⊰ 5 ⊱ Happy Hour

After going back home to take Bubbles out for a 10-minute walk, I freshen up by taking a quick shower and changing into a more casual white long-sleeve shirt. While it is an out-of-office event, the idea of revealing my sleeve tattoo doesn’t seem like a good one.

Perception is reality.

I can’t give executive management the opportunity to scrutinize me the same way that Cade’s father did when I first had the wonderful pleasure of meeting him. 

I’m pretty sure it was the tattoos…

For the first time in a long time, I wish that the drive were longer. 10 minutes to Bridges’ Bar is hardly enough time for me to mentally prepare myself for being in a room full of fairly important people, and surely enough, once I’ve parked in the bar’s parking lot, I find myself sitting in the driver’s seat with the car off and an excuse not to step foot out of it.

We go in. Stay for 30 minutes and we leave. Easy.

But it's really not easy. Authoritative figures make me extremely nervous, so much so that I typically, very visibly start sweating.

It’s embarrassing, really. 

The knuckles that rap against the window next to me make me jolt, my head snapping to the side to find Krina standing right outside my car’s door.

“Hey! I’m so glad you made it!” She says as she flicks her wrist, urging me to get out of the car.

Now, I really don’t have a choice.

While I’m mostly irritated, a part of me is glad that Krina showed up when she did. I probably wouldn’t have gotten out of the car for another half hour if she hadn’t. With the cute baby blue handbag that I bought from a thrift store last month in my hand, I step out of the car. 

“Don’t be nervous,” Krina suddenly tells me as we begin our way to the pair of wooden doors. “They’re all very nice. If anything, Cade’s the most serious out of all of them.” She pauses for a moment, thinking to herself before rambling, “And honestly, who can blame him? I would be the no nonsense type too if I had to prove that I made it without all of my father’s influence.”

I promise you, he would’ve made it without it.

…

If he’s still a little bit him, he works so hard that David's influence is close to irrelevant.

I don’t say anything, shooting her a small smile as we emerge into the bar. The decor of the place is neat, giving off an “old English pub” vibe. Between the barrels, brick walls, and antique decor, you could’ve convinced me that it was built 500 years ago. 

“Oh! Mateo’s here already,” Krina waves at him from across the room. He’s sitting alone on one of the bar stools, sipping on a glass of ice water.

“Hey!” Mateo calls as Krina and I approach him. “Here,” he stands from the stool as he pulls the one next to him out, offering, “have a seat.”

“Thank you,” I smile at him as I take the stool he’d been sitting on, Krina taking the one beside me.

“How was your first day?” He asks as he leans his back against the bar top. 

You know the stereotypes for how “nerdy engineers” look? Yeah, that’s Mateo: late 20’s, average height, skinny, dark rimmed glasses, and a patchy beard.

I shrug, telling him, “Not too bad. Still trying to get through the HR on-boarding stuff. I started it last week and I’m only half-way done.”

He hums, bobbing his head as he says, “Yeah…that shit sucks. But you’ll get through it. Once you’re done with that, you’ll be good for the rest of the year. They make us redo that crap every single year.”

You’re kidding…

“I know,” he adds, more than likely noticing the disappointed look on my face. “But this is a great company. Take it from me, the last company I worked for was terrible, and the pay? Straight dog shit.”

I like this guy.

A light chuckle emits from the back of my throat, and while Krina and Mateo make conversation, I sip on the glass of water that the bartender sets down for me. More and more of the engineers in our team trickle in, blending in with the others from the other teams within the company. 

One introduction after another, the uneasiness that I felt about coming here slowly diminishes. Luckily, by the time that Cade walks into the room in the same suit that he wore to the office, I’m already two drinks in and a little too buzzed to care.

“Oh, come! Come!” 

Krina practically pulls me off of the bar stool, dragging me to the other end of the bar where she greets the two men in fairly nice suits sipping on a couple of cocktails and chatting with Cade.

No! No, no, no, no, no!

“She is new to the team,” she urges me to introduce myself as they offer me a pair of firm handshakes. 

“Jabari. VP,” the tall, dark-skinned male in the gray suit introduces himself in his thick African accent.

The gray-haired man in the khaki suit who hasn’t aged half as well as Jabari offers me a warm smile, following shortly after, “Gary. Chief of Information.”

They’re just people, like me. Everything is FINE.

“Hello, I’m Elys. Junior engineer.”

I wish I could say that I sound half as confident as they do, but the fear that this will quickly turn into me standing here awkwardly until I politely excuse myself haunts me.

“So, where are you from, Miss Elys?” Jabari suddenly asks.

