Eyes full of stars | ✔️

Chapter 2: Iris

"And I'd give up forever to touch you

'Cause I know that you feel me somehow

You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be"

-Goo Goo Dolls

*

They arrived at 1 o'clock.

Mr. Pierce was in his sixties and looked healthier than much younger men, maybe because of that aura of huge self-confidence he had about him. Despite being one of the richest men in the United Kingdom, he rarely showed his wealth when it came to clothing, since he looked more like an Art professor from Cambridge. Now he was wearing a brown cardigan on a white shirt, jeans and big glasses on his nose, round just like Harry Potter's.

Two people followed behind. One was Amanda Conway, an interior designer who studied in the United States and had successfully worked for David H. Pierce for the last two years or so. My friend Felicity, who was a gossip expert, told me that she had modeled for Victoria's Secret for a time and that had dated some Hollywood star - or one of the Jonas brothers, I was not sure -. She was that pretty, yes. That was why seeing her side by side with Sebastian Lowe upset me.

Sebastian was the man I had been secretly in love with for the last three years. He was an architect and Mr. Pierce's most promising pupil, maybe one of the few people he trusted the most in the entire world. He was handsome, nice and extremely talented; he would put all of himself into his job, you could see in his eyes how much he loved it. This was something about him that had fascinated me from day one.

Mr. Lavender warmly welcomed them the moment they set foot in our office and then they headed together to the restaurant one minute later. I was so shy because of Sebastian's presence that I barely met their eyes but, while they were waiting for the lift, Sebastian turned around and nodded at me, smiling. I blushed and hid behind my computer screen.

On lunch break, I found a table for myself at the bar near my office building and as I ate a salad, I texted Felicity, telling her the news.

So, what does this mean? You are going to see him more often from now on?

Yes, if they hire Mr. L. I guess S will come to my office to meet him sometimes.

Why him? Why not Mr. P?

Mr. P is never here, he will have S taking care of everything on his behalf.

And what about Amanda?

I sighed. I had no problems with Amanda, we had never properly talked, after all. I wasn't just fond of her and the cold look of her green eyes.

She was a pupil of Mr. Pierce's as well, although she was specialized in interior design and was not a proper architect and, as far as I knew, she neither was qualified to take care of business matters. I really had no clue about her role in this trusted entourage her boss had put together.

And I had no clue about the kind of relationship she had with Sebastian.

No idea.

***

After spending the rest of my working day and my journey back home thinking about all of this over and over again, Felicity distracted me by entertaining me with a glorious tale of the papers her pupils had written and handed in to her the previous week.

She was a middle school English teacher and took her job very seriously but accepted the funny parts of it, especially when it came to homework. In this case, the assignment was writing about a school trip they recently had at the British Museum and when Felicity read them out loud to me during dinner we just could not stop laughing. To the point where Sherlock started looking quite upset.

This was what I loved about Felicity, she was the most mature and intelligent person I had ever met, but she was also the most caring and hilarious, because she could find the funny aspects of everything and make them even funnier. She had the power to highlight things and intensify them. I relied on her when it came to difficult situations, she would always help me going through everything.

We had been friends for six years, since the day I asked a common friend to help me finding a housemate. He had introduced me to Felicity during a dinner and, bonding very quickly over the love for books, dogs and laughter, we became the best of friends. I had had other best friends before her, but we would hardly speak now because we all had taken very different paths in life. They were all married and with children, I had been single since forever, and so had Felicity.

But we didn't care, we were a happy pair of spinsters friends.

After watching a movie together, I took Sherlock outside for a walk, in the meantime Felicity would put the kettle on for a tea. As my dog did his business, I checked my messages and social media.

I visited Sebastian's Facebook and saw that nothing was changed since the last time I had checked it. We were connected on Facebook and Instagram, but it meant nothing, since he would accept requests from anyone but rarely update his status. Amanda was among his contacts as well, I clicked on her profile and I could see pretty much everything about her, she wasn't private about her personal and social life at all. It was quite clear that she lived for the attention and she got it with no effort whatsoever.

I found a picture of the two of them together, posing as the badass crew of Mr. Pierce. It was a very professional picture, nothing about it suggested that they were friends or something more. I shrugged, guessing that, if they were a thing, Amanda would have made it very public for sure.

"Are you sure that Sebastian hasn't a girlfriend at the moment, even if it's not Amanda?" Felicity asked some minutes later, pouring my tea into my Doctor Who mug.

I thanked her and blew on the hot milky liquid. "No one has seen him with a woman for a long time" I replied. "Trust me, if there was a new lucky one, we would know."

Grace was friends with all the receptionists and assistants in the building, she couldn't resist on keeping me posted about gossip from every single office. She was like The Big Brother. Or Gossip Girl.

"Well" she went on, sitting beside me on the sofa, "I think that you must do your move, then. Maybe it's time."

I stared at her. "What?"

"Oh, come on, Lily" she snorted. "It's been THREE years and he doesn't even know your surname!"

"He does know my surname" I mumbled.

"You know what I mean." She took a sip of her tea and put her cat mug on the table before turning her body towards me. "I know you are afraid, shy and everything. But I think this is the best moment to try and connect with him... I mean really connect" she added, when I opened my mouth to point out that we were connected on social media already.

"What am I supposed to do?" I sighed, my eyes lowered. "I'm not his type of girl."

Felicity glared at me. She had brown eyes and thick brown eyebrows that made her look quite threatening when glaring. "How do you know?"

I chuckled. "Have you seen his exes?! They were all like... Amanda!"

"Maybe. But he's not with Amanda and they don't seem to like each other in that way."

"For now" I murmured, drinking my tea.

Felicity sighed and rested her arms and chin on my knees, to have a better look of my shy eyes.

"Don't let Amanda make you think that she's better than you" she whispered. "Or that Sebastian would like her more than he would like you. Just give him a chance. Make yourself known to him. I promise you that everything will fall into place if you just try. Okay?"

I slowly raised my eyes towards hers. "Okay" I smiled.