Tim & Chuck

CH 1. Tim's Moving Day

"Honey, you're the size of my pinkie toe."

Tim hated moving. He had only ever moved three times in his life and one of those was to college, which in his sister's opinion barely counted as moving, mostly because the university was thirty minutes away from his childhood estate.

But it counted to Tim, and he hated moving because the hassle was unbelievable, as was the anxiety of missing items that were irreplaceable or having things break.

Despite this however, Tim was mostly excited about his new living situation. The first and foremost reason for this was that he was the new CEO of the Wall Street Journal. Initially the mega news firm had been a small, run-of-the-mill newspaper office owned, and not prioritized by his father. But Tim managed to apply the business degree that he had earned, and now the Journal had morphed into a multibillion dollar corporation. He had been working to move into this position for the last two years, partially because he had to finish his graduate degree and partially because his father wanted to make absolutely certain that he was prepared to take the reins.

That being said, word traveled unbelievably fast that the new CEO was a young bachelor who did his best to keep his face out of the limelight. Apparently gossip was especially hot in New York, go figure. Very quickly his face became a coveted photo to obtain by the paparazzi and the tabloids. To make this easier for himself, Tim found a relatively normal-looking row home in New York that allowed him to effectively blend into his environment. He wasn't overly keen about having paparazzi and cameras in his face every day.

Of course, the ironic part of that would be that some of those same paparazzi would try to sell other news to the Journal for a quick buck.

Perk number two was the proximity to work. He was now only fifteen minutes away from the office, which allowed him to have a better eye on the company and his department heads. Plus, he really liked the view from his new office so he may as well use it everyday.

Perk number three was that he was also now close to his sister Nettie, who was in school for fashion design in upstate New York, and his best friend Alex Kyoto, who was the CFO of BlackRock, which also happened to be a business partner of the Wall Street Journal. Alex had gone to college with Tim, and he had since become one of Tim's closest friends.

Alex had graciously offered to assist Tim with the move and initially Tim had groaned good-naturedly but when Alex offered to bring pizza, Tim was easily persuaded. Now, they were both unloading the first truck and Tim was already over the whole moving process.

"Dude, if you sigh ONE MORE TIME, I swear I will literally walk out of here and make you move in all by yourself. " Alex said pointedly.

"I hate moving." Tim grumbled, grabbing another box from the truck.

"Huh, who would've thunk. I must've missed it the first twenty times you said that." Alex shot back with sarcasm.

"How often must I tell you to get your hearing checked? The sheer amount of times that you can't hear things is concerning. " Tim quipped in reply.

The dirty look Alex shot him made Tim wanna cackle but he bit his lip to refrain from doing so. The box he was carrying was a relatively heavy one and the "FRAGILE" written across the top was a further incentive not to drop it.

"You owe me dinner after this."

"What, why??"

"Because not only are you making me help you move without pay, which is basically modern day slave labor, I also have to listen to you complain every thirty seconds, which is additional psychological stress. Not to mention that it's a Wednesday which is IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK BY THE WAY, and for some reason you chose it to be the day to move in."