Chased by a Gentleman

Chapter 8

❝I'll let you know if I changed my mind.❞

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She stood there, resting the side of her head against the wall as the filming went on. Eloise barely had enough sleep ever since she started her internship. When starting her life at university, she often complained about the unreasonable amount of work she had to do which caused her to mess up her sleep schedule. But now that she's an intern, she wants to eat all her words from the past. The filming will start in the morning and will end the following day. She caught herself repeatedly fantasizing about her bed while in the middle of her internship.

"Don't just stand there! Don't you see this mess? Instead of daydreaming, who don't you find some cleaning supplies and clean up the spilled coffee?"

Why would I clean up after your mess? She kept that thought limited to her brain and looked for some tissues to clean up the wasted coffee on the ground. Since Eloise is part of the interns, she usually got blamed for the mistakes that her superiors did. Like the mess earlier; she doesn't even drink coffee, yet she was scolded and forced to clean up.

Eloise stood up and threw away the used tissues near the nearest trash can.

"Hi." She turned around and was welcomed by a smiley Miles.

"Hello," She replied and walked past him. He managed to catch up to her and struck up a conversation.

"How is filming?" He asked as he positioned his hands behind his lower back while they walked together.

"Not good. How about you?"

"Still hell. But I'm now used to everything."

"Good for you. I don't even get to do much. Most of them just ordered us around." A sigh followed Eloise's words.

"What are you doing after the filming?"

"Beats me, probably sleep," She answered with no enthusiasm detected in her voice.

"I received two tickets to an exhibition later. If you're interested, then the other ticket won't be wasted after all," Miles carefully suggested.

"I don't know, Miles. I kind of want to use up my free time to rest."

"That's what I thought. You need lots of rest before your next shift. It's okay, I can ask someone else, I guess." Miles felt like he was punched in the stomach. He knew from her voice that she was really exhausted, but a part of him felt like she was avoiding him.

"I'm really sorry. But I'll let you know if I change my mind." Eloise flashed a faint smile before giving him a pat on the shoulder.

He slowly turned in the other direction and left Eloise by herself. He wanted to hit his head for asking in the first place, but he would just look stupid. He was looking forward to his next meeting with Eloise. He didn't want to call it a date so he named it a "meeting".

Miles wanted their next meeting to be remarkable. Sending her to a fast food restaurant again would be a dangerous move so he needed to get creative. He was supposed to use his free time revising but all he did was research some ideas for their next meeting. He wanted the meeting to have a connection to her interests. All he knows is that she has a passion for film. But he failed to find something that is related to that.

Luckily, his cousin was a striving artist and invited him to come to her exhibition. Though it is a bit distant from Eloise's interests, he finally had an idea. Miles requested two tickets so that Eloise could accompany him. However, it appears that he would be going to the exhibit by himself.

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I should've said yes. The sleep session that Eloise was looking forward to never occurred. She had her eyes closed for nearly an hour but every single part of her body was wide awake. Her mattress suddenly felt hard, her face became itchy, and she suddenly remembered everything that she forgot. It was as if something was forcing her to wake up. But how could that be when she wasn't even asleep in the first place?

She was almost near dreamland a few minutes ago but she suddenly remembered where she misplaced her turtle keychain. After that, she can finally feel that she's about to lose consciousness only to recall that it has been a while since she last saw the cute blue vest that she bought online a few months ago.

Eloise groaned in annoyance and hopped off her bed. She went to her little kitchen and looked for some instant noodles, but she remembered that she didn't have time to do some grocery shopping.

She took notice of her phone that was placed on her comforter. She tucked her hair behind her ears and picked up her phone from her bed. She slowly looked for Miles' contact, unsure if she will really do this.

Before she can process it, she had already pressed call.

"Hello," The familiar gentle but deep voice answered.

"This is me. What time is the exhibition?"