired.
"not at all" he responded, with an inexpressive look on his face "where should i go next?" he asked.
"report to H.R. for enrollment" Miranda informed "they will show you where you will be working and your duties"
Josh didn't say anything else, just nodded and exited her office.
Surely, a call came to her about an hour later, and she was expecting it.
"princess?" was the first thing she heard.
"morning dad" she greeted.
"can you please explain to me, just why did you assign Josh to the mail room?"
Miranda took a deep breath, she was completely sure that such questioning would arise, since her father was already aware about Josh's arrival to the company, he would surely be monitoring H.R., just waiting to find out where Josh would be assigned.
"there are two reasons for that dad, the first one, is that Josh is still in school, so it's important that he focuses on that, so i assigned him to a department with low workload, so he can concentrate in his studies, and the company would not suffer in case he needed to be absent for any reason" she explained.
"and the second?" Matthew inquired.
"i don't want people to think that i favored him in any way just because he is my...boyfriend" she struggled to let out the last word of that sentence.
A little giggle could be heard from the other side of the line.
"it's funny" Matthew said "Josh said the exact same thing".
Miranda was a little surprised to hear that.
"have you talked to him?" she questioned.
"of course, i called him as soon as i got word of his assignment".
"please don't do that" she pleaded.
"what's wrong with me calling my godchild AND daughter's boyfriend?" he snorted.
Miranda just let a frustration sigh out.
"anything else dad?" she questioned.
"no, princess, i'll let you get back to work, bye" he finished, and hung up.
Miranda felt uncomfortable with the situation.
She was not particularly avert to the idea of bringing joy to her father, but knowing that such joy was coming out of the most gigantic lie she had ever told, left her with a sense of uneasiness and guilt.
And the lie was just about to get bigger, way bigger, as soon as Josh mustered the courage to go and ask for her hand.
A few days went by, and Miranda was still beginning to experience the symptoms of pregnancy, morning sickness was hitting her like a ton of bricks, reason with she barely left her office and restricted her visitors to the absolute necessary.
Still, Stacey, her assistant, had noticed her boss's change in behavior, and had asked her a few times if she was sick.
Miranda just blamed a stomach virus and acted like nothing was going on, which seemed to work, at least for the time being.
Still, another symptom was kicking in.
her sudden crave for sweets.
That morning she remembered seeing on her way in, that the company cafeteria was serving pudding, and she wasn't gonna miss it, so for the first time in days, abandoned her sanctuary and headed downstairs to grab herself some of that delicious pudding.
She usually never visited the cafeteria, as she preferred not to be forced to salute people, as she had seen her father do a thousand times.
She grabbed herself three servings, and pretty much left the rest of the tray empty, only grabbing a few things to disguise her gluttony for sweets.
She seated as far from everyone else as possible and started to devour her feast.
Unfortunately for her, she happened to have chosen a seat right behind where a group of office ladies used to seat, fact that she discovered shortly afterwards.
a group of five or six girls sat down in front of her, apparently their conversation was so interesting that they didn't notice her at all.
"i swear to god, guys, that guy looks like out of a magazine or something" she heard one of the ladies say.
another girl came, tray in hand, to approach the bunch.
"what are you guys talking about?" she inquired as she sat down to join the group.
"have you met the new guy?" one of the girls asked.
"no i haven't" she replied.
"then you don't know what you're missing" another one said.
Miranda remembered hearing similar conversations from Michelle and Rebecca.
"that guy is gorgeous" the first girl confessed.
"i almost wish the mail room to be closer to my department" one of them declared.
"they could not possibly be talking about..." Miranda thought.
"has anyone tried talking to him?" the last one to sit questioned.
"as a matter of fact i did" said one of them, a blonde girl.
"and?" the rest asked.
"his name is Josh" she announced "he is twenty two" she continued "and single" she finished, with a naughty smile.
"i knew it, it had to be him" Miranda thought.
"kinda young for me" a brunette stated "but i wouldn't mind teaching him a thing or two" she smirked.
"don't mind his age, mind that body!" a girl that looked an awful lot like the first one pointed.
"you bitches better back off" the blonde one said "i call dibs on him, he already knows who i am"
"so?" a tanned girl asked "i can go and introduce myself right now, then he knows us both"
"i told you, he already knows who i am" the blonde said, while waving her hair with her hand "i'm sure he will ask me out before the week is over" she assured her friends.
"still" the tanned girl insisted "until he does, it's still fair game".
"i don't care" the blonde refuted "i'm so having his babies".
Miranda did not notice, that at some point, while listening to the conversation, not only she had stopped eating, but also clenched her fist around the spoon she was eating with, and apparently, her face had turned to an unfriendly demeanor.
maybe her gaze had turned so intense, that one of the girls from the bunch there noticed it.
The poor girl gasped loudly, forcing the rest to follow her eyesight, to where Miranda was seated.
"i...i'm sorry, Miss Miranda, we didn't s..see you there". one of them said, while standing from her seat.
"that's OK ladies, don't mind me" Miranda said, while trying her best to smile at them.
the girls looked at each other a little confused on what to do.
but as they girls sat down once again, Miranda could see Josh entering the cafeteria.
For some reason, a sense of awkwardness invaded her, and stood up, leaving the tray where she was seated, she only grabbed the last cup of pudding left, and started to walk towards the exit, while trying to avoid Josh's eyesight as much as humanly possible.
She sighed in relief once she reached the door, apparently, Josh never noticed she was there.
She turned to find him with her eyes, and found him heading to a table.
Miranda could not help to notice that quite a few of the ladies in attendance took notice of him, and also noticed, that more than a few eyebrows raised at his sight.
Miranda left soon after, before Josh sat down and could spot her, but for some reason, all the way to her office, Miranda was feeling irked about it all.
two things in particular bothered her.
the first was when the blonde said she would be carrying his babies.
"sorry honey, that position is already taken" Miranda thought.
and the second one, was that she said that Josh had declared himself to be "single".
"single my ass" she furrowed "that guy better not be thinking he can make a fool out of me".
She could not shake those thoughts from her mind, and accepting that made her even more irked than before.