I was not expecting this at all.
The picture of my boss back on the balcony where we had our first serious talk was what met me when I first barged into his office. His hands were once again against the railing and his back hunched over as if he was burdened by work and its stresses.
Taking a deep breath, I gathered my courage and walked over to the doors of the balcony.
"Took you a while," I heard him say sarcastically once I reached there, and I couldn't help rolling my eyes with a smile.
"Yeah well, I couldn't allow you to run away again, now could I?" I responded bravely, stepping out onto the balcony beside him and looking down. "So, is this where we have our 'serious' talks?"
Riddian looked over at me and gave me a once over. "I'm free until two thirty, how about we go somewhere else," he said and then looked away to retrieve his phone and make a call while my heart beat out of my chest in anxiety.
"Let's go."
Riddian's voice saying these words were what pulled me out of my head, and then he was inside grabbing a wallet from off his desk and then heading towards the door. I followed right behind him and didn't even say a word when he opened the door and allowed me to go out first. I had come to realise that he had a system. He only did these gentleman-to-lady-like things when we were outside of work. He seemed to have no problem separating his personal and business life.
Riddian locked his door and then headed towards the elevator while I packed up my purse and sent Harper a quick text comprising of the words *It's happening now*.
Riddian pressed the button for the ground floor when I was standing next to him inside his elevator, and then we were going down, nothing unprofessional happening between us because the glass walls put us on show for everyone to see.
When the elevator reached the ground floor, we stepped out quickly and made our way to the building's front entrance. We were just about out the door when I heard running heels and a lot of panting. I turned to see Harper having a fit as she watched me from beside the stairs, giving me a thumbs up just before Riddian stopped walking and turned in her direction. Like nothing had happened, she turned away and began walking, straightening her posture before heading towards the elevator now. I shook my head and cleared my throat, walking pass Riddian and out the door as he stared after Harper in suspicion still.
"You coming?" I asked with a small smile. He shook his head and exited right after me.
I was a bit surprised when we walked towards the small steps that lead down to the street pavement however, as instead of a polite Mr. Jones waiting for us by a car, it was another man who handed the keys over to Riddian and then went on his way up towards the building.
"You coming?" Riddian repeated my words and I turned away from looking at the back of the man who was not driving us, to Riddian who was holding a door open for me again.
"Mr. Jones isn't with us today," I commented as I got in the front and he shut the door. He switched sides and sat in the driver's seat before driving off the pavement.
"No. I thought this conversation first needed to be between only the two of us," he answered, shocking me. Why? Because he said 'first'.
"Right. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too," I nodded and allowed the silence and awkwardness to settle between us in the car... But only for a minute because I am no longer good at staying silent in awkward situations. So...
"Inside a car... Maybe going somewhere far... Mali-di-dacky da roo-roo—"
"Katherine please."
:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:
"Okay so you will only call me Katherine when we're not in a business environment?"
"I never said that."
"But it seems pretty clear to me—"
"I called you that four times Ms. Harrington—"
"Yeah, and they were all when we were not in business environments," I argued, feeling as though he just didn't want to admit the truth we both already knew. He shook his head and continued up the steps to the restaurant which had become a little more familiar to me than from the times I had passed it before. High tables. The place he took me on my birthday...
"Okay."
"No, no! Not okay!" I said as he opened the doors and allowed me to enter first. "The first time was in the motel last Thursday, and then you called me that again twice the next day. Then you called me that again today! When we were out of the building," I explained. He nodded distracted as we walked down the hall and towards the waiting area where he requested a table.
"If you say so," he murmured before leading us to a small two-seater in one corner of the room. I rolled my eyes and took a seat in front of him.
"No, not if you say so," I continued, looking over at him. "I actually like it that way."
Riddian stopped reaching for the menus that were already on the table before us and looked up at me. "What?"
"Well you call me Ms. Harrington at work and Katherine outside. I said I liked that because you have no problem separating your business and... personal lives," I explained, looking towards my own menu. "It helps to make things less awkward."
"What?"
"I mean whatever goes on between us won't be able to hurt the business," I mumbled, looking back up at him through my eyelashes. Riddian placed his menu down and leaned his elbows onto the table so that he was closer to me. He seemed to want to say something but didn't even open his mouth as he rested his chin on his folded hands and put on a thoughtful face. "Maybe I should start doing that too," I found myself saying and that got back his attention.
"What?"
"Maybe I should start calling you Mr. Remora whenever we're in a business situation and only Riddian when we aren't," I explained, hoping his next words would be different from 'what' this time.
"But you already do that," he chose to respond and that got me thinking.
