I forgot I had to update because I was binge-watching Dance Moms Season 4. My bad.
Three days later, I had managed to work up the courage to ask Aiden for a leave on my birthday. I figured he was in a good mood in the morning as we drove to work. He even let me play the radio, tuning into a pop station. He made no comments at my off-key singing or strange dance moves. I could ask for a leave. It wouldn't be so bad.
Settling my things at the desk, I checked in with Lydia when Aiden would be free for me to have a word with him. "Preferably before something spoils his mood," I added.
"What would you want that for?" She laughed, "And that's a rare thing to happen these days, so I'd say get yourself in his office and ask now."
"It's my birthday on the 19th. But there's a concert in Cleveland on the 18th, and I really want to go. Like I would die if I don't go. I looked up the tickets and everything and this would be the first time I'd be able to afford to go. I'd be so, so heartbroken, you have no idea."
Lydia's face full of sympathy should have been an indication enough that I wouldn't get the response I would hope for. Naively, I still walked into his office, taking a seat and waiting for him to give me the go-ahead to speak. He looked up from his files after a few minutes, raising an eyebrow at my shifting demeanour.
Well, this is as good as his mood gets.
"Well, I wanted to ask you for something."
"I don't have all day, Thea." Aiden rolled his eyes. "You could have asked me in the car."
"Uh, I was- I was hoping you wouldn't drop me off on the side of the road."
"That bad?"
"Your attitude or what I'm about to ask?"
He grinned, and my feelings rose, hope surging in my body.
"Both, I suppose." He sat back in his chair, relaxed and at ease. This is as good as it was going to get.
"I don't have to tell you about your attitude," I spoke carefully, "But what I have to ask is a little unusual."
"Ask, Thea. We all have things to do and you're not doing anything to make me favour your request by delaying it."
Fine. Here goes nothing.
"There's a concert on the 18th in Cleveland and I want to take a day off for it."
"No," he said, with finality in his tone that left little space for argument.
"But it's my-"
"Thea, I said no. We don't take leaves from work for frivolous activities." He sat up straighter, getting back to his work as if the conversation was over.
"It's not frivolous." I protested, "It's on a weekend, and it's just going to be one day. It won't hamper my work at all, because I'll be back in the office on Monday morning, so I won't miss anything. I'm even seeing all possible flight schedules to see-"
"Thea. Get to work. Don't waste my time with these silly things again."
There he was, the cold and heartless asshole I knew. And there was no winning with him.
"Great. I hope you'll enjoy it when I have to throw myself off some stairs so I can get a fucking life." I muttered under my breath, getting up to leave the room.
I stopped short at the door, turning to face him again, "Mr Steele? There must be an invite in your mail from me. Please feel free to ignore it or delete it."
Stupidly, I had crafted the most adorable, personal emails for all the people I wanted to invite for my birthday. I wanted to go all out, and Lydia had helped me plan the cutest party ever. I was so excited to share the day with some of the best people I had met in my life, but I had been stupid enough to believe there was any sentimentality in the man.
Cold. So fucking cold!
This was the man who held me when sleeping? This was the man I dreamt of kissing?
What a wake-up call this was. While I wasn't head over heels for this man, I really did see myself genuinely falling for him someday. The sound of my heart breaking was a reminder of why I was terrified of building something with him anyways. All he did was break and burn me in the end.
"I take it didn't go well?" Lydia turned away from her conversation with Jason to offer me a sympathetic smile.
"I don't know why I even try sometimes." I rolled my eyes, offering a small smile to Jason before taking my seat and starting up my laptop again.
"What happened?" Jason asked.
"Nothing out of the ordinary. Killer of joy in his usual state." Lydia shook her head.
"I'm afraid I've got bad news to share with him. The day's only going to get worse from here."
Lydia and I grimaced, and I wondered just how bad things could get from here on. I mean, what would be worse than this?
I needed to stop asking rhetorical questions because the answer was: a lot could be worse.
And it got worse.
Quickly.
I was not prepared.
No one, in fact, was prepared.
In a matter of one week, Aiden went from being a killer of joy to a killer of humanity. In one of the most shocking news of all time, he woke up one day, chose violence and fired Lydia from her job. She'd been in this position for a long time, and it was practically impossible for me to digest the news. There was no time to digest any news anyway because the temp assigned to Aiden was as incompetent as they came and the responsibility of hiring a new assistant fell on me.
Between interviewing likely candidates and teaching the temp how to use Excel, I was often working overtime, even bringing work home on most days to meet deadlines. My stomach groaned in protest the seventh day of the week I was feeding on apples, but I didn't have much of a choice. Apples had nutrition, they could be eaten with one hand, and most importantly, the apple in my mouth stopped me from muttering curses to the man living next door. I had all hopes that someday I'd be able to shoot this man, possibly just throw him down the stairs one day to make my life easier.
