VANESSA
I leaned against the door, waiting for Adrian to notice my presence. I should have probably escaped out of there but then again if I had been that smart, I wouldn't even have opened the door, after the crash that I had heard.
The employee apologised again, asking to make it up to Adrian but I knew he was wasting his time. By now anyone would have known, when Adrian sets his mind to do something, nothing and no one can ever contradict him. With a final angry glare, Adrian dismissed him and the guy walked out of the room, past me, his head hung down in disapproval.
I felt really bad for that guy. I hoped that Adrian had a good reason for this. He couldn't just fire people, especially before Christmas just because he was trying to vent out his anger and got satisfaction in their hopelessness, right? Wow! Because that would be really dark!
"What do you want?", Adrian said icily, drawing my attention to him.
Yeah, I should have run away. I realised that now!
"We...um...kind of have a meeting in about...", I said as I looked at my watch, " twenty...fi...four minutes."
"Then why are you here? You should wait outside.", He continued irritably.
"I...er...", I desperately tried to find the right words but my heart was racing. He has been angry before but right now his voice was dripping sheer frustration and that wasn't even the worst part.
The worst part was that unlike any other day, he wasn't looking at his laptop as he spoke, instead his complete attention was towards me. His icy blue stare could slice right through my soul and it was doing a tremendous job at intimidating the shit out of me right now.
Honestly, I felt a bit scared. This was somehow even worse than the sauna incident. I wondered what was making him so angry.
I carefully walked inside the office room, avoiding any contact with the shattered glass in the middle of the room or the fallen file rack in the corner of the room, with papers scattered across the carpet, that I hadn't noticed before.
Adrian walked over to me, the decreasing distance raising my blood pressure. If I were older, I would have already had a stroke.
He stood at about a feet from me, crossing his arms and scanning me up and down, making my extremely conscious. I should definitely have run away when I had the chance!
"I was hoping that we could talk about the Nate issue.", I lied. I just came there to loiter around in his office like I had done twice before but at that time, it wouldn't have been an answer that would satisfy Adrian.
"Would you do me a favour?",Adrian asked.
I raised my eyebrow questioningly. It was hard to avoid any eye contact.
"Get out!", He almost whispered monotonously, trying to prevent himself from lashing out further.
I so didn't expect that!
"Screw you!", I whispered, mirroring his tone and then turned around to make a beeline to the door.
No one gets to speak to me like that ever. And this project, it could go burn in hell! I am so not working with him. He is an arrogant asshole! He...
As I walked towards the door, ranting, suddenly something caught my eye. It was the broken glass pieces. I had not seen it before, perhaps because I saw it from a different angle, but there were red stains along the sharp edges of a few pieces.
Oh no! He didn't!
I turned around and walked over to him demanding, "Show me your hand."
"You are not gone yet?", He asked.
"Yes, I am gone. This isn't Vanessa, it's her twin sister.", I said sarcastically, trying hard to not roll my eyes.
"I didn't know god could make the same mistake twice but what the hell, here you are!",He said dryly, purposefully ignoring my sarcasm.
"You are impossible. Show me your bloody hand...literally.",I said, trying really hard not to blurt out the many adjectives for him, which came to my mind.
He placed his right hand on the table, which because of how stubborn he is, wasn't the hurt one.
I rolled my eyes as he smirked at my obvious irritation, "The other one."
"Why should I listen to anything you say?", He said, trying really hard to to not yell like he did with his employee.
For heaven's sake, I was trying to help him but no, he had to have the satisfaction of irking me to the edge. He had some seriously problematic coping methods!
I didn't say anything more, it wasn't working. I didn't even know why I cared but I did! For some reason, I wanted to listen to his problem, whatever it was.
I drew a chair from in front of his desk and drove it over to his side. I picked up the telephone, dialed nine to call Adrian's secretary and asked for a first aid kit.
Adrian sighed audibly in disapproval and continued typing something on his laptop, with his right hand.
As soon as the first aid kit arrived, I asked Adrian, "Show me your other hand."
He royally ignored me, as if I didn't exist and though I hated it, I bitterly swallowed me pride and said, "Adrian, please!"
He sighed, closing his laptop flap. I thought it would come down with a slam but apparently it was only my laptop that he took out his anger on. I opened the first aid kit, taking out some raw cotton and poured the antiseptic liquid on it.
"You know I can do this myself, right?", Adrian asked, his harsh tone dissipating away.
"Well, you can't tie the gauge bandage with one hand, right? So, when I would do that anyway, I could very well do all of it. Now, give me that hand of yours."
He placed his hand in mine, whose palm was about three quarters the size of his. There was a deep red, three-inch something cut running through the middle of his palm.
"Oh my god! You are lucky it's just a surface cut because these sting as hell.", I said as I placed my cotton piece on his palm, carefully cleaning the wound. He flinched a bit, his posture becoming stiffer but he didn't say anything.
Once I was done with the cleaning part, I wrapped his hand, along with a fresh cotton piece with the gauge bandage and then tied a knot at the bottom. As I examined my handiwork, I asked him the one question bothering me for some time: Why?
He still said nothing. He frowned as he absently stared at the ground, his injured hand still in mine. I wrapped my fingers around his cold ones and asked again, "What's bothering you?"
"I'm fine. And I am not interested in discussing my problems with you, even if there were any.", He said, shaking my hand off his and getting up to face the window overlooking the New York skyline yet again. He just seemed to love it a lot.
I got up, standing next to him and went on to state," Well! I am relatively free today so just in case you change your mind, I am right here."
"That won't happen. I am very ada..."
I never heard the last part though I am pretty sure he meant to say 'adamant'. The reason for this was Bryan.
