The Nephew (Thomas Sangster)

VII: It's Awkward

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and sighed, watching Carter walk past in the lobby the next morning without even a hint of a greeting. He had left right after breakfast yesterday - still wearing my brothers clothes - and driven home. Thomas left shortly after, only staying to help clean up the dishes, which was another surprise. I'd never expected him to be so...useful.

"Feeling okay, Liv?"

"Hm? Yeah I'm fine, just a bit tired. Good morning, by the way." I answered, closing a file and smiling at my attractive friend. Grace always looked so put together, her forest green uniform highlighting her curvy figure and her blonde hair always in a neat up do.

"So I'll get straight to it. How's this British kid?"

"Ha, he's um, nice enough. A little direct, so to speak, but other than that, I'd say he's everything I'd expect of a wealthy hotel owner's nephew."

"What do you mean direct? Oh, hold on." She frowned and picked up the phone. "Thank you for calling Penton Hotel and Suites, this is Grace. How may I help you?" I motioned to her that I'd talk to her later and walked towards the kitchen, thinking I'd check in on Will.

"You know where Will is?" I asked one of the employees, stepping into the expansive kitchen and getting a delicious waif of cinnamon. He gestured to the back of the room and I kept walking, avoiding flying potato slices as I went. "Will! How's everything going here?"

"You aren't seriously trying to talk to me in the middle of breakfast hour, are you?" Will turned to me and gave me a blank stare, a large knife in one hand and flour dusting his dark stubble. Will Dogan was the last person you'd expect to be a pro chef, with his intimidating build, impressive height, and dark features. Despite his steely attitude, once he'd relaxed a bit after breakfast, lunch, and dinner, he really was a good person.

"I am actually. I have some juicy gossip that I need advice on." He turned back to the dough he was working on and sighed.

"Okay. Can I just come to your office at 10:30 or so? We're behind on biscuits and I don't trust Emil to not burn them."

"Yikes. Maybe you should get better employees." I laughed, dipping my finger into the dough for a taste.

"He's learning." Will waved it off. "I don't have the heart to fire him, truthfully."

"Ya big softie." I punched him on the arm. "Well, I'll see you later then. I have stuff to do, places to be, Carters to avoid."

"Wait, why are you avoiding Carter?" He looked up, watching me walk away.

"Guess you'll have to wait until 10:30!" I mocked, giving a wave behind me.

"Olivia, get back here!" He called as I walked out the door. Of course, on my way out, I bumped right into Carter.

"Oh. Um, hi. I just have to talk to Dogan, so."

"Wait, Carter. We need to actually talk about what happened."

"It's not a big deal." He muttered, pushing past me and walking backwards a few steps. "I mean really, we can talk about it anytime, I just need to talk to Dogan right now."

"I wouldn't recommend it!" I called after him. I slumped back to my office in defeat. I knew he was lying. He totally cared about what had happened. Gosh, was it so terrible that he couldn't even look at me the next day without glaring? I gave an angry huff and slumped into my chair, rubbing my temples and starting up my computer. Not ten minutes into the budget charts, there came a knock at my door. "Come on in." I called.

Thomas peeked his head through the door. "Hello. Can I-?"

"I just said come in." I snapped. "Sorry, long morning. Have a seat." He nodded cautiously and sat down. "So? What's up?"

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry for how I've been acting. I've been very...forward, I guess, and it's not how I usually act. It wasn't in your job description to come up to my room yesterday and my uncle has informed me that everything that followed was inappropriate and unprofessional. I uh, I've never had this sort of job before, so I guess I'm inexperienced. Um, I'll go. Just...I'm sorry, so...Have a good day." He was up and out before I could even reply. This was certainly a different Thomas than the one I'd met before. Did he say his uncle had talked to him? Yikes, embarrassing. I shook the weirdness out of my head and got back to work. "Wait, one more thing. This might be weird and it's definitely not professional and really forward, so I'm basically going completely against everything I just said, but...do you wanna get coffee sometime?" 

I answered him with a blank stare, opening and closing my jaw several times. "Uh..."

AN: Okay, so I'm leaving you on a cliffhanger mostly because I don't have time to write any more of it right at this very second and I feel like this chapter just needs to get up there already. However, I swear I'll try harder to get another chapter up soon! Sorry, 23 hours of dance (I'm graduating with a teacher's certificate this year) with uncharted hours of choreography for my senior recital, senior year of high school, and my undying efforts to keep my friends happy by occasionally having a social life are tough. Also I'm renovating my room right now, which is, you know, kind of a time sucker since I have to paint, buy stuff, tear out floorboards, put in new floor boards, paint some more, make money to afford all the crap I buy, etc. I'm sure you're all thinking "excuses, excuses, Olivia, just write stuff." I'm sorry. Life is hard that way. Sometimes you have to wait a month for one 831 word chapter. I will say that that is WAY better than when I started this story. Anyway, this author's note is about to be longer than the actual story, so I'll stop talking now. Have a lovely day/week/month/year/however long it takes until my next update, everyone! Byeee <3