17. | taking over mine

A few days after handing in my missing assignments and our visit to the school, Lexi and I finally had some proper time to work on giving my office a make-over. Though I must say, Lexi voluntarily did most of the work, making me leave the room and do other stuff most of the time.

It took her two days to come to this point, finishing the room off with plants.

"Put the plant right there. No, not there! The other corner, a little more to the left. Damn it, do you know the difference between right and left or do I have to teach you?!" Lexi shrieks hysterically, trying to get the man to put everything exactly how she imagined it. He looks at her slightly wide-eyed and follows her orders like a lost puppy, not even daring to speak up.

"Hey, don't go too hard on him. It's okay, you've done an amazing job and so has he." I reassure in a desperate attempt trying to calm her a bit. The poor man is just doing his job.

"It's just, I want it to be perfect for you." She says.

"It is, everything's exactly how I would wish my personal office would look like." I glance around the room and make a gesture. "I promise, it's perfect."

A corner of her mouth lifts. "For you. I hope this way you can continue being awesome yourself and help people deal with their, well, shit."

I wrap my arm around her shoulders as I drag her with me to the couch in the corner of the room.

"Have I told you you're the best?" I continue to calm her down, letting go of her.

"At least 5 times in the past couple of days." She grins up at me, finally relaxing a bit while she sits. The second the man leaves the room after he finishes, she turns to her left to face me. "By the way, I checked your list with the names on it and may have put Ethan's, as your first client." She smiles innocently at me. "I hope Ethan doesn't kill me for setting you up with a random date so you better tell him I was the one who scheduled him in for an hour."

I laugh at her words. "I wonder if it'll really get him jealous though."

She raises an eyebrow at this, "I'm worrying about him killing me and you're wondering if he'll even get jealous because of it? You're really oblivious to it all, I swear. If you could only see the way you two look at each other."

I chew my bottom lip as I feel a slight heat rise to my cheeks and fidget with a strand of loose hair. We'll see how he reacts.

After chatting about a variety of stuff, Lexi gets up to go back to the hospital wing of the building. As she leaves, I take the time to actually admire the room up close. Getting to my feet, I start walking while dragging my fingers along the wall.

The grey walls have been replaced by a nice shade of beige, instantly giving the room a lighter appearance. The few pieces of art, quotes and pictures adorn a few parts of the walls, creating a nice characteristic atmosphere.

Previously, there were only two iron chairs and a table in the middle of the room. It was after all an interrogation and meeting room for lawyers and inmates. Those furniture have been replaced by sage colored suede chairs with wooden legs and a matching wooden table. On top of the table is a golden label with my name on it, some desk necessities which Lexi managed to match with it all and a few small plants.

As if all of that wasn't enough, there's a new coffee machine in the corner, a yellow couch with a variety of cushions. There's a matching wooden coffee table in front of it. To top it all of, there are a lot of plants scattered around the entire room.

Lexi really did all she could with a quite small budget and turned this room into the office of my dreams.

"Hey." Reed's voice from behind startles me as I turn around.

I look at him and notice the dark circles surrounding his eyes, a sign that he hasn't been sleeping much lately. His hair looks kind of messy, like he hasn't done any effort to fix it. His cheeks have sunken and he has a dull expression on his face. There's also a slight stubble covering his chin. He doesn't look like the Oliver Reed I met when I came in here a few months ago. I can't help but feel sorry for him.

"Hi." I say, conjuring a small smile on my face. "I'm assuming you're the guard bringing in the inmates today?"

He nods. "The list?" He asks right away.

I hand him the list of names Lexi gave me. In all honesty, I'm not really in a place where I want to engage in a conversation with Reed. He, after all, can take his time and come to me when he really wants to talk about the stuff I actually care about.

However, I do feel empathetic towards him. I would like to ask him how he's doing and if he has gotten stuff figured out. From the way he's speaking straight to the point, I get the feeling he wants to avoid small talks for now. I guess that's fine with me as well.

"Ethan's first and planned in for an hour?" Reed asks as he examines the list. "You have four hours until dinner time and you have several clients today. Will you manage to fit the others in the remaining three hours?"

"Yes." I say. "I know what I'm doing, but thanks for your concern towards my clients."

Oliver has an odd expression on his face. It seems like he wants to contradict me, stop me, but he's holding himself back. "Yeah, sure. I'll make sure he gets here first."

With that being said, he lets out a small, yet obvious, sigh and exits the room to get Ethan.

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"Hey, missed me?" Ethan playfully begins as he leans his elbows on my desk and comes closer with his face. "I mean, I understand. I'd miss this face as well."

I lean closer to him, keeping a serious look on my face while arching a brow. "Oh, I've been dying to see you." I reply and mirror the way he's sitting with his chin in the palms of his hands.

