Frankie's point of view:
"Jesus, who had a fight with the photocopier?" Jenny snorts, overlooking my cluttered desk. I look up, cheeks flustered and eyes wide. She clutches two cups, handing me one and keeping hers tightly wrapped around the steaming coffee that she addictively drunk too many time during the day.
"Nobody. Tim sent the intern up with a load of papers because he couldn't get through to me while I was assisting Hillary with the marketing website. The poor boy didn't stand a chance - my thigh is as thick as his entire body!"
"Where's Alison?" She frowns and I shrug. My attention turning back to the strewn papers overflowing my desk. I couldn't even see the mouse of my computer. My throat still stung with the bile that rose when I witnessed the poor boy trip over the runway carpet that led from the elevator to my desk, sending every paper hurtling through the air and floating to the ground like snow.
"Beats me, all I know is that that I need to get these fixed before Jason and David finishes their meeting at two."
She cocks a brow. "Jason?"
Shit.
"Since when did you get cosy enough to use first name terms?" She questions, leaning on the top of my desk. "Something I should know?"
"N-no. Mr Donaldson has told me to call him David for months now, and Mr Hayes overheard and told me to call him Jason." I lie although my fingers trembled. She hummed suspiciously and makes a uninterested gesture with her lips. "I'm sorry, Jen. I really need to get these sorted, I don't want that intern to get fired on his first day."
She waves her hand. "It's fine. My break is up in five anyway - you should really eat something though." She twirls on her heels and wanders her way down the hallway, returning to her office and I huff a stressful breath, returning to the paperwork that seemed to be increasing instead of decreasing.
After another thirty-five minutes, my temples ached and I was down to the last two folders of work. I throw my pen down, wriggling my aching fingers to circulate the blood and remove the pins and needles that shot through them. My knuckles were seizing, but I was determined to finish these before either boss noticed they was even one paper out of line.
"Might've guessed you came to the rescue."
My body jolts at the deep voice and I meet the amusing smile of Mr Donaldson - David.
"Excuse me?"
"Harry the intern is downstairs sobbing into Martin's shoulder about dropping the papers. Martin however doesn't seem to pleased about that." He chuckles, fingering through the stack of neatly piled and freshly stapled sheets. "Harry told me that the receptionist on 14th helped him and insisted she would organise them. Oh, and he said that she would do it so the bosses wouldn't even know."
I frown, raising my shoulders and he laughs.
"Well you wouldn't have found out if you weren't down here so early." I grumble, peering down at my computer's clock. He was almost forty minutes early in fact. "To be fair, he shouldn't have carried them all anyway. I've seen more meat on a plate than that boy carried on his body."
He snorts loudly. "Well if Alison was dependable and done the job she was paid for, we wouldn't have had that problem."
"She called in sick again?"
"Better," he says. "She just didn't show up. No call, no message - zero."
Alison and I had only ever spoke passing words to each other. She worked down in the main foyer, taking the mail and other business papers up to Jason and David on their floor, and very rarely dropping whatever paperwork she needed too, to me. But her attendance was extremely slack.
"At all?"
He shakes his head. "Nothing but her chances have ran out now. Jason's calling her later to let her go."
My stomach growls in hunger, making me gasp and slap a hand of embarrassment over my abdomen. Tilting his head and furrowing his brows, David gave me a concerned look and I try not to meet his puzzled gaze.
"Did you not eat much for lunch?"
"She hasn't had it yet." Jenny interrupts, smiling sweetly as she walks by with clipboard in hand. "She's been too busy trying to tidy up the mess that new kid made."
"Jenny!" I hiss, narrowing my eyes in a hope to fear her. But instead, she smiles looking between me and David.
"Honestly?" He questions and I give a timid and barely noticeable nod. "Jesus Frankie, you need to eat something! Leave these stupid things, I'll get Gerard to come down and grab them. Go and get something before you pass out."
"I'm almost done."
"I don't care - go and get your lunch."
