Replay Of Shades

19

ENID

"Why should I be the one to explain this to him anyway?" I muttered to myself while staring at the screen of my phone, at the last one of the unaware pictures Evelyn took of Chase and me.

Just last week, these were circulated within the company.

Of course, I had no idea it was her doing at first. She told me later on herself that it was her. Her excuse for doing so was because she wanted everyone at the company to see Chase differently.

Her reason didn't justify the act, but I decided to let it go. I didn't know if Chase would do the same. She was aware of that herself.

In this particular picture, we were both standing outside the door of his office about to leave the company to meet with a client, and I'd bent down to adjust my heel while Chase assisted with holding my bag as I did so.

Another one was of him smiling at something I must have said while we were standing before the elevator on the first floor, waiting for it to open up.

There was also another one of him smiling as we walked side by side on our way to the elevator. This was taken on a different day.

They were all taken within the company premises.

Just like Evelyn wanted, the pictures were the talk of the employees for the rest of that week. They had no idea Chase could smile that brightly in addition to being an affectionate brother to his sister, that being me.

It was the young and middle-aged female employees crushing on him now. Well, that was what Evelyn told me on Monday.

I believed her when a young female employee walked up shyly to me the same day in the afternoon to ask me if Mr Allen was still coming back.

I told the employee that he was coming back, but the truth was that, I wasn't so sure and even though, I was convinced by the way he was acting a bit unusual before he travelled that he might not return to New York, I really hoped that he would.

And dad being dad, he used that to his advantage. He sent out a circular on Saturday, promising the department with the best performance a spectacular game night with Chase in attendance without discussing same with Chase himself.

Seeing that it was close to 10am already, I pushed back my chair and rose up to leave my office.

Chase was busy with something on his laptop when I walked into his office while holding my iPad in one hand.

"Good morning, Chase." I greeted as I shut the door behind me.

"Hey," He answered, looking up briefly.

Since we weren't planning to head out immediately to the first department for today, I went to take a seat on one of the leather sofas in his office. Then, I proceeded to open my iPad to do some work, too.

For the next ten minutes after that, no words were exchanged between us as we both continued working until I heard a light snapping sound coming from his side. I looked up towards his direction and noticed that he had shut his laptop.

Seeing that, I didn't need to be told to know that he was done with what he was doing on it.

"Done with what you're doing?" He asked me when he caught me staring.

"Almost, please give me a minute." I diverted my gaze to the screen of my iPad to type in the last word and to save my work.

Looking up again, I realized that he hadn't looked away at all. At the same time he didn't say anything. He just continued to stare.