The Darker Exterior

Chapter 9

Fucking sex toys.

He couldn't even wrap them for me?

In all seriousness, when I approached the plastic grocery bag on the counter, I had no idea what to expect. But pulling out a small bullet vibrator and some leather hand restraints was not on my to-do list today.

"Now I get why he said he could take them back," I mutter, examining the items. I had never gotten into sex toys, as it wasn't something I routinely explored. But after tonight...

I took a picture of the items and sent the picture to Annie with no caption.

OMG GIRL WTF ARE THOSE????

I laughed a bit as I typed in my response.

Gifts. Should I take them back or keep them?

GIRL I STG IF YOU GET RID OF THEM GIVE THEM TO ME! That shit is getting more and more expensive these days.

I loose another laugh and put my phone back in my pocket, trying to stay off of it for the rest of the day. This whole weekend was going to be nearly phone free. I needed to stop worrying about work for once.

***************************

When I woke up on Monday morning, it was still dark outside. I had left my curtains open last night and expected the light to wake me up, but my whole room was shrouded in black.

I sat up and grabbed my phone, looking at the time. Five-thirty. I still had some time.

I decided to take the time to open all of the work-related emails I had received over the weekend, including Ford's texts.

With a grunt and a shuffle, I mozied my way over to my desk and sat down on the fluffy white chair, switching on a small lamp while waiting for my laptop to boot up.

Twelve missed messages? When did he send me all of those?  ponder, looking at the little notification next to his name.

Did you look over all of those documents?
The Proposals, I mean.
Aurelia, they're on my desk but do not look finished.
You missed an address difference on the last sheet, along with multiple grammatical errors.
They delayed construction because you didn't change the number.

Aurelia?

*Missed Call From Boss*

If you fix this by tonight they'll still be able to take it

*Missed Call From Boss*

You need to fix this, or we are set behind on everything.

You better be in the hospital or dead to ignore me like this.

You better be in my office at 7 am Monday morning.

My stomach dropped as I read over the messages.

With a quick check of my email, I confirmed they merely reiterated the same thing. I was royally fucked.

I threw on some work clothes, fighting the accumulation of anxiety pressing down on my chest. This was bad. This was very, very bad.

The entire drive to the building, I was nearly in tears. I hadn't looked over just one. How could I have been so stupid? Ford has fired people for less than this. What was I even thinking, slacking off like that? Atticus was wrong. I wasn't overworked. I couldn't even do my basic job correctly. It was all on me to finish my workload.