Normalize wanting to kill your bosses, please. I needed to vent about this to someone who actually supported my violent thoughts, and I found most of my solace in Jason, who kept checking in on me throughout the day. Some days, I wished I was working under Jason. It would be work that I was genuinely interested in, and he would have let me go to the fucking concert.
The new hiring process ended on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Monica came with references and qualifications that supported her confident attitude in the interview, and I had no option but to clear her for the job. There was something about her that I didn't fully like, but it was most likely because she was working on a job that was rightfully Lydia's. Aiden interviewed her on Wednesday morning and asked the temp to vacate the desk in the evening, which meant he liked her too and I was bound to work with her for the foreseeable future.
Monica came to work bright and early on Thursday morning, standing up to greet Aiden and me as we entered the hallway to his office. I noticed a cup of coffee on my desk, and I asked Monica if she was the one who brought it for me.
"It's a caramel latte. I thought you might like it." She smiled. Oh, she was in so much fucking trouble if she put anything on Aiden's desk too.
"Thank you," I remembered my manners, "But you don't have to do all of this for me."
"It's alright, I was walking towards the office and noticed the café, it was hard to resist. Plus, it's my first day here, I wanted to do something nice."
To Lydia: Oh my god she brought a caramel latte for me (9.08 am)
I shut my phone away so I could focus on my work while Monica set her things up and got the systems running. She was barely having enough time to set up her new laptop when Aiden called her to his office, and I could hear some not so friendly words being spoken inside the room. Jesus, he was going to scare her off.
Either that or she has a thick skin and she could manage to work for Aiden long enough for him to come to his senses and bring Lydia back.
My assumptions were proven wrong when she came out of the room nearly in tears. I had just seen the date on the calendar and my anger towards Steele that had been simmering all this time was at its peak, needing just a second push to brim over.
"What did he do now?"
Monica looked up at me, looking scared before shakily starting her laptop again and trying to blink through tears. I should have ignored it. She clearly didn't want to tell me, and she was figuring out how to be okay with it. But I looked at the caramel latte on my table, and even if it was the farthest thing from my usual order, she had done something to help me out. She had no idea how Aiden treated me generally, and she had decided I was important enough for her to bring me coffee. That was more respect than anyone in this building had ever given to me.
I sighed, walking over her desk and asking her again, "What did he do?"
"Where I used to work, I would always bring coffee for my boss... Almost all these guys are the same. I bought one for him too, but... he got very angry over a simple cup of coffee, I don't know why he got so worked up..."
"It's not your fault," I reassured her, "He's been a major prick for the whole week. While I can't say anything about how he's treating me, I can talk to him about how he's treating you. Just let me talk to him once and see if there's any likeable outcome." I gave her a tight-lipped smile before walking to his office.
"He said he doesn't want any disturbances." She stopped me.
"What's the worse he can do, fire me? I'll take my chances." While my outward confidence was charming, I was terrified about what I was heading into. But if I didn't stand up for her, Aiden could continue blowing up everything out of proportion with her for no good reason.
Without even knocking like I usually did, I walked into his office and took a seat, tapping my heel on the marble floor, purposely annoying him into looking up at me with the most agitated expression on his face.
"What do you want now? I thought I told Lyd- the new one I don't want any distractions." He corrected himself quickly, but I could see he still didn't digest the idea of another assistant very well.
"Her name is Monica. I wanted to ask you when you want me to start looking for another assistant."
"Is she quitting already?"
"She will if you keep treating her like that. It's her first day here, and not even half an hour in, you've managed to make her cry."
"Then maybe she just doesn't belong here."
"Maybe the work culture you're propagating is just toxic as fuck." I fired back. I should have been excited about my trip to Cleveland, Ohio. I should have been making mental checklists about all the things I had to pack. I should have been using all my spare time to craft the perfect signboard that would draw the artist's attention. Instead, I was here, working on a silly case file that should have been handled by some entry-level employee in production.
"Maybe you need to be reminded that you're an intern, and you should know your place."
Wow, okay.
Don't cry. Don't cry.
"Next time you decide to sleep with me, remember that." I got up from my seat, uncaring of the can of worms I had opened up. He was infuriating, rude, insane and deserved none of my respect anymore. This was the moron I'd met at Negative, and I'd been foolish enough to think he was nicer under all of the layers to him. Fix your eyes, fix your nose, fix your cheeks.
