The Situationship

Livin' It Up in the City

"Good morning, Mr Agreste."

"Looking good, Mr Agreste."

"Did you catch the game last night, Mr Agreste?"

"Did you get my email about next Tuesday, Mr Agreste?"

Adrien weaved his way through the corridors of his office, greeting his colleagues as he passed, not having the time to stop and chat. He'd already been in the office for a couple of hours, dealing with his unread emails and as always, his 'To Do' list was growing and growing by the minute. A lot to do with ironing out issues caused by his business partner, the exact one who was heading towards him right at this moment at speed, with his arms full of files.

"The 12:30 meeting has been moved to 1:30." The hard spoken words were punctuated with a rather full file being dumped in his arms, Adrien's reflexes acting overtime to not drop them all over the floor. "Mr Brown insists that you deal with him this time, not me, as apparently I can sometimes come off as overly critical in my analysis. This guy really needs to just man up and take my expertise like a professional."

Adrien let out a snort as he continued to walk to his office, nodding greetings at his hardworking employees and thinking how to put this delicately....

Nope, there was no way.

"You can't really blame him, Félix. The last time you met with him, you told him his budgeting was shit, only to be beaten by the incompetence of his secretary, who you pleasantly stated was 'too busy shagging him to focus on any task at hand'."

"It's not my fault he can't keep it in his pants."

"His wife was in the room, Fé!"

Félix shrugged. "Well, my mother raised me to never tell a lie."

Adrien stopped walking and turned to his cousin, one eyebrow raised in contempt. "She also told you to control yourself and not run the company into the ground."

"Oh, potato, potahto!" Félix puffed out.

Adrien rolled his eyes and continued on his way to his office.

"So, tell me, cuz, are you excited to move back to the city of romance?" Félix rolled the 'r' in a way that made Adrien's insides quiver.

Was he ready to move back to Paris? More than anything. It was the romance side that made him squirm.

It had been five years since he'd properly stepped foot in the city. Four years of intense work and university courses, following on from a year-long excursion around the world finishing off his modelling contract, had limited the time he had to go back to his home city. He was the only 23-year-old he knew who had to put in just as much time at the office as he did in his university course – present company excluded, of course.

Félix was a bonafide "boy genius", taking his exams early and skipping many school years due to his incredible academic skills – years he probably could have done with, as his people and social skills were quite appalling. Félix was so far past the line for what was seen as socially acceptable, it was nothing more than a dot on the horizon for him.

When Adrien had moved to Cambridge University just outside of London, he'd formed a new, deeper friendship with his cousin. A friendship which had grown and developed over years from being stuck in a shared apartment, and led to them going into business together. Surprisingly, they'd become quite the killer team, which quickly developed into a killer business.

One night out, when they'd gotten a little tipsy, the idea of their own consultancy agency was born, right in the middle of a Red Lion pub – Twin Rings Business Consultants.