"Well yes, to some extent. But I only do it while in the presence of others. Usually, as soon as we're alone, even in a meeting, I call you Riddian. Maybe I should stop—"
"No."
The firmness in Riddian's voice made me stop speaking immediately. "What?" Now it was my turn?
Riddian cleared his throat. "I just don't see anything wrong with the way you alternate between my names now. Only call me Mr. Remora when we're in the presence of business companions... You don't have to call me that at other times." He went back to the menu.
"But what about in front of your dad and—"
"Well there's no need for that since close relations already know you call me Riddian... at least the importantly close ones. Just... don't change anything... and maybe I'll do the same one day," he continued, and my mouth opened a bit.
Was he saying that he might start calling me Katherine all the time as I call him Riddian? I guess our... unsaid friendship... or whatever we were turning into, was improving. There was a time I never thought this was even possible but... maybe that was all we needed... to take things slow. Maybe we didn't need to talk about the kiss at all. I mean I liked where we were at now because we weren't yelling at each other or switching personalities all that much anymore.
But that was just the nerves speaking. The me who was afraid that things would become all messed up if we really had this conversation... And even if I did like him... I didn't want this newfound more-than-toleration feeling to fade away. I didn't want to go back to how we were at first...
And we did take it slow that afternoon. We ordered food which I was surprisingly not full enough from lunch to not eat, and we had light conversation about a few things like before. Things like how I thought he said he didn't like fancy restaurants (which he then explained was used for serious situations), that he had been nice all week (because that was true and I was only annoyed because we hadn't spoken about what happened) and that we had a nice atmosphere between us for a while now (except for the first part of the night of the ball where he was angry at me for showing up... I would ask him about that afterwards).
Now we were forty minutes away from having to be back at work and hopefully that would be enough time to do what had to be done.
I looked at Riddian who took a final sip of his drink and then straightened up for the talk.
"So..." I trailed off first, wanting him to make the first move this time.
"We need to talk about what happened." He didn't even stutter to say this, but then fidgeted a bit in his seat as he always does when a bit nervous or guilty.
"Yes," I quickly said before anymore diversions from the topic could be made. "We need to talk about how—"
"How we..."
"You know... You kissed me!" I whisper yelled.
"You kissed me back," he hissed back in almost the same time but surprisingly very relaxed in contrast to how his body was acting.
"Well only because I didn't want you feeling bad," I lied, causing his eyes to narrow at me at which point I regretted the sentence so bad since the only thing worse than him believing that is me having to tell him that it wasn't in fact true.
"Nonsense! At first you didn't kiss me but then you did... after I pulled away!"
Maybe we should've done this in the park or something now that I think about it....
"Yeah well, you still kissed me back there so ah-ha?" I asked unsure, sinking back into my chair as I realise that we were just trying to blame each other to forget the important thing. He seemed to realise that too and sighed silently.
"Fine," he grumbled unwillingly into the air. "I did kiss you... voluntarily."
"Yeah, and I kissed you back... voluntarily." I admitted as well, squeezing my hands together under the table.
"I don't regret it," Riddian mumbled again and I had to pause a second to think about what that meant. I mean, that in Riddian words translated to normal human words was a pretty big deal! But then...
"So why did you leave?"
"Because..." he seemed like he was going to answer but then he paused as a sound of buzzing interrupted him.
"Why did you even do it in the first place?" I asked softly, ignoring the sound, and hoping he would too. "Riddian?"
"I-" The buzzing continued, and a scowl took over his face. It was his phone, but he seemed to not want to answer it as much as I didn't want him to. Taking out the device he swiped the screen to end the call and then turned it over to face me again. "Katherine, the reason I did it was because-"
Riddian's eyes went wide as he seemed to realise something and grabbed the phone again.
"Crap..." He mumbled as he pressed the screen and called back the number I presumed. I sighed and leaned back against the chair, crossing my hands and turning my attention to other parts of the restaurant until Riddian was through with his call.
"We have to get back to the office."
I finally looked back to Riddian as he uttered those words, retuning his phone to his pocket and signaling for the cheque. I tried to contain the disappointment I was feeling and instead asked why. Riddian paused what he was doing and slowly turned his head to stare at my chin, almost as if he didn't want to look me in the eyes. Then when he made some kind of pack with himself, he finally looked at me properly and said, "I have an... important client coming in a few minutes", before looking away quickly as I racked my brain.
I didn't remember writing down any 'very important' appointments for later. Unless it's one of those ones he didn't inform me about... I didn't say another thing until a few minutes later when we were standing on either sides of his car and looking at each other from over the top.
"Try this another day?"
The words left my lips with poorly concealed disappointment, but Riddian seemed to feel the same as he nodded with regret.
"Yes."