As my boss, I should feel slightly fear stricken. But with David, I couldn't help but feel that slight annoyance like how a younger sister would feel when her big brother bosses her about. David was awfully laid back, unlike Jason. He interacted with every employee on every floor, he liked to be addressed by his first name and he had a easy going attitude that made all nerves subside.
Jason however, was never seen unless something was wrong. He hibernated in his office upstairs, he never mingled with anyone and I believe some employees' started to think Hayes' was his real name.
"Can I see you in my office a second?" Jenny asks David and he nods. Warning me once more before he wanders behind her. I sigh and return to the final leg of the paperwork, reconnecting my sore fingers to the ballpoint pen.
The crunch of the final staple that dented the slightly creased paper made the weight lift from my chest and I grinned widely. My tensed body relaxes back and I couldn't help but push a joyous spin in my chair. Finally, after three and a half long and gruelling hours, I was done.
Now I had to do my own work. I whine as my eyes land on the the number eighteen that lights up on the corner of the email window. My vision was blurry after studying too hard at the papers microscopic size numbers in the corner of the page. Slight exaggeration but how hard would it be just to increase the size by a few numbers?
"You know, I can deal with the odd zone out but blatantly overlooking a bosses command? Now that is really considered ignorant."
The hairs tickled the back of my neck, shooting a shiver down my spine. Overlooking a bosses command?
"I'm sorry?"
He bites back a smirk and snaps the head of a dead rose that still rested in the vase of discoloured water. I hid the flustered colour rushing to my cheeks, cursing myself for not discarding the wilted flowers sooner.
"Did I miss something, Sir?"
"Where you not told to go and get your lunch-" He paused to check his watch while my face flares. "-thirty minutes ago?"
"I-I-" I trip over my own words with wide eyes and a dried mouth. As if on queue, and to help land me in what sounded like more trouble than I was, my stomach grumbled with intensive hunger. I tightened my lips. "I was busy, Sir."
It seemed like my professional reference didn't wash with him, the curl in his lips proving my theory. He eyes the pile of paperwork, his expression unreadable. I smooth out my skirt as I stand, clearing my throat to grab his attention again.
"It wasn't the intern's fault." I tell him.
"It's not your job, either." He tells me, his tone laced with authority. He reaches over my desk and grabs my phone, pressing a few numbers he awaits for the other caller to answer. "Jillian, good afternoon - can you please come and collect the paperwork from Miss Fields' desk. Please. Thank you."
I keep my teeth hooked over my bottom lip as he stretches back across to return my phone. He crosses my invisible border that I had created around my little bubble of a desk and my breath hitches in my throat. Standing so close, the aroma of his masculine scent dances with my senses and to his amusement, I squirm however I was soon stiff and silent when he bends in front of me. His hand coming alarmingly close to my legs.
My bag.
"Let's go."
The words were sucked from within me, like a football player who had just had the wind tackled out of him. I was scared to breathe and it was only making the mischievous twinkle shine brighter in his eyes. Plucking every ounce of whatever I had left within my body, I manage to squeak.
"Where?"
"Could you imagine the headlines tomorrow if they get wind of my employee missing her lunch?" He jokes, holding my coat out for me to slide my arms through. "Now, want to tell me why you decided to miss your lunch?"
Entering the elevator, I avoid the bewildered stares and glares of those workers who were on a much higher platform than myself. I was a receptionist, practically at the bottom of the ladder of importance in this building.
"I figured I would get everything back in order before you or David finished your meetings - only he finished early and caught me." I say quietly, completely aware of the eavesdropping workers around me who slightly tilted their heads to overhear our conversation. "He told you, didn't he?"
His silence confirms it. The elevator dings and we exit into the busy foyer, the crowds parting like the red sea as Jason makes his way through. The power he held by just his presence was worrying. Maybe it was the lack of time I interacted with him, but I never thought about influence he had on so many people.
"So, lunch?" He says as mutters a thank you to a bewildered Tim. He tips his hat, but his eyes screamed confusion. "There's a restaurant just a few blocks from here, I'm sure they'll be able to fit us in."
I frown and shake my head. "If they could 'fit us in'-" I make air quotations. "Then that means the place is expensive and requires booking, and that's a no thank you."
