Played By Riggs

9

The week flew by. It was a normal routine when I branched out a new project; no sleep, mountains of caffeine and moods that I never knew I had. Hey, happy tears, who invited you?

However, this project entailed all of those factors, multiplied. The days were mostly spent on the construction site watching the place come together. It looked a mess. Men with yellow safety jackets, white vans, poles, nets. I just had to continuously remind myself that it was going to take time. That I had to be patient. A quality I lacked, and everyone else seemed to shower in. 

"You've been staring at the floor for the past 10 minutes," Kevin noted. "Is everything alright?"

Kevin was another personal assistant of mine. Although, less personal than Kelsey. In fact, so impersonal that Kevin took care of the numeracy of things, thing aspects I was no good at. He was also, despite his significant level of intelligence, rather blind in adding up the endless list of emotions that belonged to the female gender. May he be able to sum up numbers, he could not with such literal factors which hence made him blind to the stress I was buried in.

"Would you believe me if I told you I was trying to sleep with my eyes open?"

Kevin bellowed a laugh, and, on his chair, rolled towards his desk. "Well, you might want to wake up for this. You have an email."

"From?" My effort to blink made pain soar behind my eyes.

"Mr James Branson," Kevin hummed in a curious tone. "I wonder what he wants. See, I would read it to you, but I don't want to scold my eyes."

From across the room, Tina voiced a giggle. "I'll read it!"

"Kevin will read it," I said. "I have nothing to hide."

Which was true, in some sort of way. We shared one kiss in the hot tub. Sure, the kiss might have been the sort of one I used to dream about when I was a young girl that believed in true love and happy endings. And, sure, we might have agreed to have sex in order to blow out the burning flame between us, but that was last week and I haven't seen him since. The busy schedule was so tight that there was literally no time for fun and games – no matter how pleasurable they might be.

"If you're sure..." Kevin trailed off, watching my face for any hesitance. He then clicked around at his laptop and cleared his throat. "Kelsey, I gather you are piled up in just as much work as I, but I write this email in hope you will dine with me tonight at Marshalls. 8pm. I have some plans I want to run by you, which is a business excuse just to cover the fact that I miss you."

Tina coughed up her last gulp of coffee and spluttered it all over her desk. She was up off her chair at once and over Kevin's shoulder stealing a read for herself. "Are you sure you don't have anything to hide?" Tina gasped. "It's only been a week since he last saw you and he misses you. Oh, you have to go, Kelsey!"

I then stood from my chair to see if they were pulling one over on me. However, regardless of how tired I was, my eyes did not deceive me and, there on the screen was in fact the words that Kevin had so smugly spoke.

"Well?" Kevin peered up at me from his chair. "Are you going to go?"

"Of course she is!" Tina rolled her eyes. Then they were on me. "Aren't you?"

I rubbed my eyes as I made my way back to my desk. "No. I'm not going. I can't. Write an email with a short apology."

Neither made the effort to follow my demand.

"He said it's for business. You never turn down a chance to discuss business," Kevin stated as a matter of fact.

"No," I began, "He said that business was just an excuse to see me. C'mon, Kevin, you read the bloody thing."