"Listen Adrian! Oh Vanessa, Hi!", Bryan said as he entered through the door and walked over to the desk.
"Hey! Whoops...careful there is glass there.", I warned him as he jumped over it dramatically, making me chuckle.
"Were you two trying to kill each other again?", Bryan widened his eyes in mock horror.
"No...I...I just talked to this terrible employee, the head of the team which was responsible for a submitting a presentation for a three billion dollar project whose meeting is scheduled for tomorrow. He just decided that the project was not worth it, not as much as his Christmas shopping with his supposed girlfriend was. Have you ever heard something like that?", Adrian ranted out.
I hadn't seen him ever do so before. It was absolutely amusing. Bryan, clearly was the only person he confided in.
Bryan asked me, "Talked...right! That guy, he is fired, isn't he?"
I nodded my head positively, still smiling at this exchange.
"So what are you up to now, Vanessa?"
"Remember, there was a meeting we had, in which I was late?"
"Oh, Yeah! No one could forget that meeting."
"Um hum. So that meeting was rescheduled for today and it starts in about...right now."
"Hope this one goes better than last time. Anyways, have fun!", He gave a toothy grin.
As if anyone at a project meeting ever does.
"Wait, you are not coming?", Adrian asked.
"Nope! I told you yesterday, didn't I? I am taking a half day to meet my cousin."
"Ah right! See you tomorrow.", Adrian said with disappointment as Bryan left. He must have wanted to talk about the stuff bothering him with Bryan.
"So...the meeting?", I asked Adrian, eyeing him hopefully.
"Fine. Let's go.", He rolled his eyes, seeing that he was not going to get rid of me any time soon. Then he left his room with me following closely behind...
We sat through the meeting which came with a positive outcome for my company! Yes, the deal was sealed and yes, I would not longer call this project jinxed.
After that, me and Adrian returned back to his now, rearranged office with a new pen stand, this time made of metal. His secretary must be pissed off too. We had now been talking for about an hour, though honestly it was me who was doing most of the talking while he just gave his characteristic one line answeres. Still I managed to converse with him on various topics like who was babysitting Kevin since Charlotte had gone out to meet a school friend and then Cassandra's future career choices since she had taken a break year and was going to get a job, the upcoming year.
Adrian was a bit too smart, however, and whenever I tried to bring the topic up of what was bothering him, he would just dodge it away but it was very clear it had something to do with his dad.
"You don't look so well.", I said, examining his face, with prominent dark circles and a tired voice. He also seemed to be having a cold.
"The snowballs didn't take to me so kindly.", Adrian looked at me accusingly.
Oh right! He had still been in his office wear, unlike us, who were warmly wrapped in our jackets.
"My bad!", I said making an oops face.
"You should go home now, it is eight o'clock.", Adrian said, looking outside., "And it has started snowing again."
"What about you?", I asked.
"I...I am not going."
"Why not?", I asked but he refused to reply.
"Come on Adrian, now even Bryan is gone. You have got to tell me what is bothering you.", I said, finally losing patience as I hesitantly placed my hand on his right one.
To my relief, he didn't swat it away but instead he took it in his, which was something that I hadn't expected.
"I have a really bad temper, you must know that by now.", He sighed.
"Oh! I know that.", I said as flashbacks popped in my head.
"And still you came here, knowing how angry I was?"
"Well, I did have a meeting with you."
"You are stupid, you know?", He said, staring at my hand.
"Says the person hell bent on self-harm.", I rolled my eyes.
"I am serious.", He looked up at me to ensure I was listening and I gave him a short nod to go on.
"I had an argument with my father. We don't agree on...a lot of things. I don't want to go into details but well, I might have yelled at him and he might have asked me to get out of the house. So...that might be the cause of my trouble."
"Just because your dad asked you to get out, you are not going to do it, are you?"
Adrian eyed me questioningly.
"I mean, he said it when he was angry, he definitely didn't mean it and you not going back, does it solve anything?", I tried my best to explain.
"But..."
"Adrian, you can't walk away from this. Answer me honestly, are you not going back because your dad has asked you not to or because your pride, your ego commands you not to?"
He studied my face, trying to decipher the real meaning behind my words. When he was convinced, he gave me a short nod and got up, pocketing his car keys.
He listened to me. I still can't believe it! My face lit up, my smile touching the corners of my face. I thought about the many ways I was going to tell this story to Charlotte.
Suddenly, I received a tug at my hand which I hadn't noticed was still in his. He said," You're not going to tell anyone about this conversation ever, do you hear me ?"
What! No!! Haw! That is not fair.
"I understand.", I nodded my head. I knew better than to argue on this one.
"You need a ride home?", He asked monotonously as he finally let go off my hand, his voice as expressionless as his eyes. I don't know why I wished, he hadn't. The sudden distance felt like a void that I couldn't explain.
Since there was nothing more that I could do about that feeling except for pushing it away, I simply agreed and followed him down to his car. We drove to the Times Square in silence until we crossed past my favourite restaurant and I insisted on getting something for myself.
"No! I am not stopping my car here."
"Come on! It will take a minute and anyways some soup will be good for your cold."
"We could easily get soup cooked at home."
"But it won't be the same as here. Please!", I said, looking at him doe-eyed.
"You are not going to listen, are you?"
"No!", I grinned.
"Five minutes! Not a second more, Ok?", He said like a parent to a five year old who I was currently behaving like.
We got out of the car and walked over to the restaurant. We went in and I stood by the counter, waiting to place our order. However, in a moment I regretted this decision as I spotted the two most unexpected people, dining together: Bryan and Charlotte!!
A/N: Alright! Who saw that coming? I left quite some clues here and there, how many did you find? What do you think about this new twist?