Chapter 11
Valencia
When I got up the next day, the bed was empty. But there was a bowl of cereal and milk on the kitchen counter waiting for
I was not sure when Ian had slipped away, but I felt refreshed when the alarm rang. To my surprise, I noticed it had been set half an hour early of my usual waking time.
A thing I had not done, but he had.
lan was too good to be true, but those hands and lips were as real as they could get.
And I had kissed them more than once already.
But I still couldn’t get enough of this.
Smiling to myself, I got ready for work and reached the office thirty minutes before the new opening time.
And I was more than glad when I saw that there was no sign of Mrs Briggs standing at the door, waiting to yell at me.
I looked around and noticed that not all employees were around. My gaze flitted to Thomas’s desk, and I saw a bag sitting there, but he wasn’t around.
I meant to check on him before going downstairs. So I walked towards his desk and looked around, but then heard him call
my name.
“Over here, Valencia”
I turned in the direction of the voice and saw him standing in the pantry,,pushing the buttons of the coffee machine.
“Good morning” He gave me a bright smile, and I observed his face.
He didn’t look as red as yesterday and his eyes weren’t watery either.
“How are you feeling today?” I asked him, and his smile blossomed even further.
“Fine, I took some medicines so now I feel fine”
“That’s great.” I said, and he offered the coffee cup to me while he began making one for himself.
“Hey, thanks, but I already had breakfast,” I answered in response to the coffee cup.
“Oh, I thought you barely had breakfast most of the time”
I looked at him wondering how on earth did he know that but then he added, “I mean if I showed up at 7 am every day at the office, I would barely be awake to take a shower let alone prepare a full breakfast for myself. Figured that was the case with you, too.”
I smiled and patted my belly.
Yup, I need to keep this flat. Round is not the shape I am aiming for.”
The door opened and somebody stepped in.
1/4
!
“Oh, and I better hurry downstairs before I get called by the Godzilla” I gave him a wink and he almost violently combusted.
The coffee cup he was holding dropped from his hand and the hot liquid sloshed on his arm, making him howl in pain while jumping up and down.
“Oh my god, Thomas!!”
I looked around to grab some tissues and hastily tried to pat his hand dry while pulling him aside.
“Shit, I am sorry” He began apologizing profusely while I pulled out more tissues from the box to wipe away the excess hot
coffee.
“Okay now, move along,” I said and held him by the hand as I walked us both towards the sink and turned the tap on.
“Hold it under water for a while,” I said, and he tried to argue, but I glared at him and he knew better than to open his mouth again.
I rummaged through the drawers and cabinets, looking for the first aid kit, and found it soon enough.
“Dry your hand, quick or you will get little boils on your skin” He nodded and did as asked as I pulled out a cream to apply generously on the affected area.
“There, hopefully it should be better”
I said and washed my hands, but by then Thomas looked like he was about to cry.
“What happened? Are you okay?” I asked him and he sputtered.
“Th-thank you, Valencia. You didn’t have to do that,” He said and blew his nose on a tissue.
“Oh, don’t bother. Now I’ll get going” I said and turned around but I had barely made it out of the pantry when I saw Mrs Briggs walk in through the main door, leaning heavily on someone else.,
Her clothes were covered in mud, and there was soot on her face.
Another girl from our office named Jenny went running towards her.
“Oh no, Mrs Briggs. What happened to you?” She asked as the old hag thrust her purse in Jenny’s hands.
“Get me a chair to sit first, you fool!”
Jenny nodded and got a chair, and Mrs Briggs plopped in it right away.
The other guy she had been leaning on almost collapsed on the floor, but he quickly straightened his back.
Jenny looked at him and asked, “Hey, are you alright?”
The boy, probably a second year associate like Thomas, stretched his back and replied,
“If you mean to ask if I just didn’t carry a hundred pounds of weight all the way from the stairs to the entrance, then yes, I am okay.”
Jenny stifled a smile as Mrs Briggs heard them whisper with each other and reprimanded them immediately.
“Do you come here to work or gossip? Off you go,” she shouted at them and the two, along with everybody else, just dispersed away.
2/4
And then her eyes fell on me as she looked for the next candidate to help her walk from the hall to her cabin.
“Oh, if not for the most sincere employee of this office. Come, help your senior,” she said in an overly sweet voice and I was almost inclined to pretend to be injured myself, but she had already seen me standing straight and laughing.
Cursing my luck, I walked towards her and asked, “What happened?”
She began to grumble loudly.
“Somebody punctured all four of my tires so I could not use the car. Then I tried to hail a taxi, but the bloody driver sprayed mud from a nearby ditch on me and when I somehow managed to reach here, he almost dashed me onto the stairs, making my ankle hit against the concrete.”
I had never felt so delighted at karma being generous in doling out punishments to those who deserved it. And I also tried to keep the look of glee off my face as I helped her get up.
No wonder the guy looked like he had carried a rhino upstairs because this woman threw all her weight on me, making my knees tremble as well.
I helped her get to her cabin even when she didn’t look injured, just covered in dirt.
I too felt my back go sore from just a few minutes of helping her and as more than happy when she plopped her ass on
chair.
Panting and grabbing a tissue to wipe her face as if she had done all the heavy lifting, she looked at me.
the
“Today, you are not going into the basement,” she said and for a fleeting moment, I felt nice that I could go back to my desk and do some real work.
But my happiness was short lived because she then added, “You are going to be my assistant from today.”
No, I would give anything just to sit in the basement and sort the files instead of seeing this grumpy face for the rest of the day.
“But you
said I had to give you an answer. It looked like I had a choice.”
Mrs Briggs put on her glasses and looked up at me.
“And
you didn’t return to me with an answer before the time limit was over. So, I made the decision for you.”
I groaned mentally.
“What if I don’t want to be your assistant?”
She gave me a scathing look and slapped her hand on the table.
“Are you out of your mind? Working with the office head will make you climb the corporate ladder faster than wasting all those years sitting by a desk and getting ignored.”
So she knew about my work and how I had gotten ignored.
“There were two officers before you who thought they were here to stay as well.”
Her round, beady eyes narrowed on me.
“If you had said this in front of others, I would have put you on probation. You are lucky that it’s just the two of us.”
3/4
What was that supposed to mean?
“This is an office designed to work under law and peace, and if the employees here can’t get justice, how can we get it for our clients? The Bureau doesn’t tolerate such practices.”
I said, and she slapped her hand on the table again.
“Girl, if you don’t want to get demoted or worse, fired, you are going to do as I say.”
Her tone clearly indicated a threat, and I was most likely staring at getting passed over for someone else for a promotion again.
Fuck my life!
