The Best Man's Speech

12: Mission Accomplished

✵ JAMES ✵

The meeting managed to finish on time, as planned, despite Lyra and I arriving there almost 10 minutes late. We didn't say much to each other on the way here or during the whole meeting, although we did have minor conversations that required hardly any words. Lyra kept yawning through the duration of the meeting, making me monitor her to make sure that she was okay and wouldn't start dozing off during the meeting.
Even the drive here was silent as I focused on a chain of thought and spoke to myself. But coming to this meeting only made me worry about Lyra yawning at every opportunity she was given. She needed to get some rest. I guess she had a little too much to drink. I could tell she was drunk before this by her red eyes and the fact that she was tired in broad daylight... when we had slept all through the night, last night together.

I waited for all of the guests for the meeting to leave, waiting to be left behind, alone with Lyra. Standing from my seat, I watched her attempt to blink the sleep out of her, "Are you okay?" I asked her.

"Just tired." She smiled, it wasn't a reassuring or happy smile, but a rather lazy and sad one. I sighed before placing my hand on her back and pulling her close, "You can sleep in the room behind my jacket wardrobe in my office." I suggested to her, knowing that what I was doing for her now was risky. Not only would I have to try and find someone to replace her, but I would also be letting her access to the only place in the world that holds most of my secrets.

"There's a room behind your wardrobe?" Her tone of excitement caught me off guard and I blinked at her question, knowing that my eyes would most likely fall out if I didn't blink fast, since I had opened them as much as I could.

"Umm yeah..." I didn't understand why she of all people was shocked or excited about it.

"Is it Narnia?" She childishly asked, making me chuckle a little as I shook my head. I replied playfully, still laughing a bit, "No, it's a bedroom."

"Oh." She said, forming a perfect and small "O" with her lips as she elongated the letter that was turned into a word, as if to mean something. I nodded as I walked her to the glass door of the meeting room. "The password is 15330." I told her, hoping she would remember the password without calling me once she got there.

Before letting her out of my grip, I loosened my hold around her and planted a kiss on her forehead. I watched her walk out of the room and head straight down the plain corridor, to get to the lift. "Thank you." She mouthed, looking at me and waving a little, before the door could shut us apart. Before it did shut, I managed to nod my head with a smile, to tell her that I did get her gratitude. But now, all I was doing was hoping that she wouldn't call me because she doesn't remember the pass-code, since I have a meeting in 10 more minutes. And a few after that. One thing I loved about having Lyra was that she was smart to get to know me well enough, to know that I'd never be late to a meeting. A part of me feels like she did schedule my meetings back to back and during the day, so that she could go home early. But I'll admit, it helped me too, thanks to her, I could get more sleep and free time.

✵ LYRA ✵

I remember walking out of the lift and heading straight to his office, mentally worrying about how many people he had in that room and how many he had sex with on the bed he offered me to sleep in. I was rather excited when I snuck into his office and tapped the numbers onto the digital lock on the back of his coat wardrobe: 1-5-3-3-0. I knew getting into his little room would grant me an insight to what he was really like.
I have been his assistant for a while and never did I ever realise there was a room behind the wardrobe... despite walking in on him while he worked and paced around the office, despite being the second last one to leave the office (if he ever left it), despite grabbing his jackets and coats from this very wardrobe to give to him... for more than 100 times now.

All I remember is that the first thing I saw when I walked into his room was the giant bed that looked very tempting. But considering the fact that he let me in, I knew I was granted permission to sleep in it. Almost immediately, I ran towards his bed and threw my jacket onto the floor as I kicked my heels off to comfortably sleep in my boss' bed.

Waking up in his room, I was taken aback by how clean and spacious the room was. It was simple and had a giant, low bed in the center of the room, against the wall.... that I had currently messed up, by sleeping in it. A few of his spare shirts hung from a bar on the wall, near his bed. A lamp looked over his bed. There was a simple coffee table that came with a grey chair (that looked like a mini couch to me), against the window, by the radiator. A cream rug covered the floor under the bed, while two cushion like bedside tables sat on both sides of the bed.

As I continued to take in every detail of his room, I realised that the while one side of the room had his clothes, mirror and bed against the wall, a whole window and a coffee table set against the window, there was a bookshelf that was made into the wall. It was shaped around the giant flat screen TV that was hooked into the center of the shelf. There was a huge collection of books that decorated the ginormous shelf. I ran out of bed, after looking at the digital clock that sat on one of the bedside tables. James' meetings were about to end in half an hour and I did have a few incomplete tasks left to do.

Sliding my jacket on, I climbed into my heels before looking at the door, beside it were two giant black and white paintings - one of the beach, and the other of a cafe in France, just the outside of it. I wondered if they meant anything to him or if he only hung them there for their beauty. I shrugged before turning around to fix the bed, to ensure I left it in the clean condition I had found it in. Looking up, I realised that there were a few pictures that hung on the wall, just above the bed.
There was one of a little boy who I guessed was James (since they shared the same eyes), near a lady and James' father, sitting outside the cafe in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower behind them. Another picture was of the same brunette, wrapping her arm around young James as they sat behind a birthday cake that had candles on it. The third picture was of the more mature James (the one I see right now) playing with his dog (that I didn't know existed until now). The remaining four were more pictures of different views, with either just him in it or his mother (I guess that was who the brunette in the pictures were)... but I couldn't recognise the locations.