Shutting the door to his office, I got back to work again, scribbling notes till my hands hurt and sending out emails for Aiden and helping Monica any chance I got.
She put a hand over her phone for a second asking, "Who's Vivian?"
"The CFO's assistant. Never put her on hold." I answered, getting back to work.
"She's inviting me for drinks after work."
"If you get out of here in time, you should go. It's nice to know people you work with. Just don't get involved in drama." I advised her, already seeing the consequences of my little tiff with Mary on the screen in front of me.
"Hey, can you call up Kristen and ask her to send me the files for the Dumont situation? Tell her Mr Steele urgently requires it."
"Does he?"
"No. He needs it by tomorrow morning. I need it now."
Monica looked from the doors to Mr Steele's office to me, wondering if I was worth getting in trouble for. The amount of trouble I got in because of you...
From Lydia: One look at your face and I knew you were a black coffee bitch. How's the caramel tasting? (9.48 am)
To Lydia: Awful. I slipped it into the conversation that I like it black. Hopefully, she doesn't do nice things for me anymore (12.34 pm)
To Lydia: I'd rather die. (12.35 pm)
"Hi Kristen, this is Monica, Mr Steele's new assistant. Yes, could you forward the Dumont case files to Miss Thea? Mr Steele's requiring those urgently. Thank you." Monica put the phone away, giving me a wary look.
"It's okay, Lydia used to do it for me all the time."
"Lydia got fired." Monica pointed out.
"For unrelated reasons." I brushed her conversation away, getting back to work. Lydia had been looking for jobs online and applying in many places, but it takes more than one week to see any solid responses from any company. She'd been happy to spend more time with the kids, but she missed being busy. I suppose I could understand her. We kept in touch through texts, but it was becoming increasingly hard for me to respond quickly, killing the mood of the conversation. I was excited to see her on Sunday and meet her kids for the first time too. It would be fun.
I wondered briefly if inviting Monica would be a good idea, but quickly dismissed it when I realized she would have speculated the nature of my work/personal relationships with the boss man if she knew we were neighbours. Lydia knew about the arrangement, Lydia was trustable. As far as I was concerned, Monica had done nothing to earn my trust in that regard.
Aiden emerged from his office around 3, not even paying attention to either of us, saying, "Get my car out to the front. Pack your stuff, we have a meeting. And get me a table at Tomatina for 4."
"Who was supposed to do what?" I muttered, even as I picked up my diary where I kept logs of all the meetings I attended with Aiden.
"You're coming for the meeting," he looked up at me, before instructing Monica, "If you need any help, call Thea. Take any important messages and reschedule my evening tomorrow, you can have the rest of the day finishing up work. I'll be leaving early."
"Oh, you're sure you'll have a tube stuck down your throat tomorrow evening?" I rolled my eyes, making sure to keep my complaints under my breath. One of these days I would say one wrong thing and get my ass on the street again, but I wasn't going to let it be today.
Aiden walked out in the hallway, while I stayed behind to help Monica figure out whom to call for what. Getting the confirmation that his car was pulled out of the parking lot, I rushed out too, barely making it to the elevators before the doors shut. Aiden was still typing something on his phone, not paying attention to anything around him, including the two women in the corner ogling him.
If you only knew...
"I don't remember seeing any meeting on your schedule today." I asked as we walked out of the elevators, "Who are we seeing?"
Aiden said nothing. He walked faster than any man I've ever known, and I almost skittered after him like a mouse to catch up. Thankfully his car was in the front as he'd expected it, but so was a lovely red vintage car.
"Is Emerson running late?" Aiden asked the valet.
"He forgot something upstairs, he's gone back to fetch it." She responded, before backing away and walking to her station. I wouldn't blame her; anyone would want to run away from a ticking time bomb.
"Is that Jason's car?" I admired the beauty, wishing I could ride in his car instead. It would be so much fun.
Jason emerged from the building a few minutes later, and I practically begged Aiden to let me hitch a ride with Jason instead. For one, Jason would never kill me. Two, his car looked wickedly cool. And thirdly, I always deserved to look sexy in a red car.
"Get in, Thea." Aiden cut me off in the middle of a sentence, yet fucking again, making me slump my shoulders and get in his car. Jason sighed before saying something to Aiden that I couldn't catch, because I had already plugged in my earphones and had my music on shuffle.
Whatever the deal was, I could figure it out at the restaurant. I didn't need to put up with this kind of stupid, childish behaviour and I wasn't intending to. He wasn't the only one who could throw a tantrum.
Random fact: the concert Thea is talking about is a date I picked off the Reputation Tour because I'm a Taylor hoe like that.
Also, while we're here, how do you like your coffee?