He replies by chuckling and after a few seconds of looking at me, he breaks the eye contact and glances around the room. "I like the change, it's more.. calming, less interrogation-like. Now you won't be the only reason I look out to these conversations."

I slightly blush at his use of words and follow his gaze. "I know right, Lexi did a great job on it." I smile back, opening Ethan's pages in my notebook.

Empty.

He has officially turned me into the shittiest therapist-to-be, ever.

"Lexi the bestie." He grins at his own silly rhyme and finds my eyes again. "In all honesty, I'm not really digging her."

Surprised by the way he feels about Lexi, I remain silent for a few seconds.

"It's probably just me being paranoid. She's always great to you, so who am I to not dig her right?" He continues.

I take a sip from the cup of coffee I grabbed before sitting down. "Well, she actually put you on the list for an hour."

"I guess I have to thank her the next time I see her." He winks before he takes my cup from the desk and takes a sip.

"Hey, that's mine!" I yell in a joking manner as I reach out my hand, trying to snatch it back. "I can make you your own right now. " I nod towards the machine in the corner.

He chuckles as he takes another long sip before leaning in again, teasing me by making me reach out for the cup. "Nah, I prefer drinking from your cup."

"And why is that?" I ask, trying to grab it while swatting his other hand away several times.

"It's as if we kiss, indirectly." He smirks, showing me his blinding smile.

"Ethan—," I laugh pushing his chest further away from me, "you're an idiot sometimes. That's gross."

"The hell it is." He says, stopping my hand from pushing him. I tense at his touch, feeling a pleasant yet dizzying chill run up my arm.

"How do you even do that?" I blurt out. I don't dare to move as he slowly brings our hands down, rubbing his thumb across mine, not breaking our intertwining gazes.

"You're not the only nervous one." He mumbles in a low tone.

My heart pounces in my chest at his words. Once again locked into yet another small and precious moment of ours, I pull away at hearing the door open.

"Uh, I just wanted to let you know another guard is taking over my shift." Reed says, awkwardly scratching the back of his head at the sight of both of us.

Of course, he has to be the one to interrupt us.

"Yeah, okay." I say, noticing Reed's gaze has driven off to Ethan, who has turned around in his chair by now. After a few seconds of giving each other a nasty glare, neither of them says a thing. Finally, Reed breaks the eye contact, giving me a slight nod before closing the door again.

"For fuck's sake." Ethan growls, turning around in his chair. "I'll be so hyped the day I won't ever have to see him again."

I give him a weak smile. He still looks pretty affected by Reed's presence a minute ago but he smiles back. Not his usual grin, but a sincere smile. The one I like seeing the most, yet the one he shows the least.

We just stay like this for a minute or two. Not speaking, just looking at each other with a smile on our faces in a comfortable atmosphere. Both drifting off in our thoughts.

I don't know what's on his mind but damn, he's taking over mine for sure.

"If you want to stop seeing him—," I refer back to his previous words. "We have to work on gathering evidence. I mean, during these so called sessions, we can exchange information without attracting too much attention from others who might be involved. You need to explain your alibi to me, even though it wasn't enough to prove your innocence. Your attorney probably went over all this before, but I need this information as well."

It's quite clear he's not in the slightest bit excited to talk about it all. However, he needs to suck it up and work with me. There's no other way.

"I also need to know what connected you to my mom's murder." I gulp as I struggle with my next words. "Was there blood, DNA, eyewitnesses that lied? You need to tell me everything before I contact your attorney. I need to get the story straight before I get him involved in another attempt to prove your innocence after over three years."

He nods as he rubs his palms on the grey fabric covering his thighs. Just as I want to mention my plan to visit his mother, my phone lights up near Ethan because of a new message. Before I can reach for it, he grabs it.

"Apparently we've been forced into a double date by our best friends. Can't say I'm complaining though. I'll pick you up at 5pm on Monday."

I cough as it feels like the air has left my lungs for a few seconds. Lexi must have texted her date my number as well, hooking me up with his friend.

I'm going to be the one to kill her when I find her.

"Who the hell is this?" Ethan asks tonelessly as he slides my phone to me over the desk. I tense at his intense glare. My stomach flutters as I cannot seem to be able to speak up yet.

"Tell him that—," He begins, visibly clenching his jaw. He takes a few seconds, seeming to carefully select his next words.

"Tell him you're taken."

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A/N; unrelated but i am officially a severely obsessed young royals fan. if you haven't watched it yet, please do. it's on netflix.

if you wanna chat about behind bars, young royals or simply vent and use me as a therapist, feel free to dm me on instagram (@luminousvoids). it's my personal insta, so make sure to let me know you're from wattpad so i can follow you back and we can become friends :)

anyways!! thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed.

please don't forget to vote & comment, i really enjoy reading every single one of them.

— lyra b.