"Then where do you suggest?"
I curl a finger, motioning for him to follow me. Although I never ate out for lunch, the cafe I had in mind was close and cosy, and during my free days I went to it all the time.
The bell chimes above our heads as we entered the heated little cafe perched beside Ms Lemon's flower shop. I shrug of my coat and drop down onto the leather couch. Jason takes a seat in the matching couch in front of me, picking the menu up from the middle of the coffee table that separates the two of us.
"So what exactly happened this morning with Harry?" He questions, lifting his gaze from the menu.
I pout my lower lip, my chest tightening. "Oh Jason, it was awful! He could barely see over the stack and it was so obvious he was struggling with the weight. He just lost his footing and they went everywhere. I thought he was going to cry, he couldn't apologise enough so I sent him off and told him not to worry before he was sick over the carpet."
He chuckles and I swat his arm with my menu.
"It wasn't funny! He's probably traumatised!" I shriek in defence, the poor boys horrified expression flashing in my mind. "What I want to know is why on earth there was that many papers in the first place."
"David obviously filled you in about Alison, yes?" He says and I nod. "Well that's why. The first load came in at eight-am this morning, and it's a Monday which means everything is double."
"Did you get in contact with her?" He shakes his head as the waitress takes our orders. I didn't miss her overly battered eyelashes flaunting in Jason's direction and it made me giggle under my breath. We return our menus and he looks at me. "Something funny?"
"You have a admirer." I nudge my chin towards the ogling waitress standing behind the pastry cabinet.
His nose wrinkled like a toddler and I giggled. "What's your opinion on her?"
"What?"
"You heard me." He shrugs, leaning back comfortably. "Your opinion. Your first thought on her - for me."
"Judging by the way she stood inches away from you when you gave in your order, and how she completely blanked me like I wasn't here, and also how she's just undone another button of her blouse - I'm guessing you can add her onto your gold-digging list."
The waitress returns, leaning alarming low in Jason's direction as she lays down his latte. I smirk at him, cocking a brow as his eyes stare directly ahead to me. We thank her, but never look away from each other.
"You seemed scared."
"I thought she was going to motorboat me."
My laugh was loud, so loud I drew the attention from the frowning old woman sitting far in the corner and the irritated businessman sitting at the breakfast bar at the window, and even the startled look of the waitress hiding behind the cash register. I cover my lips with my hands, my shoulders still shaking. Jason laughs too - just not as loud as me.
"You amaze me." He says and I feel an overwhelming and indescribable tingle sweep through my chest. His innocent words made me feel like jelly. "How you can pick up on someone's aura so perfectly and so quickly - it's incredible. How do you do it? There must be something, or someone in your past, that's made you like this."
I flicker my gaze downwards, the tingling sensation being diminished. I fiddle with my newly painted nails and bite the inside of my lip.
"Hey - I'm sorry. Did I offend you?" He startles me, dipping his head to meet my gaze. "I didn't mean to be so intrusive."
"No, no you weren't. Sorry." I rush and I clear my throat. "When I was eighteen, I dated this guy. We grew up in the same neighbourhood, went to the same schools and hung about with the same people. I didn't think he had that sort of interest in me before and then my mom got sick, he was a friend first then it became more."
My heart still ached.
"Anyway, fast forward four months and at Chloe Henry's birthday, someone had released his text messages to a friend of his on the projector screen and it basically saying that when my mom died her thousands of dollars worth of inheritance was being split between me and my sister."
His eyes widened and his lips parted. The corner of my lips try to lift in a sad smile as I nod, confirming his thoughts. I was still haunted by the heartbreak, whether it be heartbreak of my first relationship or the heartbreak of my mother's illness being used. Whatever it was, it scarred me for life.
"But hey, it's fine." I try to muster a cheery tone as I wrap my hands round the mug of tea. "He only got what he deserves - a knee to the groin and a bruised lip."
"He deserved more than that." Jason angrily spits. It catches me off guard, the surprising emotion twitching with me heart strings. "You didn't take him back, did you?"
