Enemies With Benefits

EWB 36

Caleb

The cafeteria was noisy as hell. Same as usual. It was lunch time after all.

While our lunch table started to get filled up more and more by my friends and their girlfriends, my friend Ethan elbows me to catch my attention. I wouldn't necessarily call him my best friend, but out of my friend group, he's definitely the one I'm closest with.

"What?" I ask him as I look down at my food and start forking the chicken tenders.

"Not sure if you're zoning out or you're actually staring at her again" Ethan says as his girlfriend Sam gives him a kiss and sits on his lap.

"She's not even here right now" I answer as Ethan gives me an 'if you say so' look before turning his full attention to Sam, evidently pissing me off a bit.

For real tho, the bitch wasn't even anywhere in here right now, so I definitely was just zoning out. I was thinking about how bad I did on that Trig quiz and this dumbass made it into a whole different thing.

But I might've spoke too soon because before I knew it, there she was. Waltzing through the cafeteria, greeting almost everyone she knew while she made her way to her usual lunch table with the tray on her hand.

She was wearing some white off shoulder top, some ripped jeans, and white nikes. And even though her fit was so simple, she still looked beautiful as hell.

For the nth time, I started contemplating saying sorry to her about what I just said. That it doesn't matter if she broke my heart without her even actually knowing. Having her in my life was definitely more important than not having her in it at all.

Even if we just stayed as friends, and nothing more.

But every time I start to come around, I'd look back at the lunch table across the room where I'd see her be all up on her dumb ass boyfriend—aka the guy she chose over me— I'd be dragged back to reality.

"Caleb?"

"Caleb!"

"Huh? What?" I say as I look up and see Miss Cynthia standing in front of my desk.

"There's a staff meeting in the conference room at 5" she tells me. It takes me approximately five seconds before it even registers into my mind and I nod.

Man I should really stop zoning out before I start missing out on important conversations.

As soon as I get it together, I take a sip of water from my tumbler, get off my seat, and head to the conference room with everyone else.

I sit beside the other interns who are all as clueless as I am as to what is going on right now.

Not even a couple of minutes later, Mr. Donovan enters the conference room with a well-dressed slightly older gentleman who seems to be in his 50s.

"Hello everyone, I need to discuss some things with you" Mr. Donovan begins "Sometime last week, I have received... some news about one of the projects our firm handle a couple of months ago. Apparently, the head engineer in that project misread the measurements in the blueprints and he's claiming that it was our fault because he got sued, and he is currently filing a civil suit for negligence against us"

Everyone started gasping at Mr. Donovan's news before everyone started muttering some stuff. I, on the other hand, was in disbelief. This firm is well-known and had a good reputation for decades now ever since Mr. Donovan built this firm, so hearing this was extremely surprising.

"What's the plan, Mr. Donovan?" One of the older staff asked, which only made Mr. Donovan sigh.

"I don't know yet, but hopefully this doesn't go to a full blown trial" Mr. Donovan answered before turning to the older gentleman beside him as he flashed him a small smile and placed his hand on his shoulder.