“Florida,” I tell him, and in my desperate attempt to not give a one-worded response, I add, “I-I graduated about a year ago from the University of Florida with a degree in Mathematics, minor in Computer Science. Now, I’m here.”

“Wow,” Jabari and Gary say in unison, one equally as impressed as the other. 

“A mathematician, huh?” Gary says. 

I really wouldn’t call myself that.

“Your favorite theory,” Jabari suddenly says, challenging me, “Go.”

Oh, shit. It’s happening.

“Uh…the theory of Infinite Numbers,” I respond swiftly. It’s as though I’ve been waiting my entire life to be asked, and while I will deny it ‘til the day I die, I way too often think about, “There’s infinitely many real numbers between 0 and 1, and no matter how close you get to 0 or to 1, there is always a number that stops you from reaching either one. So, I guess you can also argue that, theoretically speaking, neither 0 nor 1 actually exist.”

They laugh loudly, Jabari throwing his head back as he points at me and turns to Cade, telling him, “I like her.”

This is awkward now.

I glance at Cade, trying to gauge his reaction, but his expression remains unreadable as he nods at Jabari and takes an awfully generous sip of his drink. The air between us feels heavy, a tension that I hope goes unnoticed by everyone else.

Yeah…I’m just gonna…

“It was really nice to meet you,” I say with a soft smile on my lips, turning back to Jabari and Gary to offer them another handshake before excusing myself. I’ve almost forgotten about Krina, turning to find her still standing next to me. “I think I’m going to head home,” I tell her.

She raises her eyebrows, nodding, “Okay! I’m so glad you came. Have a good night. I’ll see you tomorrow!”

With a half-hearted smile, I nod and wave at Mateo who’s still standing across the room with the other engineers in our team. He returns the gesture, and I make my way to the door, holding my handbag in one hand while the other pushes the door open.

It’s nightfall, and cool night air hits me as I step into the parking lot, a welcome respite from the stuffy bar. The dim street lights of the parking cast shadows across the asphalt, and I can’t shake the uneasiness from the ‘kidnapping’ vibes that prick at the back of my neck. I quicken my pace, eager to reach the safety of my car. 

As I press the ‘Start’

button behind the steering wheel, the passenger door suddenly swings open.

If not for the roof of the car, I would’ve jumped 50 feet in the air, yelping loudly as I snap my head to the side to find Cade lowering himself next to me and swiftly shutting the door. My heart sinks to the pit of my stomach, my eyes widening as he leans back on the seat and exhales deeply. For a long moment, he doesn’t mutter a sound. 

There’s a dangerous look in his eyes when he suddenly averts his gaze to meet my own. His voice is low, an annoyance lingering in his tone as he glowers and growls, “What the hell are you doing here, Elysian?”

“I-I,” I find myself at a loss for words, and my voice hardly sounds like my own as I stammer, “W-What do you mean?” 

“Don’t try to play games with me,” he warns me. “I’m not the same man you knew.”

I’m well aware…

This is the part where I forget everything that I wanted to say to him, and all I can mutter is, “I didn’t know that you would be here. I would’ve never t—“

“Cut the crap, Elysian,” he cuts me off. “You’re not stupid enough to take a job at my father’s company, even if you didn’t know that I’ve been working here for the past 3 years. So why don’t you get it over with and tell me what the hell it is that you want from me?”

A shaky breath parts my lips, my eyebrows furrowing as the bridge of my nose stings. “I don’t want anything from you, Cade…” I try to hide the quaver in my voice, telling him, “I can’t quit, or I’d have walked out the second I saw you this morning.”

A humorless chuckle erupts from the back of his throat, shaking his head in irritation. It’s as though no matter what I say, I somehow seem to only make it worse. 

“Well, unfortunately, I can’t get rid of you without probable cause, so let me give you some advice: be careful.” His voice lowers as he threatens, “Because if you so much as breathe the wrong way, I’ll make the next two and a half years of your career the worst years of your life.”

Even if I wanted to respond, there’s nothing that I can say. He pushes the door open and steps out of my car, my body involuntarily jolting as he slams it shut.

For a moment, I don’t move a muscle, sitting, stunned and shaking. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes as I try to process what just happened. The Cade I knew would’ve never spoken to me like that—venomous and with so much disdain. It’s like he’s a completely different person, a stranger wearing the face of the man I once loved.

I take a deep, steadying breath, my hands finding the steering wheel and gripping it tightly until my knuckles bleach. Regardless of what happened between us or what happened to him to make him whoever he is now, I know I can’t let him see how much he still affects me. I have to be strong. I don’t have a choice.

As I drive away from the bar, his words echo in my mind, a painful reminder of just how much has changed between us.

What did I do..? What happened to him..?