I wrinkle my nose. "Hell no. Flo's husband, her boyfriend back then, chased him until him and his friends got him a few blocks from our house. They made sure he didn't ever come near me again, and he hasn't."
"Good." His voice was lathered in hatred. After a minute he speaks again. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."
"It's fine. You learn from your mistakes, right?" I smile warmly. Silence consumes us and I let my eyes wander around the pokey little cafe. "Before I worked for you, this is the place I used to come too when I just finished college and was trying to get clients to hire me."
The little table that was huddled in the furthest away corner with only two seats, was the place I always sat. Away from nosy people overlooking my folders of creations, and giving privacy to the clients who talked about their homes.
"Interior design, right?" He asks and I nod. "What made you give it up?"
"Nobody really cared for a twenty-two year old's opinions." I laughed slightly.
The attention thirsty waitress returned to our table, placing out lunches down in front of us and again getting too close to Jason. I sucked in my cheeks, hoping to hide my smirk as he shifts uncomfortably. Another button was missing from her black shirt and I roll my eyes, noticing how all questions were directed to him.
"We're good - thank you." I interrupted. Her eyes narrowed and her upper lip curls in a scowl. She leaves and I hear her huff. "Is it like this all the time?"
He wipes his mouth clean before talking. "Sometimes - most times."
My heart ached. Is it so surprising he can't tell when a girl is into him, and not his wallet.
"So I wanted to talk to you about something, actually-" I tell him slowly, watching as his eyebrows rise in questioning. "-Please don't be afraid to tell me no, but it's only a thought and I don't expect you to even want to go-"
"When you're finished rambling." He chuckles. "What's do you want to ask?"
"My sister texted me this morning. She's holding her annual Halloween party again."
"You need time off?" He asked carelessly.
A blush reaches my cheeks as I shake my head. The words daring to slip from my tongue.
"No. Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go." I mumbled slowly. His chewing slows, processing the words and I shake my head. "I'm sorry - way too soon to be asking something like that. I just thought - actually, I don't know what I thought."
My words spilled like vomit. Why? Why did I ask him? Why did I think he would agree? Just why? I didn't know. I didn't know why I asked him, I guess I was hoping to see him have more.. Fun?
"Guess I'll need to find a outfit."
I smile.
After we finish our lunches, I excuse myself to the bathroom and sneak to the cash register to pay. He needed to know that he didn't need to pay for everything all the time - especially not with me.
"Ready?" I question him, returning to where we were sitting. He looks up from his phone with a smile and nods. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his thickly packed wallet. "Oh - I already paid."
"Frankie."
I roll my eyes at his attempt at a stern tone. I jut out my tongue and duck under his arm, back out into the cold streets. Autumn and winter were my favourite times of the year, thick jumpers and colourful scarf brought happiness to my soul but my body was still not used to the nippy air.
"Another thing you've got to learn - it's okay for the woman to pay. It's not a crime and especially not if she offers, or goes ahead and does it anyway." I tell him, clenching my coat tighter around my body. "Don't worry, you're mom never has to know."
His laughter pierced through the crisp air and it immediately warmed me up. It was the laughter I heard on Saturday, the laughter that made me giddy. It made me grin. He looks around then holds up one finger, disappearing inside Ms Lemon's flower shop. With a wrinkled forehead, I waited for him outside, my fingers gliding over the Halloween pumpkins that sat outside in a beautiful display. When my dad worked in the city, he came home once a week with a bunch of flowers from Ms Lemon's for my mom.
"For you."
His voice brings my eyes to his and to the gorgeous arrangements of yellow and orange flowers cradled together with a black silk ribbon.
And not a rose in sight.
"They're gorgeous."
"I figured you could use some new ones for your desk." He says although his face turned crimson. Was he embarrassed? He thrusts them towards me and I inhale the scent.
"Thank you." I grateful mumble, nose still buried in the depths. "Honestly - thank you."
"It's only flowers, Frankie."
I shrug and smile. "It's the thought that goes behind gestures like this - and look, no cheque book or credit card in sight."
"And no roses either - they never last."
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